The Campaigns of Napoleon

by David G Chandler

  This success placed Napoleon fair and square in the midst of Blücher’s widely separated corps; the perfect “central position” was his. Late on the 10th, after hearing of Olssufiev’s fate, Blücher hastily retraced his steps toward Vertus, and sent an order to Yorck to concentrate with Sacken as soon as possible at Montmirail; the latter, who had pushed ahead toward Trilport during the day, was ordered to return eastward ready to blast his way down the road with Yorck’s aid and thus reopen communications with Blücher at Vertus. Once again, however, Yorck’s orders reached him too late.

  A trifle defeat for the Allies, February 10-14, 1814: 1. the Battle of Champaubert, February 10

  Napoleon had meanwhile taken the wise decision to concentrate on destroying the Prussian forces lying to the west. Had he driven east, Blücher could merely have retired on Châlons while Sacken and Yorck made good their escape over the Marne. Therefore, leaving Marmont with 4,000 men to “observe” Blücher, Napoleon led the remainder through the dark night and deep mud toward Montmirail. Orders were sent to Oudinot to send two divisions northward from Provins to cooperate with Mortier on the Emperor’s southern flank, ready to march to the sound of the guns, while Macdonald was instructed to give up his retreat toward Meaux and resume the offensive, his aim being to recapture Château-Thierry and deny the foe the use of its invaluable bridge over the Marne.

  Sacken, meantime, was actively obeying his orders and retiring on Montmirail, ignoring Yorck’s suggestion that he would do better to move toward Château-Thierry in order to meet his columns halfway. By 10:30

  A.M. on the 11th he had reached the village of Viels-Maisons, six miles west of Montmirail, at the head of 18,000 men and 90 guns. His cavalry was already in contact with the leading French units, and the Cossacks had previously been expelled from Montmirail. Still Sacken persevered on his eastward course, discounting the scale of opposition he was likely to meet and making no effort to move closer to the Château-Thierry road along which he could eventually hope to receive aid from General Yorck. Indeed, even when he ran into stiff opposition at the village of Marchais, hard by the critical road junction, he drew up his men to the south of the main road running from Montmirail to La Ferté-sous-Jouarre, still further compromising his chance of receiving active assistance.

  Owing to the difficulties of movement over the mud-steeped countryside, Napoleon’s strength had been reduced for immediate practical purposes to the Old Guard (5,000 foot and 4,500 cavalry), 1,800 conscripts commanded by Ricard, and a total of 36 guns. At the outset of the battle he was thus at a considerable numerical disadvantage. Indeed, the Emperor was by no means certain of ultimate success at this period. Before leaving Nogent on the 9th he had written to Joseph at Paris, outlining emergency defensive measures to be adopted in the event of a failure, and instructing his brother to move silverware and family portraits from Compiègne and Fontainebleau. The day before he had impressed upon his brother the need to prevent the Empress and the King of Rome from being captured “in the event of a lost battle and news of my death.”15 He went so far as to say that he would rather have his son’s throat cut than see him brought up at Vienna as an Austrian prince.

  In other words, Napoleon was fully aware of the gravity of the gamble he was taking by moving against Blücher’s army, and now, on the 11th, he was forcing a battle against decidedly long odds. He well knew that Yorck might appear at any hour from the direction of Château-Thierry to reinforce Sacken, and that it was doubtful whether sufficient French supports could reach the field in time to redress the balance owing to the combination of weariness and the bad going. A French defeat—even a disaster—was still very much a possibility. Earlier the same morning he had instructed Marmont that “all the cannons and caissons captured from the enemy are to be flung into a nearby lake or into the marshes.”16 It was a time of very real crisis—as grave as the hours preceding Castiglione, Arcola or Rivoli. For public consumption, however, a more confident tone was required. To rally the morale of the capital, he had sent off the previous evening a deliberately exaggerated bulletin of his success at Champaubert, claiming a major success. “If fortune favors us again as it did today, everything will be changed in the flicker of an eyelid,” he claimed.

  A trifle defeat for the Allies, February 10-14, 1814: 2. the Battle of Montmirail, February 11

  All through the late morning and the early afternoon the battle escalated, as Sacken sent forward more and more troops in repeated attempts to blast a way through the French to Montmirail beyond. Throughout this period, Napoleon fought basically on the defensive, launching only limited counterattacks toward Marchais; he had already posted General Michel’s division and part of Nansouty’s cavalry to watch for Yorck’s arrival. It was very much a race against time; much depended upon whose reinforcements would reach the field first.

  By 2:00

  P.M. Ricard’s gallant conscripts had been forced back from Marchais, and French patrols were reporting the approach of Yorck’s advance guard towards Fontenelles. Fortunately, however, the Prussian general approached with great caution, and with only a fraction of his corps. An hour passed, and Mortier at last appeared on the rield with welcome assistance. Assured at last of a reserve, Napoleon lost no time in launching an attack by six battalions of the Old Guard, placing Ney at their head. This élite force flung itself with the greatest élan against Sacken’s left flank and rolled it back, repulsing repeated Russian cavalry charges in the process with the assistance of part of the Guard cavalry. Half an hour later, General Yorck committed some cavalry and a single brigade into action at Fontenelles—far too little, far too late. There was little chance of stopping the French now, for they had been reinforced to almost 20,000 men and Sacken was on the point of cracking. The Emperor now sent two battalions of chasseurs under Marshal Lefebvre against Marchais, supported by what remained of Ricard’s division. The Russians turned and ran, and the battle became a pursuit. By nightfall the Polish lancers had fought their way as far west as Viels-Maisons, while Mortier experienced little difficulty in decimating Yorck’s leading formations and inducing their commander to retire precipitately, heedless of Sacken’s repeated appeals for assistance. Nevertheless, Yorck’s intervention, limited though it had been, probably saved Sacken from complete destruction and many Russians escaped toward Château-Thierry. As it was, Sacken left 4,000 casualties on the field; the French had suffered 2,000. The fighting continued until nightfall.

  It had been a victory for superior tactical skill, superior training and discipline. Above all it had been a triumph for the Old Guard and Ricard’s handful of conscripts. Although Napoleon at once exaggerated the extent of his success, claiming that “The Army of Silesia is no more” in his dispatch to Joseph dated 8:00

  P.M. on the 11th, he spoke nothing but the truth when he went on to attribute the success to the sterling fighting qualities of his Guard, “who have done more than can be expected of men.” He was also correct in claiming that “these last two days have entirely altered the state of affairs.”17 Much of Blücher’s flamboyant self-confidence evaporated with the news of this second defeat, and he lost no time in ordering the commencement of a general retreat towards Rheims.

  Napoleon was determined to reap the maximum advantage from his success. Ordering Marmont to head for Vertus, the Emperor launched every other available unit in pursuit of Yorck and Sacken. He had hopes of causing the complete destruction of these two corps—but everything depended on Macdonald reaching and occupying Château-Thierry during the night, thus severing the Allied line of retreat over the Marne. He was therefore bitterly disappointed to learn that Macdonald had scarcely advanced eastward at all. Consequently the greater part of Yorck’s and Sacken’s commands made good their escape over the river, burning the bridge behind them. All that remained to the French after the Battle of Château-Thierry (February 12) were 3,000 prisoners of the Prussian rear guard, 20 guns and a vast number of wagons.

  In the hours that followed the Emperor chafed at the
leash while his engineers strove to repair the bridge. The French army desperately needed a bridging train, but the minister of war seemed incapable of producing one. As a result it was 24 hours before Mortier and the cavalry could resume their pursuit, and by that time the Allies had placed another river between the French and themselves—the Ourcq—again successfully destroying the bridges behind them. Thus Napoleon was thwarted of the full measure of his vengeance.

  Even before the first bridge was completed, however, the Emperor was giving serious attention to newly arrived tidings from the southern sector. These revealed that Schwarzenberg had launched an offensive on the 11th and had succeeded in driving Victor’s corps back over the Seine. Although a strong French garrison was still in possession of the important town of Nogent and its intact bridge, another Allied column had captured Sens on the Yonne from General Allix, and the Duke of Belluno had forthwith ordered a general withdrawal by Pajol’s troops to Montereau and the subsequent demolition of the bridge there, while Allix fell back from the Yonne to the line of the Loing further to the west. Napoleon at once began to plan the transfer of his troops to the newly threatened sector.

  Blücher received news of Schwarzenberg’s successes at much the same time as Napoleon, and the doughty old warrior anticipated what the Emperor’s reaction would be. Accordingly, he countermanded his orders of the 11th-12th, and marched westward with the corps of Kleist and Kapzevitsch (perhaps 20,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry) to regain lost ground and place himself across Napoleon’s rear. Marmont was forced to give ground before this sudden onslaught, but his withdrawal from Vertus was so well conducted that he gave Napoleon time to react. While Macdonald and Kellermann continued southward toward a general concentration with Oudinot, Victor and Gerard north of Montereau, the Emperor dashed off with Grouchy’s cavalry and the Imperial Guard to Marmont’s assistance. The latter skilfully drew Blücher to attack him on the morning of the 14th to the west of Vauchamps, and at the height of the first engagement Grouchy’s cavalry crashed into the Prussian right flank. Zieten’s division was all but destroyed on the spot, but Blücher succeeded in extricating the rest of his men and recommenced his retreat when he saw the tall fur caps of the Old Guard appearing in the distance.

  A trifle defeat for the Allies, February 10-14, 1814: 3. the Battle of Vauchamps, February 14

  All was not yet over, however; the able Grouchy found a road running parallel to Blücher’s line of retreat and managed to get ahead of the hard-pressed Allied columns. He then swung his men across Blücher’s path east of Champaubert; it now seemed that the Prussian general was hopelessly trapped. He was, however, saved by the omnipresent mud, which made it impossible for Grouchy’s horse artillery to join him in time. After ferocious fighting Blücher forced his way through the trap and headed away for Châlons, leaving a division at Étoges to cover his retreat.

  Napoleon thereupon called off the Guard and Grouchy and set out with them for the Seine sector, leaving Marmont to complete the pursuit. This the Duke of Ragusa proceeded to do with great success, and by the close of the 14th, Blücher’s temerity had cost him 7,000 men and 16 guns besides a mass of transport. French casualties on the same day totaled only 600 men.

  So ended the marvelous episode in Napoleon’s career that is known as “The Six Days Campaign of 1814.” During its course he had completely regained his old skill as a field commander; handling an army of small proportions (it rarely numbered more than 30,000 during this time), he was able to coordinate its activities in a way that had been impossible with the huge armies of the last five years. In five days his men had covered 120 kilometers, won four victories and inflicted a cumulative total of 20,000 casualties on a foe who at the outset commanded 50,000 men, and captured a high proportion of his guns into the bargain. The confidence of Paris temporarily rallied; memories of La Rothière vanished. If the first two weeks of the Campaign of 1814 had found the Emperor somewhat lethargic and unsuccessful, the second week of February is worthy of Napoleon at his best, and many commentators have compared the compelling tactical brilliance he displayed with the great days of the First Italian Campaign. It is possible that Blücher’s complete destruction would have been the outcome had not Napoleon been compelled to turn southward against Schwarzenberg. In the event, however, the Army of Silesia, though shaken and scattered, was still in being, and the losses sustained during the whirlwind were soon to be replaced by the timely arrival of more reinforcements.

  A new general was on the point of making his appearance in the critical war area—namely the Russian Winzingerode with his corps (30,000 strong) of the Army of the North from Belgium. After surprising and capturing Soissons on February 14, this newcomer decided to fall back toward Rheims after receiving news of Blücher’s misfortunes. Within a few days he was in close contact with the Army of Silesia which was reorganizing at Châlons. The linking-up of these two forces was to repair much of the effect of the past week’s catastrophes. As Gneisnau boasted: “We acted as if we had not been beaten. Five days after our defeat we again assumed the offensive.”18 Nevertheless, Blücher had been taught a sharp lesson.

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  THE ECLIPSE OF SCHWARZENBERG

  Affairs were still going from bad to worse for the French on the Seine. Although Schwarzenberg’s initial attacks on Nogent had been gallantly repulsed by General Bourmont’s garrison of 1,200 men despite the fact that the town was set on fire by the Austrian howitzers, there was no gainsaying that the Army of Bohemia was making considerable progress to the west of the Yonne. Patrols of Cossacks were even reported probing over the River Loing. At first Napoleon was not unduly worried about these developments; so long as the foe was denied the use of the important bridge at Nogent over the Seine he felt confident that Schwarzenberg would not support Württem-berg in a major drive toward Fontainebleau. “The Austrians know my way of operating too well,” he wrote to Joseph on the 13th after first receiving news of the Allied successes, “… and if they leave us masters of Nogent bridge they will worry lest I should debouch on their rear in the same manner as I have done here.”19 At this juncture the Emperor felt sure that he could keep the Austrians south of the Seine; were they to move west in strength, Victor should blow up the bridge at Nogent, leave it garrisoned, and move west to reinforce Oudinot at Montereau, where the Emperor would himself join them.

  The next messengers from the south, however, brought disturbing news which made these plans completely out of date. It transpired that the enemy was already well and truly over the Seine. On the 12th Allied columns had surprised a weak National Guard garrison at Bray (10 miles west of Nogent), captured the bridge there, and followed up this success by capturing the crossing at Pont-sur-Seine near Montereau into the bargain. Threatened with envelopment, Victor had immediately abandoned Nogent and its bridge (intact) in considerable alarm; Oudinot proved incapable of stopping the rout on the 13th, and the arrival of Macdonald and the VIth Corps at Guignes on the 14th made little impression; it appeared that the French would have to regroup behind the River Yerres near Chalmes—a mere 18 miles from Paris. Once again the capital gave itself over to panic as the convoys of the army poured back into the city, spreading alarmist reports.

  Three factors contributed to stabilize the situation at this critical juncture and bring Schwarzenberg’s fumbling advance to a halt. The first of these was the cumulative effect of more than five weeks of consistent Allied looting; driven beyond the limits of endurance, the French peasantry—newly inspired by rumors of Napoleon’s successes—were at last reacting against their “liberators,” and Allied columns and reinforcements passing through the Vosges found themselves being constantly obstructed, sniped at and even attacked. Secondly, the Austrian commander in chief was becoming increasingly anxious about Augereau’s force in the vicinity of Lyons. Although the Duke of Castiglione was in fact doing little besides finding excuses for continued inaction, Schwarzenberg felt that his communications through Langres were becoming dangerously exposed to a French atta
ck up the River Saone. Thirdly, news that Napoleon had disengaged on the Marne sector and was indubitably heading south finally put the seal on Schwarzenberg’s general discomfiture. For two days (February 15 and 16) the Allied commander in chief hesitated; in the end the dictates of caution won the struggle in his mind, and on the 17th Generals Wrede and Wittgenstein were instructed to retire by slow stages through Bray, while Barclay and the reserves collected at Nogent.

  Even so, the Allied commander was almost too late in reaching this decision; Napoleon was closer at hand than he envisaged. Setting out from Montmirail on the 15th, the Emperor force-marched the Guard and Grouchy’s cavalry toward Guignes to rejoin his discomfited subordinates. He had originally hoped to be in a position to sweep through Vertus on to Schwarzenberg’s communications after finishing with Blücher, but it had become obvious by the 15th that Victor, Oudinot and Macdonald would prove incapable of withstanding Schwarzenberg for the two or three days needed to execute this maneuver—which might well have decided the whole campaign. As before, however, he could not ignore a direct threat to Paris, and consequently had to adopt a less decisive plan. Ordering his marshals to hold the line of the Yerres for 72 hours at all costs—“on the 17th I shall be in the process of attacking”20—Napoleon now conducted one of the swiftest marches of his career. Transporting part of his infantry in requisitioned wagons and carts, he covered 47 miles in the astonishing time of 36 hours, and rode into Guignes at 3 :00