The Battle of Leipzig
The battle of Dennewitz ended the first phase of the autumn campaign. The rest of September was a hiatus. The second and decisive phase of the campaign began in early October, culminating in the battle of Leipzig. Napoleon would have liked to break the stalemate in September and impose his will on the enemy in his usual fashion. His strategic situation and, above all, his losses made this impossible, however. At the beginning of the autumn campaign Napoleon had hoped to deal the allies a knockout blow by leading his Guards and reserves northwards to strike against Berlin. Such a move was now unthinkable: the men could not be spared from the armies watching Blücher and Schwarzenberg. Napoleon restored MacDonald’s army to some degree of order and attempted an advance on Blücher but the latter merely withdrew and dared Napoleon to pursue him across eastern Saxony and Silesia, thereby abandoning Dresden to Schwarzenberg.
In mid-September Napoleon moved southwards down the Teplitz highway and into the Erzgebirge, with the aim of defeating the main allied army. Pursuing Schwarzenberg’s powerful army and trying to bring it to battle deep in Bohemia was unlikely to be successful, however. Schwarzenberg could find plenty of strong defensive positions. Meanwhile Napoleon’s communications would be vulnerable to swarming allied cavalry and Blücher – even perhaps Bernadotte – would be at the gates of Dresden and devastating his base in Saxony. By now, unless he decided to abandon central Germany, Napoleon’s only real option was to wait for the allies to invade Saxony and then try to exploit their mistakes.
The initiative lay in the hands of the allies. No invasion of Saxony was possible, however, unless the Army of Bohemia advanced back across the Erzgebirge. Schwarzenberg was not yet willing to try this again. In part he needed time to receive and train the Austrian troops who were to fill the gaps left by the battle of Dresden. During the chaotic retreat through the mountains in late August many carts and more supplies and ammunition had been lost. These too needed to be replaced before there could be any thought of a further offensive. Many horses had lost their shoes amidst the mud and stones of the mountain roads and, above all, during the steep descent into the Teplitz valley. In September 1813 horseshoes were in very short supply in Bohemia and had to be shipped in from elsewhere.
In general, supplying the allied armies in northern Bohemia was difficult and resulted in many disagreements between the Austrian, Russian and Prussian troops. The Austrians accused the Russians of marauding. The Russians replied that their troops were forced to hunt for food because the Austrians were failing to feed them, as they were obliged to do by the agreement between the two governments which covered the upkeep of the Russian troops while they were stationed on Austrian territory. Kankrin subsequently stated that there was in principle nothing wrong with the Austro-Russian agreement: the only, and far more costly, alternative would have been to use private contractors. But the Austrians had failed to implement the terms of the agreement efficiently. Ultimately, one partial solution to problems of supply was to move much of the cavalry towards central Bohemia where forage was abundant, until the allies were ready to resume the offensive.1
Strategic considerations also delayed allied operations. The near-disaster in late August had confirmed existing Austrians fears about the perils of advancing down the roads through the Erzgebirge. It had also provided ample justification for their concern that Napoleon would use their advance into the Erzgebirge to strike into their right and rear in Bohemia. Schwarzenberg would not move forward again into Saxony unless he was confident that he was well protected against any such threat. The problem was set out rather well in a memorandum by Jomini of 3 September. The main army needed to invade Saxony with at least 170,000 men, of whom 20,000 must be left to watch Dresden. It could not simultaneously detach sufficient troops to guard the line of the Elbe south of Dresden against the kind of strike contemplated by Napoleon and actually attempted by Vandamme in August. Jomini’s solution was the one favoured by Schwarzenberg and agreed by the monarchs: Blücher’s army must march into Bohemia to protect the right flank of the main army as it advanced across the Erzgebirge. Should no threat materialize from Napoleon, the Army of Silesia could then itself join the invasion of Saxony by marching up the Teplitz highway to Dresden and beyond.2
The victory of Dennewitz and the arrival of reinforcements for the Army of Bohemia changed some of Jomini’s numbers without altering the basic strategic issue. Not at all surprisingly, Blücher was deeply unwilling to lose his independence and become a mere adjunct of Schwarzenberg’s lumbering army. He wrote to Knesebeck as follows: for the ‘sake of the common good, preserve me from a union with the main army; what can such a vast mass of men achieve in terrain of that sort?’ Another letter from Blücher, drafted by Gneisenau and dated 11 September, went directly to Alexander and stressed the impact on Bernadotte if Blücher moved away from him and towards Bohemia: ‘The battle of 6 September [i.e. Dennewitz] has certainly changed the military position within the theatre but the crown prince of Sweden would probably straight away and with good reason fall into inactivity if he noticed that the Army of Silesia was moving a long way away from him.’3
Caution was required when writing on such delicate themes. Along with the letter, Blücher also sent his excellent staff officer, Major Rühle von Lilienberg, to pass on his views orally to Alexander and Frederick William. Rühle stressed Blücher and Gneisenau’s opinion that ‘so long as the crown prince is deployed on his own in a separate theatre of war we can expect no activity from him because of his political position’. The combination of written and oral urgings convinced the monarchs and had a decisive influence on the future of the campaign. Blücher was allowed to remain independent and to plan his crossing of the Elbe and link-up with Bernadotte. Nesselrode wrote to Pozzo to keep the crown prince in line during the forthcoming military operation. Meanwhile Bennigsen’s Army of Poland would be diverted from its march across Silesia and would instead be brought southwards to Bohemia to guard Schwarzenberg’s right and rear.4
On 13 September Alexander wrote to Blücher to tell him that General von dem Knesebeck was coming to him with instructions which would give Blücher wide leeway to plan his forthcoming operations. On the same day he wrote to Bennigsen ordering him to march to Bohemia. The emperor simply told Bennigsen, ‘I think that it would be difficult to turn him [Blücher] from the direction he has taken’, and gave the commander of the Army of Poland the march-routes he was to follow into Bohemia. He stressed the urgency of the movement and that Bennigsen was to report daily. Bennigsen received Alexander’s orders at Hainau on 17 September. He immediately stirred up his corps commanders, allowing Count Tolstoy’s militia just one day’s rest at Liegnitz and telling their general to leave behind any units incapable of combat in the field. It would take Bennigsen’s men at least two weeks, however, to reach Bohemia along bad roads, in areas already eaten out by passing troops and in dreadful weather. Bennigsen subsequently reported daily to Alexander on all these problems but he did add that the Austrian commissariat on this occasion had done a good job in keeping his army fed.5
While Bennigsen’s men were on the march most of the allied troops were resting. Military operations were largely confined to the light troops which by now were swarming in Napoleon’s rear and doing great damage to his supplies. Both east and west of Leipzig, Russian, Prussian and Austrian light cavalry and Cossacks forced Napoleon to divert ever larger escorts to supply trains. Even this did not guarantee safety. On 11 September a supply convoy west of Leipzig with an escort of 4,000 infantry and 1,500 cavalry was overwhelmed by an allied force. Alexander ordered Blücher to release six Cossack regiments which he wanted to redeploy behind enemy lines in western Saxony. Through Petr Volkonsky he requested Platov to lead them, writing him a letter of an exquisite politeness, worthy of the days when the ataman of the Don Cossacks was truly an independent potentate. Platov took the job and justified Alexander’s trust. Near Pennig on 28 September, together with other allied light cavalry units, he r
outed General Lefebvre-Desnouettes’s 2nd Guards Cavalry Division, which Napoleon had sent back to the rear to deal with the allied partisans.6
Even more spectacular were the operations of the Army of the North’s Russian light forces commanded by Aleksandr Chernyshev. Chernyshev writes that he prevailed on Bernadotte to allow him ten days in which he could operate behind enemy lines west of the Elbe according to his own plans and initiative. His force consisted of five Cossack regiments, six weak squadrons of regular cavalry and four guns. Crossing the Elbe on the night of 14 September, Chernyshev decided to head westwards for Kassel, the capital of Jérôme Bonaparte’s tottering puppet kingdom of Westphalia. His journal states that in part he preferred this goal to Leipzig because the French forces were so numerous and so well organized around the latter. Chernyshev argued that a successful attack on Kassel could spark off revolt throughout the region.
He moved quickly and secretly, covering 85 kilometres in one day alone, and attacked Kassel early in the morning of 29 September. A combination of surprise, courage, bluff and French awareness of their deep unpopularity among the local population led to the flight of King Jérôme, the surrender of his capital, and the capture of extensive stores and a war chest of 79,000 talers. Chernyshev was no pirate: he distributed 15,000 of the talers to his men and sent the rest back to Winzengerode, before evacuating the city. His journal states that if he had found sufficient weapons in the city he would have armed civilian volunteers and tried to hold on to Kassel until relieved. His raid had been a spectacular affair and his boldness and leadership were once again in evidence. On the other hand, unlike on previous occasions when his raids sometimes had major strategic value, it is not obvious what the temporary capture of Kassel contributed to the allied cause in autumn 1813. What really counted in terms of undermining Napoleon’s position in western Germany was the secret negotiations Metternich was conducting with the Confederation of the Rhine states, which were now on the verge of bringing Bavaria into the allied camp. Above all what mattered was the massive battle about to take place at Leipzig, which would decide the fate of Germany and perhaps Europe. Unlike Platov and the other partisan commanders in Saxony, Chernyshev did not weaken Napoleon’s main army by diverting its troops or stopping its supplies. On this occasion he was the star of a brilliant but largely irrelevant sideshow.7
Meanwhile Bennigsen’s army was heading towards Bohemia. In its ranks marched a young militia officer called Andrei Raevsky. As a militiaman, Raevsky’s perspective was somewhat different to that of the regular officers. His memoirs celebrate the self-sacrifice of nobles who have volunteered to abandon home and family despite in many cases having earned a peaceful retirement after years of service to their country. Full of pride that the cream of the local community is offering itself up as a patriotic sacrifice, he says not one word about the peasant militiamen they commanded. In that respect there is a strong contrast between Raevsky’s memoirs and the diary of Aleksandr Chicherin, with its sensitive and humane comments about the men in the ranks of the Semenovsky Guards.
In most ways, however, Raevsky’s memoirs are typical of the writings of Russian officers who made the long march through Poland and Silesia into Bohemia. He contrasted Polish squalor and poverty with the wealth and tidiness of Silesia. When he got to Bohemia he noted that the locals were fellow Slavs and added how much less pleasant they were than the Germans of Silesia. Not only were they much poorer and less clean, they were also far meaner and less welcoming than the Germans as regards the arriving Russian army. Like many of his peers, Raevsky was uplifted by a sense of Russian power, prestige and generosity. He felt proud that Russians were not just defeating Napoleon but also liberating Europe from his yoke. His memoirs are also in part a romantic travelogue. At Leutmeritz, for instance, he recalls that the Russian militia came upon the wagon-train of the main army: ‘a long row of carts, horses beyond number, everywhere the smoke of campfires with the Bashkir and Kalmyks who crowd around them reminding one of the wild nomadic tribes who roam on the steppes of the Urals and on the banks of the stormy [river] Enisei’.8
At Leutmeritz Bennigsen received Alexander’s orders for the coming campaign. His chief task was to defend the main army’s bases and communications in Bohemia. If Napoleon invaded the province then Bennigsen was to fall back on the strong defensive position behind the river Eger. If on the contrary the French moved against the main army then Bennigsen was to advance up the Teplitz highway into their rear. On 30 September General Dokhturov’s men arrived in the Teplitz valley and began to occupy the former bivouacs of the Army of Bohemia. The Leipzig campaign was about to begin.9
Schwarzenberg’s advance guard began to move northwards on 27 September. On this occasion the Army of Bohemia would be using just one of the two highways through the Erzgebirge, in other words the road from Kommotau through Chemnitz to Leipzig. Inevitably this slowed down its movements. Both Schwarzenberg and Barclay were acutely conscious of the army’s vulnerability to a sudden attack by Napoleon as it emerged from the mountains. With so much of the light cavalry away in raiding parties around Leipzig, reconnaissance was a problem. Wittgenstein and Kleinau commanded the leading allied corps: the former had no Cossacks and the latter only 1,200 light cavalry. Despite Barclay’s worries about supplies, the area between Chemnitz and Altenburg had never been fought over and food and fodder turned out to be relatively abundant. Schwarzenberg advanced out of the Erzgebirge with 160,000 men. Facing him were only 40,000 men under Joachim Murat. But the allied movements were so slow and uncoordinated that Murat was easily able to delay them and even score a number of minor victories in skirmishes. The pressure on his force was so weak that Murat believed that he was facing only part of the Army of Bohemia, with Schwarzenberg and the main body probably still poised to move on Dresden. Murat’s reports to this effect misled Napoleon but the key result of Schwarzenberg’s caution was that Napoleon was free to turn on Blücher and Bernadotte with the great majority of his army.10 Blücher’s army began its march northwards to link up with Bernadotte on 29 September. On 3 October his Russian pontoon companies got Blücher’s Prussians across the Elbe at Wartenburg. Though outnumbered, the French forces at Wartenburg held very strong positions, which Yorck’s infantry stormed with great courage. Meanwhile Bernadotte kept his promise to cross the Elbe to join the Army of Silesia: all three of his corps crossed the river on 4 October at Rosslau and Aken. Winzengerode had orders from Bernadotte to attack Ney’s rear if the French advanced against Blücher. The Army of Silesia headed south-eastwards towards Düben with Yorck in the lead, followed by Langeron, with Sacken’s corps bringing up the rear. Having abandoned their bases east of the Elbe Langeron’s men were already having to scrounge food from the local countryside and some of them were beginning to go hungry. Captain Radozhitsky complained that marching in the wake of the Prussians was always unpleasant because they stripped the country bare, treating the Saxon population much worse than the Russians’ behaviour towards the Poles when marching through the Duchy of Warsaw earlier in the year.11
For their own safety and if the campaign was to succeed the armies of Silesia and of the North had to act in unison. In practice neither Bernadotte nor Blücher could give orders to the other army commander: they had to agree on strategy. Given Blücher’s boldness and Bernadotte’s caution this was bound to be difficult. Blücher’s aim was to link up with Schwarzenberg near Leipzig, pulling Bernadotte along with him, and thereby uniting the three allied armies for a decisive battle against Napoleon. In principle Bernadotte did not object to this strategy. If Napoleon advanced on Leipzig to do battle with Schwarzenberg then Bernadotte was fully willing to move forward into his rear, as the Trachenberg plan demanded. Quite reasonably, however, Bernadotte feared that if he and Blücher marched on Leipzig before the Army of Bohemia arrived in the neighbourhood they would expose themselves to being attacked by the whole of Napoleon’s forces. At the very least they needed to be clear about Schwarzenberg’s whereabouts and Napoleon’s mov
ements before undertaking so risky a move. In addition, Bernadotte believed that Napoleon might well rely on Schwarzenberg’s slowness and himself march northwards to destroy the other two allied armies before the Army of Bohemia could intervene. In this prediction Bernadotte was entirely correct and his caution was fully justified.
When the Leipzig campaign began Napoleon was in Dresden. Initially he found it hard to get a grasp of the allied movements, partly because of his lack of good cavalry but also because he could not easily believe that Blücher would be bold enough to cross the Elbe with his entire army, advancing into Napoleon’s lair and abandoning his bases and supplies in Silesia. The emperor only marched out of Dresden on 7 September, heading for Meissen and Wurzen, which he reached on the following day. This was the logical route either if he was going to move towards Leipzig against Schwarzenberg or if he wanted to strike northwards against Blücher. Only once he reached Wurzen would he have to show his hand by either continuing westwards to Leipzig or marching north-eastwards down the east bank of the river Mulde towards Düben.
Russia Against Napoleon Page 56