Converging Towards Battle
On 15 June Napoleon had crossed the Sambre at Charleroi and had pushed a wedge between Wellington and Blücher. His army was divided into three parts: on the left wing one corps and two cavalry divisions stood under the command of Marshal Ney, on the right wing two cavalry corps under Marshal Grouchy and in the centre three corps (including the Imperial Guard) and Milhaud's IV Cavalry Corps (cuirassiers) as a heavy cavalry reserve under the command of Napoleon. Napoleon's most important goal consisted of keeping the two opposing armies separated and striking each individually. For this purpose Ney would move against the Anglo-Allies on Quatre Bras and hold Wellington's forces there. At the same time the French III Corps under Vandamme and IV Corps under Gérard would attack the Prussians frontally on their line of defense between Wagnelée, Saint-Amand and Ligny, while Grouchy marched on Sombreffe. Vandamme's corps was reinforced by Girard's 7th Infantry Division, detached from Reille's II Corps, the bulk of which was at Quatre Bras. Napoleon wanted to advance in the centre of the Prussian position at Fleurus and decide the battle with a final advance by the Old Guard. The plan of separation of opposing armies and defeat in detail was an old and favoured stratagem of Napoleon's, dating back to his operations in Italy, and had been the deciding factor in his campaigns in Austria, and in his battles with the Fifth Coalition.
Blücher's troops consisted of the I Prussian Corps under Ziethen, the II Corps under Pirch I and the III Corps under Thielmann. The I Corps was located in the foremost row and had support from the II Corps standing behind it – the task, the defence of the villages of Ligny, Brye, and Saint-Amand, while the III Corps formed the left wing and the routes of withdrawal while defending Gembloux and Namur. Blücher and Wellington had to avoid above all being separated. Still in the morning of the battle Wellington rode to a meeting with Blücher at the windmill of Brye (or Bussy) and promised Blücher the support of at least one Anglo-Allied corps.
After the break for discussion with Blücher, Wellington left for Quatre Bras. In reaction to the troop movements of the French, II and III Corps began sending reinforcements to I Corps under General Ziethen. The Prussian front lines were too long for the troops available and were depending on the arrival of the IV Corps under Bülow advancing from Liège south west of the battlefield.
The Prussians now faced the French with 82,700 troops, with the French Army numbering around 60,800 available troops.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Ligny
Famous quotes containing the words converging and/or battle:
“It might become a wheel spoked red and white
In alternate stripes converging at a point
Of flame on the line, with a second wheel below,
Just rising, accompanying, arranged to cross,
Through weltering illuminations, humps
Of billows, downward, toward the drift-fire shore.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“The battle of the North Atlantic is a grim business, and it isn’t going to be won by charm and personality.”
—Edmund H. North, British screenwriter, and Lewis Gilbert. First Sea Lord (Laurence Naismith)