Talk:Battle of Quatre Bras

message: Veronica Baker-Smith writes:
Rebècque had received the news of the fall of Charleroi twelve hours earlier, and correctly deduced that this confirmed the line of Napoleon’s main advance since he would hardly have used his élite Imperial Guard for a feint. He had been as conscious as Wellington of the danger of a flanking attack, but he was now able to dismiss the idea long before Wellington did. Rebècque did not have to consult a map to see the danger; he sent an order to Perponcher to station his 1st and 2nd Brigades at or near Quatre Bras itself.
Simultaneously, Bernard of Saxe-Weimar was acting on his own initiative. He commanded a Nassau regiment, consisting of men who had fought well in the Peninsula under Imperial command, and switched to British service when Napoleon was defeated at Leipzig. It now formed part of the Netherlands force as an independent unit in Perponcher’s 2nd Division, and had been cantoned on the extreme left of the British line in the village of Genappe. Through the morning of 15 June Bernard noticed increased movement from the south on the main road, and in mid-afternoon as an officer from the Maréchaussee (Dutch police) panted in to say that the French were past Charleroi, and those on the road were refugees, he heard the cannon fi re from the south (against the Prussian outposts) and, realising the danger, used his own initiative and instructed his battalion commanders to concentrate at Quatre Bras immediately: ‘Ik ben volstrekt zonder bevelen, maar ik heb nooit gehoord dat men een veldtocht met een terugtocht begint.’ (Gentlemen, I have been given no orders whatsoever but I have never heard of a campaign which began with a retreat.)
Due to the previous orders for a state of high alert, he reached Quatre Bras within the hour and joined the 3rd Nassau battalion, whose commander, Major Heckman, had ‘through his military instinct’ marched to the same place before receiving orders. As they surveyed the ground, a non- commissioned offi cer came in at full gallop to report the engagement between the French and the Nassauers at Frasnes.
Knoop also highlights this, but the article doesn't reflect it DavidDijkgraaf (talk) 19:58, 18 May 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: See also De Bas and Wommersom, Quatre Bras, p. 406 (available in the references) about the information Weimar and Perponcher possessed about the French movements, on which they acted "without orders" (but who needs orders in such circumstances?) to ignore the order to concentrate on Nivelle, and instead reinforced Quatre Bras. I think De Bas and Wommersom could be used far more. When I wrote the French version of the article I used the book extensively, especially on the tardiness of the British in getting to Quatre Bras. Incidentally, in Order of battle of the Waterloo campaign the  commander of the 2nd Brigade, 2nd Netherlands division is still given as Friedrich Wilhelm von Goedecke, which is far too formalistic, as Goedecke was already hors de combat before the battle and Weimar was designated acting commander. What is the policy on this? Could we edit that nonsense? Ereunetes (talk) 20:17, 18 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Did Saxe-Weimar act on his own initiative? 

message: The unanimous assessment of this article is "start class". But if one looks at the assessment categories b2 through B5 it is all "yes", whereas only "b1" (scope) is "no" . I have seen articles  where C-class was given with both b1 and b2 ("references") as "no". So isn't it time to assess this article as at least C-class (and B-class seems justified also, as I don't see why it doesn't qualify on the "scope" criterion; or otherwise we could improve it in that respect)? Ereunetes (talk) 20:23, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why only start class? 

message: the strength of the dutch army in the beginning was only 8,000 but later 31k i think this should be mentioned at the strengh. Fxzeds (talk) 16:50, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: An infobox is not the place for (intricate) detail. Cinderella157 (talk) 22:55, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Strength