16th June - Quatre Bras

The 16th June 1815 saw the battle of Quatre Bras when Wellington and the French had a nasty little encounter with many casualties. It was a prelude to the more famous Waterloo but was bloody enough for anybody's taste.
A strange, untidy encounter at a cross roads, Quatre Bras was a reminder to both sides that neither would back down. Wellington's infamous army was composed of half a dozen nationalities some units of whom had fought for Bonaparte in the previous wars. Coming after twenty-two years of virtually unremitting warfare, the battles of 1815 found men tired of bloodshed.