A FORGO'T'TEN BATTLEFIELD [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—After
a recent visit to the field of Waterloo, where I found that the principal change there consisted in the erection of a large panorama of the battle, close to the Lion's Mound, I decided to pay a visit to Quatre Bras, the scene of the first encounter between Napoleon's troops and the British on June 16th, 1815, as I learned that an electric tram service did the journey from the Place de Rouppe, Brussels, in two hours.
What was my astonishment when the tram stopped at the celebrated village, or rather carrefour, of Quatre Bras, to be informed at the solitary tavern by the innkeeper that I need expect nothing in the shape of sightseeing in that quarter ! In fact he tried to persuade me that no battle had been fought there, though his father did remember British troops being encamped for a time previous to the retirement to Waterloo.
I had fully expected to find a monument similar, perhaps, to the one I saw when a boy at Minden, Westphalia, which commemorates the participation of the British in 1757 in the Seven Years' War ; and as a matter of fact Baedeker does state that a cenotaph was erected at the spot where the Duke of Brunswick fell during the,engagement of 1815.
Though no doubt the crowning victory of the Allies at Waterloo has been the means of eclipsing the memory of the lesser success at Quatre Bras, that sanguinary fight in which our foreign allies, Dutch, Brunswick and Nassau troops, held the enemy in check till the arrival of Sir Thomas Picton, and later of the Guards, enabled Wellington to drive Marshal Ney's forces out of the Bois de Rosso back to Frasnes ; and proved that even the veterans of the First Empire were not invincible. Mr. E. L. S. Horsburgh in his monograph on the campaign of 1815 considers that this result together with the Prussian defeat at Ligny induceel Gneisenau, who had succeeded to the command of the Prussian army through Blucher's injuries, to order his retreat parallel to the British retirement on Brussels so as to align himself at the earliest opportunity with Wellington's left wing ; a very wise decision as things turned out.
There are already monuments at Mont St. Jean to British Hanoverians and other German allies, to Dutch and Belgians, as weii as at the memorial chapel at Waterloo ; to Prussians at Plancenoit, and to the French at La Belle Alliance, but at the present day, as far sal could gather, only a conspicuous white signpost at the " Four Arms " serves to mark the place where the two opposing armies first came to blows about an
hour indeed before the disastrous battle of Ligny began Surely a suitable monument might be put up to indicate to th curious and passers-by the historic significance of the groan on which they tread, say like the one to the Guards at Villers- Cotterets, near Senlis. The innkeeper's remark to me about a Scots regiment having bivouacked at Quatre Bras after the Armistice shows how the stupendous events of the Great War have wellnigh obliterated all recollection of the stirring times connected with the final overthrow of Napoleon in the redoubtable " cockpit of modern Europe."
I may add, in conclusion, that I have a slight personal interest in the matter, seeing that my family was acquainted with the widow of Colonel John Cameron of the 92nd Regiment, who was killed at Quatre Bras.—I am, Sir, &c., N. W. H.
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