Battle of Vauchamps

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Battle of Vauchamps

Part of: Wars of Liberation

Territory of the Napoleonic six-day campaign

date	February 14, 1814
place	Vauchamps , Etoges , France
output	Withdrawal of the participating corps of the Silesian army on Châlons-en-Champagne

Parties to the conflict
France	Russia Prussia
Commander
Napoleon Bonaparte	Gebhard von Blücher
Troop strength
22,000, including 8,000 riders	17,000, including 1,400 riders
losses
600	4,000 Prussians 2,000 Russians

The Battle of Vauchamps was a battle of the six-day campaign of the Wars of Liberation . It is also often called the Battle of Vauchamps and Étoges .

The battle took place on February 14, 1814 between the places Vauchamps and Étoges in France. It was fought between a French army under Napoleon's command and a contingent of the Silesian Army consisting of a Russian corps under General Kapzewitsch and a Prussian corps under General Kleist , who were under the joint command of Field Marshal Blücher , who was present at the battle. The result was the withdrawal of coalition troops as far as Châlons-en-Champagne . The coalition troops suffered high losses, the Napoleonic troops only minor ones.

prehistory

Movements of Napoleonic troops

On February 12, 1814, Napoleon had forced the two corps of the Silesian Army under General Sacken and General Yorck to retreat north to Reims at the Battle of Château-Thierry and inflicted heavy losses on both corps.

On February 13, 1814, Napoleon had the destroyed bridge over the Marne in Château-Thierry restored by the afternoon and another ship bridge built. Then he sent his Marshal Mortier with two cavalry divisions and an infantry division after the withdrawing coalition troops.

Napoleon himself and the rest of his troops did not cross the Marne, because Napoleon had received reports from his Marshal Marmont about the movements of the rest of the Corps of the Silesian Army under Blücher, which induced him to march back there on the road to Montmirail .

After the Battle of Champaubert on February 10, 1814, Marmont initially stayed at Champaubert , but on the following days proceeded further east to Etoges , which he had temporarily occupied.

Napoleon demanded that his troops standing at Château-Thierry south of the Marne return to Montmirail on the night of February 13, 1814, to February 14, 1814. On the morning of February 14, 1814 at 8:00 a.m. he returned with the bulk of his troops to Montmirail and reunited with his troops that had remained there after the battle of Montmirail on February 11, 1814.

An infantry division returning from Spain, which had arrived in Sézanne , was ordered to march north on Champaubert. However, she was late for battle.

The movements of the coalition forces under Blücher

On February 12, 1814, Blücher let his troops rest near Bergerés-les-Vertus . On February 13, 1814, two cavalry regiments with three mounted batteries arrived from Châlons-en-Champagne , coming from the Moselle. On the same day at 9:00 a.m. Blücher let his troops advance on and next to the paved road to the west on Étoges . The vanguard of the French Corps Marmont, which was in Étoges, withdrew after a short gunfire from the place further west. Blücher continued to advance and in the course of the day reached Champaubert , where he had bivouacked. He himself spent the night in Champaubert.

A small Prussian unit of 100 horsemen and 100 infantrymen with two guns had already occupied Épernay north of Champaubert on the Marne that day . This reported from there that the Prussian Corps Yorck was north of the Marne and that Dormans , halfway between Épernay and Château-Thierry on the Marne, was already occupied by French troops. In addition, a worrying observation was reported to Blücher that the French people on the Marne were arming themselves to resist the coalition.

A mounted unit that had come for reconnaissance in a side valley of the Marne (valley of the Surmelin ) to Condé-en-Brie , 16 km from Château-Thierry, reported something similar, in particular that Château-Thierry and its surroundings were in French hands.

Blücher had not yet received any reports from Generals Yorck and Sacken. They hadn't been able to get couriers through.

It is not known why, given this level of knowledge, Blücher did not decide to move north to Épernay on February 14, but instead to advance further west in a losing, hopeless battle. Neither he nor his chief of staff Gneisenau have ever commented on it.

The topography of the battlefield

Battle during the 6-day campaign

The battle took place along the 18-kilometer paved road from Vauchamp to Étoges (now D933). The first 12 kilometers to Champaubert run over mostly open flat land with a few pieces of forest. The Petit Morin flows in the south . In this section, the villages of Janvilliers , 3 kilometers east of Vauchamps, are located a little north of the road and Frommentieres 6.6 kilometers east of Vauchamps directly on the road.

To the east of Champaubert , the forest of Étoges approaches the road from the north. At the edge of the forest there are two lakes (etang des grandes gres). To the east of the forest is Étoges , and Bergerés-les-Vertus is 12 km further .

On the day of the battle the ground on both sides of the road was deeply softened. Guns could therefore only be transported by road.

To the west of Vauchamps, the terrain rises and forms a ridge that cannot be overlooked from the east. Napoleon had positioned his troops behind this back.

The position of the troops at the opening of the battle

The positions of the coalition forces

At 6:30 am, Blucher sent his vanguard under General Zieten von Champaubert to advance west. The vanguard consisted of 5 battalions, 2 batteries, 3 cavalry regiments that were not fully manned, and 2 companies of hunters trained as snipers. In total there were 2000 men and 700 horses.

At 7:30 a.m., a Russian infantry unit of 3,000 men followed as a rear trot ( Soutien ).

Only at 9:30 am did the majority with Blücher himself follow. The distance between the troops was unusually large. Too big for them to be able to support each other when the battle opened.

Blücher had a total of 15,500 infantry, more than Napoleon, but only 1,400 cavalrymen. Napoleon had five to six times as many of these at his disposal.

At 9:00 a.m., Blücher's vanguard under General Zieten reached the village of Vauchamps without seeing the bulk of the French troops lying in front of him. He was able to occupy Vauchamps against minor French resistance and went beyond that. There he put his guns in position when the French troops did not retreat any further. A weak cavalry regiment stood north of the road, the other two south.

The Russian rear trot was an hour back, the majority three hours.

The position of the Napoleonic troops

Napoleon had given Marshal Marmont the instruction to go back behind Vauchamps if there was little resistance , but to take a position there before the bulk of the French troops.

In the morning Napoleon had led his troops further east from Montmirail to Vauchamps, 6 km away, but had them take up position undercover when they arrived there. At 9:00 a.m. between Vauchamps and Montmirail he had 14,000 infantry and 8,000 horsemen. He had divided his cavalry:

• the cavalry - Corps under Marshal Grouchy - at least 4,000 men strong - was operating north of the road,
• the Guard - cavalry under Nansouty - at least 3,000 men strong - operated south of the road,
• the 4 body squadrons were with Napoleon himself.

The course of the battle

Battle of Vauchamps

The loss of the advance guard of the coalition forces

General Zieten had his batteries open fire on the French troops of the Marmont Corps, positioned behind Vauchamps . These did not attack at first, however, as Napoleon waited until his cavalry had completely bypassed and enclosed the village of Vauchamps.

A small unit dispatched by Zieten, which had reached the village of Corrobert , 5 km further north and higher , returned in part to Vauchamps and reported that large numbers of cavalry were moving north to east. Zieten then sent couriers to Blücher and asked for all the cavalry available. But this was still behind the bulk and, although she was immediately ordered to the west, she came too late to provide any essential support. In addition, their strength was far too weak for this.

Around noon Napoleon gave the order to attack Vauchamps, which was first taken by the French Ricard division . Once again, Zieten's troops managed to penetrate the village, where the houses offered them protection, then they were driven out by the overwhelming forces of the French troops and had to flee to the east via the open area. This was the situation that Napoleon had wanted to bring about: the masses of his cavalry attacked, the few Prussian horsemen were driven out and the infantrymen, who were retreating in disorder, were killed or taken prisoner. Of the 5 infantry battalions in Zieten, 530 men were able to protect the Russian rear troops. Only the two hunter companies succeeded in defending themselves in an orderly manner with the hunting hunter on and thus retreating without great losses. They brought General Zieten back with them in their midst.

The 5 Russian battalions at the rear had witnessed the downfall of the vanguard and, since they too had no cavalry protection, went to safety in the village of Janvilliers . By 1:00 p.m. the majority had also caught up there.

The withdrawal of the coalition troops to Champaubert

Blücher convinced himself of the strength of the French cavalry troops, against which he was unable to successfully defend himself. From a French officer who had been captured by the Cossacks, he learned for the first time about the fighting on February 12 and 13, 1814, their outcome and the whereabouts of the Sacken and Yorck corps. Thereupon he ordered the withdrawal of his troops at 2 p.m., first to Champaubert , then - if possible - into the protective forest of Étoges.

A single Prussian battalion, which had occupied a single homestead west of Janvilliers , did not receive the order to withdraw. The Prussians holed up in the homestead until they ran out of ammunition. Then a unit of the Old Guard came by, blew up the gates and, together with Polish Uhlans, took down everything inside that was still moving. None of the Prussians who went into captivity were unharmed. This was the sixth battalion that Blücher lost.

First, Blücher sent his heavy artillery back east on the paved road, only covered by the two already tried and tested hunter companies. Then the infantry marched back: the Prussian Kleist corps to the north by the road, the Russian Kapzewitsch corps south of the road. The guns were moving in the street, as close as possible to the marching troops, and all the staffs with Blücher at their head. The cavalry acted on both sides.

Napoleon instructed General Grouchy to bypass the coalition forces in the north, and to move them access to the forest of Étoges and their further retreat. In order to gain time for this action, he instructed the guard cavalry under General Nansouty to attack the coalition troops from the south again and again in order to hinder their retreat. Nansouty did as ordered and attacked the Russian corps Kapzewitsch on the 9 km to Champaubert five times with his entire contingent of 3,000 riders, and several times with parts of his cavalry. The Russians had to regroup into squares each time they attacked, which is why they marched in a checkerboard pattern ( en échiquier ). In none of his attacks succeeded Nansouty to blow up one of the Russian squares.

The coalition troops reached and passed Champaubert. Blücher personally assigned one or two battalions to hold Champaubert against the slowly advancing French troops. Left alone against Napoleonic superiority and without any connection to the main body, these battalions perished during the subsequent onslaught of French troops on Champaubert. Fugitives caught up with the riders of the French guard cavalry; only 20 men could still make their way to Etoges .

The withdrawal of the coalition forces into the forest of Étoges

Memorial stone in Vauchamps

It was less than 1,500 meters from Champaubert to the forest of Étoges, but before that the 4,000 Grouchy riders had positioned themselves in a wide arc from north to across the road to the south - in four meetings. These, however, had no artillery with them, as it was not possible to carry mounted artillery in the soaked, deep terrain. After the coalition troops had left Champaubert behind, French cavalry continued to catch up from the west and postponed the retreat to Champaubert as well.

The French cavalry attacked several times in a row north of the road and on the road at dusk of the day. Kleist's Prussian corps repulsed all attacks, advancing slowly towards the forest, supported by Russian artillery, and formed in squares; but suffered high losses. In one of the attacks, the French horsemen managed to break through between the Prussian battalions and take the road. This put Blücher himself and his staff in danger. One of his aides fell.

When the Prussians reached the forest, they were able to find to their advantage that the edge of the forest was not occupied by French. The two hunter companies sent ahead stood here and had prevented dismounted French cavalry from entering.

After the Prussians, the Russians were able to flee into the forest and all of them withdrew in some disarray as far as Étoges . The French cavalry could no longer follow.

The battle in the night and further retreat to Châlons

The coalition troops were instructed to go back to Bergerès-lès-Vertus that night. A rearguard of Russian troops was to remain in Étoges. In the dark, Marshal Marmont's French troops penetrated Etoges, some of them along side roads, and without firing a shot, attacked the Russians with a bayonet, who fled the place in panic. Only east of Étoges could Prussians and Russians organize a defense. In this night battle the Russians suffered their greatest losses.

The days after

Blucher had his troops march on February 15, 1814 from Bergères-lès-Vertus to Châlons-en-Champagne , which is 40 km away. The first arrived there on the evening of February 15, 1814 and crossed the Marne, because Châlons-en-Champagne is on the north bank of the river. Selected guards were posted to protect the city's champagne cellars. Sometimes the troops had to bivouac outside the city because the attitude of the population had become increasingly hostile. Caring for people and animals became more and more difficult in the winter, especially since Napoleonic and coalition troops had already been located in this city and had supplied themselves from their warehouses.

On February 16, 1814, Blücher ordered that the two corps under Sacken and Yorck should also go to Châlons-en-Champagne, which happened in the following days.

Blücher and his Silesian Army had lost 16,000 men, i.e. 20 percent of their team strength, in the five days from February 10 to 14, 1814.

Napoleon returned to Montmirail on the night of February 14th to 15th, 1814 . On February 15, 1814, he had all his troops go back there except for the Marmont Corps and gather. The Marmont Corps remained until further notice with the strength of two infantry and one cavalry division, initially at Bergerès-lès-Vertus, later at Étoges .

Napoleon did not pursue Blücher and his corps any further, but turned south against the Bohemian Army .

Trivia

The street that leads into Vauchamp from the west (D933) is still called Rue de l'Empereur today . Other streets are called Rue de Victoire , Rue de la Canonnade or Rue de Garde .

literature

• Friedrich Saalfeld: General history of the latest time. Since the beginning of the French Revolution . Brockhaus, Leipzig 1819 (4 vol.)
• Karl von Damitz: History of the campaign from 1814 in eastern and northern France to the capture of Paris. As a contribution to recent war history . Mittler, Berlin 1842/43 (3 vol.)
• Friedrich Christoph Förster : History of the Wars of Liberation 1813, 1814, 1815, Volume 2 . G. Hempel, Berlin 1858.
• Ludwig Häusser : German history from the death of Frederick the Great to the establishment of the German Confederation . Salzwasser-Verlag, Paderborn 2012, ISBN 978-3-86382-553-9 (reprint of the Berlin 1863 edition)
• Heinrich Ludwig Beitzke : History of the German wars of freedom in the years 1813 and 1814. Volume 3: The campaign of 1814 in France . Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1855.
• Karl Rudolf von Ollech : Carl Friedrich Wilhelm von Reyher , General of the Cavalry and Chief of the General Staff of the Army. A contribution to the history of the army with reference to the Wars of Liberation in 1813, 1814 and 1815. Volume 1, Mittler, Berlin 1861.
• Joseph Edmund Woerl: History of the wars from 1792 to 1815 . Herder'sche Verlagshandlung, Freiburg / B. 1852.
• Carl von Plotho : The war in Germany and France in the years 1813 and 1814. Part 3, Amelang, Berlin 1817.
• Karl von Müffling : From my life. Two parts in one volume . VRZ-Verlag, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-931482-48-0 . (Reprint of the Berlin 1851 edition)
• Alexander Iwanowitsch Michailowski-Danilewski : History of the Campaign in France in the Year 1814 . Trotman Books, Cambridge 1992, ISBN 0-946879-53-2 (reprinted from London 1839 edition; translated from Russian by the author).
• Jacques MacDonald : Souvenirs du maréchal Macdonald, duc de Tarente . Plon, Paris 1821.
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• Alphonse de Beauchamp : Histoire des campagnes de 1814 et de 1815, Volume 2 . Édition Le Normand, Paris 1817.
• Agathon Fain : Souvenirs de la campagne de France (manuscrit de 1814) . Perrin, Paris 1834.
• Frédéric Koch : Memories pour servir a l'histoire de la campagne de 1814. Accompagnés de plans, d'ordres de bataille et de situations . Maginet, Paris 1819.
• Antoine-Henri Jomini : Vie politique et militaire de Napoléon. Racontée par lui-même, au tribunal de César , d ' Alexandre et de Frédéric . Anselin, Paris 1827.
• Maurice Henri Weil: La campagne de 1814 d'après les documents des archives impériales et royales de la guerre à Vienne. La cavalerie des armées alliées pendant la campagne de 1814 . Baudouin, Paris 1891/96 (4 vol.)
• Henry Houssaye: 1814 (Librairie Académique). 94th edition. Perrin, Paris (EA Paris 1905)
• Maximilian Thielen: The campaign of the allied armies of Europe in 1814 in France under the supreme command of the Imperial and Royal Field Marshal Prince Carl zu Schwarzenberg . Kk Hofdruckerei, Vienna 1856.
• August Fournier : Napoleon I. A biography . Vollmer, Essen 1996, ISBN 3-88851-186-0 (reprint of the Vienna 1906 edition)
• Archibald Alison : History of Europe from the commencement of the French Revolution to the restoration of the Bourbons in 1815, Volume 11: 1813-1814. 9th edition. Blackwood, Edinburgh 1860.
• David G. Chandler : Campaigns of Napoleon . Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London 1998, ISBN 0-297-74830-0 (reprint of the London 1966 edition)
• David G. Chandler: Dictionary of the Napoleonic wars . Greenhill, London 1993, ISBN 1-85367-150-9 (EA London 1979)
• Stephen Pope: The Cassell Dictionary of Napoleonic Wars . Cassell, London 1999, ISBN 0-304-35229-2 .
• Gregory Fremont-Barnes: The Napoleonic Wars, Volume 4: The Fall of the French Empire 1813-1815 . Osprey Publ., Oxford 2002, ISBN 1-84176-431-0 .

Supplements and individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Ollech p. 272.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Alison Chap. 85.
3. ↑ Beitzke p. 205.
4. ↑ Ollech p. 273.
5. ↑ Ollech p. 274, Beitzke p. 215.
6. ↑ The literature is unclear about the exact number, see Beitzke p. 220.
7. ↑ Your Commander v. In the following years, Neumann became lieutenant general and adjutant general of the Prussian king
8. ↑ Marmont, Book 19, p. 44.