Russia Against Napoleon: The True Story of the Campaigns of War and Peace

by Dominic Lieven

  Before departing for Dresden Napoleon ordered MacDonald to advance over the river Katzbach and drive Blücher back beyond Jauer.

  After this his job was to keep the enemy pinned down in eastern Silesia, far away from the crucial theatre of operations in Saxony west of the Elbe. MacDonald ordered his men to advance over the Katzbach on 26 August. Meanwhile Blücher was immediately aware of the departure of Napoleon and much of the enemy army. He therefore ordered the Army of Silesia to resume offensive operations, beginning with an advance over the Katzbach, also planned for 26 August. The scene was set for the crucial battle which took place on that day. Neither commander expected the other to advance. The resulting confusion when the two advancing armies bumped into each other was increased because heavy rain greatly reduced visibility.

  MacDonald’s army advanced on a wide front. Two of his divisions, under generals Ledru and Puthod, were deployed well to the south near Schönau and Hirschberg. Their job was to tackle the small Russian Eighth Corps commanded by Count Emmanuel de Saint-Priest, another royalist émigré and Petr Bagration’s former chief of staff, and threaten Jauer from the south-west. This move would outflank Blücher’s army and endanger its communications and its baggage, which was concentrated in and near Jauer. Meanwhile at the other end of MacDonald’s line the Third Corps, deployed near Liegnitz, was ordered to cross the Katzbach at that city and then push down the road from Liegnitz to Jauer behind the allied right flank. The remainder of MacDonald’s army, made up of his own Eleventh and Lauriston’s Fifth Corps was to advance directly over the Katzbach towards Jauer. Having detached Ledru and Puthod, these two corps only amounted to four infantry divisions but they would be supported by Sebastiani’s cavalry.

  There were dangers in dispersing the French army so widely. MacDonald seems to have assumed that Blücher would be static or in retreat.

  This was a very dangerous assumption when facing so aggressive an enemy. A senior Russian staff officer subsequently wrote that failure to reconnoitre the allied position was the key to the French defeat at the Katzbach. For this not just MacDonald but also the atrocious weather and the poor quality of the French cavalry was to blame.34

  The terrain over which MacDonald was advancing and on which the battle was fought added to the dangers of poor reconnaissance. Roughly speaking, before the battle the two armies were divided by the river Katzbach, which flows south-westwards from Liegnitz. The French were on the north bank and the allies on the south. MacDonald’s troops crossed the river and the battle took place on the south bank between the Katzbach and Jauer. The battlefield was divided into two distinct halves by the river Wütender Neisse, which flows from Jauer and joins the Katzbach at something approaching a right angle.

  The northern half of the battlefield – in other words the area north of the Wütender Neisse – was a flat and treeless plateau which falls steeply into the valleys of the Katzbach to the north-west and the Wütender Neisse to the south-west. The plateau is never more than 75 metres above the rivers but its steep and thickly forested slopes makes it impossible for anyone on the French side of the rivers to see what is happening there, even on a clear day. The roads across the Katzbach climbed on to the plateau through steep and narrow defiles, especially the one near Weinberg up which most of the French troops advanced. On a muddy or icy day this lane is troublesome even today in a car. Getting thousands of men, horses and guns up this lane in August 1813 amidst mud and driving rain was much worse. There was also a considerable danger of being surprised by what one might find on the plateau.

  On 26 August 1813 the French encountered roughly 60 per cent of Blücher’s army on the plateau, in other words the whole of Yorck’s and Sacken’s army corps. Sacken was on the right, with his open flank anchored in the village of Eichholz, in which the 8th and 39th Jaegers of Johann von Lieven’s division were deployed. Beyond Eichholz to the north were Major-General Kretov’s Cossacks. To the left (i.e. south) of the village, Sacken deployed his infantry, with Neverovsky’s 27th Division in the front line and the remainder of Lieven’s 10th Division behind in reserve. Ilarion Vasilchikov’s hussar and dragoon regiments were deployed behind and just to the right of Eichholz. Between Sacken’s Army Corps and the Wütender Neisse stood Yorck’s Prussians.

  Langeron’s troops were deployed in the southern half of the battlefield, in other words south of the Wütender Neisse. The ground here is very different to the plateau north of the river. It is dominated by two ridges which run from the banks of the Wütender Neisse to the wooded hills which mark the south-western border of the battlefield. These ridges provided commanding views and artillery positions. In addition, the two villages of Hennersdorff and Hermannsdorf could be turned into strong-points for Langeron’s infantry.

  MacDonald’s plans began going wrong from early on 26 August. As a result of misunderstood orders Third Corps had marched away from Liegnitz on the previous day. By the time they got back to the area General Souham decided that it was too late to execute MacDonald’s order to cross the Katzbach at Liegnitz and march from there to Jauer. The main reason given by Third Corps for disobeying MacDonald’s orders was that the crossings at Liegnitz were no longer usable because of the heavy rain. This sounds dubious, because Sacken’s Russians crossed at Liegnitz on 28 August after two days of further continuous rain. Whatever the reason, on 26 August Souham decided to move his corps down the north bank of the Katzbach instead, thereby linking up with MacDonald’s main body and supporting their attack across the river.35

  In principle this concentration of the French army sounds sensible. In practice, however, the narrow roads on the north bank of the Katzbach could not sustain the movement of so many men. Between the villages of Kroitsch and Nieder Crayn a massive traffic jam developed. It included Sebastiani’s cavalry, as well as artillery and baggage. Into this jam headed the four divisions of Third Corps. Only one of these divisions, General Brayer’s 8th Division, succeeded in pushing its way through this traffic jam and moving onto the plateau across the bridge and up the defile at Weinberg. Even Brayer was forced to leave all his artillery behind. MacDonald ordered the other three divisions of Third Corps to backtrack and seek to cross the river further towards Liegnitz. Two of these divisions ultimately forded the Katzbach near the village of Schmogwitz but by the time they approached the plateau the battle was over. In the end the only French units to play a role in the fight on the plateau were Brayer’s men, General Charpentier’s 36th Division of MacDonald’s corps and Sebastiani’s cavalry. Since Brayer’s artillery was stuck at Kroitsch on the wrong side of the Katzbach this force did not even have its full complement of guns. As the French were opposed by the entire army corps of both Yorck and Sacken, in other words 60 per cent of Blücher’s army, it is not at all surprising that they lost this battle.

  Having given his own orders to advance across the Katzbach, Blücher was surprised to be informed at about 11 a.m. on 26 August that the French were also advancing across the river against both Langeron and Yorck. Since the picture provided by the retreating Prussian outposts was very confused, Colonel Baron von Müffling, the quartermaster-general, rode forward on his own to spy out French numbers and where they were headed. Müffling recalled 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’. Müffling discovered French cavalry and artillery deploying on the plateau between Nieder Weinberg and Janowitz, with infantry moving up behind them in the valley near Nieder Weinberg. Informed of this situation, Blücher ordered Yorck to attack the French and Sacken to deploy artillery on the Taubenberg hill just south-west of Eichholz. The Russian artillery would distract French attention northwards and away from Yorck’s advance. They would also support the Prussian infantry as and when they made their attack. Meanwhile Sacken’s infantry would hold their position at Eichholz and watch out for possible further French columns coming onto the plateau from their right, north of Janowitz.36

  At best it would take Yorck
’s infantry an hour’s marching to reach the French. Meanwhile, however, long before Blücher’s orders arrived Sacken had posted Colonel Brahms’s 13th Russian Heavy Battery on the Taubenberg and had begun to bombard the French. The Taubenberg ‘hill’ is actually a very slight elevation but it commands the entire plateau north-westwards to the Katzbach and south-westwards to the Wütender Neisse. Having inspected the position allocated to his Army Corps, Sacken was far too good a general not to have spotted the Taubenberg’s advantages and acted immediately on his own initiative. Soon Brahms was joined by other Russian and Prussian batteries.

  Meanwhile Yorck and Müffling had got into an argument as to how the Prussian troops were to advance. Yorck wanted them deployed in line, whereas Müffling argued that there was insufficient room for this on the plateau and that the manoeuvre would in any case waste precious time. When Blücher supported Müffling, Yorck sulkily complied and sent two of his brigades forward in column. Inevitably time was lost, but by about 3 p.m. Yorck’s men were in action against French infantry on the edge of the plateau near the defile which leads down into the river valley by Ober Weinberg. In the pouring rain few muskets would fire but after a brief hand-to-hand fight the outnumbered French infantry fled down the defile towards the river crossing. At this point some of Sebastiani’s cavalry charged the Prussians in order to rescue their infantry and allow them to disengage and re-form. With their muskets useless in the rain Yorck’s infantry were very vulnerable to cavalry, and Colonel Jurgas, commanding the Prussian reserve cavalry brigade, tried to come to their rescue. To Yorck’s rage, however, the Prussian cavalry’s attack was poorly coordinated and failed. According to Müffling, who was with Yorck all this time, there then followed a strange hiatus, lasting perhaps fifteen minutes, in which Yorck’s infantry and some 4,000 French cavalry faced each other without either quite daring to attack. Then suddenly, to Müffling’s great surprise, the French cavalry turned tail and fled down the defiles into the river valley.

  The reason for their flight was that Sebastiani’s men had been attacked by Vasilchikov’s Russian cavalry. From where Sacken and Vasilchikov stood near Eichholz, the position taken up by Sebastiani and by Brayer’s infantry seemed the answer to a cavalryman’s prayer. The plateau was perfect ground for cavalry, with no ditches, walls, trees or other obstacles. Moreover, Sebastiani’s left flank was hanging in the air, open to attack. It seems that the French cavalry commander was expecting that the missing three divisions of Souham’s corps would soon be advancing through Janowitz to his support. Whatever the reason, to offer an open flank to a general of Vasilchikov’s calibre was asking for trouble. Vasilchikov sent out scouts to ensure that the villages to the north of Sebastiani’s line were not occupied by infantry and that his men would not be ambushed as they advanced. Having discovered that they were empty he advanced and attacked the French from three directions simultaneously.

  The Alexandria and Mariupol Hussar regiments attacked the enemy front and were supported by a brigade of dragoons. Meanwhile the Akhtyrka and Belorussia Hussar regiments moved out behind the village of Klein Tinz and charged into Sebastiani’s flank. Between Klein Tinz and Janowitz, Vasilchikov’s Cossacks stormed into the rear of the French cavalry. The Count de Venançon, a Piedmontese émigré serving as Sacken’s quartermaster-general, wrote to Petr Volkonsky that ‘I am not exaggerating when I say that never was a manoeuvre executed with more precision and intelligence, and it was crowned with complete success because the entire enemy left flank was taken from the rear and overwhelmed’. Sebastiani’s cavalry fled down the defiles to the Katzbach, carrying with them Brayer’s infantry and abandoning all the guns that the French had succeeded in getting up to the plateau. According to French accounts, Brayer’s infantry retreated in good order and even covered the flight of Sebastiani’s cavalry. Disorder only set in when the infantrymen were forced to cross the Katzbach in the growing darkness, under enemy fire and amidst the chaos of roads blocked by carts, guns and cavalry.37

  It was not until well after the rout of the rest of the French forces that two remaining divisions of Souham’s corps began to approach the battlefield from the ford at Schmogwitz. According to Russian accounts, their advance was slow and hesitant. As the French moved southwards from the ford at Schmogwitz towards the village of Schweinitz, they encountered skirmishers sent forward from Neverovsky’s 27th Division to slow them down. Skirmishing began at about seven in the evening. The bulk of Neverovsky’s and Lieven’s divisions then moved forward, supported by many batteries of allied artillery. Outnumbered, and informed of the disaster that had befallen the rest of the army, General Ricard ordered his men to retreat back over the ford at Schmogwitz. With this retreat ended the fighting on the northern half of the battlefield.38

  Meanwhile a very different battle had been fought on the southern half of the battlefield, south of the Wütender Neisse. Langeron had detached Saint-Priest’s Eighth Corps to guard the approach routes to Jauer from Hirschberg and in his absence the rival forces were roughly matched. Langeron had more and better cavalry but faced superior numbers of infantry in the three French divisions deployed against him. Given the terrain, he should nevertheless have been able to hold his ground against the attacks of MacDonald, who led the French forces in person, all other things being equal.

  In fact, however, they were anything but equal since Langeron appears to have been staging a fighting retreat rather than a battle. Obsessed with the threat to his left and to Jauer, Langeron put most of his effort into securing his line of retreat. Fearful that Maison’s division was seeking to push beyond his left, Langeron dispatched Kaptsevich’s Tenth Corps back to Peterwitz to guard the line of retreat to Jauer. This left him with just two small corps, Olsufev’s Ninth and Prince Shcherbatov’s Sixth, and Rudzevich’s detachment to hold off MacDonald. In his memoirs, however, Shcherbatov writes that his corps was held in reserve until late afternoon and played no part in the fighting until after 4 p.m. In addition, almost all Langeron’s heavy batteries had been dispatched to the rear in order not to block any retreat down the narrow, muddy roads. Of course, when all these detachments were added together, they gave the French overwhelming superiority on the battlefield in terms of both numbers and firepower. By late afternoon they had pushed Langeron off the heights between Hennersdorf and Schlaupe which commanded the whole southern half of the battlefield. The Russian troops fought hard but had no chance of holding on against such superior numbers.39

  At this point Müffling arrived from Blücher’s headquarters, where the news that Langeron had been driven out of his strong position was greeted with scorn. In his memoirs Müffling recounts that he found Langeron on the hill behind Schlaupe, in company with Rudzevich, Olsufev and Shcherbatov. Müffling told them of the victory north of the Wütender Neisse, sang Sacken’s praises and urged them to counterattack and regain the Hennersdorf Heights immediately. The other Russian generals agreed with enthusiasm but Langeron responded: ‘Colonel, are you certain that the commander-in-chief is not deploying my corps to cover his retreat?’ Müffling added: ‘This was the fixed and firmly rooted idea of Count Langeron, which had misled him into his false measures.’ If Langeron had any doubts about the truth of Müffling’s message, however, it was dispelled by the evidence of his own eyes. Captain Radozhitsky, whose battery was deployed on the hill, recalled that through the rain it was suddenly possible to see Prussian troops in full pursuit of fleeing French battalions on the other bank of the Wütender Neisse. He heard Langeron, standing not far away, exclaim, ‘Good God, they are running.’40

  All this was enough to persuade Langeron to order an immediate counter-attack to retake the Hennersdorf position. Rudzevich attacked on the left, Olsufev in the centre, and for the first time Shcherbatov’s corps came into action on the right. The momentum and unexpectedness of the attack drove the French back off the heights with little serious fighting, according to Russian sources. Thus the Pskov Regiment, part of Shcherbatov’s corps, had waited in reserve all day
until ordered forward after 4 p.m. for the counter-attack. The regiment advanced at rapid pace in textbook fashion: it attacked in battalion columns with skirmishers out in front and artillery moving forward in the intervals between the columns. According to the regimental history, their skirmishers drove back the French light infantry screen and began to shoot down men in the ranks of the battalions behind. At this point, seeing the Russian columns advancing to storm their position, the French infantry decamped at speed. In good patriotic fashion, the regimental history forgets to mention that Shcherbatov’s attack towards Schlaupe was much helped by Prussian troops fording the Wütender Neisse to take the French in the rear. But the official Russian history of the campaign does mention this and pays tribute to the courage of the Prussian troops.41

  For the French, the battle of the Katzbach was a defeat but not a disaster. What turned defeat into catastrophe was the pursuit which followed the battle. This was by far the most successful pursuit of a defeated enemy in 1813. On 26 August Langeron had, to put things mildly, not distinguished himself. His misunderstanding of Blücher’s intentions and disobedience of his orders could have had disastrous consequences. The heroes of the day were Yorck’s infantry, Vasilchikov and his cavalry, and Fabian von der Osten-Sacken. During the pursuit, however, it was Langeron’s corps which achieved much the most spectacular results. This did not come across in Blücher and Gneisenau’s account of the battle. It would, of course, take time for Blücher to forget Langeron’s insubordination. Moreover the Prussian leaders had good reason to try to build up the Landwehr’s self-respect and morale by glowing accounts of its merits. In a secret report, the Prussian military government of Silesia had no need to go in for propaganda, however. Rejoicing in the liberation of their province and the destruction of MacDonald’s army, their account of the pursuit of the defeated enemy ascribed the catastrophe which had overtaken the French to Langeron alone.42