This disk contains the programmes on: Campaign Background Napoleon returns from exile in Elba, quickly re-establishes himself in Paris and begins re raising his Army. The team look at the state of preparedness of the Allies and the French and examine their respective plans. The route of Napoleons Army is followed across the Belgian boarder to the first engagements astride the River Sambre and into the defiles north of Charleroi. Quatre Bras With Wellington being famously humbugged by Napoleons deception and with the Prince of Oranges Chief of Staff ignoring Wellingtons instructions to fall back the battle of Quatre Bras built from a skirmish into a full scale battle that would be one of the Great Dukes foremost battle if it had not been overshadowed by Waterloo two days later. The battle begins with a steadfast defence by Dutch Belgian and German Allies and saw British troops forced marching to the vita cross roads as Wellington realised his error. The battle fought on a narrow font was a bloody business with the British being thrown into combat as they arrived to support the Prince of Oranges exhausted troops but at nightfall the battle died down into stalemate as the French fell back to their bivouacs. Ligny Marshal Blucher stood and offered battle in the villages and on the heights above the Ligny Brook, believing that he had a promise of support from Wellington. Napoleon duly attacked and committed his troops to a frontal assault on St Armand expecting DErlons 20,000 man strong I Corps to fall on the Prussian flank but someone had blundered! The vital corps spent the day marching and countermarching between the Quatre Bras and Ligny battlefields, as contradictory orders were issued by Napoleons staff and Marshal Ney. The fighting was at its bloodiest in the Village of Ligny but as the darkness fell and lightning lanced out of dark rain clouds Napoleon released the Imperial Guard and a whole corps of cavalry into the attack around the village. The aging Blucher was pinned beneath his horse as he desperately urged his men to hold the heights above Ligny. The Prussians though were beaten but not defeated and withdrew to the north from the scene of Napoleons last victory to regroup.