Charles Étienne de Ghigny (14 January 1771 – 1 December 1844) commanded a Kingdom of the Netherlands light cavalry brigade at the Battle of Waterloo.

[7] As part of the French strategy for the spring of 1794, Desjardins' Right Wing joined with Louis Charbonnier's Army of the Ardennes to form the 60,000-man right prong of a two-prong stroke against the Coalition.

[13] Though it was not immediately realized, the subsequent Coalition retreat meant that Fleurus was the decisive battle of the Flanders Campaign.

[15] The following year, the regiment was in Jean Etienne Championnet's division,[16] whose rear guard was led by Louis Klein at Amberg on 24 August 1796.

[3] At the start of the War of the Fifth Coalition in 1809, the 1st, 2nd and 12th Chasseurs à Cheval were in Charles Claude Jacquinot's brigade in Louis-Pierre Montbrun's Light Cavalry Division in Davout's III Corps.

[23] Jacquinot's brigade was detached from Davout and added to a provisional corps led by Marshal Jean Lannes.

On 20 April 1809, the force under Lannes drove the Austrian left wing back 10 miles (16 km) in the Battle of Abensberg.

Finally, Emmanuel Grouchy's dragoon division routed the Austrian horsemen, allowing Davout's infantry to resume its advance.

[1] At the Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro on 3–5 May 1811, the 12th Chasseurs were in Pierre Watier's cavalry brigade with a strength of nine officers and 172 troopers.

[28] Before advancing to the relief of Almeida, Masséna's army absorbed large numbers of infantry replacements into its depleted ranks, but the cavalry and artillery were very weak due to heavy losses of horses in Portugal.

[29] Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bessières reinforced Masséna with 30 artillery gun teams and two weak cavalry brigades, including Watier's, that counted 1,700 horsemen at most.

[36] The regiment was engaged at the Battle of Leipzig on 16–19 October as part of the 7th Light Cavalry Brigade in Roussel d'Hurbal's division.

[40] At the Battle of Fere-Champenoise on 25 March, Roussel d'Hurbal and Ghigny were commanded by Augustin Daniel Belliard in Mortier's corps.

After the Allied cavalry attacked Marshal Auguste de Marmont's force early in the morning, Mortier marched to join his colleague.

When the Russian cavalry threatened to turn the left flank, Ghigny was pulled back behind a stream, facing northeast.

At 2:00 pm while the French troops were crossing a streambed, a powerful rainstorm struck, blinding them and wetting their gunpowder.

[42] While the two marshals were heavily engaged, an Allied army corps under Louis Alexandre Andrault de Langeron approached Belliard's positions.

The badly outmatched French cavalry, including Ghigny's and two other march regiments rapidly retreated up the Montmartre Heights.

Durutte's routed brigade fled behind an infantry square from the VI Corps which Ghigny's horsemen charged without success.

[46] British officers branded the Dutch-Belgian cavalry as cowards based on an incident later recalled by Henry Paget, Earl of Uxbridge.

[1] A sepia print from the 1800s shows Ghigny in a dark military coat with epaulettes and a single row of buttons on the front.