[qwertyuiop1234]

Whether or not Wellington promised to come to Blücher's aid at Ligny is debatable. Hofschröer claims he did. You can't call it revisionism because he was simply stating his view. Ask 10 people today who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, 9 wouldn't even know Prussians were there.

Wellington has always reserved the option to retreat from the sea. That's why he left 10000+ reserve to cover the retreat path in case things go wrong at Waterloo. From Prussian point of view 1) they just lost a battle badly at Ligny 2) Wellington said he'd come but he didn't 3) Wellington could escape from sea in which case Prussians will surely be crushed facing French alone. Wellington does deserve credit but I would say Blücher's courage to trust his teammate and meet Wellington at Waterloo is more respectable. It's not a overstatement that it's a German victory.

Napoleon's biggest mistake is giving his marshals wrong tasks. He left his best marshal Davout in Paris while hoping Grouchy who just got promoted marshal to carry the weight to chase down Blücher. Grouchy is OK with carrying out orders but not so great at reacting to situation. Despite Gérard repeated asking to 'march to the sound of the guns', he decided to follow previous order and chase Prussians in the wrong direction. Although he didn't have too much of a choice, Davout is the only one whose loyalty is questionable. He didn't want what happened at Fontainebleau to repeat so he had to keep Davout at home. And then he used Soult for staff work who did a very sloppy job. The lack of information and misinformation may have well cost the battle.

[AnimalMuppet]

> Wellington said he'd come but he didn't

Wellington said he'd come if he wasn't attacked himself, but he didn't because he was attacked. That's rather different than what you said.