Quatre Bras: Ney attacks

At about 14:00 Ney opens fire with a battery of 22 guns, and three infantry divisions and a cavalry brigade advance behind swarms of skirmishers. The Dutch outposts east of the road are driven in, the Nassauers fall back to Pierrepont and Bylandt's brigade to Gemioncourt, but the allies hold the Bossu wood.

The battle of Quatre Bras, painting by William Barnes Wollen, 1894Wikimedia Commons, William Barnes Wollen, Public domain (Wollen, Battle of Quatre Bras.jpg)

At about 15:00 Picton's British 5th Division and van Merlen's Dutch light cavalry arrive, and Wellington, back from his meeting with Blücher, takes command. Picton's division stops the French east of the road, while Prince Jérôme Bonaparte's 6th Division drives the Nassauers from Pierrepont into the wood, where they fight from tree to tree. At 15:30 the Prince of Orange leads van Merlen's brigade in a charge that French cavalry throw back, and the Dutch militia at Gemioncourt lose the farm, retake it and lose it again.

The Brunswick corps reaches the field, and the Duke of Brunswick is mortally wounded leading a charge that fails. At 16:15 Ney receives Napoleon's order to attack vigorously. Jérôme drives the allies out of the Bossu wood, and Piré's lancers maul the 42nd and 44th Foot of Pack's brigade near the crossroads.

The Brunswickers at Quatre Bras, by Richard Knötel, 1899Wikimedia Commons, Richard Knötel, Public domain (Quatrebras1815.jpg)

Sources

William Siborne, The Waterloo Campaign, 1815 (1848).
Peter Hofschröer, Waterloo 1815: Quatre Bras and Ligny (2005).
Bernard Cornwell, Waterloo: The History of Four Days, Three Armies and Three Battles (2015).

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