File:Wellington, soldier and statesman, and the revival of the military power of England (1904) (14779658234).jpg

Identifier: wellingtonsoldie00morr (find matches)
Title: Wellington, soldier and statesman, and the revival of the military power of England
Year: 1904 (1900s)
Authors: Morris, William O'Connor, 1824-1904
Subjects: Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of, 1769-1852
Publisher: New York (etc.) : G.P. Putnam's Sons
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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reach of Quatre Bras and SombrefYe; he mighthope to divide his adversaries, and to beat them in detail. The dispositions of Blücher and Wellingtonwere singularly favourable to this daring offensive movement. The Prussian chief had learned that the French army was near the frontier on the 14th of June ; he directed his forces to concentrate on Som-breffe ; but only three of his corps could be at that place on the 16th, the corps of Bulow being far awayaround Liege. Blücher was thus exposing himself to the strokes of Napoleon with no more than a part of a not united army ; and he had no certainty of support from Wellington, whose headquarters at Brussels were far from his own at Namur. The conduct of the British commander gave signal proof that he did not excel in strategy, especially when he had to cope with the greatest of strategists. He had been informed, as early as the 10th, that an attack on his positions was, perhaps, imminent ; but he left his army as dispersed as it had been before ; he
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Quatre Bras 267 would not believe that the allied centre would be assailed ; he left the mass of his forces far on his right, thinking that this was his most vulnerable point, an assumption very difficult to understand. He remained motionless until the 15th ; by the after-noon of that day, perhaps at an earlier hour, he was apprised that the allied centre was being threatened; but practically he did nothing to ward off this attack. Towards nightfall he assembled his army; his right was moved in the direction of his left; his reserve was made ready to march from Brussels; but not a regiment was sent to the main road, which was already partly held by Napoleon and would bring the enemy in full force on the allied centre. A wide gap thus divided him from his Prussian colleague; but happily one of his subordinates, perceiving this,rnoved a single small division to Quatre Bras, which closed the gap to a certain extent,—the distancewas not less than fourteen miles,—and so far mightretard the advance

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