For the first time ever the most detailed reconstruction is presented on the continuous fighting during the battle of Quatre Bras in the Bois de Bossu. The wood formed the stronghold in the tactical plan devised in the morning prior to the battle by General Perponcher and Colonel von Sachsen-Weimar. It was the secure flank the troops fighting in the fields needed.
Often negelected in histories on the battle, the author has been able to reconstruct the various scenes and fighting in the wood in detail, based on numerous accounts and memoirs.
Twice French forces attacked and gained ground, but two strong counterattacks under the commands of von Sachsen-Weimar and Colonel van Zuylen van Nyevelt each time threw them out to their starting positions south of the Bois de Bossu. The Nassau battalions and several militia battalions were assisted in these counterattacks by the Gelernte Jäger and Avant-Garde batalions from the Brunswick Contingent advancing immediately east of the wood. A simultaneous attack by British battalions from General Picton's division threw back the division of Général Bachelu to the hamlet Piraumont.
Only around six o'clock in the late afternoon the French forces were once again able to advance for a third time in the Bois de Bossu, before the British Guards Division commanded by General Cooke finally forced them out in the evening.
Read all about it in the next volume 'Quatre Bras, Perponcher's gamble' which shows the Netherlands troops fought much longer in the Bois de Bossu, than has ever before been presented.