Wellington, soldier and statesman, and the revival of the military power of England . reach of Quatre Bras and SombrefYe; he mighthope to divide his adversaries, and to beat them indetail. The dispositions of Bliicher and Wellingtonwere singularly favourable to this daring offensivemovement. The Prussian chief had learned that theFrench army was near the frontier on the 14th ofJune ; he directed his forces to concentrate on Som-breffe ; but only three of his corps could be at thatplace on the i6th, the corps of Bulow being far awayaround Liege. Bliicher was thus exposing himselfto the strokes
Wellington, soldier and statesman, and the revival of the military power of England . reach of Quatre Bras and SombrefYe; he mighthope to divide his adversaries, and to beat them indetail. The dispositions of Bliicher and Wellingtonwere singularly favourable to this daring offensivemovement. The Prussian chief had learned that theFrench army was near the frontier on the 14th ofJune ; he directed his forces to concentrate on Som-breffe ; but only three of his corps could be at thatplace on the i6th, the corps of Bulow being far awayaround Liege. Bliicher was thus exposing himselfto the strokes of Napoleon with no more than a partof a not united army ; and he had no certainty ofsupport from Wellington, whose headquarters atBrussels were far from his own at Namur. The con-duct of the British commander gave signal proofthat he did not excel in strategy, especially when hehad to cope with the greatest of strategists. He hadbeen informed, as early as the loth, that an attackon his positions was, perhaps, imminent ; but he lefthis army as dispersed as it had been before ; he. Qitatre Bras 267 would not believe that the allied centre would beassailed ; he left the mass of his forces far on hisright, thinking that this was his most vulnerablepoint, an assumption very difficult to remained motionless until the 15th ; by the after-noon of that day, perhaps at an earlier hour, he wasapprised that the allied centre was being threatened;but practically he did nothing to ward off thisattack. Towards nightfall he assembled his army ;his right was moved in the direction of his left; hisreserve was made ready to march from Brussels; butnot a regiment was sent to the main road, which wasalready partly held by Napoleon and would bringthe enemy in full force on the allied centre. A widegap thus divided him from his Prussian colleague;but happily one of his subordinates, perceiving this,rnoved a single small division to Quatre Bras, whichclosed the gap to a certain extent,
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectwelling, bookyear1904
