Waterloo Campaign: Quatre Bras to Waterloo bivouacs, which the opposing armies had established for the night, upon the ground destined to become the famous battle field of Waterloo. Attribution: 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
The Field of Waterloo Critical Review" judged it as "absolutely the poorest, dullest, least interesting composition that has hitherto issued from the author of "Rokeby". Even the gazette of the battle contains more information, and the style of the poem is very little, if at all, superior to that of Marshal Wellington's modest dispatches." The poor reception of the poem led to widespread joking about Sir Walter Scott like Napoleon meeting his greatest defeat at Waterloo, as in the widely circulated squib attributed to Lord Erskine: The Field of Waterloo The Field of Waterloo is a poem by Sir Walter Scott, written and published