Battle of Ligny

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Battle of Ligny

Date	16 June 1815
Location	Ligny, Belgium
Result	French victory

Combatants

Commanders

Strength

68,000

84,000

Casualties

11,500 dead or wounded

22,000 dead or wounded

Hundred Days
Quatre Bras – Ligny – Waterloo – Wavre

Map of the Waterloo campaign

In the Battle of Ligny (16 June 1815) French forces under Napoléon defeated Blücher's larger Prussian army in a good defensive position. It was Napoleon's last victory, just two days before Waterloo.

1 Background
2 Battle
3 Results
4 See also
5 Further reading
6 External links

[edit] Background

Napoleon's strategy was to cross the border in secret and attack the Allied armies before they could combine and outnumber his army. If he could engage them separately, then his army would outnumber theirs in individual engagements. To that end, he had sent Ney's 2nd Corps and 3rd Cavalry Corps to block the Allied army at the crossroads of Quatre Bras on the same day, so that it could not proceed down the Nivelles-Namur road to bolster the right of the Prussian position.

The Prussians had deployed along the Ligny Brook. They held all the farmhouses and a good defensive position, with most of their advance forces under cover. In fact the Prussian three army corps' positions were so good, that Napoleon at first was deceived into thinking there was only one army corps. However, Blücher had overstretched his left flank, and exposed his right to French artillery. According to Prussian sources, he had done so expecting Wellington to come to the aid of his right flank.

[edit] Battle

Between 1430 hours and 1500 hours, Napoleon started his attack. He ordered the 3rd and part of the 2nd Corps to attack St. Amaund, a farmhouse, and Ligny itself. The first attacks on Ligny were not successful, but the French eventually got through. The St. Amaund attack was more successful. The French broke through after ferocious fighting, but the Prussians continued to resist. They forced the Prussians to abandon their positions at around 1700 hours but failed to push on.

Napoleon paused his attack when troops were spotted approaching the French left flank, and he sent an aide-de-camp to see whether they were French or Prussian. They turned out to be French, d'Erlon's 1st Corps, but just as they were about to enter the battle they turned around. Marshal Ney had ordered them to come to his aid at the Battle of Quatre Bras. In the end, the 1st Corps did not fight in either engagement. There has been much debate of what would have happened if d'Erlon's 1st Corps had engaged at either Ligny or Quatre Bras.

It was about an hour before Napoleon resumed his attack, during which the Prussians regrouped and tried one last unsuccessful counterattack. The Prussians were routed and the center fled when Napoleon committed his Imperial Guard against it. Stubborn defence put up by the two wings of the Prussian army and a ferocious cavalry charge led by Blücher prevented it from becoming a total rout. By nightfall, at about 2100, almost all of the Prussian formations had left the field. On the Prussian right, Lieutenant-General Ziethen's I Corps retreated slowly with most of its artillery, leaving a rearguard close to Brye to slow the French pursuit. On the left, Lieutenant-General Thielemann's III Corps retreated unharmed, leaving a strong rearguard at Sombreffe. The bulk of the rearguard held their positions until about midnight, before following the rest of the retreating army. In fact, some Prussian rearguard units only left the battlefield in the early morning of 17 June, as the exhausted French failed to press on.

[edit] Results

General von Gneisenau's staff directed the Prussian forces towards Wavre, a position that would allow them to come to Wellington's aid on 18 June and subsequently swing the outcome of the campaign in their favour. This turned the tactical defeat at Ligny into a strategic victory.

After the battle, Napoleon judged that Grouchy's corps would suffice to drive the Prussians back on their lines of communications and stop them from reforming and going to Wellington's aid. Napoleon ordered Grouchy to follow the Prussians on 17 June. Grouchy, misled by contingents of Prussian stragglers, believed that they had followed their "natural" line of retreat towards Namur and Aachen. By the time he learned that the Prussians had instead been ordered to rally in and around Wavre, it was too late.