Northern Army (Wars of Liberation)

The northern army was in the wars of liberation , a 125,000 soldiers counting army consisting of Sweden, Prussia, Russia and Britain under the command of the Swedish Crown Prince Charles John, former French Marshal Bernadotte . It was composed of 73,000 Prussians (40,000 Landwehr ), 29,000 Russians, 23,000 Swedes and 144 British ( Rocketeers ).

After the spring campaign of 1813 , which Napoleon ended with a surprising armistice on June 4, 1813 in the Silesian town of Poischwitz , the Allies used the time gained for further reinforcements. Sweden and the Austrian Empire joined the coalition with troop contingents. Great Britain paid subsidies and sent expedition troops to Swedish Pomerania , most of which remained in Stralsund . The coalition had thus gained a numerical preponderance of 510,000 to 440,000 French.

For the beginning of the autumn campaign in 1813 , the troops were reorganized according to the Trachenberg Plan into the main army, the so-called Bohemian Army , which marched on Saxony from Bohemia and was to meet there with Blücher's Silesian army , while the Northern Army covered Berlin and slowly moved into it Advanced towards the Kingdom of Saxony .

The two Prussian army corps were under the command of Lieutenant General von Bülow ( III. Army Corps ) and von Tauentzien ( IV. Army Corps ). The Prussian troops consisted mainly of Landwehr troops and reserve line regiments from Pomerania , East Prussia and Kurmark and Neumark .

The Russians camped near Brandenburg an der Havel , the Swedes had their deployment area between Berlin and Spandau with a thrust towards Potsdam , while Bülows III. Army Corps south of Berlin and Tauentziens IV Army Corps on the Oder .

Butcher

• Battle of Großbeeren
• Battle of Dennewitz
• Battle of Nations

Structure of the armed forces in the autumn campaign

literature

• Barthold von Quistorp : History of the Northern Army in 1813. 3 volumes, Berlin: Mittler & Sohn 1894 ( digitized version )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Andreas Platthaus: 1813 - The Battle of Nations and the end of the old world. Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-499-62922-8 , p. 287 f.
2. ^ Albert Sidney Britt, Thomas E. Griess: The wars of Napoleon. Square One Publishers, Garden City Park, NY 2003, ISBN 0-7570-0154-8 , p. 134