The Fall of Napoleon
Within four weeks of taking the field Napoleon had thrown the allies into disarray and seemed to have stopped the invasion in its tracks. He had gone far towards restoring the reputation for invincibility and military genius which had been badly dented in 1812 and 1813. In fact, however, at the very moment that Kankrin was despairing the situation was turning in the allies’ favour in all three crucial areas of the war, in other words supply, diplomacy and military operations.
As regards supply, one important factor was that most of Kankrin’s mobile magazines commanded by majors Lisanevich and Kondratev struggled their way from the Rhineland through to the army, which they then kept supplied with biscuit for a month. Lisanevich and Kondratev were unsung heroes of the Russian war effort, whose achievement in getting so large a part of the mobile magazines – including the great majority of its original carts and horses – all the way from the Danube and Belorussia through Germany and Switzerland to central France was remarkable. En route they had defeated snowdrifts, floods, cattle plagues, ambushes and the never-ending breakdowns of their overloaded peasant carts. No doubt the biscuit they carried for the troops, much of it baked in the autumn of 1812 and then dried out after getting damp that winter, cannot have been very appetizing. But it was a great deal better than nothing and, as in 1813, the magazines’ carts, which Kankrin used to shuttle food to and from depots along the lines of communication and to evacuate the wounded, were a godsend. Very importantly, he was also able to send Major Kondratev’s whole mobile magazine to Joinville in Lorraine, through which he was opening up a completely new supply line for the Russian troops’ exclusive use, thereby ending their dependence on the overloaded road back through Switzerland and on Austrian commissariat officials.1
Opening up this new supply line depended on the cooperation of David Alopaeus, the governor-general of occupied Lorraine. In January 1814 Baron Stein’s Central Administration had been given responsibility for running conquered French territory. Austrian officials were to run the provinces between Schwarzenberg’s army and the Rhine. The Prussians governed France’s northern provinces, in other words the area adjacent to the Low Countries and the Lower Rhine. The central area, conquered by Blücher’s army in January, was run by the Russians, whose governor-general, Alopaeus, was stationed in Nancy. Alopaeus was not initially very sympathetic to Kankrin’s appeals, since he was already having to feed Blücher’s army and was scared that if he imposed still more requisitioning peasant resistance might spread beyond control. Though Lorraine was richer than the provinces administered by the Austrians, it contained many French fortresses, which were very weakly blockaded, sometimes by forces smaller than their garrisons. Sorties to link up with local peasant bands were a constant threat. In addition, Alopaeus complained that the carts he needed to transport the supplies never returned from the army and that Russian commissariat officials were much less numerous and efficient than their Prussian counterparts.2
Kankrin must have gritted his teeth on reading this complaint, since his lines of supply ran all the way back to Russia and his shortage in particular of German- and French-speaking officials was inevitably chronic. As he reported to Barclay, he had been forced to strip even his own secretariat in order to find men to troubleshoot along the supply lines.3 But he needed the help of Alopaeus far too much to afford resentment. As he wrote to Barclay, ‘the new operational line for food supplies is a matter of crucial importance’. In fact relations quickly warmed, with the governor-general writing that, ‘as you see, we don’t lack goodwill, nor is there a total lack of the supplies which you need. But we do suffer from a severe lack of transport and of officials to oversee it.’ In response, Kankrin sent every official he could scrape up, together with Kondratev’s carts. Meanwhile the mobile magazine of the Army of Silesia also arrived providentially at Nancy, providing Alopaeus and Kankrin with an additional large reserve of carts. If this did not fully solve Kankrin’s problems, it did end the immediate emergency and held out the prospect of putting the army’s supply on a much more stable basis.4
Meanwhile, thanks to Napoleon, matters were looking much brighter for the allies on the diplomatic front too. His intransigence undermined Metternich’s strategy and reminded the Austrians how dangerous it would be to rely on Napoleon and isolate themselves from their allies. As Metternich knew, even the British military representative at allied headquarters was becoming very impatient with Schwarzenberg’s delaying tactics. Since Castlereagh’s arrival at headquarters an informal political understanding had developed between him and Metternich. But both men realized that there were limits beyond which Britain could not go in its desire to accommodate Vienna. British public opinion would distrust any peace with Napoleon. So too would the government.5
While Castlereagh was negotiating at allied headquarters, the Russian ambassador in London, Christoph Lieven, was speaking to the prime minister, Lord Liverpool, and the Prince Regent. Both men opposed signing a peace with Napoleon. The Prince Regent’s views precisely mirrored Alexander’s, as Lieven reported:
It would be to betray the desires of Providence…not to establish on unshakeable foundations a peace which had already cost so much blood…never had the world seen so powerful means united to achieve this. But these means were unique and the moral and physical forces of the allies could never be re-constituted to this level at any future time. Now was the time to ensure the well-being of Europe for centuries – while any peace made with Napoleon, however advantageous its conditions, could never give the human race anything other than a shorter or longer truce. The history of his entire life provided one example after another of bad faith, atrocity and ambition; and the blood of all Europe would only have flowed for a very doubtful respite if peace depended on treaties signed with this everlasting source of disturbance.6
Castlereagh could sign a treaty with Napoleon so long as this secured Belgium and was accompanied by formidable barriers against renewed French aggression, and so long as there appeared to be no other force available in France with which to make peace. Under no circumstances, however, could he accept France’s ‘natural frontiers’. Even Austrian hints about such terms would drive Castlereagh into Alexander’s arms. By the end of February, therefore, Metternich had every reason to seek a compromise. So too, however, did the Russian emperor. His political isolation from his allies in early February, coupled with Napoleon’s military victories, showed the dangers of intransigence. As a result, on 1 March 1814 the four allied great powers signed the Treaty of Chaumont, pledging themselves only to accept a peace based on France’s historic borders, an independent and extended Netherlands, and a German confederation of sovereign states dominated by Austria and Prussia. At least as important, the treaty was also a military alliance between the four powers, designed to last for twenty years after the peace was signed and to uphold this peace by joint military action if France attempted to breach its terms. The Treaty of Chaumont could not determine whether the allies would make peace with Napoleon or some alternative French regime. All the allied leaders knew that to a great extent this would have to depend on the French themselves. Nevertheless the treaty was in both real and moral terms a big boost to allied unity.7
Ultimately, however, it was military operations that were most likely to determine Napoleon’s fate. Only total defeat could persuade him to accept, even temporarily, the 1792 frontiers. Equally, the emperor’s defeat was the likeliest catalyst for a revolt of the French elites against his rule. In the second half of February defeat once again seemed far away. Schwarzenberg’s army was in full retreat. Initially the plan was to summon Blücher to march south to join with the main army and offer battle but by the time the Army of Silesia arrived in the vicinity on 21 February Schwarzenberg had changed his mind. The commander-in-chief insisted on detaching most of his Austrian troops southwards to block what he considered to be a growing threat to his communications from Marshal Augereau’s army in Lyons. This gave him an excellent reason – hi
s critics used the word ‘excuse’ – to continue his retreat southwards and avoid a battle. Blücher was outraged and Alexander seriously considered removing himself and the Russian corps from the main army and joining up with Blücher.
In the end a compromise was hammered out in a conference of the allied leaders at Bar-sur-Aube on 25 February. Schwarzenberg would continue his retreat as far as Langres if necessary, where he would be joined by the newly arriving Austrian reserves. If Napoleon was still pursuing him he would turn at Langres and fight a defensive battle. Meanwhile Blücher was to march northwards and, it was hoped, draw Napoleon off Schwarzenberg’s back by threatening Paris. If, as was expected, Napoleon turned round and pursued Blücher, Schwarzenberg was to resume the offensive. Bülow and Winzengerode’s Army Corps of Bernadotte’s former Army of the North had in the meantime marched from the frontiers of Holland towards Paris and were now approaching Soissons on the river Aisne. They would come under Blücher’s command, as would the newly formed Saxon corps of the German federal forces, whose job it would be to hold the Low Countries. Even without the Saxons, Blücher’s combined army would total over 100,000 men, which by now was considerably more than Napoleon’s entire force. Alexander’s instructions to the Prussian field-marshal reflected both his awareness that only Blücher had the confident aggression necessary for victory and his great fear that a repetition of Blücher’s earlier carelessness might wreck the allied cause. They concluded with the words, ‘as soon as you have coordinated the movements of your various corps we wish you to commence your offensive, which promises the happiest results so long as it is based on prudence’.8 Blücher set off northwards immediately. Unlike during his earlier offensive towards Paris, on this occasion the Russian cavalry was deployed to guard all the roads from the south. By 2 March it was clear from their reports that Napoleon was pursuing the Army of Silesia with a large force. The first objective of Blücher’s manoeuvre had thus been achieved. The next task was to unite with Winzengerode and Bülow, who were currently surrounding Soissons, which was important because its bridge offered a secure passage over the river Aisne. Vladimir Löwenstern was sent into the town as an emissary by the allied commanders. He used all his gambler’s tricks of bluff, aggression and charm to persuade the French commandant to surrender Soissons on 2 March.
Napoleon was furious, ordered the commandant to be shot, and claimed that if the city had not surrendered he would have pinned Blücher with his back to the Aisne and destroyed his army. Most Prussian historians angrily deny this and claim that the Army of Silesia could have crossed the Aisne elsewhere. On the other hand, some of General von Bülow’s supporters were only too happy to argue that their hero had rescued Blücher from a tight spot. Inevitably they neglected to mention that the chief agent of this rescue was not a Prussian but Löwenstern. To an even greater extent than normal in 1813–14, the Russian role is neglected and what actually happened is obscured amidst a cacophony of French and German nationalism and machismo. Probably the Prussian historians are right and Blücher would have escaped Napoleon’s clutches, but some at least of the allied force would have needed to cross the river over the Army of Silesia’s Russian pontoon bridges, never an easy task with Napoleon in the offing and made no easier by the Aisne’s flooding banks.9
The French army crossed the river Aisne at Berry-au-Bac to the east of Soissons on 5 March. Napoleon intended to advance on Laon; he was under the illusion that the allies were retreating and that all he would meet would be more or less determined rearguards. Blücher decided to pounce on the French as they advanced towards Corbeny and Laon. He deployed Winzengerode’s 16,300 infantry under the command of Mikhail Vorontsov on a plateau just to the west of the Laon road near the village of Craonne. Correctly, he believed that the emperor could never push on to Laon with this force on his flank and would need to concentrate first on defeating Vorontsov. Fabian von der Osten-Sacken’s Army Corps was deployed some kilometres behind Vorontsov on the plateau to support him in case of need. While Vorontsov’s Russians were pinning down Napoleon and occupying his attention, Blücher intended to march 10,000 cavalry under Winzengerode and the whole of Lieutenant-General von Kleist’s Prussian Army Corps around the French northern flank and into their rear. Meanwhile Bülow would shield Laon and Blücher’s communications with the Low Countries, while part of Alexandre de Langeron’s force would remain behind to hold Soissons.
There were problems with Blücher’s plan. Langeron’s and Bülow’s men would take no part in the battle and were therefore to some extent wasted. The terrain over which Winzengerode and Kleist were supposed to make their flank march was not properly reconnoitred and turned out to be very difficult. Rocks, hills, streams and broken ground caused great delays even to the cavalry, let alone the guns. A better general than Winzengerode might well have overcome these difficulties but with him in command the whole flank movement crawled along and finally had to be abandoned.
As a result, in the battle of Craonne on 7 March Vorontsov fought alone for most of the day against an ever-increasing proportion of Napoleon’s army. Fortunately his position was very strong. The height held by the Russians became famous in the First World War as the Chemin des Dames. It stretched about 17 kilometres from east to west and was narrow, in some cases being only a few hundred metres wide. The Russians could therefore hold their line in depth while the steep sides of the plateau made it very difficult for the French to outflank their position. Vorontsov deployed his artillery skilfully and he put the 14th Jaegers into the stout farm buildings at Heurtebise in front of his main line in order to blunt and delay the French attack. This was a crack regiment, with its ranks full of elite sharpshooters from the former combined grenadier battalions of Winzengerode’s Army Corps, which had been disbanded just before the campaign began. For once it was the Russians who enjoyed the advantage of fighting from behind stout walls and the 14th Jaegers put up a formidable performance on 7 March.10
The battle began shortly after ten o’clock in the morning of 7 March when Marshal Ney’s corps, 14,000 strong, advanced against the left of the Russian line. Ney attacked prematurely before other infantry divisions were on hand to support his advance. His young conscripts fought with great courage but they were advancing over difficult ground in the face of many well-sited Russian batteries. Not surprisingly, their repeated attacks failed. When General Boyer’s excellent division of units withdrawn from Spain arrived on the scene Napoleon threw it into the fray immediately. It fought its way past the farm of Heurtebise and up onto the plateau, allowing four French batteries to climb the slopes and deploy in its support. Vorontsov, however, launched a counter-attack which threw both Boyer and Ney back off the plateau. Not until the early afternoon, when Charpentier’s infantry and a number of cavalry brigades joined the attack, was the Russian position in serious danger.
At this point orders came from Blücher for Vorontsov to retire and for the whole army to retreat northwards and concentrate at Laon. The orders were sensible. Once the flank attack had come to nothing it made no sense to expose Vorontsov and Sacken to a battle against the whole French army. Inevitably this was not how matters seemed to Vorontsov in the midst of the fray. His men had fought with great courage to pin down Napoleon. Now their sacrifice appeared to be in vain. A warrior’s pride made it very difficult for him to retreat from a battle in which thus far victory had been on his side. In any case, at least in the short run it was easier to hold one’s ground than to retreat in orderly fashion in the face of a numerically superior enemy who would be emboldened by the sight of his enemy withdrawing.
Only after repeated orders from Sacken did Vorontsov begin his withdrawal. He remained calm throughout, as did his men, and the French cavalry had no success in their efforts to break into the Russian infantry squares or capture their guns. At the narrow defile near the village of Cerny, Vorontsov halted his retreat to give time for Ilarion Vasilchikov’s cavalry to arrive. When Sacken received Blücher’s orders to retreat he had got his infan
try away immediately but he sent Vasilchikov forward to cover Vorontsov’s regiments as they made their way across the more open plateau west of Cerny. Together Vasilchikov and Vorontsov kept the pursuing French at a respectful distance, particularly after they had combined to ambush one enemy detachment which pursued them too incautiously. Towards the western end of the plateau it once again narrowed and the French were forced to bunch together in close columns to continue their advance. At these points the very competent commander of Sacken’s artillery, Major-General Aleksei Nikitin, had deployed a number of batteries and their concentrated fire stopped the pursuit and inflicted heavy casualties, before the Russian guns slipped away unscathed under the protection of Vasilchikov’s cavalry.11
Since Britain had no troops in the allied army, Lord Burghersh – its military representative at headquarters – was a relatively impartial observer. He called the Russian performance at Craonne ‘the best fought action during the campaign’. Vorontsov, Vasilchikov and their troops had certainly shown great skill, discipline and courage. The performance of Vorontsov’s infantry was particularly striking because few of his regiments had seen serious combat since the spring of 1813 and for many of his men this was their first experience of battle. The French subsequently claimed victory because Blücher’s plan had failed and because they held the battlefield at the end of the day. In this narrow sense they were indeed victorious, just as they had been ‘victorious’ in these terms in every Russian rearguard action during their advance to Moscow in 1812. But the Russians left behind no guns and very few prisoners. Clausewitz sums up the battle of Craonne by saying that ‘the Russians defended themselves at Craonne so successfully that the main goal, to reach Laon undisturbed, was achieved…this was accomplished by exceptionally brave soldiers, a very self-possessed commander and an excellent position’.12
Russia Against Napoleon Page 65