Such was the bloody fight of Quatre Bras.  It cost Wellington 4,600 killed and wounded, mainly from the flower of the British infantry, three Highland regiments losing as many as 878 men.  The French losses were somewhat lighter.  Few conflicts better deserve the name of soldiers’ battles.  On neither side was the generalship brilliant.  Twilight set in before an adequate force of British cavalry and artillery approached the field where their comrades on foot had for five hours held up in unequal contest against cannon, sabre, and lance.  The victory was due to the strange power of the British soldier to save the situation when it seems past hope.

Still less did it redound to the glory of Ney.  Once more he had merited the name of bravest of the brave.  At the crisis of the fight, when the red squares in front defied his utmost efforts, he brandished his sword in helpless wrath, praying that the bullets that flew by might strike him down.  The rage of battle had, in fact, partly obscured his reason.  He was now a fighter, scarcely a commander; and to this cause we may attribute his neglect adequately to support Kellermann’s charge.  Had this been done, Quatre Bras might have ended like Marengo.  Far more serious, however, was his action in countermanding the Emperor’s orders’ by recalling D’Erlon to Quatre Bras; for, as we have seen, it robbed his master of the decisive victory that he had the right to expect at Ligny.  Yet this error must not be unduly magnified.  It is true that Napoleon at 3.15 sent a despatch to Ney bidding him envelop Bluecher’s flank; but the order did not reach him until some time after 5, when the allies were pressing him hard, and when he had just heard of D’Erlon’s deflection towards the Emperor’s battle.[495] He must have seen that his master misjudged the situation at Quatre Bras; and in such circumstances a Marshal of France was not without excuse when he corrected an order which he saw to be based on a misunderstanding.  Some part of the blame must surely attach to the slow-paced D’Erlon and to the Emperor himself, who first underrated the difficulties both at Ligny and Quatre Bras, and then changed his plans when Ney was in the midst of a furious fight.

Nevertheless, the general results obtained on June the 16th were enormously in favour of Napoleon.  He had inflicted losses on the Prussians comparable with those of Jena-Auerstaedt; and he retired to rest at Fleurus with the conviction that they must hastily fall back on their immediate bases of supply, Namur and Liege, leaving Wellington at his mercy.  The rules of war and the dictates of humdrum prudence certainly prescribed this course for a beaten army, especially as Buelow’s corps was known to be on the Liege road.