The De Lancey Disposition and the Frasnes Letter - An Analysis

The ‘Disposition’ (reproduced above), is a most curious document as it simply does not make any sense. From between 6 and 7 p.m. on 15 June, that is, after the arrival of Berkeley’s message from Braine and Blücher’s from Namur, Wellington had De Lancey issue orders to the army. Parts of these orders are discussed below.

The 1838 edition of ‘Wellington’s Dispatches’ does not contain any orders for the 2nd Division, part of Hill’s Corps. However, according to the 1847 edition, it was ordered: ‘… to collect this night [15 June] at Ath and adjacents, and to be in readiness to march at a moment’s notice.’⁶⁸ According to the ‘After Orders’, it and the 4th Division were: ‘… to continue their movements on Enghien.’⁶⁹However, the 2nd Division first received its orders to march from Ath to Enghien at 10 a.m. on 16 June, reached Enghien at 2 p.m., and having lost its way, finally reached Braine at midnight. Besides, shortly after Wellington got up at 5 a.m. on 16 June, De Lancey signed the following order to Lord Hill: ‘The Duke of Wellington requests that you will move the 2nd division of infantry upon Braine le Comte immediately.’⁷⁰  This order left Brussels after Wellington had woken, that is sometime after 5 a.m. The distance to Ath was nearly 60 km, so these orders would have arrived about 10 a.m. The distance from Ath to Enghien was just over 20 km, about five hour’s march. Yet, apparently, at 7 a.m., De Lancey was writing a ‘Disposition’ in which the 2nd Division ‘had arrived, or were moving on’ Braine-le-Comte and was ‘marching to Nivelles’. At 7 a.m., the 2nd Division was at Ath, it had yet to receive orders to march to Enghien, and the orders for it to march to Nivelles were evidently not issued. At 10.30 a.m., Wellington wrote to Blücher that ‘Lord Hill’s Corps is at Braine-le-Comte’. At that time, this part of Hill’s Corps had just left Ath. As Wellington issued the orders for the 2nd Division to march on Braine sometime after 5 a.m. and knew these orders would take a good five hours to reach Ath, then he must have known the 2nd Division could not march over 30 km in half an hour.

The 4th Division, also part of Hill’s Corps, had been ordered to collect at Grammont and Audenarde.⁷¹ At 10 p.m. on 15 June, it was ordered to move from those positions to Enghien. These orders, travelling about 70 km, would have taken a good five hours to arrive. The first orders would have arrived about midnight, the after orders about three hours later. Assuming it set out at daybreak on 16 June, the 4th Division would have arrived at Enghien, a distance of 40 km, about ten hours later, that is, about 2 p.m., and at Braine-le-Comte about 5 p.m. Although the De Lancey Memorandum is accurate on this point, it is inconsistent with Wellington’s letter from Frasnes, written at 10.30 a.m. that day, which stated: ‘Lord Hill’s Corps is at Braine le Comte.’ This part of Hill’s Corps was not going to be there until early evening. Had it actually been at Braine as the Duke misleadingly claimed, then it certainly could have been expected to arrive at Quatre Bras that day, about 5 p.m., and could have taken part in the battle. In fact, it would not be in a position to intervene until 17 June, the next day, at the earliest. Both De Lancey and Wellington knew this before the Frasnes letter was written to Blücher, yet that is not what the Field Marshal was told.

The 6th Division, also part of the reserve, contained two brigades of infantry. Lambert’s was in Ghent and was not going to participate in any battles until 18 June. Indeed, he was not ordered to the front until the evening of 16 June. Best’s Hanoverian militia marched to the front that day along with the 5th Division. Neither brigade would ‘arrive at midday’. As Wellington had yet to issue any movement orders to Lambert, and had seen the 5th Division resting near Waterloo that 9 a.m., he must have known that.

The 2nd and 3rd Netherlands Divisions were the closest to the Prussians and Wellington could count on them already being in contact with the Prussians. Wellington’s statement to Blücher on the positions of these two Netherlands divisions was correct.

The 1st Netherlands Division, not in contact with the Prussians, was not in the positions given in the ‘Disposition’ and was not where Wellington claimed to Blücher they were.

The remainder of the cavalry, under Uxbridge, had been ordered to ‘collect … this night [15 June] at Ninhove’. It was then ordered to ‘move from Ninhove upon Enghien’. On the morning of 16 June, it was ordered to move on Braine-le-Comte. It received the latter order about 6 a.m. The distance from its cantonments to Braine was over 20 km. At 7 a.m., it was between Ninove and Enghien, only arriving at Quatre Bras after 8 p.m.⁷² It was thus not at Braine at 7 a.m., and was not marching to Nivelles and Quatre Bras at that time. There was no way he was ever going to ‘be at Nivelles at the same time [midday]’. Indeed, according to a letter written in Brussels on 19 June 1815 by Capt. Thomas Wildman of the 7th Hussars, an ‘extra aide-de-camp’ to Uxbridge, Wildman mentioned meeting his commander near Enghien, from where the latter sent him on to Braine-le-Comte. As he did not find the Duke there, he rode on to Nivelles. Arriving there about 4 p.m., he made towards the sound of the guns at Quatre Bras. Only then was he despatched to Braine with orders for the Reserve Cavalry to move to Quatre Bras.⁷³ De Lancey first ordered the Reserve Cavalry to march on Braine that morning, so he must have know where he sent the orders, how long it was going to take for them to get there and how long it would be before these troops could arrive. As Wellington either personally instructed De Lancey to write these orders or wrote them himself, then both of them must have known the true situation.

The Brunswick Corps took up cantonments near Vilvoorde to the north of Brussels, while the Duke of Brunswick set up his headquarters in Laeken. At 10 p.m. on 15 June 1815, Wellington’s first orders of the day arrived, instructing the Corps to assemble. Sometime later, the ‘After Orders’ arrived, instructing the Brunswickers to march the next day to Waterloo, where they were to await further orders. The Corps marched off in the early hours of 16 June, and then halted at its destination near the village of Waterloo. It had a good 40 km to cover that day, marching along the same road as Picton, behind 5th Division that moved at an average of 2.5 km an hour.

About an hour after he passed them on his way to Quatre Bras, Wellington ordered the Corps to Genappe, where it was to hold this chokepoint on the road from Brussels to Quatre Bras. Captain von Sichart, an officer in the Corps mentioned, ‘It must have been two o’clock when the Corps, when the Corps received orders to move urgently to Quatre Bras and it marched off immediately.’⁷⁴ As Genappe was about half an hour’s ride from Quatre Bras for a despatch rider, the order for the Brunswickers to move up must have left Quatre Bras around 1.30 p.m. As Wellington had left Quatre Bras for his meeting with Blücher about midday, it could not have been the Duke who issued the order, but probably the Prince of Orange, who was then the senior commander on the ground. Its advanced elements reached Quatre Bras at 3.30 p.m. The whole corps was only concentrated there by 7 p.m.⁷⁵ This part of the reserve was not ‘beyond Waterloo and marching to Genappe’ at 7 a.m. as De Lancey apparently claimed and as Wellington had clearly seen.

The Nassauers had yet to move off, doing so at 9 a.m.⁷⁶ They too were beyond Brussels at the time De Lancey was apparently saying they were merely ‘beyond Waterloo’, and arrived at Quatre Bras at 8 p.m., after the fighting had finished. Again, Wellington had instructed De Lancey to send the Nassauers their marching orders. Both had ridden down the Brussels to Namur road that morning, and had seen what allied troops were already south of Brussels. The Nassauers wore blue uniforms that were clearly distinct from the British redcoats. Both must have known the Nassauers  were not south of Brussels, were certainly not ‘beyond Waterloo’ and could not be at Genappe ‘at midday’.

The question that arises after this comparative analysis of the ‘Disposition’ with the real situation, and with both De Lancey’s and Wellington’s knowledge of the current positions of their forces, is just why did De Lancey compose a document that was for the most part fictional and why did he then, apparently, present it to his commander who was also versed in the real situation? There is no logical reason for De Lancey to have written this document at 7 a.m. on 15 June, and equally, there is no logical reason why Wellington would have based his Frasnes letter on it. As, by 7 a.m. on 16 June, Wellington had not ordered a single man to march to Quatre Bras and did not start doing so until after 11 a.m., then it was not possible for De Lancey to have written a document at 7 a.m. showing so much of the army ‘marching to Quatre Bras’. As much of the army was ordered to that point later that day, and the next, then the ‘De Lancey Disposition’ must have been written at a later time and date. Thus, Wellington could not have based the Frasnes letter on it.

On the whole, the ‘Disposition’ presents the concentration of Wellington’s army as much more advanced than it actually was. To that extent, it supports the Duke’s misleading letter to Blücher. Like the ‘Disposition’, the description of the Frasnes letter as to the positions of the army is only in part correct. Most misleading was the claim that Hill was already at Braine-le-Comte. This corps, furthest from the front, would only be able to concentrate there the next day. By claiming it was so near to the front, Wellington was implying to the Prussians that most of his army was going to be available at Quatre Bras that day, and these misleading claims would clearly make Blücher reconsider his wish to fight only a rearguard action with but one or two of his corps at Ligny that day.