must have further
concluded that to linger upon that part of the Brussels road which was
nearest the Emperor's forthcoming action to the east by Ligny would be
good policy in case the Emperor should have need of him there.

On the night of the 15th Ney himself was at Frasnes, while the furthest of
his detachments was no nearer than the bridge of Thuin over the Sambre,
sixteen miles away. The rough sketch printed opposite will show how very
long that line was, considering the nearness of the strategical point
Quatre Bras, which it was his next business to occupy. The Second Army
Corps under Reille was indeed fairly well moved up, and all in the
neighbourhood of Gosselies by the night between Thursday 15th and Friday
16th of June. But the other half of the force, the First Army Corps under
Erlon, was strung out over miles of road behind.

To concentrate all those 50,000 men, half of them spread out over so much
space, meant a day's ordinary marching; and one would have thought that
Ney should have begun to concentrate before night fell upon the 15th. He
remembered, however, that the men were fatigued, he thought he had plenty
of time before him, and he did not effect their concentration. The mass of
the Second Army Corps (Reille's) was, as I have said, near Gosselies on
the Friday dawn; but Erlon, with the First Army Corps, was not in
disposition to bring the bulk of it up by the same time. He could not
expect to be near Quatre Bras till noon or one o'clock. But even to this
element of delay, due to his lack of precision, Ney added further delay,
due to slackness in orders.

[Illustration]

It was eleven o'clock on the morning of that Friday the 16th before Ney
sent a definite order to Reille to march; it was _twelve_ before the head
of that Second Army Corps set out up the great road to cover the four or
five miles that separated them from Ney's headquarters at Frasnes. Erlon,
lying next behind Reille, could not advance until Reille's last division
had taken the road. So Erlon, with the First Army Corps, was not in column
and beginning his advance with his head troops until after one o'clock.

At about half-past one, then, we have the first troops of Reille's army
corps reaching Ney at Frasnes, its tail-end some little way out of
Gosselies; while at the same hour we have Erlon's First Army Corps
marching in column through Gosselies.

It would have been perfectly possible, at the expense of a little fatigue
to t