Ligny: the Guard breaks the centre

At 19:00 Blücher learns that Wellington is fighting Ney and can send no help. He gathers his last reserves and attacks Saint-Amand again, but the chasseurs of the Imperial Guard throw them back. Lobau's VI Corps arrives on the heights east of Fleurus, and the Guard artillery opens on the Prussian centre at Ligny.

After a thunderstorm, at about 19:45, a salvo of 60 guns starts the assault. The Old Guard and Gérard's corps advance on Ligny with Milhaud's cuirassiers on their right, and by about 20:30 the Prussian centre is broken. Blücher, aged 72, leads a counter-charge of Röder's cavalry, and his horse is shot and falls on him. He is carried half-conscious from the field, and Gneisenau, his chief of staff, takes command.

Blücher under his fallen horse, rescued by his aide Nostitz, painting by Clemens Otto Fikentscher, about 1862Wikimedia Commons, Clemens Otto Fikentscher, Public domain (Blüchers Rettung durch seinen Adjudanten Nostiz bei Quatre-Bras.jpg)

At about 22:00 the Prussians fall back, unpursued by the exhausted French. Zieten's and Pirch's corps go north by Tilly towards Wavre, leaving a rearguard at Brye, and Thielmann's corps goes by Gembloux. The Prussians lose about 16,000 killed and wounded and 21 guns, and 8,000 men desert, while the French lose 8,300 to 12,000.

Gneisenau at the battle of Ligny, by Richard Knötel, 1900Wikimedia Commons, Richard Knötel, Public domain (Gneisenau at the Battle of Ligny, by Richard Knötel.jpg)

Sources

William Siborne, The Waterloo Campaign, 1815 (1848).
Peter Hofschröer, 1815: The Waterloo Campaign. The German Victory (1999).
John Hussey, Waterloo: The Campaign of 1815, Volume 1 (2017).

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