The Emperor lost no time in sending a messenger to Ney with an order of recall. Meantime the French stood to arms. On the left Marmont drew up his men around the village of Morvilliers. In the center, Victor split his troops between the hamlets of Chamesnil and Petit Mesnil, placing his right in the village of La Rothière itself. Gérard’s corps deployed around Dienville, with some troops on the west bank of the River Aube. Nansouty’s and Grouchy’s cavalry massed behind the center, and Ney’s Young Guard divisions (on their return to the field) eventually formed up one mile southeast of Brienne.
Shortly after one o’clock, Blücher attacked toward La Rothière. The first round went to the French cavalry; noticing that the Russian cannon were firing at high elevation, Nansouty charged the Russian gunners with Guyot’s light cavalry and sabered a great many of them before they could realign their pieces. Soon a hard-fought cavalry battle was raging on both sides of La Rothière, but the Russians in their turn brought off something of a coup when they captured 24 exposed guns of the Guard horse artillery. Then the infantry closed; the French right defeated every effort against Dienville; at La Rothière, General Duhesme tenaciously held the village square and north end of they village, despite the concentrated fire of 62 enemy guns. All the while the blizzard continued, reminding a few French and Russian veterans of Eylau in 1807. Until four o’clock it seemed that the French would be able to withstand the pressure, but then the left began to crack under the renewed attack of General Wrede. At the same moment, the arrival of Barclay’s fresh troops almost drove the French out of La Rothière.
Napoleon was not slow to recognize the danger. With crisis threatening on two sectors at once, the Emperor was faced with difficult decisions; typically he was equal to the occasion. With Ney’s leading division he counterattacked Barclay and regained control of La Rothière, using Drouot’s remaining guns and Milhaud’s horsemen to cover the move. At the same time a scratch force of Young Guard light infantry, cavalry and a single battery of guns, was sent off to sustain Marmont. A desperate struggle ensued amongst the woods and snow-filled fields, but a mistake on the part of the Allied Würtemberg chasseurs (who mistook the Bavarian cavalry for Frenchmen and attacked them furiously) enabled Marmont to rally his men and conduct an orderly retreat toward Brienne.
The gathering dusk and thick snowfall now acted to Napoleon’s advantage, and with consummate skill he succeeded in breaking off the action all along the line. During the night the French fell back along the road to Lesmont, intent on joining Mortier and the Old Guard at Troyes. For two days and nights the retreat went on without respite; thousands of conscripts dropped in their tracks or deserted.
The Battle of La Rothière, February 1, 1814: the closing phases, 4 p.m.-8 p.m.
There was no disguising the fact that the Battle of La Rothière had been a tactical defeat for the Emperor. Losses had been approximately equal—some 6,000 aside—but the morale of most of the conscripts had suffered gravely and in addition the French had lost 50 guns. The news of La Rothière shocked the French people to the core. As we have seen, the inadequacies of his intelligence sources and the effect of bad weather had induced Napoleon to accept battle with a far stronger foe, but there is little but praise for the way he handled his limited resources until he devised a way to make good his escape. The lesson was clear: the French army was too weak to fight a united Allied army; it was now more essential than ever to fight them in detail. But how could this be brought about, now that the Armies of Bohemia and Silesia were in close proximity to one another, with the triumphant sense of having defeated the great master on his own soil?
Napoleon could only hope that apparent success would lead to the reopening of dissensions in the Allied high command. Already one factor was operating in his favor. On January 29 the Allies had informed Caulaincourt that they would open peace negotiations at Châtillon-sur-Seine on February 3. The divergence of opinion between Austria on the one hand and Russia and Prussia on the other on the subject of permissible peace terms was now once again emerging into the open. In the meantime the Emperor completed his withdrawal to Troyes, arriving there on the 3rd. On the way, however, he lost 4,000 men through desertion and the townsfolk gave him a decidedly cool reception. On arrival he at once placed a corps supported by cavalry on each of the possible avenues of approach to the city; Victor and Grouchy were to watch the road to Arcis-sur-Aube; Gérard and Defranc’s cavalry would guard that leading to Bar-sur-Aube; Mortier was to patrol the highway running toward Bar-sur-Seine. Imperial Headquarters were established in Troyes itself, the new center of operations, and a reserve consisting of the Old Guard, three divisions of the Young Guard and two nondescript formations of the National Guard began to assemble there. For the rest, Napoleon ordered the construction of three pontoon bridges over the Seine. Marmont was, meanwhile, to guard the line of the Aube and try to retain control of Arcis. He then awaited reports of enemy activities.
In general terms French morale was low at this time. The citizens of Troyes barricaded their houses and gave scant assistance to their troops. Napoleon’s fortunes appeared to be rapidly reaching their nadir.
84
RAPID RECOVERY
The Allies—particularly Blücher—were cock-a-hoop after La Rothière. The Prussian generals were convinced that the end of the war was in sight. Schwarzenberg, who for political reasons was secretly not so keen to see Napoleon’s immediate downfall, was somewhat less exuberant. Nevertheless, the Allies soon arrived at a plan of exploitation. Schwarzenberg was to advance toward Paris up the Seine by way of Troyes while Blücher rushed ahead through Châlons and Meaux to attain the same objective along the Marne. The two main armies were to be linked by Wittgenstein’s corps and Seslawin’s Cossacks.
From the very outset of the operation, however, things began to go wrong for the Allies. On February 3 General Wrede was outmaneuvered by Marmont near Arcis-sur-Aube, and attempts to sever the Troyes-Arcis highway with Russian cavalry were foiled by Grouchy. General Yorck also found that the defenders of Vitry were well posted and far from cowed. At the same time the main advance became hopelessly delayed when Austrian and Prussian columns crossed one another at Vendeuvre and became inextricably mingled. Similarly, a probing attack by Platov’s Cossacks against General Allix’s garrison holding the line of the Yonne at Sens ended in a sharp rebuff for the Allies.
Very soon Schwarzenberg was becoming a worried man. The rebuff at Sens made him cautious. The knowledge that Augereau was collecting a new army at Lyons (albeit very slowly) appeared to threaten a possible blow against the Army of Bohemia’s extending communications; a reconnaissance in force by Mortier from Troyes on his other flank (February 6) seemed to suggest other dangers. The Austrian commander in chief’s judgment began to suffer. Imperceptibly he began to edge Wittgenstein’s corps and accompanying Cossacks to the south to improve his own security. Blücher ignored this development—which meant that a widening gap was fast developing between the two Allied armies—and pushed confidently ahead, intent on catching and eliminating Macdonald’s force. In the process his own army once again became excessively strung out. The Allies were committing a cardinal error; they were presenting Napoleon with an excellent opportunity to regain the initiative.
The situation was not, however, developing altogether to the Emperor’s liking. His basic plan was to try conclusions-with the Army of Bohemia and merely contain the progress of Blücher for the time being. Believing that Blücher was heading for Nogent, the Emperor contented himself with sending off orders on February 5 for Marmont to occupy the town and prepare it for defense. This was of importance, as two divisions of Spanish veterans were due to reach the town in the near future, and the Emperor had no wish to see such precious reinforcements prematurely decimated. They were to be formed into a new corps—the VIIth—and entrusted to Marshal Oudinot. By February 6, Napoleon calculated, there should be some 21,000 infantry, 2,400 cavalry and 46 guns assembled at the town, and this force he felt sure would suffice to ke
ep Blücher at bay while Napoleon and his 40,000 men fell upon Schwarzenberg.
Later the same day, however, the truth dawned like a thunderclap. New reports showed without any doubt that Blücher was not heading for Nogent on the Seine after all, but toward Château-Thierry, Meaux and Paris along the Marne. The only troops available to meet Blücher—Macdonald’s weak and windy force—were obviously no match whatsoever for this development, and the Emperor’s whole strategy appeared compromised; Paris itself was in danger!
There was nothing for it but to abandon his preparations against the Army of Bohemia and return posthaste to the north. “I am very annoyed by these moves,” he confided to Joseph in a letter dated 3 :00
P.M. on the 6th, “for I wanted to attack Bar-sur-Seine and defeat the Emperor Alexander [accompanying Schwarzenberg’s army], whom I believe to have made some false dispositions. But I sacrifice everything to the need to cover Paris.”12
Under the cover provided by Mortier’s drive from Troyes to the east (which proved sufficient in itself to induce the sensitive Schwarzenberg to order a retreat at full speed toward Bar-sur-Aube), the transfer of troops began. By the evening of the 6th Napoleon was in person at Nogent and during the night his troops caught him up, a watchful Mortier bringing up the rear. By military subterfuge and the full use of the advantages conferred by interior lines, Napoleon had achieved a new concentration of force, almost 70,000 strong in a central position, shrugging off another enemy army of 150,000 men in the process. With good reason he could claim to have stolen three marches from the enemy; Schwarzenberg would continue to retire eastward for forty-eight hours before he realized he had been completely fooled.
That same evening, however, less favorable tidings reached Napoleon’s desk. News came from the Belgian front to the effect that Bülow was in occupation of Brussels and had isolated Antwerp. Messengers from Paris also revealed that the capital was in the grip of panic and hysteria owing to the continuing advance of Blücher. Hardest to believe of all, a dispatch from Italy confirmed the desertion of the King of Naples. This was a telling blow. “No,” he exclaimed to those about him, “it cannot be! Murat, to whom I have given my sister! Murat, to whom I have given a throne! Eugene must be mistaken. It is impossible that Murat should have declared himself against me.”13 Even then, the day’s tale of woe was not complete. Caulaincourt reported back from Châtillon-sur-Seine (where the first peace talks had opened on the 5th) that the Allies were prepared to offer France only the frontiers of 1792 as the basis for any settlement.
For twenty-four hours the Emperor retired to his room and remained incommunicado. When he emerged his mind was made up. The terms were scornfully rejected; it must be the “natural frontiers” or nothing. Meanwhile, the campaign would go on.
The Army of Silesia presented the immediate danger, but the French were very short of accurate news concerning the exact whereabouts of Blücher’s corps. There were three roads to Meaux which Blücher might choose: the highway running from Châlons through Épernay and Château-Thierry was the northernmost; the most direct was the one from Châlons through Vertus, Champaubert and Montmirail; the third ran from Vitry to Sommesous and Sézanne. It was essential to resolve this quandary, and discover Blücher’s true line of operations. Then, leaving a force to hold off the Army of Bohemia from the center of Nogent, Napoleon would attack Blücher’s communications with full vigor.
The Emperor hoped that Macdonald would be able to throw considerable light on the situation; he was known to be in contact with Yorck’s corps, north of the Marne. While awaiting news, Napoleon ordered Marmont to head for Sézanne with 8,000 men to clarify the situation there. In due course tidings arrived from the Duke of Tarentum. It was confirmed that Yorck was close to Épernay with 18,000 men, but there were no signs of a larger concentration of troops there; as for the Montmirail road, Macdonald regretted that his limited cavalry resources made it impossible to patrol that also. Consequently Napoleon had to await news from Marmont. February 8 passed in continuing uncertainty—although Napoleon saw fit to send most of his cavalry and part of the Guard to reinforce Marmont, for he felt certain that Blücher’s main corps could not be far from Sézanne.
The period of doubt came to an end at 9:00
A.M. on the 9th. Marmont reported from Champaubert that General Sacken and at least 15,000 troops were currently at Montmirail, some 15 miles to the west. This news galvanized the Emperor into swift action. The main French army would march at once for Champaubert via Sézanne; the center of operations would forthwith be switched from Nogent to Provins, where the Grand-Quartier-Général, the army parks and hospitals, would be left under the protection of General Rottembourg’s division of the Young Guard. As for the defense of the Seine and the secondary front, that was to be entrusted to Victor and Oudinot. The former, with approximately 14,000 men (his own corps, Gérard’s command and force of cavalry) would defend Nogent and its immediate vicinity, most particularly the heights of Pont-sur-Seine; only under the most dire circumstances was this force to re-cross to the right bank of the Seine, for Napoleon wanted the bridge kept intact for future operations against Schwarzenberg. Oudinot, with possibly 20,000 men, comprising the newly created VIIth Corps, Pajol’s cavalry, some National Guard units and Allix’s garrison troops, was to defend the bridges at Bray, Montereau, Pont-sur-Yonne, Moret, Nemours, Montargis, Sens and Auxerre, with the 5,000-strong Young Guard division at Provins available as a reserve in an emergency. As for the remainder, they would accompany Napoleon to Sézanne and link up with Marmont and the forces already sent to join him there.
In round terms the Emperor would now have under his personal control some 30,000 men; he calculated that Blücher, Yorck and Sacken between them might be fielding some 45,000 troops, but he expected Macdonald to contain at least 5,000 of these. The odds would therefore be four to three in the Allies’ favor—but these were acceptable to the Emperor. “If this operation is completely successful,” he wrote to Joseph at 2:00
P.M., “we may very well find the whole campaign decided.”14 Yet the overall odds remained daunting enough: 70,000 French troops were still facing at least 200,000 Allies. To even contain such a superior foe Napoleon had been forced to divide his scanty resources into three parts. However, he felt confident that once he had disposed of Blücher, his army would be strong enough to send Schwarzenberg reeling back to the Rhine.
The Allies, meantime, were trying to concert their actions. It was agreed that Blücher with Yorck, Sacken and Olssufiev, reinforced by the newly arrived corps of Generals Kleist and Kapzevitsch, should in general terms press on up the left bank of the River Marne toward Paris while Schwarzenberg, who had by this time crept forward again as far as Troyes, kept Napoleon busy on the Aube-Seine line. However, as the Austrian commander in chief still believed that Napoleon intended to fight a major battle near Nogent he requested Blücher to mount a subsidiary attack toward that town from the north with Kleist’s corps. Blücher, who was sure Napoleon was already a spent force, readily complied, and on February 9 ordered not only Kleist, but also Kapzevitsch and Olssufiev—perhaps 30,000 men in all—to march for Sézanne early on the 10th. In his overconfidence, Blücher was again allowing his troops to become dangerously strung out.
Later the same day, however, on receipt of intelligence that Napoleon was in fact moving northward through Sézanne, Blücher changed his orders. Sacken was to continue the pursuit of the retiring Macdonald, but Yorck was rerouted toward Montmirail. Blücher in person set out to join Kleist and Kapzevitsch, intending to lead them toward La-Fère-Champenoise and ultimately Sézanne in an enveloping movement. But these instructions did little or nothing to improve the general concentration of the Army of Silesia; General Olssufiev in particular was very much on his own near Champaubert. Moreover some Allied generals received their new instructions only after a considerable delay. Blücher was in any case still guilty of underestimating the capacity of his opponents.
It seemed that Napoleon was being present
ed with a golden opportunity to destroy Blücher’s army in detail. He too, however, was experiencing serious practical difficulties. The men were desperately hungry, and for five days rain had fallen in a steady torrent, transforming the roads into quagmires. If if had not been for the help of the local populace, who turned out in force to manhandle the trains through the mud, it is unlikely that the artillery would have got through at all. As it was, the food wagons never made an appearance, but to have the guns was a great deal. This local helpfulness contrasted markedly with the popular apathy prevalent a month earlier, but over the intervening weeks the French peasants had suffered more than enough from their German and Russian self-styled “liberators.” And so the French advance dragged itself painfully on.
As a result, by 10:00
A.M. the next morning French cavalry elements were probing the Allied positions at Champaubert, driving in Olssufiev’s pickets. That unfortunate general, with a mere 5,000 troops at his disposal (12 under-strength regiments and 24 guns), decided to fight it out; he was already in disgrace for his conduct the previous week, and now rashly decided to make one desperate effort to clear his name. The resulting battle did not take long. Marmont’s corps, aided by Ney, proved more than a match for their opponents, and by 3:00
P.M. the Russian general was, hopelessly late, considering retreat toward étoges. Blücher, although he heard the sound of gunfire to the west, made not the least attempt to move to his subordinate’s aid. The result was predictable; with odds of six to one in his favor, the Emperor could only win. By nightfall Olssufiev was a prisoner (captured in a wood by a nineteen-year-old conscript with less than six months’ service), and a bare thousand of his men made good their escape. The French had suffered a couple of hundred casualties. It was a promising beginning.
The Campaigns of Napoleon Page 118
