The allies in fact quickly began to water down their offer. The manifesto issued to the French people on 1 December promised not France’s natural frontiers but ‘an extent of territory greater than France had ever known under its kings, because a courageous nation is not demoted in status simply because it has suffered defeats in a stubborn and bloody war, in which it has fought with its customary boldness’. In part this shift reflected London’s horror at what Aberdeen had agreed. In addition, however, Alexander’s basic belief that military and political events on the ground would determine the peace terms was proving true.23
As the allied armies approached the Dutch border, revolt broke out in the Netherlands. Events followed a pattern very similar to the insurrection in Hamburg and northern Germany in the spring of 1813. Like the citizens of Hamburg, the Dutch had been ruined by Napoleon’s economic policies and longed for liberation. The advance guard of Winzengerode’s Army Corps under Alexander Benckendorff raced across the Netherlands to support the revolt and secure Amsterdam. His infantry – the 2nd Jaegers and the Tula Regiment – covered 60 kilometres in less than thirty-six hours. Benckendorff’s detachment also included a regiment of Bashkirs, exotic and improbable liberators of bourgeois Holland. Benckendorff’s tiny force of fewer than 2,000 men then led the defence of Breda against a French counter-offensive. The earliest French history of the campaign paid tribute to Alexander Benckendorff, saying that he showed courage and initiative even in attempting the defence, let alone in pulling it off.24
Unlike in the previous year at Hamburg, the allies now had large masses of regular troops with which to back up their Cossacks and sustain the revolt. Bülow’s Prussian corps moved into the Netherlands and within weeks had cleared most of the Low Countries. Quite apart from its political impact, the conquest of the Low Countries had important military consequences for the invasion of France. It opened up a possible supply line through rich and untouched country to the coast which allied armies operating in the Paris region could use. It also convinced Napoleon that the allied offensive in the winter of 1813–14 would come in the Low Countries. As a result he moved the best of his meagre reserves northwards.25
Meanwhile the allied leaders were planning an invasion over the Rhine but well to the south. Blücher and Gneisenau argued for an immediate attack while Napoleon’s army was still small and disorganized. Prussian historians subsequently supported this strategy. But the allied armies were also exhausted, hungry and diminished by the autumn campaign. They too needed time to rest and reorganize themselves, and to establish military roads, magazines and hospitals in their rear. During the seven weeks they rested on the Rhine, the allies in fact drew in more and better reinforcements than Napoleon. When they moved forward at the end of the year, eastern France fell to them easily and they still far outnumbered Napoleon’s forces. If the campaign later became more difficult, that had little to do with numbers: it was due to poor leadership and to the way in which political considerations were allowed to sabotage military operations.26
On 9 November Barclay de Tolly submitted his report to the emperor on the state of the Russian army at the close of the autumn campaign. He reckoned that ‘for all our great victories, the present campaign has cost us…half our army’. In some units a much higher proportion of men were no longer in the ranks. ‘Count Wittgenstein’s cavalry does not have even one-quarter of the strength with which it left Silesia’ in late August. Of the five front-line Army Corps only two were still fully viable and ‘look like regular soldiers’. These two were the Grand Duke Constantine’s Guards and Grenadiers of the Reserve Army Corps and Winzengerode’s Army Corps in the Army of the North, ‘which have seen less combat and have suffered less than the others’. In many units of the other three Army Corps (Wittgenstein, Langeron and Sacken) ‘total disorganization’ threatened unless action was taken quickly. ‘The soldiers are suffering from a great shortage of ammunition, and an even greater lack of boots, shirts and tunics.’ In some regiments not more than one hundred men were still in the ranks. Casualties among officers in the autumn campaign had been high and ‘the shortage of officers is the reason why even these small remnants cannot be restored to proper order’. Many other sources, including regimental accounts and Blücher’s reports to Alexander, confirm the picture drawn by Barclay and stress the army’s urgent need for a pause to fill up its ranks, rest its troops, and restock with ammunition, food and equipment.27
During the seven weeks that the Russian army remained on the Rhine the situation was transformed. Stragglers and men from hospital rejoined their regiments. Units detached in the rear during the autumn campaign were brought forward. Prince Aleksei Shcherbatov’s corps, for example, arrived from Berlin to reinforce Sacken. Above all, however, a further wave of reinforcements arrived from Lobanov-Rostovsky’s Reserve Army. As a result, as had happened during the summer truce in 1813, the Russian army entered the 1814 campaign refreshed and at full strength. During the seven weeks on the Rhine 25,000 reinforcements arrived for Langeron and Sacken, and 19,000 for Wittgenstein and the Grand Duke Constantine from Lobanov. In all, 63 reserve squadrons reinforced the army’s regular cavalry regiments, in other words more than 12,000 men, and there were more on their way. Langeron and Sacken had arrived on the Rhine with fewer than 30,000 men. By the beginning of the 1814 campaign they had 60,000.28
The reinforcements were generally in good order and of high quality. As usual, the cavalry were best. General Nikolai Preradovich inspected the reserve squadron which arrived to reinforce the Chevaliers Gardes on 18 November and reported that ‘I found it to be in perfect order: the men are well turned out and the horses in good form’. Peter Wittgenstein also reported that the reserve units reaching his Army Corps were in excellent condition. Completely unlike the situation with Lobanov’s first wave of reinforcements in the spring of 1813, on this occasion the units arrived at full strength, having shed very few sick or stragglers. Of course, there was a big difference between marching through a German autumn and a Belorussian winter, but the contrast also reflected the fact that Kankrin’s management of the military roads, hospitals and magazines in the army’s rear was working well.29
In one sense the movement of reinforcements had been almost too successful. The reserve companies had marched with only three-quarters of the men supplied with muskets, as in the spring. Since very few men dropped out, some soldiers in Sacken’s Army Corps actually only received their muskets when large supplies were captured from the French in early January 1814. Equipment was also a problem. Alexander became almost hysterical when his beloved Guardsmen turned up with jaeger regiments’ cross-belts and pouches. Everyone denounced the wretched state of the recruits’ uniforms, which by now were often in tatters. In 1814 many line regiments presented a strange appearance, in some cases being dressed in captured French clothing. Sometimes new uniforms had actually been ordered for them in Germany, Poland and Bohemia but the speed of the army’s advance meant that these were trailing along well in the rear. The plan had been that the officers who had led Lobanov’s units to the Field Army should return to Poland to continue the training of new recruits. In fact, however, the line units were now so short of officers that some of Lobanov’s cadre had to stay behind on the Rhine and join the 1814 campaign.30
Meanwhile the Prussians and Austrians were also resting and reinforcing their troops. Almost as important, the allies were mobilizing the resources of conquered Germany to sustain their new campaign against Napoleon. Responsibility for this was given to the so-called Central Administration, headed by Baron vom Stein and established right back in March 1813 to run territories conquered by the allies. Stein initially saw the Central Administration as a means not just of mobilizing German resources for the allied cause but also of laying the foundations for a post-war united German polity, in which the sovereignty of the ruling princes would be circumscribed by federal institutions and by elected assemblies. This plan was unacceptable both to Metternich and to the monarchs of the former Conf
ederation of the Rhine, who united to undermine it. Historians have concentrated on this battle over politics, in which Alexander made no attempt to challenge Metternich.
The price paid by the princes to preserve their sovereignty was generous support for the allied war effort. On this point Metternich was just as firm as Stein. In their treaties with the allies, the princes pledged themselves to provide as many troops of the line as they had to Napoleon and then an equal number of Landwehr. They also contributed one year’s gross state revenue, though not of course all at once and in cash. In the end the Bavarian and Württemberg corps fought in Schwarzenberg’s army and five other German corps were also created. Some of these corps took over the task of blockading French fortresses and guarding allied bases and lines of communication. This freed large numbers of front-line Russian and Prussian troops to march into the Paris region and join the fight against Napoleon in February and March 1814. Without these reinforcements, the allied campaign would almost certainly have failed.31
For many of the allied leaders and generals the idea of marching on Paris and overthrowing Napoleon seemed very risky. For many centuries France had been Europe’s most powerful country. No foreign army had taken Paris since 1415. As Kutuzov recalled in November 1812, a century before at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession France had faced most of Europe, whose armies had been led by two of the greatest generals in history, Prince Eugène of Savoy and the Duke of Marlborough. After six years of lost battles total defeat loomed, yet still the country had summoned up the resources to defeat the invasion and hold Europe at bay. France had done the same in 1792–4, though the seemingly chaotic republican regime had confronted not just all Europe but also civil war. If the allied invasion ignited French nationalism and mass resistance, no armies would be large enough to hold down so big a country and population. In addition, France’s eastern frontier was protected by line after line of rivers – not only the Rhine but the Moselle, the Meuse and the Marne – and the Vosges mountains. To these natural defences were added the densest and most expensive chain of fortresses anywhere in the world, designed to block, divert and harass any invader seeking to use the highroads which led from the eastern borders into the French heartland. On top of all of this, the allies were attempting to invade in winter.32
A winter campaign was vital if Napoleon’s mobilization of men and resources was to be pre-empted. It ensured that the emperor would not yet have enough trained men both to garrison his fortresses and put a large army in the field. On the other hand it had serious implications as regards the allied army’s supply, movements and impact on the civilian population. By far the bulkiest item in any army’s supplies was forage for its horses. No army could carry more than a fraction of this forage in its wagons. In winter there would be no grass in the fields. Most forage would therefore have to be requisitioned from local stores. So would much of the soldiers’ food. The bigger the baggage trains, the more ponderous would be the army’s movements, especially in winter when many side roads would be impassable. Against Napoleon, lack of mobility could prove fatal.
Relying on local supplies would only work well, however, if the local authorities aided requisitioning and the population did not resist. So long as the allies were on the move, relatively dispersed, and seemed likely to win, local cooperation was likely. Once the armies needed to concentrate in order to fight, problems would multiply, especially if they remained static and if Napoleon appeared to gain the upper hand. Nothing was more likely to incite popular resistance and help Napoleon than a vast enemy army living off the land, especially as hunger spread amongst its ranks and discipline declined. At this point the allied leaders’ appeals to their soldiers for good behaviour and Christian forbearance were likely to fall on deaf ears. A vicious circle of civilian resistance and military brutality could easily be the result, with ever larger detachments forced to travel ever further in pursuit of hidden supplies. Barclay de Tolly predicted many of these problems but they were in fact self-evident for any half-literate general.33
In order to minimize some of these problems and in particular to outflank the French belt of fortresses the allies decided that their main thrust should be through Switzerland. From there they would strike north-westwards to the plateau of Langres. Once established at Langres they would decide whether the time was ripe to advance on Paris. Alexander set out all the advantages of this plan in a letter to Bernadotte of 10 November. In this letter he claimed that he had proposed the plan to the Austrians and Prussians, and they had accepted his idea. Subsequently, however, the emperor changed his mind and argued that the allies should respect Swiss neutrality. It seems that he did so because he was appealed to by Jomini and by his former tutor, Cesare de la Harpe, both of whom were Swiss citizens. The Austrians seemed prepared to give way but then invaded Switzerland anyway, citing support for their action from Swiss military and political leaders. Alexander was furious at being hoodwinked and then became even more annoyed when the Austrians began to intervene in Swiss domestic politics on the conservative side. In fact, it was he who was mostly in the wrong. Since the Swiss government had allowed France to recruit and move troops on its territory its neutrality was a sham. Perhaps, as the best Prussian historian of the campaign argues, the allied plan was in any case flawed, but once it had been agreed the Austrians had every reason to oppose changing it. Above all, Swiss domestic matters were of no importance to Russia and the emperor was allowing purely personal considerations to interfere with strategy and damage allied unity.34
In the end not only the Austrians but also the Russian Guards crossed the Rhine at Basle and marched through part of Switzerland. Their passage of the great river was delayed until 1 January by the Russian calendar, so that it could fall on the anniversary of the day one year before when the Russian army had crossed the Neman and begun its campaign to liberate Europe. For some foreign observers this was yet another example of Alexander’s interference in military operations for petty, personal reasons, though in fact the delay did no harm.
Others who watched the parade as the Russian Guards crossed the Rhine had more serious thoughts. Sir Charles Stewart wrote that
it is impossible by any description to give an exaggerated idea of the perfect state of these troops; their appearance and equipment were admirable, and when one considered what they had endured, and contemplated the Russians, some of whom had emerged from Tartary bordering the Chinese empire, traversed their own regions and marched, in a few short months, from Moscow across the Rhine, one was lost in wonder, and inspired with a political awe of that colossal power. The condition in which the Russian cavalry appeared, reflected the highest reputation on this branch of their service; and their artillery was admirable.
But Stewart combined admiration with alarm, in a statement which says much about the allied coalition. ‘I could not help, on seeing these Russian guards on that day, recurring to serious impressions with regards to this overgrown empire…the whole system of European politics ought, as its leading principle and feature, to maintain, as an axiom, the necessity of setting bounds to this formidable and encroaching power.’35
From Basle the allied army headed for Langres. Lord Burghersh, the British military representative at Schwarzenberg’s headquarters, was not impressed by the field-marshal’s leadership.
Nothing could more singularly mark the caution which was observed on the invasion of France, than the movements of the allied armies at this moment. The object of the allies was to establish themselves at Langres, a distance, by the direct road, of five days’ march from Basle. At the end of December not a single French soldier could have opposed their advance in this direction; yet complicated marches, turning the flanks of positions, inch by inch overcoming of obstacles of rivers and chains of hills, all these scientific manoeuvres were resorted to; so that, instead of being in possession of the place on the 26th or 27th of December, it was not occupied till the 17th of January.36
Pavel Pushchin of the Semenovskys wrote in hi
s diary during the march to Langres that the roads were awful, the weather atrocious and the local French population very poor. Since France had always been held up to them as the pinnacle of European civilization, many other Russian officers were also very surprised by the poverty they encountered. Their diaries and memoirs offer a strong contrast between French poverty and the prosperity they had so admired in Saxony and Silesia. Initially the French population appeared cowed and apathetic, showing no enthusiasm either to defend Napoleon or to support the Bourbons. Inevitably the huge invading army caused destruction and looting. An officer of the Guards Dragoons recalls that his men had an unerring instinct when it came to finding the hidden treasures of the chateau in which they were quartered. In the end the regiment’s colonel succeeded in tracking down most of the loot and restoring it to its owners. Where the Guards cavalry led, Cossacks were hardly likely to be reticent and most of their officers had fewer scruples than a colonel of the Guards. Very soon after crossing into France Alexander was writing to Platov to complain that even some Cossack generals and colonels were plundering French homes and farms. For Alexander this was not just inherently shameful but also dangerous, since it risked provoking the people’s war which the allies were desperate to avoid.37
While Schwarzenberg’s large army was advancing almost unopposed to Langres, the much smaller Army of Silesia was embarking on a more dangerous march across the Middle Rhine and through the main belt of French fortresses and rivers. Alexander’s instructions to Blücher of 26 December ordered him to cross the Rhine and advance to link up with the main army but left up to him his precise line of advance. The one point on which he insisted was that ‘the key issue is to maintain the link between the two armies so that they are always in a position to unite for a battle’. Blücher was forced to leave almost all of Langeron’s Army Corps to blockade the great fortress of Mainz and all of Yorck’s Army Corps to watch the fortresses of Metz, Thionville and Luxemburg. Pressing forward just with Sacken’s Army Corps and a small detachment led by Lieutenant-General Zakhar Olsufev, Blücher had barely 27,000 men under his command. The field-marshal was never averse to risk but his position was greatly helped by the fact that his Cossacks had captured key enemy dispatches and he was well informed about French numbers and deployment. With Napoleon in Paris mobilizing new troops and much of the Field Army’s elite reserves deployed towards the Low Countries, Blücher knew that he was opposed by an exhausted and thinly spread enemy screen, whose total disposable numbers barely exceeded his own and whose forces were split up into detachments commanded by no fewer than three marshals. This emboldened him to push the French back over the Moselle, the Meuse and the Aisne before heading south-westwards to link up with Schwarzenberg.38
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