Waterloo Campaign: Quatre Bras to Waterloo Waterloo Campaign: Quatre Bras to Waterloo After the fighting at Quatre Bras (16 June 1815) the two opposing commanders Marshal Ney and the Duke of Wellington initially held their ground while they obtained information about what had happened at the larger Battle of Ligny. They received intelligence that the Prussian army under the command of Prince Blücher had been defeated by the French Army of the North under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte. Upon receiving this news Wellington organised the retreat of the Anglo-allied army to a place he had identified a year before as the best place in Belgium
Waterloo Campaign: Ligny through Wavre to Waterloo in line, with the third in support. It was 17:30 when this took place and the moment when the Prussians became fully engaged in the Battle of Waterloo. Grouchy's movements, on 17–18 June, form so striking a feature in the history of the Waterloo Campaign, and exercised so important an influence upon the fate of the decisive Battle of Waterloo, that it becomes an essential point in the study of that history, to examine how far he complied with, and carried into effect, the instructions received from Napoleon, and to what degree his proceedings, consequent upon his ascertaining the direction