Battle of Champaubert

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Battle of Champaubert

Part of: Wars of Liberation

Territory of the Napoleonic six-day campaign

date	February 10, 1814
place	Champaubert , France
output	Smashing of the Russian Corps Olsufiev

Parties to the conflict
France	Russia
Commander
Napoléon Bonaparte Auguste de Marmont	Sachar Olsufiev
Troop strength
30,000 men	4,000 men

The Battle of Champaubert took place on February 10, 1814 in the vicinity of Champaubert in France in the Marne department. It was a battle of the winter campaign of 1814 of the Wars of Liberation and the first battle in Napoleon's six-day campaign against the Silesian Army , which was under the command of Marshal Blücher . In the battle, the French army under Napoleon faced an outnumbered corps of coalition troops under the Russian general Olsufiev . Olsufiev's corps was almost completely wiped out, and Olsufiev himself was taken prisoner by Napoleon.

Memorial column for the Battle of Champaubert

Explanation board on the memorial column for the Battle of Champaubert

prehistory

Coalition Forces Movements February 2-9, 1814

After winning the battle at La Rothière on February 1, 1814, the marshals of the coalition troops were in high spirits. Schwarzenberg wrote in a letter that Blücher would be in Paris in five days. However, there were several obstacles in the way of further operations by the coalition forces.

• First the poor supply situation for the troops: there was no replenishment of food from home, both armies had to get supplies from the country, which was almost impossible in the still sparsely populated region, whose population was hostile to the coalition troops.
• Second was the poor education of the coalition troops: they received no or deliberately false information from the population about the whereabouts of the Napoleonic troops, and their own cavalry was poorly educated; the incoming messages are often contradicting or simply wrong.
• Thirdly, the poor road conditions: Although the main roads to Paris were paved and paved, all the roads apart from them were unpaved and after a thaw became groundless and almost impassable for artillery and supply wagons.
• In fourth place was the winter weather, which led to many cases of illness in the troops.

Under these conditions, the monarchs and marshals decided on February 2, 1814 that the two armies of the coalition troops should march on separate routes to Paris.

The pursuit of the Napoleonic army by the Bohemian army

The bulk of the Bohemian Army was supposed to move on the road, which ran much further south, via Troyes to Paris. On February 3, 1814, at the express request of Tsar Alexander, the light division of the Guards Cavalry under General Oscherowski was sent to the west over the bridge from Dienville to clarify the situation . On the same day, Oscherowski reported correctly that Napoleon had withdrawn to Troyes with the bulk of the French army and had brought his troops there with the divisions of the Old Guard under Marshal Mortier , only the corps of Marshal Marmont and a provisional cavalry division under Bordesoulle stands at Arcis-sur-Aube . As a consequence, Prince Schwarzenberg, as commander-in-chief of the coalition troops, ordered the Wrede and Wittgenstein corps to move towards Arcis-sur-Aube, the corps of the Austrian General Gyulay and the Crown Prince of Württemberg to move via Dienville to Troyes and the Austrian Corps Colloredo with the Russian and Prussian guards and cuirassiers were to move from Vendeuvre to Troyes.

The Napoleonic troops in Troyes were in a well-protected position, as the rivers had overflowed their banks in the winter, when there was heavy rainfall and the river plains were almost impassable. The Barse moved the access to Troyes from the east from Vendeuvre and the Seine the access from the south-east from Bar-sur-Seine . The Old Guard controlled the roads and bridges through their positions in Les Maisons Blanches and La Guillotière .

On February 4, 1814, Napoleon ordered Michel's division of the Old Guard to advance with the dragoons under Briche to explore along the road to Bar-sur-Seine . At Saint-Thibault they met the advance guard of Corps Colloredo and took up positions there. After dark there was still a small battle over the Seine bridge in Clérey , which remained in the hands of the French.

The next day, February 5, 1814, the Old Guard attacked again and captured another bridge over the Seine, but then withdrew to Troyes on the express orders of Napoleon. The Austrians then attacked the French rearguard at dusk in order to conquer the important stone bridge over the Barse at La Guillotière , but got stuck in the swampy terrain. At this hour Count Colloredo was injured in battle and had to hand over command of his corps to Count Bianchi.

On February 5, 1814, the French Corps left Marmont Arcis-sur-Aube after destroying the bridge there and marched to Mery-sur-Seine , where it reunited with Ricard's division. On February 6, 1814, it moved on to Nogent-sur-Seine .

On the same day, February 6, 1814, all French troops, with the exception of the Mortier and Gérard corps, left Troyes and marched along the road to the left of the Seine to Mery-sur-Seine. Napoleon took up his quarters in the village of Les Gès on the left bank of the Seine.

At dawn on February 7, 1814, the remaining French divisions left Troyes to the north-west, and at 8.00 a.m. on that day, the Wuerttembergians, coming from the south-east, occupied the city. The Wuerttemberg cavalry followed the French along the Seine to Châtres and captured a few hundred stragglers who either could not or did not want to march.

The withdrawal of the Napoleonic army from Troyes was observed from the right bank of the Seine by the vanguard of the Russian corps Wittgenstein under Count Pahlen , which stood on the 6th February 1814 at Droupt-Sainte-Marie and Droupt-Sainte-Basle on the right of the Seine.

On February 7, 1814, Count Pahlen was able to occupy the parts of the city of Mery-sur-Seine that were to the right of the Seine. The wooden bridge over the river had already been destroyed. Russian and French snipers fired at each other across the river.

On February 8, 1814, the Russians under Count Pahlen also occupied the districts to the left of the Seine, and on February 9, 1814, the entire Wittgenstein corps had finally approached. Wittgenstein took up his quarters in Mery-sur-Seine. The Bavarian-Austrian corps Wrede replaced the Württembergians between Troyes and Les Gès. All other corps of the Bohemian Army had rest days from February 7th to 9th, 1814.

Prince Schwarzenberg moved his headquarters to Troyes and stayed there until February 9, 1814.

The movements of the Silesian Army

On the evening of February 2, 1814, the Silesian Army had reached Braux north of Brienne, and on February 3, 1814 it reached Saint-Quen .

On the evening of February 4, 1814, Blücher and the Sacken corps were in Fère-Champenoise and the Olsufiew corps had occupied Sommesous . On that day Blücher had obtained certainty that the French corps MacDonald had occupied Châlons-en-Champagne and decided to march there with his men.

On the evening of February 5, 1814, the Silesian Army with the 24,000 men of the Russian corps was under Sacken and Olsufiew in Soudron and Vatry , west of Châlons-en-Champagne .

On the night of February 6, 1814, General Yorck reported that MacDonald's corps had evacuated Châlons-en-Champagne on the morning of the previous day and had withdrawn, but was being pursued by the Prussians under Yorck. On February 6, 1814, Blücher issued new orders and decided that the Sacken Corps should march west on the so-called little Paris road via Bergères-lès-Vertus , Étoges and Montmirail . Blücher hoped to be able to block the way to Paris for MacDonald's French Corps. The Olsufiev Corps was to follow Sacken every day's march.

On February 8, the Koprs Sacken reached Montmirail and the Corps Olsufiew Étoges .

On February 9, 1814, Olsufiev's men marched a few kilometers further to Champaubert , while the Sacken corps stopped in Montmirail on Blucher’s orders.

On February 10, 1814, Sacken’s troops marched on to La Ferté-sous-Jouarre .

Blücher himself waited for the arrival of the Prussian corps under Kleist (10,000 men) - coming from Erfurt via Koblenz - and a new Russian corps under Kapzewitsch (8,000 men), formed from parts of the Langeron corps , which came from Mainz . Kleist's corps arrived in Châlons-en-Champagne on February 7, 1814 , and Kapzewitsch's corps on February 8, 1814. Both corps carried very little cavalry, a fact that a few days later in the battle of Vauchamps was a major disadvantage proved.

On February 9, 1814, at 5 p.m., Blücher took his headquarters in the venerable Château D'Étoges. There he had no troops with him apart from the 21 men from his staff guard. A little later, a courier from Olsufiev arrived at Blücher's headquarters and reported on the arrival of French cavalry in Baye on the Petit Morin . The men of the staff guard immediately had to go out to explore the surrounding area to check whether French troops were in the immediate vicinity. That night Blücher went back to Vertus with his staff .

The movements of the Prussian Corps Yorck and the French Corps MacDonald from February 2 to 9, 1814

The Prussian corps under General Yorck was on February 2, 1814 with 18,000 men on the march from Saint-Dizier to Vitry-le-Francois . The French Marshal MacDonald , coming from the north, had already reached this city on February 1st, 1814. Before the approaching Prussian troops he withdrew on February 2, 1814 northwards on the road to Châlons-en-Champagne . The Yorck Corps followed him on February 3, 1814 and at the village of La Chaussée-sur-Marne there was an equestrian battle lasting several hours with several meetings, in which the Prussian cavalry prevailed and MacDonald's corps forced itself to march on Châlons- to withdraw en-Champagne .

The Yorck Corps arrived there on February 4, 1814, but the city was occupied by MacDonald's troops and was vigorously defended. Yorck sent a parliamentarian to MacDonald who asked him to surrender. MacDonald refused, and the Prussian troops began bombarding the city that evening. However, the shelling soon subsided and ended before 10 p.m., which was a surprise to the French officers. The reason was that the Prussian soldiers had found so much champagne in the suburb of Saint-Memmie that they could soon no longer operate their guns. In the cellars of Saint-Memmie, after the excesses of the Prussians, the champagne is said to have been so high that it could be scooped out with horse buckets. The cavalry did not dare to enter the village because the streets were littered with broken glass. Numerous inebriated Prussian infantrymen, who showed themselves exuberant from the intoxication in front of the city walls, lost their lives to French snipers.

The city's magistrate later presented the Prussians with an exact written list of the loss of 57,000 bottles of champagne in one night.

The next morning, February 5, 1814, MacDonald and his troops withdrew unmolested across the south-facing Marne Bridge. But he soon decided to march west on Epernay , since the road leading further south via Étoges and Montmirail had already been laid by Blucher's troops. MacDonald had no hesitation in having his pioneers blow up the medieval bridge Pont des Mathurins over the Marne. He then had a battery of artillery positioned on the south bank, which, through its bombardment, prevented the Prussians for a day from repairing the bridge.

On the night of February 4th to 5th, 1814, the French garrison of Vitry-le-Francois under General Montmarie withdrew via Cernon and joined the MacDonald Corps. The French took all the guns from the city's depot and also destroyed the Marne Bridge behind them. On their move north they were noticed by the Russians at Vatry , who tried to capture them but did not have enough cavalry with them to conduct a successful pursuit. The French escaped to Epernay via Bergerés-les-Vertus .

From February 7th to 9th, 1814 MacDonald's and Yorck's troops marched one day behind the other along the left, southern bank of the Marne to the west. On February 7, 1814, the Prussians had to deal with the rearguard of the MacDonald Corps before Épernay, which they fired at with artillery. When the Prussian infantry later occupied Épernay, their cavalry rode as far as Troissy and involved the French rearguard there again in a brief battle.

On the following night and daytime hours of February 8, 1814, the French MacDonald Corps withdrew to Château-Thierry , the Prussians followed to the village of Blesmes immediately east of Château-Thierry. The French marched over the Marne Bridge to the right, northern bank until late in the evening and blew the bridge behind them that night.

On February 9, 1814, the majority of the French moved to La Ferté-sous-Jouarre , but also left a battalion in Château-Thierry on the Marne bank, which prevented the Prussians from restoring the Marne by shelling until noon Marne Bridge to begin. At La Ferté-sous-Jouarre MacDonald's troops crossed the Marne again and were unexpectedly and violently attacked on the left, southern bank by the cavalry of the Russian Sacken Corps, which had already come over from Montmirail . The French then withdrew to Trilport , where they crossed the Marne for the third time and blew up the bridge again.

The bulk of the Prussian Corps Yorck was still with Dormans and Épernay on February 8, 1814 . Yorck's troops were handicapped by poor equipment and insufficient supplies and were drawn far apart. Only after two more days was the entire Yorck corps at Château-Thierry on the south bank of the Marne. The destroyed Marne bridge laboriously repaired it again by anchoring a boat between the bridge stumps and erecting a temporary pillar on it.

The movements of the Napoleonic troops

Napoleon had the advantage over the coalition troops of an excellent education - especially in his home country - and the support of the population. On the other hand, he was also under great pressure, as there were many doubts that he would be able to prevail against the overwhelming enemy. After the lost battle at La Rothière on February 1, 1814, a wave of desertions hit Napoleon's troops. Even his own marshals had doubts: MacDonald left his troops for a few days and went to Paris to arrange the whereabouts of his family in the event that the capital was taken by the coalition troops.

After the battle of La Rothière on February 1, 1814, Napoleon and his army marched to Troyes on the Seine, where he initially stayed. Before the advancing superiority of the Bohemian Army , he left Troyes with his troops on February 6, 1814 and February 7, 1814 and even arrived in Nogent-sur-Seine on February 7, 1814 .

Napoleon was very well informed about the movements of the Silesian Army during these days: on February 7, 1814 he learned that the Corps MacDonald Chalons had evacuated and was moving west along the Marne, pursued by the Prussian Corps Yorck. On the same day Napoleon decided to advance north from Nogent-sur-Seine via Sézanne . To this end he assigned: 8,000 men of the Old Guard under Marshal Mortier, 6,000 men of the Young Guard under Marshal Ney and Marmont's corps with 6,000 men, further the Guard Cavalry under Grouchy with 6,000 riders and two other cavalry corps with 2,000 riders each, a total of 30,000 men, including at least 10,000 men on horseback.

To protect against the Bohemian Army , Napoleon left two corps under Victor and Gérard at Nogent-sur-Seine . A newly formed corps was placed under the command of Oudinot and stood at Provins and Nangis northwest of Nogent-sur-Seine. Likewise, the Milhaud cavalry corps remained on the Seine.

The Marmont Corps led the advance to the north: on February 7th, coming from Nogent-sur-Seine, it had already reached the heights of Fontaine-Denis on the road to Sézanne , north of Villenauxe . The advance guard of the corps reached Barbonne in the early hours of the night .

The next day, February 8, 1814, the corps passed through Sézanne and drove a few hundred Cossacks from there. On that day, these Cossacks were subordinate to the Russian General Sacken, to whom they also reported that the French troops had appeared, but Blücher was not informed that day.

In the afternoon the infantry of the Corps reached Chapton and his cavalry explored the valley of the Petit Morin, where they found the bridge at Saint-Prix undamaged and usable. But the artillery and all ammunition wagons were left behind in Sézanne because of the poor condition of the roads. Marshal Marmont found the road impassable for guns and wagons and returned with the bulk of his troops to Sézanne, where the Young Guard under Marshal Ney arrived on the same day .

In the early evening of the following February 9, 1814, the cavalrymen of the vanguard of the Marmont Corps, who had been sent to reconnaissance, reached the place Baye north of the Petit Morin and south of Champaubert and met Russian troops of the Corps Olsufiew there. At 9 p.m. on the same evening a courier reached Olsufiews Blücher's headquarters in Etoges and reported the arrival of the French troops.

Napoleon himself arrived with the Old Guard on February 8, 1814 in Villenauxe and on February 9, 1814 in Sézanne. Marshal Marmont reported to him about the condition of the roads, described the road to Montmirail as impassable and suggested that they move to Meaux via Esternay and La Ferté-Gaucher and seek contact with MacDonald's corps. Indeed, the poor condition of the roads to the north, said to be impassable in winter, was the main reason why the Russians were not concerned about a threat from the south along the cobbled road from Châlons to Champaubert to Montmirail. In particular, the marshes of the Petit Morin around Saint-Gond were considered impassable.

With this assessment, everyone had once again underestimated Napoleon's aggressiveness and assertiveness: He issued a call to the rural population to provide all available horses for the transport of the artillery and to support the march of the French soldiers as much as possible. This appeal met with a strong, positive response and on the night of February 9, 1814, Napoleon's troops moved north: Solid roads were hardly to be made out and in the swampy terrain the men sank into the mud up to their boots. Quite a few not only lost their shoes here, but also their stockings. The French emperor personally committed himself to urging everyone to demand. At 9 a.m. on the morning of February 10, 1814, Napoleon stood with the first division ready to fight under General Ricard on the southern slope of the Petit Morin in front of the bridge of Saint-Prix, 14 km north of Sézanne, and ordered the attack.

The topography of the battlefield

The road from Sézanne north to Épernay (now the D951) crosses the Petit Morin River near Saint-Prix . The river bed there is about 30 m lower than the surrounding elevations and the northern edge of the valley is steep (Talus-Saint-Prix). Exactly at Saint-Prix, the Ru de Maurupt stream flows from the north through a side valley into the Petit Morin . The road from Saint-Prix led through this side valley via the village of Baye to Champaubert . To the northeast of Champaubert is the forest of Étoges.

The positions of the Olsufiev Corps on the morning of February 10, 1814

Early that morning, Olsufiev had learned of the approach of strong French units from an officer who had been sent out to investigate. He sent General Udom with a battalion and 6 guns to occupy and defend the town of Baye . To the west of Baye, above the slopes down to the Petit Morin , a brigade and a small battery of guns stood to secure the river crossing. The main contingent of Olsufiev was with Champaubert. The bridge over the Petit Morin was undamaged.

In total, Olsufiev had 3,690 men and 24 guns and 16 courier horses with him.

The course of the battle

The attack of the French

Map from the Atlas of Alison's History of Europe

The fighting began early in the morning when Marmont's corps began to cross the Petit Morin. The infantry division Ricard and the cavalrymen Bordessoulles attacked the Russians in Baye with 12 guns, the Lagrange division with the riders Doumercs and then the Young Guard under Marshal Ney climbed the edge of the valley west of Baye. From 9 a.m., Napoleon himself commanded the attack of the French army.

At Udom's request, Olsufiev first sent a second battalion and other guns to Baye and then all the men available to him to the edge of the valley west of Baye, where they finally formed a 2 km front line to the next village of Bannay , which the Russians occupied with strong forces. The Pelleport Brigade of the French Lagrange Division attacked the village of Bannay, but was initially thrown back. Thereupon Napoleon sent the Young Guard Marshal Neys with all available artillery against Bannay.

At 1 p.m. Olsufiev conferred with his officers, who advised him to retreat, as the French troops threatened to bypass and encircle the Russian corps. But Olsufiev wanted to obey the orders received from Blücher and withstand the French. However, he sent another courier to Blücher, who was supposed to report to Blücher about the precarious situation of the Russians. However, the courier did not find Blücher at the headquarters. A courier from Count Pahlen, who commanded the vanguard of Wittgenstein's corps, had reached him early in the morning and reported that Napoleon had personally set out for Sézanne with an army. Blücher immediately decided to oppose Napoleon and ordered his troops to march via Fère-Champenoise to Sézanne. Around noon he set out personally with his staff and ridden after his troops.

The withdrawal of the Russians

At 2 p.m. Baye and Bannay had to be evacuated. Napoleon took this as an opportunity to send an adjutant with two imperial body squadrons and Doumerc's riders to bypass the Russian corps west of Banny and gain the paved road between Champaubert and Montmirail and thus relocate the Russians to retreat to the west.

Olsufiev ordered one of his senior officers, General Poltoraski, to occupy and hold Champaubert with two regiments and 9 artillery pieces. He tried to escape with the rest of his corps from there on the road to Étoges, which was no longer possible, since the Ricard division of the Marmont corps and the riders Bordessoulles had already reached them and repelled the bayonet attack by the Russians. Now Olsufiev and his men tried to make their way along the road to Epernay. But that was not possible because the light cavalry cavalry had already reached the road and blocked this escape route.

In the open ground, the Russian soldiers were exposed to repeated attacks by the French cavalry and were constantly being shot at by French artillery. Olsufiev himself was caught and captured by French recruits who had only been doing military service for a few weeks. Under the leadership of the longest-serving officer who remained, General Karnilov, the last able-bodied Russians broke their way into the forest of Étoges with their bayonets and escaped on forest paths. 1,500 men of the Russian corps managed to make their way to Étoges during the night and found their way back to the Silesian Army .

Even the Russians who had established themselves in Champaubert did not escape the French: The French Ricard division attacked Champaubert with cavalry along the road from the east. When the Russians ran out of ammunition, they tried to reach the protective forest. The retreat was no longer successful, the French had used the time and occupied the edge of the forest and successfully rejected all attempts to find protection there. Surrounded by cavalry and fired at artillery, the last Russians finally surrendered. Their general Poltoraski was taken prisoner with them.

The evening after the battle

That evening in Fère-Champenoise, Blücher learned that the Olsufiev corps had been wiped out by French troops and that Napoleon was already on the road to Montmirail. Thereupon Blücher decided to march back with his troops to Bergerés-les-Vertus the following night .

In the evening Napoleon invited the captured Russian generals to dinner in his quarters in Champaubert. He noticed that Olsufiev could hardly understand French and therefore turned to General Poltoraski. At first Napoleon was disappointed to learn that there were only 4,000 men whom he had defeated that day. But then he was in high spirits and began to brag to the Russian generals and his own marshals:

“Tomorrow I will destroy Sacken, on the fourth day Wittgenstein's avant-garde, on the fifth I will deal such a blow to Blücher that he will not recover from it, and then I will [...] dictate peace to the Tsar. [...] If we succeed against Sacken tomorrow, the allies will go back over the Rhine faster than they came over. "

- Napoleon was victorious on the evening of February 10, 1814

Napoleon's preparations for the next day

On the night of February 11, 1814, Napoleon sent General Nansouty with the light cavalry of the guard cavalry - dragoons and lancers under Colbert and Levesque de Laferrière - to Montmirail, which was 18 km away in the west. They were immediately followed by an infantry brigade from Ricard's division. In Montmirail the French met a group of Cossacks during the night, whom they drove out as far as they did not take them prisoner.

On February 11, 1814, Napoleon sent the Lagrange division of the Mamont corps under the orders of the marshal himself, together with the riders Doumercs and Bordessoulles under General Grouchy, to Étoges, 6 km to the east, with the assignment of the Napoleonic troops against the troops under Blücher's direct command secure, which gathered again at Bergerés-les-Vertus. Napoleon himself turned with the remaining regiments of the Guard Cavalry, the second brigade of the Ricard Division and the two divisions of the Old Guard to the west to face the Sacken Corps, which he joined victoriously in battle on the same day, February 11, 1814 Montmirail inflicted great losses. Only the departure of the Young Guard was delayed. This had stuck its guns in the mud and took hours to get them free again.

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Web links

Commons : Battle of Champaubert  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Notes and individual references

1. ↑ cf. Damitz, Sporschill, Bernhardi
2. ↑ the landscape has been greatly changed today by the flood regulation of the Seine and Lac D'Orient
3. ↑ cf. Damitz II, p. 46.
4. ↑ cf. Damitz, Sporschill, Bernhardi, MacDonald
5. ^ MacDonald p. 235.
6. ↑ cf. on this Henckel von Donnermarck: Memories . The episode is mentioned several times in the literature, cf. also Förster and Damitz.
7. ↑ These events show the poor condition of the Prussian troops, which could not be disciplined that night. The more teams Yorck sent into town, the more drunks came out.
8. ↑ Château-Thierry was and is mainly on the north bank of the Marne
9. ↑ ^{a b} cf. Damitz, Sporschill, Bernhardi, MacDonalds, Marmont, 19th book
10. ↑ Bernhardi says it was 6:00 p.m., but that doesn't match the other information and the distances that a courier had to cover
11. ↑ cf. the description in Bogdanowitsch
12. ↑ Mikhailofsky-Danilefsky p. 100 ff.
13. ↑ cf. this hourtoulle
14. ↑ David Chandler
15. ↑ cf. Michailowski-Danilewski, Bernhardi, Marmont (19th book)