Quatre Bras

The Duke of Wellington coolly insisted on finishing his dinner, and many of his officers stayed so late that the next morning they wore evening attire to the Battle of Quatre Bras, a forerunner of Waterloo.

Although frequently told, the story of the battle, or rather three battles—the engagement between Wellington’s Anglo-Dutch forces and the French at Quatre Bras on June 16th, the much bigger battle of Ligny on the same day, which saw the defeat of Prussia’s army, and finally Waterloo itself on the 18th—remains tense and gripping.

The third was the aimless wandering in the pouring rain of the Compte d’Erlon and his 20,000 troops between the battle at Quatre Bras against the Anglo-Dutch and the battle at Ligny that the Prussians were losing.

The second was Ney’s almost inexplicable hesitation in taking the strategic crossroads of Quatre Bras, the key to dividing the coalition armies.

Martha’s husband, Thomas, an ensign in the 73rd Highland Battalion, had been wounded in the arm during the battle of Quatre Bras on the 16th.