Battle of Ligny

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Battle of Ligny
Part of: Summer Campaign 1815
Battle of Ligny.JPG
date June 16, 1815
place Ligny in Wallonia
output French victory
Parties to the conflict

France 1804First empire France

Prussia KingdomKingdom of Prussia Prussia

Commander
Napoleon crop.jpg
Napoleon Bonaparte
Blücher (after Gebauer) .jpg
Gebhard von Blücher
Troop strength
around 60,800 around 82,700
losses

approx. 11,000 dead and wounded

approx. 14,000 dead and wounded

Battles of the Wars of Liberation (1813-1815)

In the Battle of Ligny on June 16, 1815 - two days before the Battle of Waterloo - the French troops of the Grande Armée under Napoleon met a Prussian army under the command of Field Marshal Blücher . Ligny was Napoleon's last victory. He was able to defeat Blucher's troops with the help of the Old Guard , but not completely destroy them. This would have fatal consequences for him in Waterloo.

Napoleon's way to Ligny

George Cruikshank caricature in response to Napoleon's return from exile

Encouraged by reports of the growing dissatisfaction of the French people with the rule of Louis XVIII. Napoleon returned to France from his exile on the island of Elba on March 1, 1815 . Austria, Russia, Great Britain and Prussia then decided to intervene militarily at the Congress of Vienna . On March 25, they renewed their great alliance of 1814 and committed to raising an army of 700,000 men.

Napoleon knew that he had nothing of equal value to oppose such an army and decided on a preventive strike as long as the armies of the Austrians and Russians had not yet united with the British and Prussian troops. To this end, he built up a new, powerful army by mid-June and left Paris on June 12 to take command of the Armée du Nord, around 128,000 men , which he concentrated in the Beaumont area. His targets were the British armed forces under the command of the Duke of Wellington , who had brought together 35,000 British, 41,000 Germans ( Hanoverians , Braunschweiger and Nassauer ) and over 24,000 Dutch and Belgians near Brussels , as well as the 117,000-strong Prussian army commanded by Field Marshal Blücher , which stood on the Charleroi - Namur - Liège line .

The situation on the morning of the battle

Tactical map of the Battle of Ligny

On June 15, Napoleon crossed the Sambre at Charleroi and pushed a wedge between Wellington and Blücher . His army was divided into three parts: on the left wing there were a corps and two cavalry divisions under the command of Marshal Neys , on the right wing two cavalry corps under Marshal Grouchy and in the center three corps (including the Imperial Guard) and Milhauds Cuirassiers as a cavalry reserve under the eyes of the emperor. Napoleon's main goal was to keep the two opposing armies separate and to beat them individually. To this end, Ney should advance against the British on Quatre-Bras and tie Wellington's forces there. At the same time, in the other arena, the two corps under General Vandamme and General Gérard were to attack the Prussians head-on on their line of defense between Wagnelée, St. Amand and Ligny, while Grouchy, encompassing the left Prussian wing, marched on Sombreffe. Napoleon himself wanted to advance in the center on Fleurus and bring about the final decision against the Prussians at one stroke using the Old Guard. The plan to separate the two opposing armies thus corresponded perfectly to the idea with which Napoleon had won his first great victories at the very beginning of his military career in the Italian campaign, when he first had the Austrians on his right and on April 14th, 1796 April 13th had beaten the Sardinians separately on his left.

Blücher's troops consisted of the I. Prussian Corps under General Zieten , the II. Corps under General Pirch and the III. Corps under General Thielmann . The I. Corps stood in the forefront and had the task of defending the villages of Ligny, Brye and St. Amand, while the III. Corps at Mont Potriaux and Tongrinnes formed the left wing and covered the routes of retreat to Gembloux and Namur . Blücher and Gneisenau assumed that Wellington would directly support Ligny. At around 10 o'clock the Duke, who had meanwhile arrived at the intersection of Quartre Bras, had sent a message to the Prussians, in which he claimed that his army reserves and his reserve cavalry could be at Quatre Bras by noon. (In fact, the head of the army reserve, General Thomas Picton's 5th Division, did not appear at the intersection until after 3 p.m., the reserve cavalry even not until the early evening.) Even when he himself conferred with Blücher and Gneisenau at the Brye windmill three hours later, he avoided correcting his overly optimistic assumptions, but merely stated that he would come to the rescue if he was not attacked at Quartre Bras himself. Gneisenau took this conditional assurance from the British as an opportunity to move the right wing of the Prussian army with the I. Army Corps (Zieten) in an advanced line that bends almost at right angles to the left wing along the villages of Ligny and St. Amand and St. Amand La Haye in To let go of position. Behind it he set up the II. Army Corps (Pirch) with 33,000 men and 80 guns along the Namur Strait in reserve. The right flank of this exposed position remained open in the hope of Wellington's support from Quatre Bras. Although the IV Army Corps under General von Bülow had not marched early enough due to a too polite order from the younger Gneisenau and therefore could hardly appear at Ligny before evening with its leaders, the task for the Prussians was not unsolvable. They had massaged nearly 83,000 men against only 60,000 French and were standing on their right wing in well-barricaded positions along the towns. The entire II. Army Corps was available as a reserve and also from the III. Army corps on the left wing could divert forces if necessary.

At Ligny there were a total of around 60,800 French (55,000 Napoleon and 5,800 Grouchy) versus around 82,700 Prussians:

Napoleon's troops (organization and strength)

French cuirassier officer

Napoleon

  • II. Corps General de division Reille (at Quatre Bras, except :)
  • 7th Infantry Division General de division Girard (3,941)
  • III. Corps General de division Vandamme (16,128)
  • 8th Infantry Division Lefol (5,023)
  • 10th Habert Infantry Division (5,439)
  • 11th Infantry Division General de division Berthezène (4,468)
  • 3rd Domon Cavalry Division (1,198)
  • IV Corps General de division Gérard (14,798)
  • 12th Pécheux Infantry Division (4,689)
  • 13th Infantry Division Vichery (4,037)
  • 14th Hulot Infantry Division (4,138)
  • 7th Light Cavalry Division General de division Maurin (1.934)
  • IV. Milhaud Cavalry Corps (2,701) (cuirassiers)
  • 13th Cavalry Division Wathier Saint-Alphonse (1,141)
  • 14th Cavalry Division Delort (1,560)

On the approach

  • VI. Corps Lieutenant General Lobau

Marshal Grouchy

  • I. Cavalry Corps Lieutenant General Pajol (2,465)
  • 4th Soult Cavalry Division (1,301)
  • 5th Subervie Cavalry Division (1,164)
  • II. Cavalry Corps Lieutenant General Exelmans (3,332)
  • 9th Strolz Cavalry Division (1,606)
  • 10th Chastel Cavalry Division (1,726)

Marshal Ney (at Quatre Bras)

Between Quatre-Bras and Ligny

Blücher's troops (organization and strength)

  • 9th Brigade Major General von Borcke (6,557)
  • 10th Brigade Colonel von Kemphen (4,130)
  • 11th Brigade Colonel von Luck (4,201)
  • 12th Brigade Colonel von Stülpnagel (6,199)
  • Reserve Cavalry Major General von Hobe (2,038)
  • Reserve Artillery Major von Grevenitz (419)

On the approach

The battlefield

Environment map

The battlefield of Ligny lay on the watershed between the rivers Scheldt and Maas . The Ligny brook rises to the west of Fleurus and meandered in a north-easterly direction through the small village of Ligny to Sombreffe . The stream was only a few meters wide, but at its edges it was swampy in places, so that the bridges in Ligny and St. Amand were of strategic importance. The fortified points of importance were Ligny, St. Amand and Wagnelée, which was connected to St. Amand by the two hamlets of St.-Amand-le-Hameau and St.-Amand-la-Haye. The buildings in these three villages - and especially those Lignys - were ideally suited for defense because of their solid construction and the trees surrounding them. Large parts of the rest of the battlefield consisted of fields on which the grain stood as high as a man. On a hill northwest of Ligny stood the Brye windmill (also called the Bussy mill ), which was a good vantage point and near which General Blücher had set up his headquarters during the battle. Napoleon's headquarters were at Fleurus , where he also had a good view of the battlefield from the Naveau windmill.

Chronology of the battle

Prelude: attack on St. Amand

Only when he heard the thunder of cannons from Quatre-Bras at around 2:30 p.m. and it was clear that there was no danger from the left wing, Napoleon was able to begin his attack against the Prussian lines. In addition, Gérard's IV Corps, which was advancing from the southwest towards Ligny and played an important role in Napoleon's attack plans, arrived late in Fleurus. Both delays would later prove disastrous.

Napoleon began the attack with artillery fire from the guards standing at Fleurus. Shortly afterwards, Vandammes III attacked . Corps to the small hamlet of St.-Amand-la-Haye. The Prussians of the Jagow Brigade standing there could not withstand the attacking Lefol division and had to retreat. But only a short time later the counterattack was carried out by General Steinmetz, who recaptured the village with six battalions of the 1st Brigade. Another attack by the French, in which Vandamme reinforced his troops through the Girard division (Corps Reille), led to a bitter battle in the course of which the Prussians lost around 2,500 men and had to give up St.-Amand-la-Haye.

This threatened Blucher's right flank collapse, which is why he sent Pirch's 2nd Brigade to fight for St.-Amand-la-Haye. Although General Girard was seriously wounded (he died on June 25 of the consequences of the wound in Paris), the French were able to maintain their position. Thereupon Blücher ordered parts of the II Corps led by General von Tippelskirch to an encircling attack on the left flank of the French. However, the reinforcements placed in front of Wagnelée by Vandamme in the meantime prevented this plan by taking the Tippelskirch brigade, which was on the march, out of the protection of the grain fields and driving them back into the village.

Now Blücher left his observation post in the Brye windmill and intervened personally in the battle. Under his leadership, the Prussian counterattack on the French, who had been weakened in the previous battles, succeeded, so that St.-Amand-la-Haye was again in the hands of the Prussians. With that, St. Amand, St.-Amand-la-Haye and Wagnelée were still held by Prussian troops at 5 p.m.

The battle for Ligny

At around 3 p.m. General Gérard and the French IV Corps opened the battle for Ligny. Under heavy Prussian artillery fire, the 12th Infantry Division under Baron Pécheux managed to break into the church of the village. In their advance, however, the French came under heavy fire from all sides. In a short time over 500 men were killed, including 20 officers, while the rest had to withdraw. As a result, Napoleon sent him a number of 12 pounder guns of the Guard, which - together with the artillery of the IV Corps - set numerous Lignys buildings on fire. When the infantry attacked again, a bitter house-to-house battle broke out in the course of which the Prussians, reinforced by the 3rd Brigade under General von Jagow, were able to recapture Ligny.

The Prussian lieutenant Gerhard Andreas von Garrelts later reported as an eyewitness of the torments to which the Belgian civilian population, unexpectedly at the center of the battle, was exposed during these hours:

"Ligny was half on fire, the old castle blazed up in bright flames [...] On this occasion we found two old people, husband and wife, in a house in which all the windows had been smashed, calm but completely numb and numb." Flock sit without emotion, their elbows on their knees and their heads on their hands; the picture whined to us! Probably the poor had surprised the battle and now they did not know how to avoid the danger; As much as death stared at us, we felt heartfelt pity for these two old people, but they could not be moved to move away from there. "

The missed opportunity

Around 5 p.m. Field Marshal Blücher decided to deploy the still fresh II Corps under General von Pirch , which he ordered to the area south of Brye. At about the same time, General Vandamme spotted a force of 20,000-30,000 men advancing towards Fleurus on the French left flank, which he mistakenly believed to be the enemy. Napoléon, who was about to prepare the decisive blow on the center, was taken by surprise by this news. At 3:30 p.m. he had sent a handwritten note (referred to in English-language literature as a pencil note ) to Ney, according to which Ney was to order the 1st Corps under Marshal Drouet d'Erlon to attack in the rear of the right Prussian flank. However, the troops reported by Vandamme appeared to be threatening the French left flank. In addition, taking into account the time it took for the Comte de la Bédoyère to deliver the handwritten note to Ney, it could not yet be Drouet d'Erlons I. Corps. Napoleon did not know, however, that de la Bédoyère had reached the 1st Corps at a time when d'Erlon had just ridden ahead towards Quatre Bras to get an overview of the situation there. Given the urgency with which the Emperor expected the gain at Ligny, had de la Bédoyère the First Corps can turn with exceeding his powers to the east so that it shortly after 17 pm in sight Vandamme fell. Ney, who was obviously not fully aware of Napoleon's plans at the time, had in the meantime learned of the turning off of the 1st Corps and had sent an opposite order afterwards, in which he requested Drouet d'Erlon to return to Quatre-Bras immediately . When Drouet d'Erlon, who had in the meantime caught up with his troops, received Ney's order, he had his corps - only a few kilometers from Ligny - turn around again and march back to Quatre Bras, which ultimately resulted in the 1st Corps did not intervene in the fighting that day.

The delay caused on the French side took advantage of Blücher by ordering an attack on the French left flank. From his observation post at Brye Mill, he could see his troops advancing westward beyond St. Amand. At that moment, however , Vandamme's corps received unexpected support from Duhesme's Young Guard. This stopped the enemy advance and threw the Prussians back into their original positions.

Prussian counterattack

At around 7 p.m. the situation was as follows: Grouchy's cavalry had captured Tongrenelle and was advancing on Mont-Potriaux, in the center near Ligny fierce fighting continued, while the attacking Young Guard on the right Prussian flank seemed to have exhausted itself . When Blücher received the news from Quatre Bras at that moment that Wellington was himself heavily harassed by Ney and could therefore under no circumstances send support to Ligny, he decided to counterattack the French left flank to bring about the decision. First he strengthened the troubled troops in Ligny, then he gathered the last reserves at his disposal and personally led an attack on St. Amand. In this way, the Prussians initially succeeded in retaking St.-Amand-le-Hameau. On their further advance, however, they were repulsed by the hunters of the Imperial Guard west of St. Amand and began a disorderly retreat to St.-Amand-la-Haye .

Napoleon installs the Old Guard; Blücher narrowly escapes death

Grenadier of the Old Guard, oil painting by Edouard Detaille

In this situation Napoleon decided on the final counter-attack and set the Old Guard , the Reserve Cavalry of the Young Guard led by Guyot and Milhaud's heavy cavalry division - around 2,700 cuirassiers - in motion towards the Prussian center near Ligny. After a march of about twenty minutes, accompanied by the fire of the Prussian artillery, Napoleon's own guards artillery launched the attack on the Prussian positions. Around 7.45 p.m. the two divisions of the Old Guard began the storming of Ligny, and the Prussians, exhausted after a five-hour battle, fell back.

As a reaction to the onslaught of the guard, Blücher now ordered the counterattack of the reserve cavalry under Lieutenant General von Röder , in which he rode again himself. His horse was fatally hit by a bullet and the 72-year-old Blücher was buried under him in the subsequent fall. Undetected by the French cuirassiers riding over him, he was later rescued by one of his adjutants, Major von Nostitz , but was out of action at the precise moment when the French cavalry repulsed the Prussian counterattack.

Retreat of the Prussians

Already at around 8 p.m. Major General von Krafft reported that he could no longer hold the village of Ligny. Only half an hour later the Old Guard broke through Ligny. The battle for the Prussians was lost. Now the responsibility for the decision rested on Lieutenant General von Gneisenau , who had taken over the command in place of the missing Blucher. Gneisenau decided to retreat in a northerly direction towards Tilly , which, although significantly lengthening the connection lines to the Rhine , kept the possibility open of coming to Wellington's aid in the event of a French attack.

But at first the fight continued. Major General von Jagow held the small town of Brye until three in the morning , while the rest of the Prussian troops streamed north in a disorderly retreat. However, the onset of darkness prevented the French from consistently pursuing them. In addition, Röder's counterattack had helped some of the Prussian infantry fighting in the center to flee. And the troops under Zieten and Thielemann standing on the flanks had been able to hold out to the point when the center finally collapsed. Although around 8,000 Prussian soldiers took advantage of the confusion of the retreat to desert , the Prussian army escaped destruction on June 16 and Napoleon's battle plan at Ligny thus failed.

consequences

Napoleon's missed chance of a complete annihilation of the Prussian army had a decisive influence on the further course of the Belgian campaign. While Grouchy together with the units Vandammes and Gérards received the order to pursue Blücher further, Napoleon allied himself with the units of Ney and moved north to fight Wellington, which he put on the evening of June 17th south of Waterloo . However, due to the bad weather and the exhaustion of his soldiers, Napoleon postponed the attack until noon the next day. This delay later turned out to be fatal. While the battle was already raging in Waterloo, the Prussians managed to escape their pursuer Grouchy and to come to Wellington's aid at the crucial moment. The British-Prussian victory on June 18, 1815 was thus also an indirect consequence of the events that had taken place at Ligny two days earlier.

Just one day after his return to Paris, Napoleon abdicated on June 22nd in favor of his son. On July 8, 1815, Louis XVIII returned . back to Paris as king . The episode of the Reign of the Hundred Days was over, Napoleon died six years later in exile on St. Helena .

Military historical evaluation of the course of the battle

In its analysis of the events of June 16, research in military history developed various theories as to why Napoleon's plan to completely annihilate the Prussian army failed. The most obvious thing to do is to blame the failure on Ney's forces at Quatre Bras for too long. In the orders that Ney received from Napoleon on the morning of June 16, all that was mentioned was that Quatre Bras should be taken. At 2 p.m. Napoleon then sent the order to Ney that he should advance to Ligny after taking Quatre Bras and fall into the right flank and back of the Prussians. At 3:15 p.m. Napoleon had Marshal Soult send another telegram to Ney, in which he specified his order from 2 p.m. to the effect that Ney would only stop the British troops at Quatre Bras with an absolute minimum of his own troops and instead stop the greater part to send his forces to Ligny for support. The already mentioned handwritten note from 3:30 p.m. (pencil note) , which Ney expressly instructed to order the I. Corps advancing from the southwest under Drouet d'Erlon to Ligny for support, never reached Ney. This document, which is not insignificant for the course of the battle, has not been handed down and thus gave rise to numerous speculations in military history research. It is clear that the absence of the I. Corps in Ligny had a decisive influence on the course of the battle. Had the fresh troops attacked the Prussians in the rear according to Napoleon's instructions, the fate of the Prussian army would have been sealed and the entire further course of the Belgian campaign might have taken a different turn. The numerous commentators of the battle see the main fault sometimes with Ney, whom they accuse of not having fully understood Napoleon's plans, sometimes with Drouet d'Erlon, who failed to make contact with those not far from him on his way to Ligny to take up standing troops of General Vandammes , or at de la Brédoyère, when he swiveled the I. Corps to the east and thus exceeded his powers. Still other voices believe that the late start of the battle predetermined the outcome. Whichever of the reasons given by military-historical research may have been decisive for the outcome of the Battle of Ligny, it is undisputed that the failure of the decisive blow against Blucher’s Prussia two days before Waterloo already bore the germ of the ultimate failure of Napoleon.

Reception history

The subsequent heroization of the events in battle painting of the 19th century. Here: Lieutenant v. Schmeling near Ligny , based on a history painting by Adalbert von Rößler , from: Picture Hall of German History (1899 edition)

In addition to a wealth of military-historical treatises, which in their description and assessment of the battle events - depending on the nationality of the author - can usually be clearly assigned to one or the other camp, the memory of the Napoleonic era was for a long time due to the numerous pictorial representations of mainly French, British and German artists kept awake. For France, Louis Ernest Meissonier , Jean Baptiste Édouard Detaille , Félix Philippoteaux , Théodore Géricault and Emile Jean Horace Vernet should be mentioned, whose representations of individual situations from Napoleon's campaigns shape our imagination to this day. In 19th century German history painting, the Wars of Liberation ranked first, even before references to the Germanic era and medieval empire. Motivated by an increasing interest in the national past and a belief in the power of history, numerous paintings were created that transfigured the image of the struggle of the Germans in the wars of the Napoleonic era and achieved a popularity that is hardly imaginable today. The depictions of the Battle of Ligny available today come from a time when associations made it their task to “promote the patriotic image of history” and magnificent volumes such as the “Picture Hall of German History” were part of the decoration of bourgeois living rooms. While in the 19th century it could be assumed that captions such as “ Leutnant von Schmeling bei Ligny” could call up concrete ideas about the background of the depicted scene, the context of the depiction is mostly closed to today's viewer. None of the paintings from the Battle of Ligny are still known to the wider public. Both in the extremely numerous biographies of Napoleon and in the military history works on the campaign of 1815, there are predominantly images that deal with the Battle of Waterloo , which took place two days later . This not only reflects the change in the public image of history, but also the change in meaning of the events in Ligny, which have largely been forgotten today.

literature

  • Peter Hofschröer: 1815, the Waterloo campaign , Volume 1: Wellington, his German allies and the battles of Ligny and Quatre Bras , London 1998, ISBN 1-85367-304-8 - The campaign of 1815 in a modern and well-founded representation of one Military historian and specialist in the armies of the time. Prepared from material that was previously unknown (eyewitness reports and regimental reports from German, British and Dutch archives). Overall, this results in a new assessment of the battlefield.
  • Detlef Wenzlik: Waterloo - The campaign of 1815 , Hamburg 1997, ISBN 3-931482-04-9 - Complete overview of the year 1815: Congress of Vienna, one hundred days, composition of the French and allied army. The focus is on the campaign in Belgium with the battles of Ligny, Quatre-Bras, Waterloo and Wavre.
  • Andrew Uffindell: The Eagle's Last Triumph: Napoleons's Victory at Ligny, 1815. Greenhill, London [u. a.] 1994, ISBN 1-85367-688-8 .

Web links

Commons : Battle of Ligny  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Garrelts, Gerh. Andr. von (1856), The East Frisians in the German War of Liberation: Gesch. of the former 3rd west-phaelic east frieze. Landwehr Infantry Regiment, the volunteer hunters, the cavalry .. from its creation until its dissolution in the war years of 1813, 1814 u. 1815. With alleger. Illustration of the Upstalsboom u. Battle plan of Ligerz u. Waterloo , W. Bock, 172

Coordinates: 50 ° 31 '  N , 4 ° 35'  E

This version was added to the list of excellent articles on June 21, 2005 .