The “Disposition” states that the 2d and 3d divisions of the Army of the Low Countries were at Nivelles and Quatre Bras at 7 A.M. This was not true of the 3d division, Chassé’s, which did not assemble at Nivelles till near noon.[242] The 2d division, Perponcher’s, as we have seen, was at Quatre Bras at 7 A.M. As for the statement in the “Disposition” that Major General Dörnberg’s brigade and the Cumberland Hussars were “beyond Waterloo” at 7 A.M., it certainly was far from correct. Dörnberg had been directed by an order sent off from Brussels between 5 and 7 P.M. of the 15th to retire his brigade from the neighborhood of Mons to Vilvorde, a town seven miles north of Brussels. He could not have reached Vilvorde, which is a distance of forty-five miles, until late in the afternoon. As for the “remainder of the cavalry,” which was stationed in and near Ninove, it not only was not at Braine-le-Comte at 7 A.M., as stated in the “Disposition,” but it did not receive the first order,—sent off from Brussels about 10 o’clock in the evening of the 15th,—until shortly before six in the morning.[243] It was therefore only an hour’s march from Ninove on its way to Enghien at seven o’clock. It did not reach the field till “the evening was far advanced and the conflict had ceased.”[244] Nor could Kruse’s Nassau brigade have passed Waterloo at 7 A.M., as stated in the “Disposition,” _en route_ for Genappe, for it did not arrive at Quatre Bras in season to take part in the action. We have been at some pains to lay the facts in regard to this “Disposition” before the reader, because it certainly is the most misleading statement ever drawn up “for the information” of a commanding general. No thought seems to have been given either to the time at which the orders could be received, or to the time required to carry them out. An officer of sufficient experience in war to occupy the post of chief-of-staff to the Duke of Wellington ought certainly to have been quite competent to give to his commanding officer an estimate of the probable positions at any given time of the various divisions of the army, on which it would be safe to rely.[245] 2. Whether, if such an estimate had been made, Wellington would have stayed at Quatre Bras, may be a question, but he probably would have risked it, as he evidently did not suppose the French to be in great force in his front, and it was obviously of prime importance to retain his communications with Blücher, if possible.