Copied from User talk:Gsl
I have a few nitpicks:
- There's no scale!
- The Prussian movements on 18 June seem to be missing. There ought to be some indication of how the Prussians got to Waterloo.
- The Prussian movement of 17 June (am) looks to me like a retreat, not an advance.
- I think there's room to put the actual dates on the map, perhaps "15a", "15p", "16a", etc instead of "1", "2", "3" etc; this would reduce the amount of referring back and forth to the key.
- The Prussian uniforms were black, not green!
- There's a line of grey dots and a line of black dashes. What are these?
- You ought to have a key for the symbols for cavalry, infantry, headquarters etc (the general reader is unlikely to know these conventions) or alternatively make a Wikipedia page about military map conventions and link to it from the image caption.
Gdr 11:52, 2004 Oct 13 (UTC)
Some answers and more questions:
- I shall add a scale
- The source map I based mine on clearly shows this move as French however the text says that "On hearing of the calamity [at Waterloo], Grouchy, victorious at Wavre, executed an exemplary withdrawal to France." So did any of Grouchy's French force move from Wavre to Waterloo on 18 June AM? Or should this move actually be the Prussians?
- I don't know the who, what or why of this move. The text says "Blucher was 'damnably mauled' and driven eastwards" following Ligny but elsewhere it says he retreated on a parallel course to the Anglo-Dutch withdrawing from Quatre-Bras which shows as the 16 June PM retreat towards Wavre.
- I am unconvinced but will give dates a try.
- I shall change the Prussian colour scheme to black.
- The dashed black line is the army boundary between the Anglo-Dutch and Prussians. I shall note it in the key. I have no idea what the grey dotted line is. It isn't the Sambre (which runs through Maubeuge and Charleroi) and it doesn't conform to the current French-Belgian border so I shall remove it.
- I shall expand the key.
Other things I am not clear on:
- Who is making the 16 June AM (3) move from Brussels to Waterloo? Is this Picton's Reserve Corps?
- How do Hill's and Uxbridge's corps get from their 16 June PM (4) positions to Waterloo?
- What is the timing of the Prussian (Ziethen's I Corps) and French (Gerard's IV Corps) moves from Charleroi/Chatelet to Ligny?
- The looping move east-to-west south-east of Quatre-Bras (shown as a Prussian retreat) has always confused me. In the source map, it is in the same format as the retreats from Ligny to Wavre and from Quatre-Bras to Waterloo so I assumed it was some sort of retreat. However I wonder if it is meant to depict D'Erlon's French I Corps (the text says of 16 June "an entire [French] army corps spent the day marching between the two battlefields without interfering on either"). In which case, what is the un-timed French move direct from Ligny to Quatre-Bras.
- If Grouchy had the French III and IV Corps and some cavalry at Wavre, does that mean the three unnumbered French corps on the road to Waterloo (17 June PM (6) move) are French I, II and VI Corps?
I would like to sort out these issues before I attempt to revise the map. Geoff/Gsl 07:37, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
To answer your questions:
- Yes, Zieten, Pirch and Bülow reached Waterloo in the evening of June 18. Grouchy (with Vandamme and Gerard) stayed to fight Thielman at Wavre and did not get to Waterloo.
- After Ligny the Prussians retreated in some disarray. Certainly some retreated east. Grouchy described the Prussians as moving in two columns. But I can't find a reference that says which Prussian corps was where on June 17th.
- I'm not convinced about dates either. Maybe best to stick to numbers.
- The 16 June am move from Brussels to Waterloo may be Picton, who reached Quatre-Bras on the afternoon of the 16th.
- Uxbridge was at Quatre-Bras and was the rearguard in the retreat to Waterloo
- Hill's corps was scattered across the Belgian border and took some time to concentrate. I don't know when it got to Waterloo.
- Zieten retreated from Charleroi to Fleurus on the evening of 15 June and then to Ligny on 16 June; Gerard advanced on Ligny in the morning of 16 June.
- It was d'Erlon's I corps that due to poor communication spent 16 June marching towards Ligny and then back to Quatre-Bras.
- Yes, the French I, II and VI corps all bivouacked at Mont-St-Jean on the night of the 17th and fought at Waterloo on the 18th.
Gdr 10:45, 2004 Oct 20 (UTC)
Here's my best guess as to the positions and movements of the various corps (advances in bold, retreats in italics):
| Formation | 15a | 15p | 16a | 16p | 17a | 17p | 18a | 18p |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Orange (I) | Q,... | →Q | Q | Q | →W | W | W | W |
| Hill (II) | E,N,... | ? | ? | ? | ? | W | W | W |
| Uxbridge | ? | ? | →Q | Q | Q | →W | W | W |
| Zieten (I) | M,C,... | →F | →L | L | →w? | w? | →S? | →W |
| Pirch (II) | ? | ? | →L | L | →w? | w? | →S? | →W |
| Thielman (III) | ? | ? | →L | L | →w | w | w | w |
| Bülow (IV) | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | →S | →W |
| D'Erlon (I) | →M | →Q | Q | →L→Q | Q | →m | →W | W |
| Reille (II) | →M | →Q | Q | Q | Q | →m | →W | W |
| Vandamme (III) | →C | C | →L | L | L | →G | →w | w |
| Gerard (IV) | →C | C | →L | L | L | →G | →w | w |
| Lobau (VI) | →C | C | ? | ? | ? | →m | →W | W |
| Grouchy | →C | C | →L | L | L | →G | →w | w |
Key
- C = Charleroi
- E = Enghien
- F = Fleurus
- G = Gembloux
- L = Ligny
- M = Marchienne
- m = Mont-St-Jean
- N = Nivelles
- Q = Quatre-Bras
- S = Saint-Lambert
- W = Waterloo
- w = Wavre
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