Battle at Épinal

Battle at Épinal

Part of: Wars of Liberation

Plan of the battle near Epinal,
Kaussler / Woerl 1840

date	January 11, 1814
place	Épinal on the Moselle, Vosges department
output	Escape of the French troops

Parties to the conflict
France	Württemberg Russia
Commander
Guillaume Rousseau	Wilhelm I. Friedrich von Franquemont , Matwei Platow Piotr Grekov
Troop strength
4,000 infantry 600 cavalry 4 cannons	12,000 men, superior cavalry and artillery
losses
approx. 3,500 dead, wounded, prisoners	low losses

The battle at Épinal took place during the winter campaign of 1814 of the Wars of Liberation on January 11, 1814 between French and Württemberg troops supported by Russian Cossacks .

Napoleon himself had highlighted Épinal as a key point of his defense against the coalition's Bohemian Army, which was invading France : In a telegram to Marshal Victor on January 6, 1814 , he wrote:

"The Duke of Belluno [the honorary title of Victors] does not have to direct himself to the heights of Zabern , but to Épinal."

- Napoleon in a dispatch dated January 6, 1814

When French troops occupied Épinal three days later, the Württemberg people had already reached the Moselle valley. Due to the heavy defeat that the French troops then suffered in the battle of Épinal, they were induced to retreat far west from the Vosges crossings. This made the region west of the Vosges, in particular the plateau of Langres , free for the deployment of the Bohemian army .

prehistory

The positions of the French troops on the left bank of the Rhine at the turn of the year 1813/1814

After their defeat in the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig , the remnants of the French army withdrew completely to the left bank of the Rhine on November 1st and 2nd, 1813 . Most of the troops crossed the Rhine at Mainz-Kastel . There were still around 70,000 men who were able to save themselves across the Rhine. Of these, however, many fell victim to the diseases that spread among the soldiers as well as the civilian population. According to old sources, 15,000–17,000 men of the French occupation and just as many civilians died in Mainz . The most terrible of diseases was the spotted fever ( typhoid ambulatorius ), whose terror as typhoid de Mayence remained in the minds of the French.

Napoleon himself arrived in Mainz on November 2, 1813 at 5:00 a.m. from Höchst , where he stayed for a week and tried to organize his troops. On November 7, 1813 at 10:00 p.m. he left for Paris, where he arrived on November 10, 1813. Immediately he raised taxes and made public his calls for a new army. On November 15, 1813, the Senate in Paris unanimously approved the drafting of a further 300,000 recruits to the French army.

The troops that were now available to defend the French eastern border at the beginning of November 1813, Napoleon had positioned as follows:

The Napoleonic Army on the left bank of the Rhine in December 1813

section	commander	headquarters	Troop strength
Upper Rhine: Basel to Landau	Marshal Victor	Strasbourg	10,000
Middle Rhine: Landau to Koblenz	Marshal Marmont	Mainz	13,000
Mainz fortress  :	General Morand	Mainz	initially 30,000, almost all of them sick, less than 15,000 survived
Middle Rhine: Koblenz to the Lippe	General Sebastiani (under the command of McDonald's)		4,500
Lower Rhine: from the Lippe to Nijmegen	Marshal McDonald	Cologne	10,000
Total combatable troops			37,500

On the right bank of the Rhine, only Mainz-Kastel was held by the French and Hochheim am Main until November 9, 1813 .

The coalition troops of the Bohemian Army on the right bank of the Rhine in December 1813

The coalition troops moved their headquarters to Frankfurt am Main on November 5, 1813. Intensive consultations between the allied powers began there on the further progress of the joint military campaign. On December 1, 1813, in the presence of Tsar Alexander and the Austrian Emperor Franz , it was decided to carry out a winter campaign into France. The common plan was roughly as follows: the coalition troops were to cross the Rhine at the turn of the year, namely the Silesian Army on the Middle Rhine and the Bohemian Army on the Upper Rhine. The Bohemian Army was then to occupy the Langres plateau by January 15, 1814 and relocate its headquarters to the city of the same name. The Silesian Army should have reached and enclosed the fortress of Metz by January 15, 1814 .

The Bohemian army, which was advancing on the Rhine plain, was divided into two light divisions, six corps and one reserve corps, as well as the Russian and Prussian guards and grenadiers. In detail:

The Bohemian Army on the right bank of the Rhine in December 1813

Unit	Country of origin	commander	Troop strength
Light division	Austria	Ferdinand von Bubna and Littitz	10,500
Light division	Austria	Moritz of Liechtenstein	8,100
first corps	Austria	Hieronymus von Colloredo-Mansfeld	18,700
second corps	Austria	Aloys Prince of Liechtenstein	12.7000
third corps	Austria	Ignácz Gyulay	14,700
fourth corps	Württemberg	Crown Prince Wilhelm of Württemberg	14,400
fifth corps	Bavaria	Carl Philipp von Wrede	approx. 35,000
sixth corps	Russia	Ludwig Adolf Peter zu Sayn-Wittgenstein	21,000
Reserve corps	Austria	Hereditary Prince Friedrich of Hesse-Homburg	19,000
Garden and Grenadiers	Russia and Prussia	Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly	39,000
Cossacks	Russia	Matwei Ivanovich Platov	6,000
Total combatable troops			approx. 200,000

The Bohemian Army carried around 700 artillery pieces. It was continuously reinforced during the campaign by advancing troops, for example by the Baden troops .

The Bohemian Army crossing the Rhine

It soon became apparent that the Rhine plain could not feed the large number of soldiers of the Bohemian Army in winter. Therefore, some contingents had to stay behind in Swabia and Thuringia. In order to shorten the passage of the troops, the Rhine crossing over a ship bridge near Basel began on the night of December 20-21, 1813. The first to cross the river was the Bubna light division, then the Gyulay and Aloys Liechtenstein corps on December 22nd followed the corps of Wrede. At Laufenburg, east of Basel, the light division Moritz Liechtenstein and the Corps Colloredo crossed the Rhine, at Schaffhausen the Austrian reserve corps. The Württemberg corps and the guards began the transition on January 1, 1814 in the small town of Märkt north of Weil am Rhein. The Russian corps Wittgenstein first enclosed the Kehl fortress on the Rhine and began crossing the Rhine further north at Rastatt over a pontoon bridge on New Year's Day in 1814.

The movements of the French troops

The movements of the Corps Victor

The only French troops that stood in Alsace between the Vosges and the Rhine at the end of December 1813 were those of the Corps Victor, whose main body was near Strasbourg. Another division under General Milhaud stood at Colmar. In view of the large mass of opposing troops crossing the Rhine, Marshal Victor withdrew with the bulk of his troops to Saverne (Zabern) northwest of Strasbourg, and ordered General Milhaud to move to the Vosges near Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines (Markirch) , on the road to St.Dié, northwest of Colmar, to withdraw. Viktor's intention was to unite with the Marmont Corps as soon as possible in order to be able to counter the enemy with stronger forces. This plan failed because Marmont and his troops were pushed back across the Saar by the Silesian Army within a week until January 7, 1814. Victor then left Saverne with his troops and went via Mutzig to Baccarat , west of St.Dié in the upper valley of the Meurthe . At Saverne only two regiments of the honor guard remained standing to watch the enemy movements at Strasbourg.

The auxiliary corps under Marshal Ney

Napoleon, who was in Paris but with whom his marshals were in constant contact, severely reprimanded Victor's behavior. In his opinion the withdrawal had been made too hastily. He ordered that a division of recruits with 400 riders and two batteries, which had recently been set up in Saarlouis, should be transferred to Nancy, where Marshal Ney was, who had recently been instructed to set up a new corps there. Marshal Ney rearranged the troops and sent 4,000 men with 600 riders and some cannons under Major General Rousseau up the Moselle valley to Épinal. Marshal Victor, who now believed that he had reinforcements and reserves behind him, advanced again to the east and ordered a division under General Duhèsme , which had been reinforced by Dragoons under General Lhéritier , to advance to St.Dié, where they advance on January 10th Met troops of the Bavarian Corps Wrede in the battle of St. Dié in 1814 .

The march of the Old Guard under Marshal Mortier

By December 24, 1813, two divisions of the Old Guard had assembled under the command of Marshal Mortier in Namur in what is now Belgium. When it became known in Paris that the Bohemian Army had begun to cross the Rhine, Mortier and his divisions were ordered first to Reims and then - with other troops - to Langres to block the direct route to Paris. On January 10, 1814, the Laferriére cavalry division was the first to meet in Langres one and two days later, Marshal Mortier and the divisions of the Old Guard.

On January 9, 1813, the first troops of the vanguard of the Austrian Gyulay corps arrived to explore the area around Langres, where they stayed until the bulk of the corps arrived a few days later.

The movements of the Austrian troops

The Bubna division

The light division Bubna reached via Bern , Friborg and Lausanne on December 30, 1813 Geneva , which had been firmly integrated into the French Empire for years. The city was taken by surprise and the French occupation fled. From Geneva, the then French Valais was reoccupied and the passes of the Great Saint Bernard and the Simplon were secured against the French troops in northern Italy. Bubna moved on with the bulk of his troops, took Bourg-en-Bresse on January 11, 1814, and stood before Lyon on January 18, 1814 with 4,000 men . Little did Bubna know that Lyon was being defended by no more than 1,600 men and that the wealthy citizens had already left the city. He withdrew his troops to Pont-d'Ain and took his headquarters again in Geneva.

The Corps Colloredo

The Auxonne fortress preserved to this day

The Corps Colloredo and the light division Moritz Liechtenstein moved via Aarau to Bern and on to Neuchâtel. There the corps split up, two divisions under Colloredo went via Baume-les-Dames and Montbozon to Langres, one division and the light division Moritz Liechtenstein went much further west via Dole to Auxonne , which was heavily fortified. There was a French garrison of 3,000 men under the command of General Veaux , who alone had 60 guns. A division remained there for the siege; Moritz Liechtenstein's light division marched west past Langres via Dijon to Châtillon-sur-Seine in the direction of Troyes .

The Aloys Liechtenstein corps

The Château de Joux

Aloys Liechtenstein's corps went via Solothurn to Neuchâtel and from there north-west to Pontarlier . Before Pontarlier, the fortified and impregnable Château de Joux blocked the way. The corps bypassed it northeast across the Grand Taureau . Château de Joux was enclosed by a contingent and surrendered on January 15, 1814. The bulk of the Liechtenstein corps reached the city of Besançon on January 6, 1814 on the road via L'Hôpital-du-Grosbois , and it included and up to its mighty fortress another besieged.

Besançon Fortress Citadel

The Gyulay Corps

The Gyulay corps split up, a division under Bianchi marched to Belfort, closed the fortress there for a few days and then, on orders from the headquarters, went on to Vesoul , where on January 9, 1814 it again joined the bulk of the corps. The latter had marched to Biel and from there northwest via Porrentruy to Montbéliard in the Burgundian Porte , where it arrived on January 3, 1814. On January 7, 1814, it occupied the fortified city of Vesoul and on January 9, 1814, it went further towards Langres, where it arrived as the first corps of the Bohemian Army by January 17, 1814 .

The Austrian reserves

The Austrian reserves under the Hereditary Prince of Hesse-Homburg marched via Zurich to Bern , where they arrived on December 29, 1813, and also on to Neuchâtel. From there they moved via Pontarlier and Dole to Dijon , where they stayed a few weeks before they formed the so-called Southern Army together with the Bubna division, which turned against the newly established French army near Lyon.

The movements of the Bavarian corps

After crossing the Rhine, the Bavarian corps under Wrede initially enclosed the mighty Hüningen fortress and then moved on to Belfort to also enclose the fortress there. The following days were spent enclosing smaller fortresses in Alsace.

The battle at St Croix on December 24, 1813

Already on December 24th, 1813 there was a cavalry battle at St. Croix , where 240 hussars and 400 Cossacks were enclosed by three superior French cavalry brigades under General Milhaud and were only able to free themselves and retreat with significant losses.

The battle of St Dié on January 10, 1814

On January 9, 1814, Wrede received the order from the headquarters of the Bohemian Army to cross the Vosges . His corps attempted to reach the upper valley of the Meurthe on January 10, 1814 , but the head of the vanguard met the French troops of General Duhèsme west of St. Dié around noon, who were advancing eastwards. The Bavarians initially retreated through Saint Dié to behind the town of Sainte-Marguerite , which the French immediately occupied. Advancing Bavarian troops soon stormed Sainte-Marguerite and drove the French back across the Meurthe. Bavarian artillery brought in caused the fleeing French considerable losses. Finally, the Bavarian troops reached St. Dié and the bridge located there, occupied the place and advanced further west. The French troops immediately withdrew west to the town of Rambervillers . As a result of the battle, the Bavarian corps stood still for a few days, secured the terrain and only moved further west on January 16 and 17, 1814.

The movements of the Württemberg corps

The Wuerttemberg Corps was instructed by the headquarters of the Bohemian Army to support the larger Bavarian corps and to ensure its connection to the Austrian corps. As a result, the Württemberg corps initially committed itself to enclosing the smaller fortresses in Alsace, but then received orders from headquarters to cross the Vosges to reach the upper Moselle valley at Remiremont , and from there to move towards Langres via Plombières-les-Bains . The Don Cossacks under Platow were assigned to him to support him. One after the other, these troops crossed the Vosges ridge via the Col de Bussang (Büssing Pass), on the west side of which the Moselle rises. The first of the advance Cossacks reached Épinal on January 7, 1814, without encountering French resistance. But when they roamed beyond Epinal, they met a strong French division. The numerically weak Cossacks withdrew as far as Pouxeux .

On January 9, 1814, the advance guard of the Württemberg Remiremont reached, where they learned from the Cossacks that Épinal had meanwhile been occupied by French troops. These were the troops of the division under Major General Rousseau that Marshal Ney from Nancy had sent up the Moselle valley. They were accompanied by 600 horsemen under General Duvigneau . The Crown Prince of Württemberg decided to first drive the French out of Épinal and only then to continue the march to Langres. He divided his troops for this purpose and additionally occupied the places Docelles and Xertigny , from which roads led directly to Épinal.

The battle at Épinal on January 11, 1814

The deployment of the Württemberg troops and the withdrawal of the French troops

In the early morning of January 11, 1814, the Württemberg troops began to advance on Épinal. The strongest contingent under General Franquemont broke up from the place Éloyes in the upper Moselle valley south of Épinal and marched northwards along the river. Their vanguard consisted of a hunter battalion, a squadron of horsemen and four mounted artillery guns. The bulk consisted of three regiments and a battalion of infantry, two squadrons of cavalry and two batteries. The ammunition wagons and the vehicles used to transport the wounded followed immediately; the rest of the troops were hidden in western side valleys in anticipation of the battle. In Pouxeux , General Franquemont divided part of his troops under General Christoph Döring, which was supposed to continue on the right bank of the Moselle, while the majority of the old road continued, which still runs on the left bank of the Moselle. Starting from the same place, General Pyotr Grekov led two Cossack groups around Épinal to Thaon-les-Vosges , north of Épinal on the Moselle, with the aim of blocking the retreat of the French who were in Épinal. A little later, the rest of the Platovian Cossacks should bypass Épinal in the west, in order to also include the French from this side. Shortly afterwards, however, these Cossacks decided to move east because of the poor road conditions, and were also stopped there by the poor roads, and only a few of them reached Thaon-les-Vosges that day. The plan of the Württemberg crown prince had failed in one of its essential points.

The Moselle between Eloyes and Arches

Another Württemberg contingent under General Karl von Jett marched from the place Xertigny west of the Moselle valley on a smaller road directly north to Épinal. It comprised a battalion of infantry, five squadrons of cavalry and six artillery pieces. He was followed on the same road by a cavalry regiment with four cannons under Prince Adam of Württemberg.

From the east an infantry regiment and a jäger battalion under General Stockmayer approached from Docelles .

Several Cossack groups under Generals Kaisarow and Scherbatow secured the roads that lead from Épinal directly to the east in the mountains to Bruyères and Rambervillers .

When the Württemberger marched into Épinal, the French recruits, some of them very young, initially offered dogged resistance, but General Rousseau realized very quickly that he would not be able to withstand the mass of opponents and ordered an immediate retreat to the north. This retreat was carried out with such speed that the Württemberg artillery, when it was finally in position, could no longer find a target: the French had disappeared.

The pursuit of the French troops

The Schlossberg in Épinal:
the Wuerttemberg people invaded the city on both sides

Crown Prince Wilhelm gathered his troops in Épinal and later decided to pursue the French with 10 cavalry squadrons and a mounted battery. For their part, the French moved north in two groups towards Thaon-les-Vosges : one in the valley floor along the river, the other west of the Moselle halfway up the slope, as the main roads still run today. When the Cossacks waiting in Thaon-les-Vosges saw the French, they immediately vigorously attacked their cavalry and wiped them out almost completely. But they could not prevail against the French infantry, but were driven out of Thaon-les-Vosges by them in return. The French were then able to continue their retreat northwards along the Moselle. On their way they were repeatedly attacked by Cossacks and horsemen from Württemberg and shot at by their artillery. The latter cost the French the most losses. Their dead and wounded lay between thrown away rifles in large numbers along the road to the village of Charmes, which was reached by the remainder of the French division after dark.

Of the 4,600 French who stood in Épinal that morning, only about 1,000 escaped; 500 were captured, all others fell or were left wounded.

The next days

The majority of the Württemberg residents spent the following night in Épinal, secured by two strong detachments that observed the Moselle valley north of the city. On January 12, 1814, the people of Württemberg stopped in their positions because they feared a counterattack by the French. On January 13, 1814, she moved west. On January 17, 1814, they reached Val-de-Meuse ( 48 ° 0 '  N , 5 ° 30'  E ), which was already northeast of Langres.

The further withdrawal of the French

The French, however, impressed by the battle at Épinal, withdrew far. Marshal Victor gathered his troops in the Moselle valley near Saint-Nicolas at the gates of Nancy and marched west on January 14, 1814 through Nancy, which Marshal Ney and his small reserve corps had left the day before. Two days later the vanguard of the Silesian Army occupied Nancy, and on January 17, 1814, Blücher moved his headquarters there.

The French corps, including that of Marshal Marmont , who had withdrawn from the Silesian Army , gathered 10 days later further west at Vitry-le-François on the Marne . There Napoleon personally took command of his troops.

The Rhine crossing of the grenadiers and guards

In the last days of 1813 the Russian and Prussian guards and grenadiers reached the city of Freiburg im Breisgau, where they initially stopped. On January 13, 1814, Russian New Year's Day, they crossed the Rhine with a brigade of the Baden Guard near Basel. In total there were 33 battalions, 51 escadron cavalry and 12 batteries of artillery. Unless they were needed for the siege of the Belfort fortress , these troops moved through the Burgundian Gate to Vesoul , which was reached on January 17, 1814.

The capture of Langres

On January 14, 1814, the Austrian Gyulay corps reached the area around Langres from the south and used the two following days for extensive exploration. It became known that Langres was occupied by two divisions under Marshal Mortier, accompanied by a cavalry division. Gyulay ordered the attack on Langres on January 17, 1814, but the French left it without a fight on the morning of the same day. Marshal Mortier had recognized that the Württemberg corps threatened to lock him in and decided to withdraw his troops as far as Chaumont .

Langres then surrendered to the Austrians without resistance and was occupied by them on the same day, January 17, 1814. On January 20, 1814, Prince Schwarzenberg moved his headquarters to Langres, which ended the deployment of the Bohemian Army according to the plans previously made.

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Individual evidence

1. ↑ cf. Beitzke
2. ↑ cf. also the description in Marmont, 19th book
3. ↑ cf. Chandler, Dictionary ...
4. ↑ cf. Beitzke, Petre and Marmont, 19th book
5. ↑ cf. Plotho, Beitzke, Sporschil, Damitz, Thielen, Houssaye; the numbers given differ enormously; Plotho gives higher numbers; the total number is roughly the same everywhere
6. ↑ possibly they were cuirassiers
7. ↑ ^{a b} the siege of Belfort was continued by Russian troops
8. ↑ Part I ("First part or the period from January 1st to August 10th 1813 with 26 supplements") and Part II ("Part II or the period from August 10th to the end of December 1813 with 29 supplements") are online: Part I , Part II