Battle of Ligny

The battle of Ligny, fought on 16th June 1815, was Napoleon's last victory. Two days after returning from Elba he struck before Wellington and Blücher could join hands, attacking the Prussian army of about eighty-four thousand drawn up along the Ligny stream with some sixty-eight thousand French. The villages along the brook changed hands repeatedly through the afternoon; late in the day the Imperial Guard and Milhaud's cuirassiers broke the Prussian centre in a thunderstorm, and Blücher himself was unhorsed and ridden over, nearly captured. The Prussians lost about sixteen thousand men with thousands more deserting that night, the French about twelve thousand. Yet Napoleon failed to destroy the Prussian army: it retreated north on Wavre, still within reach of Wellington, and two days later part of it marched onto the field of Waterloo. The delay it cost Napoleon would matter more than the victory itself, and Ligny passed into history as the prologue to Waterloo.