Wouldn't this be a lot easier to accomplish if you have Napoleon win decisively at Quatre Bras?
Don't the Hannoverians include quite a few KGL veterans? They'll hold together.
A lot of Belgians will already deserted Wellington's main army. hose of he Hal Detachment might hold together for a little longer but many of them will be of little military value being militiaand West/Indian/East Indian troops. Nevertheless, Wellington my have to use the Hal Detachment in an attempt to cover his retreat once Blucher is defeated on the 19th which is pretty much certain. It depends how badly Blucher loses.
After that we will be seeing Napoleon march on Brussels and probably wll pursue Wellington to Antwerp or Ostende. The British contingent will hold together but probably not the remnants of the Dutch Belgians, Brunswickers, Hannoverians and Nassauers.
apoleon will oly have a few more days o complete his Belgian campaign before he will have to confront the other coalition armies now approaching France's eastern borders. However, he can still snatch a really decisive victory in Belgium, destroying a large part of the Prussian and British field armies. Should Napoleon catch Wellington again before the Royal Navy can evacuate him the British field army on the continent may ell be destroyed. That could well cause a financial crisis and quite possibly he fall of Lord Liverpool's government. That would be very bad news for the 7th Coalition.
Wouldn't this be a lot easier to accomplish if you have Napoleon win decisively at Quatre Bras?
Napoleon could have won Waterloo.
Oh, I agree. My point was though, I think you give Napoleon a lot better chance of getting out of there with the maximum amount of his army in one piece as possible if he just crushes the Prussians and British at Qatre Bras and Ligny.
It's your story and I know you don't take any counter arguments so I'll leave you to this one
For Napoleon to win I think everything has to go extremely right and then a lot of luck needs to happen to him, but I don't necessarily think it's ASB.
Though the reinforcements would have been welcome, the likelihood of Wellington's army being mauled sufficiently badly to need full replacement is extremely low. So much ink has been spilled praising the defensive strengths of the front of the position that little has remained to talk about how well the Foret de Soignes would have facilitated a retreat had Wellington been forced to make one. However, Jomini concluded:Britain is shipping its troops from that campaign back home, and could use those as the nucleus for a replacement army in Europe.
If Louis Berthier had not died but instead had live to join Napoleon for the campaign things might have gone a lot better for the Emperor. There would not have been the confusion that took place. Also Marshal Soult probably would have commanded the forces at Quartre De braz and might very well have taken the cross roads> Thus the campaign might have started with two smashing victories. Ney would have been given the task of finishing off the Prussians.
Though the reinforcements would have been welcome, the likelihood of Wellington's army being mauled sufficiently badly to need full replacement is extremely low. So much ink has been spilled praising the defensive strengths of the front of the position that little has remained to talk about how well the Foret de Soignes would have facilitated a retreat had Wellington been forced to make one. However, Jomini concluded:
"Would an army with its rear resting upon a forest, and with a good road behind the centre and each wing, have its retreat compromised, as Napoleon imagined, if it should lose the battle? ...the infantry and cavalry and a great part of the artillery could retire just as readily as across a plain. There is, indeed, no better cover for an orderly retreat than a forest- this statement being made upon the supposition that there are two good roads behind the line, that proper measures for retreat have been taken before the enemy has had an opportunity to press too closely, and, finally, that the enemy is not permitted by a flank movement to be before the retreating enemy at the outlet of the forest, as was the case at Hohenlinden. The retreat would be the more secure if, as at Waterloo, the forest formed a concave line behind the centre; for this re-entering would become a place of arms to receive the troops and give them time to pass off in succession on the main roads." (Jomini, The Art of War)
I'd imagine a defeat would also have caused Britain to declare war on France and call out the militia, something which wasn't done historically, thus freeing up regular troops in Britain for service in Belgium.
As far as personnel changes are concerned, Napoleon should not have left Davout in Paris. If we can imagine an army with Bertier still alive as chief-of-staff, with corps under Davout, Soult, and Ney, I would expect Napoleon to do much better.
Murat had offered his services to Napoleon, when he realized that the Allies were not going to honor the deal they had made with him in 1814 and after the fiasco that was the Battle of Toletino. The man might have been a buffoon and politically inept, but there was no man better to lead a cavalry charge. Having him as a cavalry commander at Waterloo would have done Napoleon a world of good.
That was my first thought.Based on the Napoleon loses at Wagram thread I confidently predict nothing will change whatsoever and WW1 will still begin in August 1914