Battle of Walutino
| date | August 19, 1812 |
|---|---|
| place | Walutina Gora , Central Russia |
| output | Russian retreat |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
|
|
|
| Troop strength | |
| 50,000 | 20,000-30,000 |
| losses | |
|
7,000-9,000 |
9,000 |
Mir - Mogilev - Ostrovno - Kobrin - Klyastitsy - Gorodeczno - Smolensk - Polotsk I - Walutino - Borodino - Tschirikovo - Tarutino - Maloyaroslavets - Polotsk II - Vyazma - Lyachovo - Chaschniki - Smoljany - Krasnoi - Beresina
The Battle of Walutina Gora (French transcription : Valoutina Gora ) was a battle between the Grande Armée and the Russian army , which took place on August 19, 1812 near Walutina Gora as part of the Napoleonic Russian campaign . It was a battle of retreat which followed the battle of Smolensk won by the French .
prehistory
After the Russian army lost the Battle of Smolensk, they first withdrew towards Saint Petersburg , as the road to Moscow was ruled by French cannons. At Lubino the army was supposed to re- enter the road to Moscow . So that this maneuver could be carried out safely, General Barclay sent the IV Corps under General Ostermann-Tolstoy with some soldiers to Lubino to secure the place where the Russian army intended to enter the road to Moscow.
On August 19, the vanguard of the Grande Armée, the III. Corps under Michel Ney crossed the Dnieper at Smolensk and pursued the Russians on the road to Moscow in the direction of Lubino, while Grouchy's cavalry bridged the river further to the north and looked for the enemy on the Petersburg road.
The battle
When Ney's vanguard, the division under General Razout on the Kolowdnia met a Russian brigade under Pavel Tutschkow , both opponents took up positions. To support Ney's attack, Napoleon ordered the following I. Corps under Davout to intervene with a division as reinforcement. After Ney's troops had already been thrown over the Kolowdnia by a Russian counter-attack, the division under Gudin intervened. With combined forces they were able to restore the situation around the only wooden bridge on the swampy Kolowdnia and to push Tutschkow back. After a while, the Russians received reinforcements, so that the front stabilized near Walutina Gora. General Gudin was seriously wounded in these fighting and died a few days later in Smolensk. The French VIII Corps under Andoche Junot, who was on the left wing of the Russians, could have stabbed them in the rear, but refused to attack even when Murat personally told him to do so. As a result, he gave away the victory, because an attack by him would probably have destroyed the Russian units. Lieutenant von Conrady wrote: "Our belligerence was loudly ventilated; individual battalions shouted that they wanted to be brought forward; but Junot did not move [...] The opportunity to achieve a brilliant success has never been missed in such an unscrupulous, cowardly manner ! " Napoleon, however, assessed the situation completely wrong. He believed it was just a meaningless battle of retreat and therefore did not send any more reinforcements. Meanwhile, the fighting over Walutina Gora intensified. Neither side withdrew, so that the battle did not end until dusk and resulted in great losses on both sides. When night fell, the soldiers were so exhausted from fighting that they did not set up camp for the night, but lay down among the fallen.
Importance of the battle
The losses on the French side amounted to about 7,000 to 9,000 men (including the commander of the 3rd Division, Général Charles Étienne Gudin de La Sablonnière ), while the Russians lost about 9,000 men. However, the Russians had gained enough time to move their army onto the Moscow road and withdraw. Napoleon did not see why the Russians were resisting so bitterly, however, and assumed it was just a battle of retreat. Had he recognized the importance of the battle and sent in more reinforcements, the Russian army marching unprotected would have been completely crushed. Thus Napoleon missed a chance of victory in the Russian campaign in this battle. The Russian General Löwenstern later wrote: "The fate of the campaign and the army should have been sealed that day." Despite the withdrawal, the battle is to be seen as a strategic victory for the Russian side, as the battle enabled them to save their army and continue the fight against Napoleon. The Russian general Pawel Tutschkow fell wounded in French captivity and was asked after the fighting to send a written message from Napoleon through his brother, the commanding general of III. Corps, Lieutenant General Nikolai Tutschkow , to be delivered to the Tsar.
Remarks
- ^ Friedrich Steger: The campaign of 1812. Reprint. Phaidon Verlag, Essen 1985, pp. 115 and 116.
- ^ Holzhausen: The Germans in Russia. Volume I, 1912, p. 48.
- ^ Josselson: The Commander. 1980, p. 127; Troickij: 1812, Velikij god Rossii. 1988, p. 117.
- ^ W. von Löwenstern: Memories. Volume 1, 2006, pp. 226 and 231.
literature
- Adam Zamoyski: Napoleon's campaign in Russia in 1812. dtv, 2014, ISBN 978-3-423-34811-9 .
- Michael and Diana Josselson: The Commander. A Life of Barclay de Tolly. Oxford 1980, ISBN 0-19-215854-6 .
- Woldemar von Löwenstern: Memories of a Livonian (from the years 1790–1815). ed. by Friedrich v. Smitt. Volume 1, o. O. 2006, OCLC 834200458 . (Facsimile reprint of the Leipzig / Heidelberg edition 1858)
- Nikolaj A. Troickij: 1812, Velikij god Rossii. Moscow 1988, ISBN 5-244-00070-5 .
- Paul Holzhausen: The Germans in Russia 1812. Life and suffering on the Moscow military expedition. 2 volumes. Berlin 1912.