Talk:Battle of Wavre

Battlebox

Is there any way to change the battle box so that the "battle after" becomes the "simultaneous battle"? Philip Baird Shearer 12:26, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Forces section is confussing

I may just be tired or not paying enough attention to this article, but I found the explanation of the number of forces to be highly erratic and hard to follow. I imagine with both armies in a general state of disarray after the previous battle exact numbers are hard to come by, but that section of numbers doesn't seem to agreed with the infobox data. Can anyone more knowledeable on this subject clarify this perhaps?

I agree I don't understand it. It needs to be simplified.--Bryson 00:08, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I replaced what had been there with this:

The French forces were commanded by Marshal Grouchy, who had command of two corps; which formed the right wing of Napoleon’s Army (in total some 33,000 troops and 80 cannons). The Prussian forces were the rear guard of Blücher’s Army placed under the command of General Thielmann who had some 17,000 troops and 48 cannons.

--Bryson 22:20, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I removed that section, since it was already in the previous Background section, and in more detail. Clarityfiend 03:53, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Can anyone verify this statement?

Can anyone verify this statement? (Another source says Grouchy did not known Blücher’s forces had evaded him)--Bryson 00:08, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

At daybreak Grouchy knew that Blucher was thinning out his troops and sending the bulk of his force westward through the Bois de Paris toward distant Plancenoit

I rather doubt that Grouchy knew anything of the sort. Every book I've ever read on the campaign reveals that Grouchy was in the dark and his orders were unclear at best. He stumbled into the fight at Wavre and continued trying to win ignorant that Napoleon had lost and was in full retreat until after midnight.

Tirronan 05:16, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I've got to retract the statement above, Groucy was warned to be very careful and be sure of a clear lines of retreat by Napoleon as he was outnumbered 3 to 1 and that in the 1813/1814 campaigns were known to reorganize and maul closely pursuing forces along with a nasty habit of gathering large cavalry forces and charging pursuing formations at will. By the tone of Napoleon's order he was concerned that it was likely that Groucy might be wiped out. Groucy moved briskly on the morning of the 18th and was in contact by 2pm. He had sent a letter to Napoleon advising that at least 3 Prussian corps had moved through the area, were concentrating around Wavre, were aggressive and arrogent and bragging that they would combine with Wellington in front of Brussels to defeat Napoleon. The reply was orders at or about 7am to move against the Prussians. Also remember that a letter went out to Ney reproaching him for not following orders and allowing D'Earlon to be out of position to not support Ney's attack on Quatra Bras. Given that he was with Napoleon he probably got an ear full of the Napoleon's wrath. So any chance of him marching to Waterloo was probably out of the question. The order was repeated at 4pm and even at 6pm the order was to drive through Wavre to his side. Third Corps was entrenched behind a swollen unfordable stream and 17,000 troops were more than enough to hold Grouchy at bay till morning. This defeat has to be laid upon the door of Napoleon and not Groucy, he was where he was supposed to be and doing exactly what his orders demanded that he do. What isn't apparent was that Grouchy didn't have a track that at noon could have taken him to the battlefield in time. The nearest road was as misable as the Bois de Paris road and was in fact crossed by the Bois de Paris road full of Prussians moving through to smohain and down to Placinoit. He was never in a position to intervien after he left to head up to Wavre. The gist that Groucy did something wrong came when Napoleon at St. Helena wrote his memories and tossed Groucy and Ney under the bus to salvage his reputation at Waterloo. He should have followed up the Prussians with everything he had day and night until he destroyed that army. Counting on Wellington to be slow in marching (his army was by far the slowest of the 3 on the march). He didn't and it cost him Waterloo. Tirronan 17:33, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Expansion

I've pretty much completely rewriten the article take a look and let me know what you think. Tirronan 22:30, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Background

I've a few issues with this section:

Background In the battle of Ligny two days earlier, the Prussian army had been forced to retreat in some disorder. Napoleon sent Grouchy in pursuit with right wing (aile droite) of the Army of the North (L'Armée du Nord) consisting of 33,000, and 80 cannons[1] The French units in the order of battle were:[2]

III Corps (General Dominique Vandamme) 17,099 - 38 guns IV Corps (General Étienne Maurice Gérard) 15,013 - 38 guns II Cavalry Corps (General Remy Exelmans) 3,392 - 12 guns IV (Hussars) Cavalry Division (General Pierre Soult) 1,485 - 8 guns detached from the I Cavalry Corps. 5,000 cavalry from the Reserve Army Grouchy was slow in taking up the pursuit, giving time for Blücher to regroup his army and advance with three corps to join up with Wellington's Anglo-Dutch army at Waterloo. The fourth, Thielmann's III Prussian Corps of 17,000 men and 48 guns, was left as a rearguard.[2] Thielman's main force occupied Wavre and Bierges while a small flank guard occupied Limal.

• The 1st is why do we have a separate section on the French order of battle here instead of a list and a link to Order of Battle at Waterloo
• The second is Groucy's supposed slowness, I have his orders as given and they are anything but urging him to rush forward.
• It needs to be outlined that neither Groucy nor Napoleon realised how advance the Prussian preperations were in moving to Waterloo, by the time he arrived the last units of II Corp were already leaving for Waterloo.
• The poor orders and lack of coordination need to be laid at the feet of Soult not Groucy.
• The 5 hour delay between writing orders and Groucy's reception of said orders did much to ensure he was in the dark as to what was occurring at Waterloo
• The lack of a viable road to get Groucy's command to the Battlefield in time
• Soult suggested that Groucy be recalled at the early morn of June 18th 1815 and Napoleon refused.

I never really understood but its all there folks, read Barbero, Hofschroer, Hamilton-Williams and Chesney. Tirronan 23:43, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

A light rewrite

I've given this a light rewrite for consistency (removing capitalisations of "bridge", changed "marshall" to "marshal", etc). I'm hampered by not having many sources on Wavre so I've nothing to add to the description of events. Tirailleur (talk) 11:16, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Hell its 95% my writing and you know I can't spell or use grammer, good job. --Tirronan (talk) 12:21, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Groucy across the Prussian lines of communication

By my reading I believe he was firmly in control of said commuications for about 30 minutes before retreating. --Tirronan (talk) 23:52, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Sounds about right! I put that in as a reminder of what he was supposed to be doing at Wavre. Are you able to say something about what he was specifically told to do? My reading / recollection is that he was told vaguely to manoeuvre against the Prussian rear although to what effect I am not sure - unless it was to cut their communications. At present, re-reading what we have, it's not clear why the battle was fought or what Napoleon was expecting Grouchy to achieve. Did N think he was going to pin all 90,000 Prussians? Tirailleur (talk) 16:40, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Its probably fair to say that both Grouchy and Napoleon thought that the Prussian center of mass was farther off to the east than it was in fact. They thought that they would hover nearer to Namur and the lines of communication there than was the case. The staff organization of the Prussian army 1st moved the line of communications north of Wavre and then down to the army while reorganizing the corps enroute to Wavre and had them marching across the bridges at 1st light. By the time Grouchy arrived that train had already left the station but he didn't realise it. I'm coming to the conclusion that Napoleon never really caught up with the fact that the old eastern armies just were not the static punching bags that they used to be. The Prussian army was just the most extreme example of an army that could march as fast, and with its general staff didn't have to have its CIC present to take effective coordinated action. If you read PH's book on Ligny and Quatra Bras it presents a picture of Prussian brigades holding up entire French Corps on the 15th again and again until Nappy showed up and got everything moving again. Yet the Prussian brigades showed flexible combinded arms cooperation without anything above its regular command chain in place. Come to think about it we could probably write a pretty different book on the Waterloo campaign on just that fact, command control and its influence on the campaign. --Tirronan (talk) 01:32, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

You're right, I've not read an account that talked about that.

You have the better sources here. There should be something about what the point of the battle was supposed to be from the two commanders' perspective. It's clear what Thielmann was playing for (time, basically), but less clear what Grouchy thought he was doing.

AFAIK Grouchy was simply told post-Ligny to follow / pursue the Prussians, with the assumption that they would run away as long as he did this. Manoeuvring in the rear of a force three times his own strength, that quite clearly didn't consider itself in the least bit beaten, these weren't executable orders.

Ex post facto, Napoleon said that Grouchy should have pinned the Prussians and prevented their march to Waterloo, and / or that he himself should have marched to Waterloo, and / or that he had indeed ordered Grouchy to do both.

It seems clear that this is not true and that Grouchy was following the orders he actually got. But has any writer (Hofschroer?) set out or discuss what Grouchy thought those orders were going to achieve for the French cause? Tirailleur (talk) 12:36, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Be careful not to use Napoleon's Memories as he was mostly using it to excuse his loss at Waterloo and elsewhere. Chesney is probably the best source on this and you can get a reprint at Greenhill books. There he lists out the orders as given and the fact that he was at Napoleon's side when Ney let D'Erlon be wandering around he probably got an ear full. Also in Barbero's book it lists where Soult recommended that Napoleon recall Groucy in the Morning and he refused to do so. This happend when he told his generals that Wellington was a bad general et all. I've read Barbero but he is pretty silent on the subject of Groucy and Wavre for the most part. PH is probably the best source but its very Peter to just present facts and you have to figure it out from there. Nice of the author but it probably crosses OR when we do so here. Hamilton-Williams I only trust so far... However between all 4 books you can get the actual orders that were given to Groucy and when, from there its pretty easy to figure out that Nappy thought he had a small contingent in front of Groucy that could be driven away or towards Waterloo with the rest trapped and sealed to the east by Groucy, not 15,500 men behind a swollen creek that was impassable with the other 3 corps marching his way. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tirronan (talk • contribs) 15:23, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. OK, so Napoleon assumed that the Prussians were to Grouchy's north-east and that his attacking towards Wavre would keep them from moving west. In fact, they were to his north-west, so he was actually operating against their rear. That's interesting because I had always taken it that Napoleon knew perfectly well where the Prussians were and was banking on beating Wellington first and then crushing the Prussians between himself and Grouchy, who would be blocking their retreat. I'll have to check out sources of the actual orders, because Grouchy's intentions are not talked about and it would be good to be able to say something here.Tirailleur (talk) 23:43, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Two things to remember was that 8,000 Rhinelanders were highfooting it towards Namur and home when they were stopped and reorganised, this threw off Napoleon's vision to some degree. Later Grouchy reported that at least 3 corps were gathering around Wavre, this he dismissed stating that the Prussians needed at least 48 more hours to recover so that he apparently thought Grouchy would be putting to route a disorganised rabble. This is very strange to me because he did the same thing a Laon and only the fact that Blucher was flat on his back with the flu did he survive contact with the Prussians, at Katzbach a "routed" Prussian/Russian force mangled a prusuing French army, you would have thought he would have known better. --Tirronan (talk) 00:34, 5 February 2008 (UTC)