None the less, the Prussian leader plainly and brusquely considers that he was guilty of culpable slowness in concentrating after the French had attacked Ziethen’s outposts on the Sambre on the 15th June, and charges him with dilatoriness in issuing the necessary orders on the receipt of the intelligence that the Prussian outposts were so engaged, and with want of loyalty to his Prussian allies in not rendering them active assistance at Ligny. The two first of these may be dismissed without comment. They were matters of opinion, and, rightly or wrongly, Wellington took his own view regarding them, and must abide, like other men, by his acts, and submit to honest criticism. But the last is more serious, for it is not only stated that Ligny would _not_ have been fought, had it not been for Wellington’s asserted promise to help, but that he promised in case of disaster to fall back, with a portion of the army at least, with Blucher to the Rhine. Gneisenau’s charge is both venomous and explicit. He compares his own impression with the want of cordial feeling that undoubtedly frequently existed between the duke and the Spanish generals in the Peninsula; but this is such an _ex parte_ statement as to merit little rejoinder. The evidence of every officer who shared in the glories and troubles of the Peninsular campaigns bears full testimony to the jealousy, and want even of courtesy, sometimes shown by the Spaniards, both towards the army that was fighting for the deliverance of the country and the chief who commanded it. It was not Wellington only who experienced this difficulty of operating with the Spanish allies of the British. Lord Lynedoch[45] very fully supports the accusation of incompetency, jealousy, and uncordiality against the Spanish generals. After the battle of Barrosa, his letters and despatches refer frequently to his own difficulties with them; and as a general officer acting somewhat independently of the principal British army, his corroboration of the generally received opinion is valuable and trustworthy. It is unjust in the extreme to draw any comparison between the want of unanimity that frequently existed in Spain, and the enforced inability of Wellington to come to the assistance of Blucher on the field of Ligny. But Wellington wrote a letter, which is quoted in detail in Herr Delbruck’s _Life of Gneisenau_, in which this controversy arises. It runs as follows:-- “SUR LES HAUTEURS DERRIERE FRASNES, _le 16 June 1815, á 10 heures et demi_. “MON CHER PRINCE,--Mon armée est situé comme il suit. Le corps d’armée du Prince d’Orange a une division ici et à Quatre Bras et le reste à Nivelles. La Reserve est en marche de Waterloo sur Genappe, où elle arrivera à midi. La cavalerie Anglaise sera à la même heure à Nivelles. Le corps de Lord Hill est à Braine le Comte.