Battle of the Katzbach

Battle of the Katzbach

Part of: Wars of Liberation

date	August 26, 1813
place	east of the confluence of the Angry Neisse in the Katzbach
output	Prussian-Russian victory

Parties to the conflict
France	Prussia Russia
Commander
Jacques MacDonald	Gebhard von Blücher
Troop strength
102,000 men	105,400 men
losses
30,000 dead, wounded and prisoners	4,000 dead and wounded

The battle of the Katzbach took place on August 26, 1813 during the Wars of Liberation in Silesia south of Liegnitz near the confluence of the Angry Neisse and the Katzbach .

prehistory

The Silesian Army was one of the three Allied armies in the Sixth Coalition War (1813 to 1815) of the Wars of Liberation against Napoleon Bonaparte and with a troop strength of around 100,000 men, the smallest. It was under the command of Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher and, in addition to the I. Prussian army corp under Ludwig Yorck von Wartenburg, consisted essentially of the Russian corps under Alexandre Andrault de Langeron and Fabian Gottlieb von der Osten-Sacken . According to the Trachenberg War Plan , the Silesian Army was the smallest of the three armies and, if necessary, was to assist either the Northern Army or the Bohemian Army , but avoid its own attacks. Since it consisted predominantly of Russian army corps, which Blücher had given the honorary name "Marshal Forward", Blücher was able to obtain the tacit consent of the Russian commander-in-chief Barclay de Tolly to attack at a favorable opportunity. According to the Trachenberger war plan as well as from personal conviction had retreated before the French superiority Blucher that Napoleon himself mid-August approach resulted in the reopening of hostilities against him on when he on 20 August Bober met them and had first to behind the Katzbach withdrawn .

However, the main French power returned to Saxony under Napoléon on August 23, to face the main power of the allies (see Battle of Dresden ). The remaining 100,000 men formed the army of the French Marshal MacDonald and advanced on August 25th. The next day the Katzbach was to be crossed and Jauer was to be reached, which lies on the Angry Neisse , a right tributary of the Katzbach. After Blücher learned that the French troops, which were now advancing with reduced strength, were no longer under Napoléon's direct command, he decided to oppose them.

A few days earlier, the “Armée de Berlin” advancing under Oudinot had been thrown back by the Northern Army in the Battle of Großbeeren .

Course of the battle

On August 26, the right wing of the Silesian Army began to attack the enemy under von Sacken south of Liegnitz . Yorck's troops were to act in the center, Langerons on the left wing and advance on both sides of the Angry Neisse until it confluence with the Katzbach and cross it. The advance guard of the troops on the right bank of the Katzbach and left bank of the Neisse was pushed back by the French troops to a plateau on the right bank of the Neisse. Here Yorck and von Sacken took up positions on orders from Blucher.

In the pouring rain, the advancing French had to attack over the bank of the incised valley of the Angry Neisse. At 3 p.m. Yorck's left wing, Hünerbein's brigade - namely the Othegraven battalion - began the counterattack and was able to repel the French troops. A counterattack by the French cavalry could be repulsed and the following attack by the Russian and Prussian cavalry under Blücher forced the French to retreat. The retreating and the still advancing French troops hindered each other. In the resulting confusion, the French troops fled to the valley of the Angry Neisse. The tributary was swollen by the rains. Many soldiers who tried to cross it were carried away and drowned. An emergency bridge near Niederkrayn was not enough for the troops pushing back, so that many died here too. The artillery of the allies moved to the edge of the high bank before and shelled from there the French troops with grapeshot and grenades. Only nightfall and bad weather prevented the allies from pursuing energetically.

Results

Nightfall prevented further pursuit of the French troops on August 26th. So it was only a day later that the pursuit of the French army began. On August 29, the Pacthod division was broken up near Löwenberg in Silesia . On September 1st the vanguard of the allies was able to advance to the Lusatian Neisse . The French lost a total of 103 cannons by September 1, lamented 12,000 dead and wounded and 18,000 prisoners, including three generals. The rest of their army was completely demoralized. The allies had a loss of about 4,000 men dead and wounded and were able to prevent the further advance of the French into Silesia. The soldiers first called the battle the Battle of the Furious Neisse, but Blücher named it after the Katzbach out of consideration for von Sacken.

Blücher himself received the title of Prince Blücher of Wahlstatt in 1814 after the nearby village of Wahlstatt , which was famous for the Mongol battle in 1241 .

Others

The phrase "He goes like Blücher an der Katzbach!", With which a very energetic, determined, offensive behavior is described, refers to this victory by Blucher.

In the immediate vicinity of the battlefield, the Schinkel tabernacle of Bellwitzhof was erected in 1817 on the Christianhöhe near Bellwitzhof to commemorate the battle and its victims.

On the initiative of the Brieger district building inspector Hermann Weißstein (1854-1924), a Katzbachschlacht museum was founded in Dohnau an der Katzbach (Dunino in Polish ) in 1908 , for which a small pavilion-like building was built.

In the Wehrmacht , an infantry division was named after the location of the battle.

literature

• Hermann Müller-Bohn: Blücher's victory at the Katzbach. (with eight illustrations) In: Reclams Universum, Moderne illustrated Wochenschrift , 29.2 (1913), pp. 1163–1168.
• Frank Bauer: Katzbach August 26, 1813. (= Brief Series History of the Wars of Liberation 1813–1815 , Issue 11.) Potsdam 2005.
• Hugo von Freytag-Loringhoven : Reconnaissance and army command. Depicted at the events of the Silesian Army in the autumn of 1813. A study. ES Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1900 (digitized version) .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ R. Braeuner: History of the Prussian Landwehr. Historical representation and illumination of its prehistory, establishment and later organization . Volume 1, Berlin 1863, pp. 250-259
2. ^ Theodor Fontane : Walks through the Mark Brandenburg I. The County of Ruppin The Ruppiner Garrison Regiment Mecklenburg-Schwerin No. 24, The Battle of the Katzbach: “The decision was made on the plateau on which York and Sacken stood […] The battalion Othegraven threw himself with a hurray at the single battalion already on the plateau and knocked it down with the butt. In ten minutes everything was dead on the floor. […] The Hünerbein brigade, especially the battalions of Othegraven, von Laurens and von Zepelin, opened the battle brilliantly. "
3. ^ Photograph of the Katzbachschlacht Museum from the former Transocean archive in the holdings of the Photo Archive Photo Marburg (German Documentation Center for Art History) , accessed on October 28, 2016

Coordinates: 51 ° 6 '  N , 16 ° 6'  E