The Prussian army was mainly composed of veterans; even of the youngest soldiers most had seen service in 1813 or 1814. The corps-commanders were experienced officers, though only one of them, Bülow, had ever had an independent command. Bülow had in 1813 won the battle of Dennewitz against Marshal Ney. The troops were certainly not so inured to war as were those of Napoleon’s army, nor were they so well led; but they knew their trade, and were prepared for battle. Blücher himself was a veteran of the Seven Years’ War. He had seen more than fifty years of service. In the campaigns of 1806 and 1807 he had displayed conspicuous zeal and courage. In those of 1813 and 1814, although too old and infirm to assume all the tasks which ordinarily devolve on an army-commander, he had yet, with the assistance of his chief-of-staff, markedly increased his reputation. Nevertheless no one considered him a general of a high order of talent. His conceptions of strategy were crude and imperfect, and his blunders caused his command to be more than once badly defeated by Napoleon in the winter campaign in France in 1814. But Blücher was a thorough soldier, active, daring and resolute, and never was afraid of taking responsibility. He was moreover a great favorite with the army. He was animated by an almost insane hatred of Napoleon, and he entered on the work assigned to him by the allied powers with an eager determination that bordered upon ferocity. This spirit of his infused itself into the army;[48] every man was ready to fight, and every man expected to beat in the end. His chief-of-staff, Gneisenau, was an able administrator, and relieved the old field-marshal from all attention to details. The army commanded by the Duke of Wellington was a very heterogeneous body of troops. Although nominally divided into corps, after the fashion of the armies of the continent, this arrangement, being one which had never been adopted by the Duke before, was only imperfectly[49] practised in the campaign of 1815. We shall get a better idea of the strength of Wellington’s forces if we enumerate them according to their different nationalities. Leaving out the troops employed on garrison duty at Antwerp, Ostend, Ghent and other places, estimated at 12,233 men,[50] we find the forces available for the field to have been thus composed:— British: Nine brigades of infantry,— Maitland (Guards),—Byng (Guards),— Adam,—Mitchell,—Halkett,— Johnstone,—Kempt,—Pack,—Lambert 20,310 Men Three brigades of cavalry,— Somerset (Guards),—Ponsonby,—Vandeleur 3,578 „ Six regiments contained in four brigades Dörnberg,—Grant,—Vivian,—Arentsschildt,— composed of British troops and those of the King’s German Legion 2,335 „ Artillery,—102 guns 5,030 „ ------ Total British force, 31,253 „