INTRODUCTION. My sole object in publishing the following bulletins is to preserve to future times the particulars of the great battle to which they relate, as given by the respective governments whose troops were engaged in it-a battle the most remarkable of modern times, whether we consider the greatness of the contending nations, the fame of the generals on both sides, or the importance of the results. Besides giving the bulletins in their original languages, I have given translations of them into English, for the convenience of such of my countrymen as may not be conversant with the languages of the continent; and, for the accommodation of the continental nations, I have given a translation of the Duke of Wellington's bulletin into French. There are two of the bulletins which I have not been able to procure in any other than the English language—that of Russia and that of Austria. As I am not a military man, I have not permitted myself to make a single comment, though an attentive reader will, doubtless, find much to observe in them. Gray's Inn, March 12th, 1849. J. P. BURRELL. CONTENTS. 14 ditto 67 by order of Field-Marshal Prince Blücher THE WATERLOO DISPATCHES. Downing-street, June 22. Major the Honourable H. Percy arrived late last night with a dispatch from Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington, K.G., to Earl Bathurst, his Majesty's principal Secretary of State for the War Department, of which the following is a copy : Waterloo, June 19, 1815. MY LORD,-Buonaparte having collected the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 6th corps of the French army and the Imperial Guards, and nearly all the cavalry on the Sambre, and between that river and the Meuse, between the 10th and 14th of the month, advanced on the 15th, and attacked the Prussian posts of Thuin and Lobez, on the Sambre, at daylight in the morning. I did not hear of these events till the evening of the 15th, and I immediately ordered the troops to prepare to march; and afterwards to march to their left, as soon as I had intelligence from other quarters to prove that the enemy's movement upon Charleroy was the real attack. The enemy drove the Prussian posts from the Sambre on that day; and General Zeiten, who commanded the corps which had been at Charleroy, retired upon Fleurus; and Marshal Prince Blucher concentrated the Prussian army upon Sambref, holding the villages in front of his position of St. Amand and Ligny. The enemy continued his march along the road from Charleroy towards Bruxelles, and on the same evening, the 15th, attacked a brigade of the army of the Netherlands, under the Prince de Weimar, posted at Frasne, and forced it back to the farm-house on the same road, called Les Quatre Bras. B |