two
o'clock in the afternoon
It was well for the allies that Napoleon was not in a position to attack in force at daybreak . His troops , instead of being concentrated the night before at Fleurus , were scattered over a considerable extent of country , and many of them were still beyond the Sambre . Marshal Ney , who had been appointed to the command of the corps , intended to push through Quatre Bras and march straight on Brussels , had only arrived the evening before , and was ignorant of the position of the various divisions under his command . Therefore it was not until two o'clock in the afternoon that Napoleon advanced with sixty thousand men to attack the Prussians at Ligny , while at about the same hour the column under Ney advanced from Frasnes against Quatre Bras . The delay was fatal to Napoleon 's plans . Had the battles commenced at daybreak , Ney could have brushed aside the defenders of Quatre Bras , and would have been at Mount St. Jean by the time the English came up . The Prussians would have been beaten by noon instead of at dusk , and before nightfall their retreat would have been converted into a rout , and on the following day Napoleon 's whole army would have been in a position to have fallen upon the only British divisions that Wellington could by that time have collected to oppose him , and would probably have been in possession of Brussels before night .