The Campaigns of Napoleon

by David G Chandler

  The new army also showed signs of a marked deterioration in the standard of its leadership. The middle-ranking officers remained as good as ever, but at one extreme the marshalate was becoming increasingly war weary and stale while at the other many of the extemporized junior officers were completely lacking in experience of command. Similarly, the Imperial Staff showed signs of deterioration in standard. An interpreter attached to Napoleon’s headquarters—d’Odeleben—noted this decline: “It appears that in this campaign the officers of Berthier’s headquarters staff were not so skilful or experienced as those who had formerly surrounded him…. As a whole, the army was too complex and imperfect a machine to permit true coordination during this campaign.”3

  In the meantime, while the reconstruction of the army was going forward and Napoleon was considering his plans, the Viceroy of Italy was doing his best to delay the Allied advance. He had two prime duties to perform: to win time for Napoleon to complete his preparations, and to keep the enemy as far to the east as was possible. When he left Smorgoni the Emperor had originally hoped that Murat’s skeleton forces would be capable of holding the line of the Vistula, but this proved out of the question, and by mid-January the Russian forces were back over the river, occupying Warsaw on February 7. Leaving General Rapp with a strong garrison of 30,000 men to hold Danzig and further detachments totaling 7,000 troops in Thorn and Modlin, Murat fell back to Posen—before handing over command to an unwilling Eugène. This city proved equally indefensible in the face of determined Russian pressure, sullen allies and shattered French morale, and so the Viceroy again retreated westward. The Emperor was now insistent that the line of the Oder should be held at all costs, and Eugène accordingly moved on Frankfurt, where he was reinforced to a total of 30,000 men by the arrival of St. Cyr’s command. Once again, however, it proved impossible to turn at bay and make a stand. The local population appeared on the point of revolt, and Russian columns were reported already over the river heading for Berlin, and so back once more went the French, leaving garrisons in the key towns of Stettin, Küstrin and Glogau.

  Napoleon was furious when news of this latest withdrawal reached Paris, and he berated his unfortunate stepson in letter after letter for his apparent passivity. This was hardly justifiable, for all the rivers were still hard frozen and thus provided no real obstacle to the Russians nor protection for the French. The Viceroy next decided that Berlin, too, would have to be abandoned, and continued his march to Wittenberg on the Elbe which he reached on March 6. Then, on March 12, the local French commander evacuated Hamburg on the grounds that it would prove impossible to hold the complete line of the Elbe. About the same time Eugène ordered Davout’s battered Ist Corps to head for Dresden, which he considered to be of greater strategic importance than the North German Plain.

  As it happened, however, this was yet another decision that Napoleon entirely disapproved of. Even as the order was issued, lengthy instructions were on their way from the Emperor stressing the need for Davout to remain master of the Lower Elbe as far as Hamburg while the main part of Eugène’s command massed near Magdeburg. According to the Emperor’s plan, Marshal Victor was to establish bridgeheads over the Elbe at Torgau, Wittenberg and Dessau, and General Reynier was to be entrusted with the security of the Upper Elbe as far as the Austrian frontier. After taking up these positions, Napoleon felt that his Army of the Elbe would be able to deal with any enemy attack; at a pinch Dresden might have to be given up, but it was less important than Hamburg, as the new Grande Armée would soon be assembling in the vicinity of Mainz and must be covered at all costs.4 As before, this appreciation exaggerated Eugène’s operational strength beyond all rational limits, and further assumed that the Saxons and Westphalians were still cooperative.

  Before these instructions even reached the front, Carra St. Cyr had abandoned Hamburg to the roving Freikorps—but a short time later, after assimilating his stepfather’s wishes, Eugène at last ordered a large camp to be constructed around Magdeburg and instructed Davout to reverse his steps and head for Hamburg. But hardly had these moves been undertaken than General Durutte (temporarily in command of the southern flank during the illness of Reynier) decided to abandon Dresden and retire to the line of the Saale. Blücher duly occupied the city on March 27, without meeting any opposition.

  Part of the reason for the evident consternation reigning in French forward headquarters at this time was the entry of Prussia into the war on the side of Russia. The likelihood of Prussia taking some such action had been recognized since the time of General Yorck’s defection the previous December, but there had been no immediate declaration of war. Frederick William III evinced little desire to plunge his kingdom back into a life and death struggle, while the presence of French garrisons in Berlin and other key Prussian cities and fortresses constituted another reason for caution. Indeed, the Prussian Government had gone so far as to repudiate Yorck’s action, fearing the weight of Napoleon’s displeasure even at the moment of his heavy defeat. However, nationalist influences had long been at work in Prussia, and step by step the government found its hand being forced. Since Jena, the regenerating political activities of the statesman Stein, the military reforms of Scharnhorst, the patriotic cultural influence of Arndt and Körner, and the pervasive, secret power of the Tugenbund or League of Virtue, had between them produced an entirely new popular atmosphere, and by 1813 Prussia was ripe for revolt. This fact was amply demonstrated when the Provincial Assembly of East Prussia—without reference to Berlin—declared its support for General Yorck and announced its defiance of Napoleon. So widespread became this defiant mood that the monarchy was compelled to follow suit. In late February the Convention of Kalisch between Prussia and Russia was secretly ratified; by it Prussia promised to enter the war on the side of the Allies in the very near future; both parties bound themselves not to enter any separate negotiations with the French, while Russia undertook to see that Prussia would be restored to her pre-1806 boundaries. The Tsar guaranteed to provide a force of 150,000 soldiers; Frederick William to field at least 80,000 more.

  Field Marshal Prince von Blücher, possibly Napoleon’s most inveterate opponent

  Even then the Prussian Government still feared to take the final step. Until Eugène decided to evacuate the Oder line, abandon Berlin, and fall back on the Elbe, the King continued to prevaricate. Once these moves were practically complete, however, Frederick William felt somewhat bolder, and on March 13 Prussia at last dropped the mask and became an open belligerent.

  After Jena, Napoleon had determined that Prussia should never again be in a position to renew its military challenge to France. He had imposed a settlement whereby the Prussian army was limited to a ceiling of 42,000 men, serving on a ten-year engagement. Then, in 1812, he had forced Frederick William to send 20,000 troops to join the Grande Armée; barely two thirds of these survived the rigors of the Russian Campaign. How was it, then, that Prussia was able to offer the Alliance at least 80,000 troops? The answer lay partly in a French concession, partly in the secret work of Prussian patriots.

  In late 1812, faced with catastrophe, Napoleon had authorized Prussia to raise a further 33,000 troops, hoping no doubt that these would become available to make good some small proportion of the horrific losses he was sustaining in Russia and Poland. As it turned out, however, this increase proved a windfall for the plotting Prussian nationalists. Even more significant was the work of certain Prussian statesmen and soldiers. Over the years, a secret reserve army had been steadily built up without French knowledge by the simple but cunning expedient of compelling a proportion of the 42,000 regulars to retire each year, their places being filled by new recruits who received training and then were placed in reserve in their turn. Scharnhorst’s Krumpersystem, as this was called, had produced 33,600 reservists over and above the official military quotas by February 1813. Thus a sizeable nucleus of trained soldiers was already available around which the expansion of Prussia’s forces could proceed.

  Onc
e the probabilities of war with France became strong, this expansion was rapidly put in hand. On February 9, a royal decree created a Landwehr or conscript militia of over 110,000 men. There was markedly little enthusiasm among the Prussian peasantry for this measure and the conscription edicts had to be enforced by units of the regular army in several recalcitrant provinces, but Prussia was undoubtedly on the road to producing a large army. The aristocracy and middle-classes were in the grip of a surge of patriotic feeling, and many banded themselves together into volunteer Fäeger formations. In a similar fashion, Freikorps came into existence—mainly consisting of foreigners. By April 1813 there were thus over 80,000 men under arms, and the net result of all these measures was the creation, by the end of the June-August armistice, of an army of 228,000 infantry, 31,100 cavalry and 13,000 gunners and sappers, with 376 cannon at their disposal.

  Although many weapons were antiquated (large numbers of the Landwehr were at first armed with pikes and scythes), the Prussian army of 1813 was already very different from its predecessor of 1806. The old insistence on a rigid and unimaginative discipline had been replaced by a more enlightened attitude which stressed civic responsibilities rather than the former demand for feudal obedience; the lash had almost disappeared. Moreover, a fair standard of leadership was available. Blücher was no stripling, but he had fire in his belly and an inveterate hatred for Napoleon, while Bülow and Yorck were competent commanders in their own right. All in all, the new Prussian army was a valuable accession of strength to the Allies.

  It would certainly be some time before Prussian potential became fully operative, and during the interval the brunt of the military burden was inevitably borne by the Tsar’s soldiers. The aged Kutusov, already mortally sick, was in command of at least 110,000 troops in mid-March, including a force of 30,000 cavalry and Cossacks. Exact figures are very hard to estimate, for in addition to the considerable detachments dropped off to besiege the French garrisons on the Vistula and Oder, large numbers of Russians were sick or straggling, the effects of 1812 being almost as hard on the victors as the vanquished. Nevertheless, the Russians were advancing along two fairly distinct axes of advance. In the north, General Wittgenstein (subsequently reinforced by the Prussian commands of Yorck and Bülow to a strength of rather more than 50,000 men) was moving from Marienwerder on the Vistula through North Prussia in a number of widely separated columns; in the south, operating from Warsaw and moving through Kalisch and Glogau, was Kutusov with the main Russian force; General Winzingerode with 13,000 men was already well advanced into Saxony, but the commander in chief, with the 30,000 men of Miloradovitch and the Russian Guards, was moving forward more cautiously, lingering near Kalisch inside the Grand Duchy of Warsaw far to the rear. However, Winzingerode was joined by Blücher and 25,000 men from Silesia when Prussia commenced open hostilities against France. The Prussian general was soon placed in command of the southern army and at once advanced to seize Dresden, which fell without a struggle as already noted on March 27. In addition to these forces, Bernadotte was cautiously organizing a force of 28,000 Swedes and 62 guns in Swedish Pomerania, while there were a further 9,000 Anglo-German troops in English pay in the vicinity of Stralsund.

  The Allies soon fell to squabbling among themselves. The Prussians were eager to press on beyond the Elbe without delay, but the ailing Kutusov insisted on a reconcentration of forces before moving any further. Wittgenstein was accordingly ordered to march south to join Blücher, leaving only a small force to mask Magdeburg. The Russian general, anxious to secure the safety of his ally’s capital, chose to disregard these instructions, and instead decided to attempt a passage over the Elbe at Rosslau in the hope of pinning Eugène’s main body. The French forestalled this proposed move by attacking Wittgenstein near Möckern on April 3—a confused two-day affair which ended in Eugène’s withdrawal following the receipt of false information that another enemy force was crossing the Elbe at Rosslau to threaten his rear. This withdrawal enabled a battered Wittgenstein to claim a victory and in due course to complete his belated march through Rosslau to join Blücher. But by that time Eugène had finally decided that the line of the Upper Elbe was indefensible, as Blücher was massing near Dresden. Accordingly the French right flank was drawn back to the line of the Saale. At last Eugène had found a strong position; although he had given up far more ground than Napoleon had planned, the Viceroy had nevertheless gained his stepfather sufficient time for the building of his new army around Mainz. The defensive phase was practically over; Napoleon’s counterstroke would clearly not now be long delayed.

  By early April, the French Army of the River Main was rapidly taking shape. Basically it consisted of four line corps—Ney’s IIIrd (45,000 strong), Marmont’s VIth (25,000), Bertrand’s IVth and Oudinot’s XIIth (the last two sharing a strength of 36,000 men)—together with 15,000 élite troops of the reconstituted Imperial Guard, both horse and foot. There were also three very weak cavalry corps. In all, this represented some 121,000 men. If this total is added to the 58,000 men of the Army of the Elbe (Vth, XIth and parts of VIIth and IInd Corps, together with Roguet’s division of the Guard and Latour-Maubourg’s cavalry), to Davout’s detached Ist Corps (20,000 strong) and Sebastiani’s 14,000 cavalry presently serving on the Lower Elbe, it will be seen that Napoleon already disposed of more than 200,000 men in field formations on the German front.5 Taken altogether this represented a considerable superiority over the forces the Allies had readily available, for even by April 25 they possessed fewer than 110,000 troops within striking distance of the Elbe-Saale position.

  What use did Napoleon think to make of this considerable armament? For some time a master plan had been formulating in his mind, and although circumstances made it impossible to put it into execution it is important to grasp its main outlines as the Emperor never completely forgot it.

  “Napoleon’s plan, which he had been formulating for two months … was to pass back over the Elbe and march on Berlin. The plan was to throw the Allies back between the Elbe and the Saale, and to establish the seat of war between the Elbe and the Oder, moving under the protection of the fortresses of Torgau, Wittenberg, Magdeburg and Hamburg; if circumstances permitted he would then relieve the fortresses besieged on the Vistula—Danzig, Thorn and Modlin. If this vast plan succeeded, it could be hoped that the coalition would be disorganized and that all the princes of Germany would confirm their fidelity and alliances with France.”6 In other words, while Davout and part of the Army of the Elbe held the flank and rear of the main army and made demonstrations in the direction of Dresden, Napoleon would sweep into Northern Germany via Havelberg, using the Harz Mountains to conceal his movement, at one and the same time turning the flank of Kutusov’s army, terrorizing Prussia back into its former allegiance, and increasing the strength of his forces by rescuing the 50,000 veterans in the isolated fortresses. Once he had reached Stettin and reoccupied the line of the Oder, the Russian communications would be in deadly danger. This immense manoeuvre sur les derrières might well lead to a great French victory, regaining Germany and much of Poland at one stroke. Describing the plan to Eugène on March 11, Napoleon estimated that by hard marching his army could raise the siege of Danzig twenty days after crossing the Elbe. “It would also be master of Marienburg,” he continued, “of the island of Nogat, and of all the bridges over the Lower Vistula.”7

  Certain eventualities, however, ruled out the adoption of this grandiose scheme. In the first place Napoleon considered he needed 300,000 men to make the plan foolproof, and by April his numbers were still far below that figure. Secondly, he doubted whether the raw material of his new forces would be capable of much sustained marching. Thirdly, his reliance on the assistance of the Confederation of the Rhine and South German states proved overoptimistic, for both Saxony and Bavaria proved understandably hesitant. Lastly, the enemy was still advancing in the Dresden area, and there would not be sufficient French troops available to assure the security of the Saale line if the Army of the Ma
in set out on its ambitious project. Nevertheless, the master plan for 1813 is of considerable interest and importance, for it was never completely forgotten, and at several moments during the unfolding campaign Napoleon clearly considered reverting to’ it.

  The Campaign of German Liberation, 1813

  However, by April 13 Napoleon was sufficiently preoccupied by the appearances of a major Allied advance toward Jena to formulate an alternative plan of action. On that day he wrote to Berthier at Mainz that “The Viceroy believes the enemy has crossed in force to the left bank of the Elbe. It is reported that Blücher’s headquarters were at Altenburg on the 8th, and that a party of Cossacks were seen at Jena. On the 9th … the foe had already placed some patrols at Saalfeld.”8 Napoleon consequently prescribed an immediate movement by the Army of the Main toward Eugène in order to achieve a general concentration of more than 150,000 men behind the Saale. This completed, he intended to advance on Dresden through Leipzig with the intention of seizing the crossings over the Elbe in the Allies’ rear, thus isolating them at one stroke from both Berlin and Silesia. Such a move should inevitably lead to a large-scale battle on terms favorable to the French. While the initial move was being prepared, Bertrand and Oudinot were to mount diversionary operations toward Bayreuth to distract enemy attention. “My intention,” wrote Napoleon to the former on April 12, “is to refuse my right and allow the enemy to penetrate toward Bayreuth, thus making a movement exactly the opposite of the one I carried through during the Jena campaign; providing the foe moves through Bayreuth—the result will be my arrival at Dresden ahead of him, and his severance from Prussia.”9 The Emperor also prescribed that the French lines of communication should run back through Hanover to Wesel.