Bras on his return from Brye, at about half-past two o’clock. If Alten’s division was at Nivelles at 7 A.M., _en route_ for Quatre Bras, it should have arrived there before noon. The reserves, which marching from Brussels for Quatre Bras, had by 7 A.M. nearly reached Waterloo, ought to be at Quatre Bras, which is not over eleven miles further, by 2 or 3 P.M. If the cavalry was actually at Braine-le-Comte at 9 A.M. it might well be at Nivelles by noon, and at Quatre Bras, only seven miles further, by 3 P.M. Cooke might be expected about the same time, with his division of Guards. These expectations were no doubt in the mind of the Duke of Wellington as he rode back to Quatre Bras from his meeting with Marshal Blücher. The theory advanced, or perhaps suggested, by the Prussian biographer of Gneisenau, Delbrück,[235] that the Duke misrepresented the position of his army for the purpose of inducing Blücher to give battle at Ligny on the strength of his promise to support him, and of his ability to keep his promise, so that he, Wellington, might gain the necessary time for the concentration of his army, has not, in our judgment, anything to support it.[236] The truth plainly is, that the Duke was himself entirely deceived by the statement drawn up for his information by his chief-of-staff. He took it for granted that the troops were where they were stated to be, and made his dispositions accordingly. He was destined thereby not only to be greatly disappointed, but to incur imminent danger of defeat. For, as a matter of fact, many of his divisions were at seven that morning nowhere near the positions assigned them in Colonel De Lancey’s Memorandum. We shall refer to this matter in another place; suffice it to say now that the Duke’s reinforcements came on the field very much later than he had reason to expect; that the allied troops were for a couple of hours or so in a very precarious situation, and would without doubt have been disastrously defeated had Napoleon’s orders been carried out. FOOTNOTES: [230] Müffling (Passages, p. 230) says about 5. Mudford puts it at 7. Gardner, p. 58, at 8. Sir A. Frazer (Letters of Colonel Sir A. S. Frazer, London, 1859, p. 536), writes at 6 A.M., that he has “just learned that the Duke moves in half an hour.” The Duke had 22 miles to ride to arrive at Quatre Bras, and he got there about 10 A.M. His letter to Blücher is dated 10.30 A.M. Oldfield (MSS.) puts the time of the Duke’s departure as before that of Sir George Wood and Lieutenant Colonel Smyth, who “drove out in a calêche of the latter” “between seven and eight o’clock,” and soon after the departure of the Brunswick troops, which was “at an early hour.” [231] Oldfield, MSS. [232] Von Ollech, p. 125. Maurice, June, 1890, p. 257. App. C, xvi; _post_, pp. 376, 377. [233] Charras, vol. 1, p. 192, note, refers to it to show that Wellington was opposite Frasnes at 10.30 A.M., but he makes no other reference to it.