The Campaigns of Napoleon

by David G Chandler

  Hours before Napoleon was able to cross the Marne, however, Blücher was heading north. His aim was to find the approaching reinforcements of Winzingerode and Bülow and then offer battle. Unfortunately, he had little idea as to their whereabouts. The former was supposed to be at Rheims, serving as a link, together with Langeron’s corps on his left, with Schwarzeh-berg’s right wing; Bülow, on the other hand, had last been definitely heard of at Laon. In fact both commanders, unbeknown to their superior, were presently undertaking operations at Soissons on the Aisne. Fortunately Blücher eventually decided to head for Laon.

  His present situation was far from enviable. The morale of his troops was low following three costly failures against Marmont; supplies were short; and now Napoleon was hot on his heels, presumably heading for Fismes to cut the Prussians off from Rheims. Ahead the Aisne was in flood, and of the three good bridges one was far too far west, another (Soissons) in French hands, and the third (Berry) uncomfortably close to Fismes. However, the Prussians possessed a good bridging train, and after giving his men a much-needed rest, Blücher directed his trains over the Berry bridge while the infantry and cavalry were to cross over pontoon bridges east of Soissons.

  Napoleon meantime was straining every nerve to forestall Blücher’s arrival on the Aisne. Relying on Marmont and Mortier to forestall the Prussians and Russians at Soissons, Napoleon headed for Fismes as fast as he could make his men march. He reached the town on the 4th only to learn that Soissons had surrendered to Winzingerode and Bülow without a struggle the previous day owing to the French commandant’s cowardice, while Marmont and Mortier were still marking time near Meaux, awaiting a formal order to advance. As a result, Blücher not only made good his escape (albeit in some disorder) to the north bank of the Aisne over the intact bridge at Soissons (4th-5th), he also met his reinforcements unexpectedly early. From March 5 onward, his strength exceeded 100,000 men. Thus Napoleon’s hopes of trapping a weak Blücher were summarily dashed to the ground, and his fury at this setback was terrible to behold.

  Napoleon was still determined to close with Blücher despite the unfavorable turn in the situation. Ordering Marmont and Mortier to close on Soissons and then advance toward Laon to join him, Napoleon prepared to cross the Aisne at Berry-au-Bac with Ney, Victor and the Guard. He found time to send off an encouraging message to Macdonald, telling him to hold firm on the southern sector. Hardly had the message been penned, however, than a weary courier brought bad news from the Duke of Tarentum: Macdonald was seriously ill, and the city of Troyes had been occupied by the enemy. “I cannot believe such ineptitude,” stormed the Emperor. “No man can be worse seconded than I am.”29

  Schwarzenberg had cautiously begun to advance against Bar-sur-Aube as long before as the 26th, on the insistence of the Tsar and Frederick William III. Oudinot crassly mishandled the battle that developed on the 27th, and during the following night fell back over the Aube, thereby uncovering Macdonald’s left flank. Over the next few days the whole French line retired to the west bank of the Seine, and by March 5 Macdonald had fumbled his way all the way back to Nogent, leaving Schwarzenberg in triumphant possession of Troyes and all the crossings over the Upper Seine.

  Undeterred by these tidings of impending collapse south of Paris, Napoleon hurried on to meet Blücher in open battle. As his troops advanced from Berry (March 6)—the Polish lancers had captured the bridge in a brilliant charge—news was brought to him that a considerable enemy force lay ahead holding the Plateau of Craonne—clearly Blücher’s flank or rear guard, or so the Emperor assumed. Accordingly he ordered Ney to engage the newly discovered detachment without delay, postponing for the moment the main advance on Laon. Napoleon hoped that this pause would give Mortier and Marmont sufficient time to mask the resistance of the Prussian garrison left by Blücher at Soissons, and move up to join him.

  The Battles of Craonne (inset) and Laon, March 7-10, 1814

  In actual fact Blücher was deliberately courting action at Craonne; he planned to place Woronzov and Sacken on the heights, and use 11,000 cavalry and Kleist’s corps under Winzingerode to envelop Napoleon’s right flank once the battle was joined. However, the speed of Napoleon’s advance disconcerted these arrangements, and before Sacken materialized Marshal Ney had seized a foothold on the plateau late on the 6th. Napoleon was planning a double envelopment for the next day. While the Emperor pinned the attention of Woronzov and Sacken (30,000) by launching an attack from the village of Heurtebise supported by a heavy bombardment, Ney was to sweep in on the enemy position from the north accompanied by Victor’s and Grouchy’s cavalry while General Nansouty attacked from the south. Unfortunately the French timing went sadly astray; Ney attacked prematurely before the 72 guns of the Guard artillery had been brought into action, and was accordingly repulsed with heavy loss. Fortunately, however, Winzingerode’s attempted counterstroke ran into great confusion in a marshy valley, and in the end a furious Blücher ordered his legions to disengage and head for Laon.

  So ended the Battle of Craonne (March 7). Allied casualties numbered approximately 5,000; the French some 500 more. Both Grouchy and Victor had been seriously wounded.

  Napoleon now entirely misread the situation; he believed he had just fought Blücher’s rear guard, and that the Army of Silesia was heading for Belgium or alternatively the River Oise. He well knew that Blücher had received considerable reinforcements and appreciated that the French strength (possibly 37,000 at this juncture) made the likelihood of a successful major engagement unlikely. However, if he pressed on after Blücher and decimated his rear guard in another action, the net result might be to drive the Army of Bohemia far enough away from Paris to permit Napoleon to double back on his tracks and head for the disintegrating Seine sector. Once again this appreciation underestimated the determination of his opponent; in fact, Blücher was determined to stand and fight in strength at Laon. By the early hours of March 9, Napoleon was drawing near to the town from the southwest. Marmont, meantime, after marching from Berry on the 8th, was moving some miles to the east of the main body with just under 10,000 men. Owing to the fog, however, he was several hours behind schedule. His orders were to prevent or intercept any enemy retreat toward Rheims. The fallacy that Blücher was interested only in withdrawing safely still loomed large in the Emperor’s mind.

  Anticipating the opposition of only a rear guard, Napoleon accordingly planned to send General Gourgaud to make a noisy demonstration north of Laon with a few cavalry while Ney rushed the town from the south. A thick fog obscured the scene as the French probing forces felt their way toward the outlying villages of Clacy and Semilly, but it soon became evident that they were facing more than a rear guard. Suddenly the fog lifted, and to their amazement Ney and Mortier saw the greater part of the Army of Silesia deployed before them.

  Blücher had placed his corps in an immensely strong position immediately south of Laon. The forces of Generals Kleist and Yorck were drawn up along, a steep ridge on the army’s left, part of their command lying well concealed on the reverse slope; General Bülow held the center, immediately in front of Laon, and Winzingerode commanded the right on the plain. In reserve stood the corps of Langeron and Sacken, placed some way to the rear of the Allied left center. Blücher, believing Napoleon to possess 90,000 men, anticipated a French envelopment from the east. In all, some 85,000 troops were in position, supported by 150 cannon.

  The moment Napoleon received reports of large-scale contact with the foe from his forward commanders, he hurried up to the front. Although he had no idea of Blücher’s full strength or of Marmqnt’s present position—the Duke of Ragusa had been proving both uninformative and delay-prone for several days—the Emperor decided that he would support Ney and Mortier with the balance of his 37,000 available men, and forthwith launched a series of sharp frontal attacks. These took up the greater part of the day. Blücher, seeing such a comparatively small force before him, suspected a trap and consequently showed the greatest caution; for his part, Napo
leon was hardly strong enough to mount a full-scale offensive. When Winzingerode tried to probe the French left flank, however, he was soon driven back. The spasmodic fighting gradually died away on the main front after 5:00

  P.M.

  Shortly after two o’clock in the afternoon Marmont had made a belated appearance to the east of Laon from the direction of Berry at the head of 10,000 men. Both the marshal and his troops were weary and lacking spirit. However, by nightfall the VIth Corps had managed to capture the village of Athies on the extreme left of Blücher’s position. This Marmont deemed sufficient for the day. He made no attempt to secure the narrow Festieux defile some miles to the rear of his position, and only sent a Colonel Fabvier with 1,000 men to make contact with Napoleon. Considering his duty done, Marmont then retired to bed in a comfortable chateau some miles from his men.

  Blücher’s evening reconnaissances revealed both Marmont’s exposure and Napoleon’s relative weakness. Emboldened by these reports, at 7:00

  P.M. he suddenly launched a surprise attack against Marmont’s forces with the corps of Yorck and Kleist, supporting them with Langeron, Sacken and the cavalry. Yorck had the good fortune to catch the French foraging, and in a short space of time Marmont’s entire command was in full flight, pouring down the Berry road and sweeping their bewildered commander along with them. Making the most of this success, Kleist managed to place part of his corps across the Rheims road ahead of the fleeing Frenchmen, while more Allied cavalry rode off to seize the dangerous Festieux defile. It seemed that the VIth Corps was irretrievably doomed.

  Marmont was saved from complete destruction only by two fortunate strokes of luck. First of all, Colonel Fabvier, hearing the din as he marched westward to find Napoleon, gallantly countermarched his small force of 1,000 infantry and two guns and managed to drive Kleist’s troops off the Rheims road. This timely intervention enabled Marmont to rally the larger part of his men and continue his retreat in some semblance of order. Fabvier’s assistance would have proved of little avail, however, had the Allied cavalry made good their intention of seizing the Festieux defile; but fortunately for Marmont the escort of a French convoy, 125 men of the Old Guard, had been at hand to fight off the enemy horsemen, and the road to Berry and Rheims remained open. Saved by these two strokes of undeserved good fortune, Marmont eventually outdistanced his pursuers and began to reorganize his shaken men at Corbeny, six miles from Berry-au-Bac.

  The night’s alarms and excursions had cost the VIth Corps a full third of its manpower, 45 guns and 120 caissons. Marmont’s irresponsible conduct had placed the whole French army in jeopardy, and it is a wonder that Napoleon left him in command of his formation. Blücher, desperately weary though he was, now sensed the chance of a telling victory, and urged his subordinates to pursue Marmont à l’outrance; Langeron and Sacken were meantime to advance on Bruyères and thereafter cut Napoleon’s line of retreat on Soissons. The morrow appeared to hold promise of a great success for the Allies.

  Napoleon remained unaware of the fate of Marmont until two fugitives revealed the sad tale at 5:00

  A.M. the next morning. Despite the critical nature of his own situation, he coolly determined to stand his ground facing Laon and thus divert Allied pressure from Marmont on to himself. Had the Army of Silesia been as boldly handled as Blücher intended on the 10th, the French would almost certainly have sustained a heavy defeat. Fortunately for the French, however, a combination of exhaustion and sickness overwhelmed the Prussian commander in chief and laid him hors de combat. The command devolved on his chief of staff, but despite his brilliance as a staff officer Gneisenau did not possess his master’s fire and drive. Consequently he allowed himself to be dominated by Napoleon’s frontal demonstrations against Laon, and in a fit of alarmist caution, Gneisenau even called off the corps from Festieux and Bruyères, thereby sacrificing the chance of an almost certain victory. As a result little more than skirmishing occupied the daylight hours, and after dusk Napoleon began to extricate his outnumbered men. Thus, through fortunate circumstances the Emperor’s bluff paid off, and both wings of the French army lived to fight another day. When Gneisenau attempted to interfere with the withdrawal next morning, Ney and the rear guard repeatedly beat off cautious Allied attacks at the village of Clacy.

  As the French fell back toward Soissons, however, there was no disguising the unpalatable fact that another of the Emperor’s schemes had ended in complete failure. The two days’ fighting had cost the French some 6,000 casualties and the Allies about 4,000, but proportionately the French losses in terms of men, matériel and morale were far greater than those of their opponents. Napoleon wrote to Joseph on the 11th:

  I have reconnoitered the enemy’s position at Laon. It is too strong to permit an attack without heavy loss. I have therefore given the word to fall back to Soissons. It is probable that the enemy would have evacuated Laon for fear of an attack but for the crass stupidity of the Duke of Ragusa, who behaved himself like a second lieutenant. The enemy is suffering enormous losses; he has attacked the village of Clacy today five times—and been repulsed on each occasion.

  Unfortunately the Young Guard is melting like snow. The Old Guard keeps up its strength, but the Guard cavalry is also shrinking a great deal. It is vital that General Ornano should remount all dragoons and chasseurs—and even old soldiers—using all means in his power.

  The final sentence of this letter is even more revealing of the gravity the Emperor read into the general situation: “Orders must be given for the construction of redoubts at Montmartre.”30 The capital’s peril was again very real.

  Indeed, the position of France was rapidly becoming critical on all sectors. With his main forces respectively repulsed on the Aisne and driven north of the Seine by two triumphant enemy armies, each approximately 100,000 strong, and with barely 75,000 discouraged and tiring men to face them and defend Paris, Napoleon was hardly in an enviable position. Nor was the news from the other fronts less daunting. In the southwest, Soult was being forced back by Wellington toward Toulouse following the Anglo-Spanish victory at Orthez; Suchet was lingering in the Pyrenees in indecisive fashion; Bayonne was closely besieged and a Royalist revolt would soon deliver Bordeaux to the English (March 12). In Italy Eugène was narrowly holding his own, but Genoa was soon to fall into British hands. On the northeast frontier, General Maison had been forced back as far as Lille,’ and in the Low Countries only the French garrisons of Antwerp and Bergen-op-Zoom were continuing to offer resistance. Davout was still stoically holding out in Hamburg, and perhaps as many as a dozen fortresses still flew the tricolor along the eastern frontiers of France—but these were purely negative assets. Most disappointing of all, Marshal Augereau had abandoned his advance against General Bubna and fallen back to Lyons (commencing March 9), thus greatly easing one of the Allies’ greatest anxieties. From no quarter, therefore, was there any news of positive success or encouragement.

  Despite this depressing outlook, there was still plenty of fight left in Napoleon. After a brief period of hesitation at Soissons, his military intuition discovered a weak link in the chain of Allied successes. He learned that General St. Priest had inadvisedly advanced from St. Dizier (where it will be remembered he had been placed to maintain contact between the Armies of Bohemia and Silesia) to recapture Rheims. By thus straying within striking distance of Soissons, St. Priest was providing Napoleon with the chance of a snap victory, the result of which would be to sunder Allied intercommunication and at the same time threaten the security of Blücher’s left rear and Schwarzen-berg’s right flank. Such a golden opportunity was not to be ignored. A new urgency is reflected in Napoleon’s Correspondance: “My intention being to attack St. Priest near Rheims tomorrow, to defeat him and reoccupy the town.”31

  Sweeping 40 miles eastward across the face of Blücher’s unsuspecting army, Napoleon descended on Rheims like the harbinger of doom, and took St. Priest completely by surprise. “We reached the gates of Rheims in darkness on March 13,” remin
isced Captain Coignet. “The Emperor established his headquarters in the open (on a ridge overlooking the heavily barricaded Paris gate). We built him a good fire. It was so dark you couldn’t see ten paces in front of your face. He was so weary that he demanded his bearskin and stretched down beside the fire…. The Russians seemed quiet enough in Rheims—and we were intending to wish them ‘good-day’ the next morning, but they chose to advance that very night at 10:00

  P.M.”

  As soon as he heard the sound of firing the Emperor was on his feet. Apprised of what was taking place, Napoleon immediately ordered the artillery of the Guard into action. Their road to the front was obstructed by the guns and caissons of the line trains, but on Napoleon’s order these obstacles were manhandled into the ditches, and the Guard’s guns passed through at a gallop. “The Emperor watched everything we were doing silently, his back to the fire. The cannon were immediately massed in a battery on the right of the road on a fine spot facing the gate…. The 16 guns let off a salvo, and everything was smashed to pieces—horses, gunners, all were massacred. The gates disappeared into dust, and the suburbs were wiped out. The cannonballs howled through the streets, and the howitzers dropped shells into the enemy redoubts.”32 Judging the moment with customary nicety, Napoleon unleashed some regiments of cuirassiers into the town, and they charged straight through the streets “without meeting the least resistance.” The townsfolk hung out lanterns from their houses to aid their compatriots, and by midnight the Emperor was able to enter the town with his staff. The Russians fled in all directions, losing 6,000 casualties; French losses numbered barely 700. Confidence flooded back: “I am still the man I was at Wagram and Austerlitz,” boasted Napoleon to Fouché.33

  This unexpected French success threw the Allied leaders into the greatest alarm. Blücher fell back once more to Laon; Schwarzenberg halted his drive over the Seine. Everything appeared again in the melting pot, and Napoleon wasted no time in making the most of his new advantage. Hurrying toward the Seine sector to bolster Macdonald (who had been forced back as far as Provins) Napoleon spared neither man nor horse. He could choose between three routes. The safest lay through Meaux, for this would head the Army of Bohemia off from Paris; the fastest lay directly to Provins; but the most profitable strategically appeared to lie through Arcis toward Troyes and Schwarzenberg’s rear areas. In the event, the Emperor chose the boldest course. Leaving Marmont and Mortier to contain Blücher, the rest of the army (comprising Ney’s corps, Delafrance’s division, Friant’s division of the Old Guard, Sébastiani’s cavalry and the reserve artillery—perhaps 23,000 men in all) passed over the Marne in two columns through Épernay and Châlons.