Tag Archives: Langeron

10 March 2014 · 2:44 pm

The Battle of Laon 9-10 March 1814.

Napoleon won a pyrrhic victory over Prince Gebhardt von Blücher’s Army of Silesia at Craonne on 7 March 1814. The French held the battlefield at the end of the day, but suffered more casualties than they could afford.

Napoleon thought that he had fought Blücher’s rearguard, and that the Army of Silesia was heading north. He realised that he could not win a major battle against it. However, he believed that if he pursued it and inflicted another defeat on its rearguard he could then turn south to deal with defeated Prince Karl Phillip zu Schwarzenberg’s Army of Bohemia, which was advancing on Paris.

Blücher was not withdrawing, but had drawn up his army in a strong position just south of Laon. He placed the corps of Generals Friedrich von Kleist and Johann Ludwig Yorck along a steep ridge to the east of Laon. Some of their troops were hidden on a reverse slope. General Friedrich von Bülow’s corps held the centre, in front of Laon, and General Ferdinand von Winzengerode’s corps was positioned on flatter ground to the west. The corps of Prince Fabien von Osten-Sacken and Count Alexandre de Langeron were held in reserve.

Blücher had 85,000 men and 150 guns. Napoleon had only 37,000 troops with him. [1] Another 10,000 under Marshal Auguste de Marmont had been detached from the main body in order to prevent Blücher from retreating to Rheims. A mixture of bad weather, swampy terrain, Russian cavalry and inertia by Marmont meant that the Emperor was unsure of Marmont’s location.

On 9 March Napoleon’s leading troops, commanded by Marshals Édouard Mortier and Michel Ney, encountered the enemy. The Emperor launched a series of attacks. Blücher thought wrongly that Napoleon had 90,000 men, so feared that this attack was intended to pin his army whilst Napoleon enveloped it. He consequently acted very cautiously.

Marmont’s VI Corps arrived at about 2 pm. The troops and their commander were tired, and halted for the night after taking the village of Athies. Marmont failed to secure the narrow Festieux defile to his rear.

By the early evening reconnaissance reports had informed Blücher of the enemy’s weakness. He therefore ordered Yorck and Kleist’s corps, supported by Langeron, Sacken and cavalry, to attack Marmont.

VI Corps was caught foraging and thrown back. Kleist’s corps cut the Rheims road, and Coalition cavalry headed for the Festieux defile. It appeared that VI Corps’ line of retreat would be cut, resulting in its destruction.

However, complete disaster was averted by the actions of Colonel Charles Nicolas Fabvier. Marmont had sent him with 1,000 men and two guns to link up with Napoleon. On hearing the sound of the guns Fabvier retraced his steps and managed to reopen the Rheims road. At the Festieux defile the Coalition cavalry were beaten off by 125 Old Guardsmen who had been escorting a convoy.

The bulk of VI Corps were able to escape, but Marmont lost a third of his men, 45 guns and 120 caissons. David Chandler says that the whole French army was put at risk by ‘Marmont’s irresponsible conduct…it is a wonder that Napoleon left him in command of his formation.’[2]

Napoleon did not learn of VI Corps’ fate until 5 am the next day, 10 March. He decided to hold his position in order to take the pressure off Marmont. Blücher intended to aggressively attack that day, which Chandler and Dominic Lieven agree would have resulted in a major French defeat.[3]

However, the 72-year-old Blücher was taken ill overnight. His chief of staff General August von Gneisenau took command, but he lacked Blücher’s dynamism and confidence. Fighting on 10 March was therefore confined to skirmishing, and Napoleon was able to extract his army after dark, and retreat to Soissons. He still suffered a significant defeat, losing 6,000 men compared to 4,000 from the numerically larger enemy.

[1] Unlesss otherwise stated troop numbers are from D. Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1966), pp. 989-91.

[2] Ibid., p. 990.

[3] Ibid; D. C. B. Lieven, Russia against Napoleon: The Battle for Europe, 1807 to 1814 (London: Penguin, 2010), p. 502.

[1] Unlesss otherwise stated troop numbers are from D. Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1966), pp. 989-91.

 

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28 August 2013 · 12:11 am

The Battle of Katzbach 26 August 1813

Prince Gebhardt Blücher’s Army of Silesia, comprising Prussian and Russian troops, began to advance towards Saxony on 13 August 1813, three days before the armistice between France and the Coalition of Austria, Prussia, Russia and Sweden expired. Blücher justified his move into the neutral zone established by the Truce of Pläswitz on the grounds that the French had committed several minor breaches of the armistice

The Coalition’s Trachenberg Plan stated that its armies should avoid battle with the main French body, commanded by Napoleon, but should seek battle with isolated enemy corps. By August 21 Blücher realised that he was advancing on Napoleon, so withdrew.

Napoleon had created the Army of the Bober, commanded by Marshal Jacques MacDonald to guard his left flank. MacDonald’s orders were to push Blücher back to Jauer, and then pin his army in Silesia.

On 26 August MacDonald, believing that Blücher was still retreating, crossed the River Katzbach in pursuit. Blücher, however, realising that he was not facing the main French army, had decided to take the offensive in accordance with both his natural desire to attack and the stipulations of the Trachenberg Plan. The two armies both thought that the other was on the defensive, so both were surprised when they encountered each other advancing.

MacDonald’s army, consisting of III, V and XI Corps and II Cavalry Corps, was widely spread, and poor roads slowed down its advance. MacDonald detached 12,000 men from V and XI Corps to cover his right flank, which was not threatened, and ordered his largest force, III Corps, to cross the Katzbach at Liegnitz and attack the enemy’s right flank at Jauer. The rest of his army was supposed to pin the Coalition forces in place.[1]

General Joseph Souham, who had taken over III Corps from Marshal Michel Ney because Napoleon did not want to have two Marshals with the same army, claimed that the Liegnitz crossing was impassable because of heavy rain, although General Fabian von Osten-Sacken’s Russian corps managed to cross there two days later.

Souham decided to move back towards the rest of MacDonald’s army, but found itself in a traffic jam. Only one of its four divisions managed to cross the river in time to play a role in the battle, and it had to leave its artillery behind.

Once the French had crossed the Katzbach they had to climb about 75m up a steep and heavily wooded slope to a featureless plateau. Dominic Lieven notes that they had to use a path that is still difficult by car in muddy or icy conditions.[2]

On the plateau the French encountered the 55,000 Coalition troops of Count Johann Ludwig Yorck’s Prussian Corps and Sacken’s Russians, who were also advancing. Only about 27,000 out of 67,000 French troops available made it to the plateau by 2pm, when the fighting began.

The heavy rain obscured visibility. Blücher sent Karl von Müffling, his quartermaster-general, forward on a reconnaissance mission. Müffling later wrote that:

‘I was mounted on a mouse-coloured horse, and had on a grey cloak, so that in the pouring rain I was not visible at 100 paces.’[3]

The rain meant that muskets could not be fired and had to be used as clubs, so the fighting was mainly hand to hand. The French were forced to retreat, with many being drowned as they tried to cross the Katzbach, which had risen because of the rain.

Further south French troops under General Jacques-Alexander-Bernard Lauriston attacked Coalition forces under Count Alexandre de Langeron, a French emigré in Russian service. Langeron had fewer infantry  but more cavalry, and was in a strong defensive position. However, he initially gave ground, until he was sent reinforcements at 4pm. He then counter-attacked and recaptured most of the ground lost.

F. Lorraine Petre says that the Coalition captured at least 12-14,000 prisoners and 36 guns. Their own casualties were not recorded, but were heavy.[4] Wikipedia gives casualties of 15,000 French and 4,000 Coalition troops. Lieven notes that the French defeat at the Katzbach was turned into ‘catastrophe’ by the pursuit.[5]  It lasted until the first week in September, by when MacDonald’s army was back in Saxony and had lost 35,000 men.[6]

Langeron, who had been dilatory in the battle, performed well in the pursuit. Blücher gave great credit to Sacken for the victory at the Katzbach. He was promoted by the Tsar and cheered by Yorck’s Prussian troops.

[1] Troops strengths are from F. L. Petre, Napoleon’s Last Campaign in Germany, 1813 (London: Arms and Armour Press, 1974, first published 1912), pp. 252-53.

[2] D. C. B. Lieven, Russia against Napoleon: The Battle for Europe, 1807 to 1814 (London: Penguin, 2010), p. 379.

[3] Quoted in Ibid., p. 381.

[4] Petre, Napoleon’s Last Campaign, p. 256.

[5] Lieven, Russia, p. 385.

[6] Ibid., p. 388.

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