page_title: Waterloo campaign: Quatre Bras to Waterloo
section_title: Ney's views and dispositions
hierarchical_section_title: Waterloo campaign: Quatre Bras to Waterloo / Ney's views and dispositions
caption_attribution_description: English: Marshal Michel Ney, duc d'Elchingen, prince de la Moskova
context_page_description: After the fighting at Quatre Bras the two opposing commanders Marshal Ney and the Duke of Wellington initially held their ground while they obtained information about what had happened at the larger Battle of Ligny. They received intelligence that the Prussian army under the command of Prince Blücher had been defeated by the French Army of the North under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte.
  Upon receiving this news Wellington organised the retreat of the Anglo-allied army to a place he had identified a year before as the best place in Belgium for him to be able to employ his reverse slope tactics when fighting a major battle: the escapement close to the village of Waterloo.
  On the 17th, aided by thunderstorms and torrential rain and before the arrival of Napoleon, Wellington's army successfully extricated itself from Quatre Bras and passed through the defile of Genappe. The infantry marched ahead and were screened by a large cavalry rearguard. The French harried Wellington's army, but were unable to inflict any substantial casualties before night fell and Wellington's men were ensconced in bivouacs on the plain of Mont-Saint-Jean.
context_section_description: In the early part of the morning, Marshal Ney had, like his opponent, been ignorant of the result of the Battle of Ligny; but he was aware that the Anglo-allied army had been considerably reinforced during the night, principally by the arrival of its cavalry.
  Ney calculated that if Napoleon had gained a victory, and crossed the Namur road, the longer Wellington remained in the position of Quatre Bras, the greater the danger he incurred of having not only his communication with Blücher effectually cut off, but also his main line of retreat upon Brussels intercepted; and that in such a case it was wiser not to advance against the British general, as the latter might then retire, and thus elude the effect of a combined operation between Napoleon's and his own forces.
  Ney also judged that if, on the other hand, the French Emperor had been defeated, an attack made on his own part, upon the Anglo-allied army, might subject himself to the risk of having to contend against a combined operation between Wellington and Blücher; and thus expose both his own and Napoleon's forces to the probability of being defeated in detail.
  In this uncertainty, Ney sent a message by General Count Flahaut, who happened to be still with him, and who was returning to rejoin Napoleon wherever he might be found, expressive of his anxiety to learn the result of the action of the preceding day. In the meantime, he kept his troops in a state of perfect quietude; his main body was posted in reserve on the Heights of Frasne, between which and the outposts there were intermediate columns of support; but no movement whatever was attempted.
caption: Marshal Michel Ney by François Gérard (c. 1805)
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