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In the Waterloo Campaign, Grouchy commanded the reserve cavalry of the army, and after the Battle of Ligny he was appointed to command the right wing to pursue the Prussians. [5] Napoleon sent Grouchy to pursue a part of the retreating Prussian army under the command of General Johann von Thielmann. On 17 June, Grouchy was unable to close with ...
As Grouchy moved to join the vanguard, he received a message from Napoleon that confirmed his decision. The message, written at the Farm of Caillou on 18 June at 10:00, warned of the impending attack on the Anglo-Allied army at Waterloo, and instructed Grouchy to move toward Napoleon from Wavre and to maintain close communication. [52]
Both Napoleon and Grouchy assumed that the Prussians were retreating towards Namur and Liège, with a view to occupy the line of the river Meuse, and so during 17 June Grouchy sent the bulk of his cavalry ranging in that direction as far as Perwez. In his despatch to Napoleon written at 22:00 he was still thought that most of the Prussian army ...
Napoleon's reaction was to have Marshal Soult send a message to Grouchy telling him to come towards the battlefield and attack the arriving Prussians. [102] Grouchy, however, had been executing Napoleon's previous orders to follow the Prussians "with your sword against his back" towards Wavre, and was by then too far away to reach Waterloo. [103]
After the French defeat at Waterloo, only Grouchy managed to retreat in good order to France with his force of nearly 30,000 organised French soldiers with their artillery. However, this army was not strong enough to resist the combined coalition forces. Napoleon announced his abdication on 24 June 1815 and finally surrendered on 15 July.
Map of the Waterloo Campaign. The Battle of Wavre was the final major military action of the Hundred Days campaign and the Napoleonic Wars.It was fought on 18–19 June 1815 between the Prussian rearguard, consisting of the Prussian III Corps under the command of General Johann von Thielmann (whose chief-of-staff was Carl von Clausewitz) and three corps of the French army under the command of ...
It is difficult to discover, in the whole history of the wars of modern times, an instance in which so fine, so splendid, an army as that of Napoleon, one composed almost exclusively of veterans, all men of one nation, entirely devoted to their chief, and most enthusiastic in his cause, became so suddenly panic stricken, so completely disorganised, and so thoroughly scattered, as was the ...
Troops spotted emerging from the east are worryingly assumed to be Grouchy by Wellington, and Blücher to Napoleon. Suffering from stomach pain, Napoleon momentarily withdraws and leaves Ney in command. Simultaneously, the order is given to allied troops to retire 100 paces, which Ney incorrectly interprets as a withdrawal.