Welcome back to Generals and Napoleon.

We have the esteemed, brilliant, talented author, the great Gareth Glover, joining us again.

Hello, Gareth.

Hello.

Great to have you on the show again.

For those of you unfamiliar with Gareth, a huge, prolific author in the Napoleonic world, several of his books, if you've ever seen those, Duke of Wellington, 100 Objects, Napoleon and 100 Objects.

Gareth is the author of those books.

And you have a revised version of Waterloo and 100 Objects coming out soon, right?

That's correct.

Yes, it comes out in this month.

So.

So what would be an example of like 100 objects of Waterloo?

What would be one of those objects or a few of those objects?

Great one is the curacia sort of metal plate with the great big cannonball through.

It always gets people wincing as I say.

But I also, I put alongside that one that actually shows that a A musket ball will also go through.

And they weren't musket balls proof either, which a lot of people even today seem to think is true, but it's not true.

Right.

But yeah, that's a striking image of the the cannonball through the curse here.

Absolutely yes.

But yeah, you can find those on Amazon.

Gareth has a number of books also on the Battle of Waterloo, and we're also going to talk about the two precursor battles today.

Gareth, what are those two battles called?

Linney and Katra Bra, both of which were fought on the same day at Virtue at the same time.

OK, so we know about Napoleon's famous return, the 100 days.

He gets the throne back in 1815, and he famously strikes before the allies were expecting him to.

He gets a March in under the nose of Wellington and the allies.

He crosses the border sooner than they were expecting.

What were Napoleon's objects in these two battles, and how did they fit into his overall plan for the campaign?

Well, Napoleon's biggest problem was the fact that he had virtually the entire Europe turned against him.

And if the longer he waited, the bigger the problem he had because more and more armies were going to March onto his borders.

The Russians were on the March, the Austrians were on the March.

But at this point he only had Prussian and the Allied army under Wellington.

I say allied because it was British, Dutch, German, right mixture that those two armies were the only two in position right next to the borders.

So he took the opportunity of launching an attack against them before the other armies could get into position, hoping to really knock those two countries out of the war before the others could get involved.

And from that, hopefully get to a position where they may actually treat and allow him to stay in charge as emperor again.

And it's classic Napoleon, right?

The strategy of central position knocked the Prussians out and then turn around and knock the British Army up.

Yeah, very much so.

I mean, you know, both armies were equal to his in size or just just under.

But combined the Prussian and the and the allied army was way beyond his ability to fight in one go.

He knew that and he said he therefore had to defeat one or either first.

He didn't know which he would be fighting first.

He had no idea how the campaign would go, but he had to split them apart, keep them split and then defeat each intern.

So initially things are going to plan, right?

He's going to make a, he gets in between them, then he's going to drive towards Brussels.

Is that the game plan?

Yes, he he wants to get to Brussels that that is a sort of a sort of a notification to Evan that he's really back in charge and sort of, you know, but and hopefully the Belgians will return to the French fold because they had been fighting with the French for many years.

So he he looks to drive initially up the the main road through to Brussels, knowing that the Allied army in the Wellington was largely to the West of that line and the Prussian army were largely to the east of that line.

It wasn't a perfect split, but it was something like that.

And by driving in that direction, he looked to hopefully drive them further apart so they couldn't work together.

OK, well let's tackle the Battle of Ligny first.

What happens on June 16th at Ligny and how many soldiers are on each side?

The the first thing I'll say about the whole campaign and such is that this is a campaign where it's very easy for all of us with hindsight to know what's about to happen.

Nobody, none of the three big generals involved in this actually had a clue what was going to happen next on the 15th into the 16th.

But what does happen is that when Napoleon actually drives forward, first of all, he does manage to get a split between the two armies.

But he's not sure if those two armies are going to continue to retire away from him towards Brussels and beyond, or whether they're going to fight him.

And even on the morning of the 16th, which is when Napoleon is there looking at the Prussians on the hills across the way at Linear, he's not certain whether that is actually just a rearguard or whether the Prussian army is going to actually fight him there properly.

In fact, that morning, the only general that knew what he was going to do that day was Blucha, in charge of the Prussian army, who had decided that he was going to hold that position.

He'd already recognised that position months ago and was determined to actually fight there and ordered all his core to join him there as soon as possible.

Right.

And I'm I'm glad you mentioned that it's it's very easy for us historians and podcasters to Monday morning quarterback what happened over these few days.

So yeah, you're right.

Now the generals really other than Blucher said I'm going to stand and fight knew what was going to happen.

But you mentioned earlier like the size of the armies were roughly the same amount of troops, right?

At Linear, actually the Prussians had about 83,000 men.

The French only had 63,000.

But the difference is that the Prussians, there were a lot of what we would call they're called landware or militia.

So they were not the same sort of quality as the French.

So the French had a better quality, although they had less men.

So you know, as I said, so the numbers look better for Blucher, but in reality they weren't any really much better than what Napoleon had.

And unfortunately for Blucher, one of his core and the bulow failed to actually get there that day at all.

So in fact, he was looking at another 30,000 men he expected to have and he didn't have them.

Yeah.

And you, you mentioned hills earlier.

Can you describe the train at Ligny?

Yeah, the terrain.

You have the Linney stream that runs through the middle of the battlefield at that time was a little bit more than it does look today.

Today now it's it's it's you can literally stride across you with a couple of steps and it's not very deep.

At that time, he was a bit deeper, but also it was in the bottom of a shallow valley.

And because of the heavy rains around that period, etcetera, it was it was very marshy.

So really it was not an easy river to cross unless you actually had control of the bridge points.

Outside of that, it was virtually impossible to cross.

To the South of that river the the landscape is pretty, just a rolling, gently rolling hills, which is where the French set themselves up.

But on the Prussian side there is, it's from the actual river.

It rises quite rapidly to a height behind it and that height then becomes a plateau.

So in fact where those who have actually looked at Wellington, Wellington would have put the troops behind a hill, this was not a position you could do that in.

If he wanted to defend the river line, which is what he was doing, he had to have his his troops deployed a lot on that hillside and were therefore very obvious to the French artillery.

OK.

So while that's going on, what's going on not far a few miles away at quadrupra on the 16th?

Obviously we know that Marshall Ney was given control of that that sector by Napoleon, but he was kind of slow to attack that day.

What's happening over at Quatreva Battlefield?

It's interesting you say first of all that you actually say that he was slow to attack.

It's not until that morning at

8:00 in the morning that he actually first gets told this is Ney that he is to take those those crossroads.

So he probably didn't get that message till God nine, maybe

10:00 in the morning.

So until that point, there was no particular reason that he had to take that crossroads.

And the reason for that is because they didn't know if Wellington was going to stand or whether he was going to retire.

And well and Napoleon had no idea until around about that time that there was going to be a reasonable Prussian holding of the ground there and and eventually realising these have a whole whole army to fight.

I don't I don't go with the theory that that he had to get there that early.

He wasn't expected to take it or anything else.

Ney is in the position where the 2 core he's been given are straggling over the last 30 odd miles.

They are in a complete mess in a sense, and his first job that morning is to try to bring them together.

So he's urgently sending messages to Dale on Etcetera, who is 30 miles back to close up.

And while he is doing that, and unwittingly to him, I mean he has got scouts out in advance, cavalry scouts who are saying there are only a few thousand men up ahead at the crossroads.

What he doesn't know is that Wellington is now decided to actually bring his troops towards that position so they they he can he can work mutually with Blucher in his position, because that is not the position that originally that Wellington had actually planned to go to.

He's actually planned to go further W to Nevelle and it's only during that morning he changes his orders to go to Katra.

Bryan Stead.

Yeah, And I, I think there's a couple contextual things here I should probably mention.

One, you know, the French military machine is not as well oiled as it has been.

It's a little rusty.

It's been out of practice for a year.

The great chief of staff, Bertier is no longer with the Army.

Marshall Solt is now doing that job.

So maybe the orders aren't flowing like they should.

And two, Nate is used to dealing with Wellington and he's used to the reverse slope of Wellington hiding his his numbers.

So maybe that was factoring in his head too.

Like maybe I shouldn't just rush into this and figure out like, what's really going on here?

I I fully agree and nay, as you say, has has had too many attempts at sort of defeating Wellington and actually coming off second best.

It's, it's funny in a sense that Wellington's reverse slope tactic actually even worked when he didn't have any troops behind the hill because the, the French generals have become scared of him using that tactic.

And it worked so well that even when he didn't have troops there that it, it worked.

And that's what happened to capture Bra to an extent.

But his main problem First off, was that that he actually didn't have enough troops close up to even deal with the 3000 or 5000 Belgian troops that were in that area at the time.

Yeah, I guess that's kind of a a tough question for me to ask is how many are on each side at Quatrabrock because it seems like they were flowing in all day long.

So maybe we'd start us off with a few thousand and then.

Yeah, if you think about it, Napoleon has ordered around about 40,000 men to go there, but the two causes, say, were strung out and although they probably had around about 20,000 of those close by at the start of the action, Wellington or certainly under sort of the Dutch Belgians who were there at the time numbered less than 5000.

But as the day went on, more and more troops arrived for Wellington and although Nay expected reinforcements later on, they didn't occur for for a number of reasons.

We will talk about late I'm sure with Dale on, but it means that Nay doesn't get a huge influx of extra troops and Wellington slowly goes from being the one that has very few troops to the one that has an excess of troops and is able to push back later on in the battle.

But it is very much a battle of encounter.

Literary troops were marching up to the battlefield and straight into the front line, no time to organise themselves, nothing at all.

It was literally almost a case of just pushing into the front line to stop the French winning and taking catch a bra and beyond as quickly as possible.

Right, and I think you make a great point.

You don't want to send your troops in piece meal because they'll just get knocked backwards.

Piece meal, you want to have a large enough concentration to send them all at once.

Yes, so I'm glad you pointed that out.

Can you describe the terrain of Quatrebron?

Why is this such an important position for the Allies to hold?

Well, the terrain is very much rolling countryside, not dissimilar to the South of Linear, apart from the fact that to the West of the main road running through up to Brussels was a huge wood which basically dominated that side of the battlefield.

And those whoever had control of the wood really controlled that side of the battlefield completely and made it very difficult for troops to manoeuvre on that on that on the West side of the road without having control.

But the importance of that crossroads only comes about later.

If you look at A at a map of the of the area, the advanced positions that Wellington and Blucher had agreed to actually form their troops in even foreign advance themselves was Wellington was at Nivelle to the West of Katrebra and Blucher in the area.

He ends up fighting in that sort of linear area.

Now that means the Katrebra is in between now when they're advancing or looking to advance in the future.

If that that was their plan.

Clearly that it's it's a communications link, but it's nothing much more than that.

When Napoleon attacks and gets between them, that crossroads becomes more vital because it would be it would end up with the French army between the two opposing the opposing armies.

However that even then is is a double edged sword because yes you're in the middle but you then got the possibility of having to fight 2 battles at the same time from either side.

So the whole thing about the importance of Patrabhra really comes out during the battle and the way it's fought, not strategically from the start.

Got it.

Yeah.

It's just interesting though.

I mean it literally means 4 roads right?

Quattro.

Bro yes, yeah.

In fact, a lot of for some reason, although it is a a junction of four roads, a lot in the French of the time called it tua bra as as in three roads just to confuse it.

Right, right, right.

Well, Wellington, before the battle started, famously looked at Blucher's set up at Ligny and was unimpressed because the Prussians were positioned out in the open, you know, open to artillery fire.

So how does the Battle of Ligny kind of start up?

Well, you're right, Wellington initially sort of well, there are stories that he made comments.

I mean, let's be honest, he, you know, in the diplomatic circles of those days, you don't exactly stand there and say I think you're in a terrible position to the your friendly general.

But so, you know, there are questions as to whether that was thought or whether it was just said under his breath to his to his aides, to cops later, whatever.

But certainly he wouldn't have chosen it because it meant that you're entire reserve was in a perfect position for French artillery to a mass all day long, which is not a good thing to do.

So Wellington actually goes into that sort of situation and sort of sees that, is not particularly keen on it and comes away.

But certainly he would not have fought a battle like that.

He would have found some other place to have fought.

But the battle itself, how does that fall out?

The French have got a problem in a sense because although they have better troops, they have the problem of the fact that they can only get across the Linnea Brook where there are the bridges.

These bridges are in towns.

So if you pack those towns with Prussian militia who are determined to sort of fight to the death, basically, it may not be as good soldiers as the French soldiers were.

But in that sort of situation of, you know, house to house fighting, you can hold up very good troops.

History's littered with very good troops come into to into a sort of a village situation and falling apart.

Yeah.

Because the the enemy of just too strong in those positions, even though they're not good quality troops.

And that's what happens.

Linear for many hours is just a continuous sea soaring of troops into these villages, which just become charnel houses with, you know, deaths everywhere, blood and guts everywhere.

Very few prisoners being taken either on either side.

The Prussians and the French hate each other with a passion.

And there are many instances recorded of prisoners, you know, having their throats being cut and things like that just so that they, they're not a problem.

Right.

Yeah.

And I, I don't want to portray the the Prussians performed poorly, Ligny.

It was a slugfest.

They were really giving the French and Napoleon a lot of trouble.

Absolutely, Yeah.

Yeah, It was just as I say it was it.

It became, what can we call it, just this huge sinkhole where troops just kept piling into it and sort of destroying both sides, basically.

And that went on for literally for hours and hours and hours.

Meanwhile, a few miles down the road, Quadra Bras going on.

That one's kind of a different one, right?

With cavalry being involved, there's there's a lot going on over there.

Yeah, well, the first thing is obviously the landscape is much better.

It's perfect cavalry country and actually it is awful infantry country because the actual crops in that area were above head height and in funny enough in my Waterloo 100 Eisen's book, I actually went into a field of Belgian corn and literally stood 6 feet in and you can't see me.

The photograph shows you can't see me at all virtually.

So you can imagine for of some poor infantryman who can't see anything because there's crops everywhere apart from the bits that have been marched down and they've got cavalry million ring about everywhere and.

Unsurprisingly, many units, British units and Dutch units get caught out out of square by cavalry and get decimated at different times, and a number of regiments that have virtually destroyed because of the cavalry being able to get in at them without being seen.

Yeah, that's a great point.

Yeah, Because you think about Calvary while they're up on a horse, they can ride through these corn and and see where they're going, but the infantry cannot.

That's right, but even the French cavalry struggled sometimes to see the infantry who were below the height of the actual crop height.

They actually even sent out Lancers in advance who would actually throw their Lance down into the ground with their little flag fluttering from it in where the square was, so that when the cavalry charged, they actually knew where they were charging.

They couldn't even see the infantry themselves.

Yeah.

Well, Marshall, na, he makes him headway.

He has a Calvary detachment actually hold the the crossroads for a little bit.

Yeah.

And I guess we have to talk about their lawn score at some point.

But what happens here?

When with regard to De Lawn, De Lawn score of over 25,000 men would have been decisive probably on either battlefield he was obviously meant to be with.

Nay, if he had been there alongside alongside Rheel's troops at Catrabra, they almost certainly would have pushed Wellington back from the crossroads.

If on the other hand, Daelon had actually, as he as he was ordered to join Napoleon and had come in on the the flank of the the Prussians in their position, he could well have actually helped them to have a very decisive victory as Linney instead.

So I think it's very important that he could have been very, very useful in either battlefield.

And the fact that he actually failed to be in either battle because he ended up marching back and forth between the two all day with counter orders from the two generals and is is an important factor because it could well have changed the history of that day.

So yeah, the history goes that one of the Napoleons adecamps came rushing up and diverted into Ligny.

Then Marshall Nay sent the native camp, said no, no, no, you're supposed to be with mine.

Who do you lay the blame with for Delong's back and forthness?

Well that's the problem.

There are about 3 or 4 Frenchmen who actually claimed to have given the order.

And actually I think it's a very dubious honour and I don't know why they're really fighting over who did it because whoever it was is the one that caused the mayhem and to to happen.

Because whoever it was, we know that they actually said that the order was in the Emperor's name.

That meant it overruled Nate.

However, Napoleon says he never gave that order.

He never sent somebody to do that.

And certainly when Dale on does turn up on the Lindy battlefield, he turns up not where Napoleon expects him to be on the sort of the wing of these, the Prussians and roll them up.

He actually turns up in the rear of the French army and the French army go into a panic thinking they're about to be attacked by another core.

So at the end of the day, it causes complete mayhem on both sides.

And certainly, you know, as I said, whoever, whichever one of the four actually really did do it, they probably shouldn't have actually sort of put their hand up for that one at all.

I, I, you know, they, they really messed up the battles that day.

Agreed.

Yeah.

And so what's happening is over at Ligny, Napoleon sees like, the ripe moment of the battle where he's going to send in the Imperial Guard.

Yeah, but he has to delay that, right?

Because he sees their long score coming from an unexpected position and he doesn't know who that is.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So it's it's an hour wasted while they work out who it is.

And then he then gets reports say, well, actually it's deal on yes, he was in the wrong place, but actually he's no longer there.

He's gone back to catch a bra.

So, you know, so he he doesn't even get used in that battle.

But Napoleon is sometimes criticised for perhaps not then pushing the guards through earlier.

The only thing I'll say about that is that Napoleon always delays putting the guard in unless he's desperate.

I mean, the, within the French army, the, the, the Imperial Guard were known as the immortals.

Now actually that's a derogatory term.

It's because they were immortal because they never got put into battle.

So they survived the battles.

So, you know, so the rest of the French army weren't particularly enamoured with them.

This is what happens here to an extent.

He literally tries to win the battle without them, then realises he has to use them, and then finally puts them in.

But by the time he puts them in and they have broken through and drive through Linnean up onto the hill behind, unfortunately darkness is falling.

Yeah, and what kind of happens to Marshall Blucher on the Prussian side here?

Well, Blucher, who is, is always an Hussar general at heart.

Yeah, You know, he's up there with the front at the front leading on, even though he's Marshall of the entire army.

And he does this here, he does a, he does a, a, a last desperate charge with the cavalry's got to drive the guard back.

He fails in that and they get driven off, but unfortunately also his horse gets shot.

He comes crashing to the ground and it's only by pure luck that he doesn't get discovered and captured or killed and is eventually taken off the battlefield to recuperate, shall we say, and really isn't in a position to really even organise the retreats of the Prussians that night.

It's just pure luck that the, you know, even the French Calvary like rode over him.

They just there was like a blanket over top of him.

So they didn't know who he was.

So it's just dumb luck that he made it through it all.

Absolutely.

Yeah, it could have.

Well, that would have, could, could and would have actually changed the history of the whole campaign.

Yeah, well, Napoleon wins at Ligny, has final battlefield victory.

Quatre bras Probably best described as a draw.

Yeah.

What were the casualty figures on both sides?

Because they're pretty bloody.

Well, that's Catch a Bride's 5000 killed and wounded both sides.

So it's pretty even Stevens.

And as you said, it's very much a drawn battle.

It it gets played out as a victory for Wellington because he holds the ground that he's in.

He had lost first thing in the morning.

But to be honest, yes, it's a tactical victory, but strategically, maybe not so.

But certainly Linney's a different kettle official together.

Linney is a definite defeat for the Prussians.

They lose around about 18,000 men plus about another 8000 who desert and disappear off back to Germany.

So there's no way you can actually sort of claim that, you know, the, the, the Prussians won that one in any way, shape or form.

They definitely lost.

The difference is that it was a relatively organized withdrawal, whereas Napoleon seems to have believed it was a complete and utter route.

And that's where things change.

Beyond.

And that leads to my next question is we have to discuss the aftermath of both bowels because a lot of historians believe it sowed the seeds of Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo.

So there's a day in between Waterloo and these battles where just kind of nothing happens.

Why wasn't there more of a vigorous pursuit by Napoleon of the retreating Prussian?

Well, the first thing is Napoleon definitely believed the Prussians were fleeing for their lives, for Germany, and we're going to cross the border pretty quickly.

He sends Marshall Grouchy out after him with 30,000 men to just to make sure that they've been driven away.

But it's quite it's late in the morning.

The problem is mine partly.

The French had not known for being up and early out in their attacks.

In many battles.

They they have to have their leisurely breakfast in the morning, they have to sort of prepare their troops ready for things.

And if you actually look at Linnean capture bra, neither battle started till 2:00 PM.

So, you know, there was a lot of time lost that day and there was certainly a lot of time lost the following day because it was at least lunchtime before Napoleon sent any troops after the Prussians, assuming that they were fleeing away.

And at that stage he then gets a message from Nay to say, well, Wellington's army that was stood in front of me have now disappeared back northwards, which in fact they were retreating to Wellington's chosen position at Waterloo.

And it's only then that Napoleon rushes his army across to join me.

And then they all chase up the road to try to catch to catch up with the the allied retreat, but don't do so until they actually arrive at Waterloo and we get into the the next battle after that.

Well, it's funny because that's one of the criticisms at Waterloo.

You know Napoleon didn't attack early enough in the morning.

Yeah, but there are lots of reasons for that.

I mean, I know there's the the infamous statement he put out saying that the ground was wet and he had to wait hours for that.

Well, if you've ever seen the ground at Waterloo and the fact that it's just like it is just a clay mix, I'm telling you now, when it's wet, it's wet for days.

There's no way that's drying out in a couple of hours.

In fact, the main reason was that in fact, when Napoleon wanted to start his battle that morning early, at about 9

o'clock 10:00 at the latest, he had to delay because half of his forces had not actually arrived to the battlefield.

Yeah, I was going to ask him how you would rate Marshall Ney's performance Quattrabrah, because yes, it's a tactical British victory, but he he does prevent them from helping the Prussians over at Ligny.

He he keeps them in place.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Kellerman also does a great job in the Calvary of holding the the the crossroads for a little while.

Like, yeah, they maybe he could have won the battle nay if he started earlier, but earlier.

But what did you think of his performance?

To be fair, overall I don't think you can criticize him much at catcher Bra with the forces he had and the fact that Wellington had a bit of luck in the troops arrived at just the right times for him.

He, you know, the Wellington managed to hold on, but nay was very close to winning it.

And yet he was doing it without Dale On's court, which he'd been promised.

If he'd had Dale on score, as I said, he undoubtedly would have actually won the battle.

I think it's quite clear it would have been very beautiful for Wellington have survived otherwise.

Overall, I think that Nay on at catcher Bra did as well as he could be expected with the information he had from Napoleon and from the troops he had.

You could argue about his performance of Waterloo in A at a different time, but but you know, they're maybe not so good.

But but certainly I do.

I am not one of those to criticise him heavily at Canterbra.

On the Prussian side, do you think there was hurt feelings?

They were expecting support from Wellington and the British allies.

You're, do you think, like Ligny?

They were kind of upset that they didn't get more support?

Oh, undoubtedly.

But certain people, I mean, Eisenhower, who is actually obviously working with Blucher, he always had a suspicion of Wellington.

He felt that that he was duplicitous, that he would actually say things and not actually follow through or whatever.

And was was not particularly trusting of him throughout the campaign.

The fact that he seems to have thought that Wellington had promised to come, well, Wellington has basically said I'll come if I'm not attacked myself, which is unfortunate.

What happened so certainly there nice now.

And some of his staff were therefore very critical, believing that Wellington should have come to their aid.

But others like Muffling and Blue himself accepted the fact that that Wellington would have come if he'd been able to.

And they where they were the ones that drove the sort of the agreement that they would continue to actually support each other exactly as they did at Waterloo two days later.

Right.

And you wonder, like, if Luker had been killed and nice and now was in charge, one of the other generals was in charge and they said, you know what, we're not going to go to Waterloo.

They didn't come to us.

They're on their own.

Like what would have happened differently?

Well, without doubt, Wellington wouldn't even have fought the Battle of Waterloo.

He actually only said he would stand there knowing the Prussians were coming to him because he knew that his force, particularly being a mixture of some of them quite poorly trained, he really felt that his army wasn't strong enough to stand against Napoleon on his own.

And I was only going to stand at Waterloo if the Prussians were going to come to his aid.

If the Prussians didn't promise to come to his aid, which you're quite right now, he's now, and obviously some of his other generals may well have said said no, we can't come.

If they had done that, Wellington would have actually retired beyond Brussels.

He would have pulled into Holland and looked to actually join up with other troops who were marching towards that area in time.

So the Russians, etcetera arriving and obviously he's also falling back on further forces like Dutch forces there as well.

So he would be increasing his numbers as well as Napoleon sort of moved further away from France.

Well, my final question is, what are the legacies of these two battles, Ligny and Quattrobra?

They don't get the notoriety of Waterloo.

They probably should, but they don't.

They're both very important.

What do you think of both?

The legacies mostly are to do with what it caused people to do in the following days.

It's it's more to do with the fact that Napoleon wrongly believes that he's actually wiped the Prussian army out and they're no longer a force to be reckoned with, and that he he was now only facing an army with Wellington.

That is the biggest legacy.

Beyond that, the battles allowed the allied army and the Prussian army to fall back to a position where they could work together.

So Napoleon failed completely in his main task of dividing them and keeping them divided.

That's what went wrong two days later is they got back together and combined they were able to beat him.

But I say the biggest, I, I think the biggest legacy, and I agree with what you said earlier, is the 17th, which was the day in between these two battles.

And Waterloo is the day that Napoleon lost the campaign because he got it completely wrong with regards to the Prussians and, you know, completely misunderstood the situation.

I think that's a great point because as I mentioned earlier, you know, Napoleon's rusty, he's been on Elba for months.

The French army's rusty.

They don't have the same fluidity that they did in the, the, you know, the, the, the good warriors that they knew where to go and where to attack and that Berthier running the whole show.

So I think on that day, Napoleon on the 17th, things, well, things are going great.

I just destroyed the, the Prussian army.

The British Army is fleeing from May.

I think I have this where I want it on the 17th.

I'll just take my time.

When in reality, things weren't as great as he as he thought.

Exactly.

And as I said, it's that miscalculation that leads to his downfall.

And it's it's.

It's as simple as that.

Good stuff, yeah.

Battle Ligny.

Battle Quatre Bra.

Yeah.

That was really great, Gareth.

Yeah.

I've been wanting to talk about these battles for a long time and they're just very interesting to me.

And I don't know if you call them precursors because they're they're each their own battle to Waterloo, but I guess they're part of the whole campaign.

Yeah, yeah.

I, I think you can't just look at Waterloo and understand what happened.

You've got to understand the whole 33 battles and, and how it impacts on the entire campaign.

Without them, it would have been a completely different situation altogether, you know?

Yeah, like if he keeps Grushi's 33,000 men with him and doesn't send them off, or if Grushi's able to get in between the Prussian army and Wellington's army.

But yeah, if if he'd kept them closer to his right wing and ensured that no, that the the Prussians couldn't join Wellington, it would have been a totally different situation.

But as you say, if he splits his force and allows the two allies to fall in between his V shaped advance.

Yeah, and, and credit Bluker for making that March in the face across the face of an enemy to join your ally is really a bold stroke on his part.

Absolutely.

I mean, you know, there were many of his generals saying this was not a good idea, worried that Krushi is going to come up from the South and cause them huge problems and then catch them on the March.

And also whether Wellington was going to stand or whether he was going to disappear into the distance again and leave them, you know, in no man's land.

That was their great fear.

And a lot of his generals voiced those concerns.

But all credit to Blucher.

He is, you know, he said, I've made a promise and I will keep to that promise, which is not, to be fair, not unlike Wellington.

Wellington had largely done the same thing.

And they, they were very much a case of we have to fight together.

And the whole, his whole plan was to actually make sure that he could unite in some way with the Prussians at some point.

It was only the fact that obviously Napoleon had got that first advance in which they hadn't expected.

Yeah.

And I think if you look at the macro level, I think all of Europe decided, look, we're not breaking each other's vows anymore.

We're not going to fight Napoleon one-on-one anymore.

We have to work together to beat this guy.

He's too good.

So we, we must work together in this campaign.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

And but as as far as I'm aware, he's the only man in history that's had an actual sort of the entire Europe declare war on him, not on France.

They declared war on Napoleon in 1815.

And I'm not aware of another occasion we've done that even against Hitler.

You know, we actually went against Germany, not Hitler.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, if you're going to beat Napoleon, you need to get anywhere everyone you can on your side, so.

Absolutely.

Yeah, Yeah, yeah.

Well, again, Gareth, awesome talk.

If you want to learn more about Gareth, please go on Amazon.

He has a a bevy of really interesting books.

Waterloo in 100 objects.

New editions coming out in a few months, right?

There's always new editions commit.

Yes, but 100 items will be out by by the end of August.

Yes, it's an updated version.

I think the original came out in 2013 and there's a few things I need to do.

Update.

Yeah, and there's always new discoveries, as we all know.

And yeah, really interesting stuff.

But yeah, again, Gareth Glover, my pleasure, Sir.

Great having you on once again and we'll see you soon.

My pleasure.

Thank you.