Summer campaign of 1815

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Battles of the Wars of Liberation (1813-1815)
The Lion Mound and Rotunda of the Panorama of the Battle of Waterloo.

The summer campaign of 1815 , also known as the Seventh Coalition , was Napoleon's last military action and lasted from March to July 1815 . With the defeat of France in this campaign, the Napoleonic era ended. This campaign was part of the coalition wars .

background

Napoleon leaves Elba

After Napoleon's exile to Elba , the population of France remained under the new ruler Louis XVIII. dissatisfied. Napoleon returned to France on March 1, 1815 and the reign of the Hundred Days began. In order to be able to participate militarily in the European war, an army of 125,000 soldiers was recruited in Paris . This army consisted mainly of veterans of the earlier Napoleonic Wars. He assured the remaining European states that he would recognize the Paris Peace of 1814 and that he would not cross the national borders of 1792 and would in future live in peace with his neighbors. On March 25, Great Britain , Austria , Russia and Prussia signed another coalition agreement because they did not trust the peace with France. Napoleon's armaments efforts, which had now become necessary, met with resistance in many cases.

The armies involved

Bonaparte deployed 125,000 men for the campaign and organized them as the Armée du Nord . Two-thirds of the soldiers consisted of experienced veterans of the earlier Napoleonic Wars, the core of which were the powerful units of the old and young guards. The greatest weak point was the command staff, since Napoleon had to do without many experienced marshals and fill posts with officers who had never held these positions. So he appointed the previous corps commander Nicolas Jean de Dieu Soult as chief of staff and the corps commander Michel Ney he transferred the leadership of the entire left wing.

Against this threat the allies had assembled an army of 95,000 men under Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington and a second with 120,000 Prussian soldiers under Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher in what is now Belgium . The Prussian army consisted of about a third of veterans, the rest of volunteers and Landwehr regiments with low combat value. In particular, the motivation of the Rhenish Landwehr , many of whom saw the new Prussian rule as an occupation, was questionable. The officer corps, however, was well trained and provided four proven corps commanders.

The Duke of Wellington's army consisted of soldiers from Great Britain, the Netherlands, Hanover , Braunschweig and Nassau . A third was made up of experienced British soldiers and the King's German Legion (KGL), with whom Wellington fought in the Spanish War of Independence . Another third were largely inexperienced Dutch soldiers and the rest were German auxiliaries. Wellington was aware of the shortcomings of his army, both in terms of discipline and combat value, and is cited as the "nefarious army" (Cornwell) or the "appalling army" (Rothenberg). A major weak point in the officer corps was the Prince of Orange , whom Wellington was forced to appoint as commander of the 1st Corps. He had been Wellington's adjutant, but had never commanded a field army and had no experience or vision in combat.

Overall, both allied armies of the French were numerically, but Napoleon was superior to any individual enemy in terms of combat strength. An Allied victory was only possible if the British-Dutch and Prussian armies worked closely together, a French only if Napoleon could attack and defeat both enemy units separately.

Austrian troops were also on the way, but neither these nor Russian troops played a role in the campaign and were only used in the following battles in northern France.

course

The summer campaign of 1815

Although Napoléon was known to attack quickly and unexpectedly, neither Wellington nor Blücher expected a quick French advance. On June 13, Wellington wrote to England that no attack from Napoleon was to be expected. Accordingly, the Allied commanders hardly took any precautions. There were only a few scouts and patrols on the border with France and the two armies were widely distributed to facilitate supplies, the British-Dutch armies in an arc south and west of Brussels , the Prussian armies east from Ligny to Liége .

15th June

As a result, Napoléon was able to reach the border with the Netherlands on June 14th and cross it on June 15th. During the day Charleroi was reached and there the Sambre was crossed. His plan was to advance north with some of his troops under Ney, which were to take the Quatre-Bras intersection , in order to sever the link between the British-Dutch and Prussian armies, the Chaussée de Nivelles , which ran through Quatre-Bras . With the rest of the troops, Napoleon initially wanted to advance to the northeast in order to destroy the Prussian army and then to turn against the British-Dutch army.

Initially, there were small skirmishes with Prussian horsemen in the Charleroi area, whereupon Blücher gave orders to concentrate his troops at Sombreffe , 20 km east of Quatre-Bras on the Chaussée de Nivelles . Wellington, on the other hand, first learned of skirmishes between British snipers and French Uhlans in the Mons area and assumed that Napoléon's attack would take place further west. For this reason he ordered General Rebecque to gather his troops of the 1st Corps at Nivelles in order to be able to protect Mons, including the units currently occupying Quatre-Bras. Rebecque, based on reports that French troops were marching from Charleroi, decided that the French attack was not going west but south, refused the order and sent troops to Quatre-Bras. There in the evening there were fighting with the French vanguard, which withdrew again. The commandant in Quatre-Bras, Colonel Karl Bernhard von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach , reported this enemy contact to the staff of the Prince of Orange, who passed the report on to Wellington. In the meantime he had left his headquarters and attended the Duchess of Richmond's ball . Wellington was later criticized for this, as he apparently completely underestimated the seriousness of the military situation and instead enjoyed himself at the ball. On the other hand, it is assumed today that Wellington was completely aware of Napoleon's attack and that he attended the ball on the one hand to raise the spirits of the nobles and military who were present, and on the other hand to consult with the numerous generals present. When he received the news of the fighting at Quatre Bras, it was immediately clear to him that the majority of the French army was south and not west, so Napoleon was trying to separate the two allied armies at Quatre Bras and this effort was already very advanced was. Wellington exclaimed: "Napoleon set me up, by God!" And immediately had the generals and their troops move towards Quatre Bras.

In the meantime General Louis-Auguste-Victor de Ghaisnes de Bourmont had defected to the Prussians and betrayed Napoléon's battle plan. It is controversial among historians to what extent this influenced the campaign. At this point the Prussian General Staff had already largely recognized the tactics and reacted to them, while this information did not reach Wellington until the middle of the night, when his units had been on their way south for hours to the important intersection at Quatre-Bras and to secure the only road to Ligny.

June 16

Napoleon believed that Ney had already taken Quatre-Bras, so that not only would Wellington's units be prevented from supporting the Prussians, but Ney's troops were also free to flank the Prussians at Ligny. So he advanced with his right wing under Emmanuel de Grouchy and the guard against the Prussians at Ligny. But Ney did not attack until early afternoon - in the battle of Quatre-Bras . This attempt failed, but it prevented Wellington Blucher from coming to the rescue; however, no French troops could fall into the flank of the Prussians at Ligny (see Battle of Ligny ), as Napoléon had intended. Although he was able to force the Prussians to retreat, there was no annihilation. Since Blücher was wounded in the fighting, his chief of staff Gneisenau took over the retreat. In his opinion, a retreat to the east would make the most sense to settle in the Rhineland. But knowing that Blücher wanted to maintain the alliance with Wellington, he let the troops withdraw north to Wavre to keep both options open.

17th of June

Wellington learned of the Prussian retreat that morning, and after a personal conversation with Blücher, he also moved his army north and had them deployed south of Brussels at Mont-St-Jean . The position was easy to defend through a valley running from west to east and was located directly to the west, about 30 km from Wavre. In contrast to previous campaigns, Napoléon failed to pursue and disperse his enemies immediately after a successful battle. Ney also waited relatively passively at Quatre-Bras while the British-Dutch army withdrew. Napoléon made violent accusations against him, which culminated in the famous saying “On a perdu la France” (“We have lost France”). Nevertheless, it must be noted that Napoléon also remained very passive until the afternoon and only then did Grouchy send his right wing after the Prussians, followed by Ney's troops and the Wellington Guard. At Genappe there were minor skirmishes with the British rearguard, but overall Wellington's army arrived relatively unscathed in Mont-St-Jean. In the middle of the night the French army also reached Waterloo. According to reports that the Prussian army had retreated towards the Rhine, Grouchy supposedly followed it. However, it was only about 8,000 men from the Westphalian Landwehr who had separated from the army and, contrary to clear orders, went home.

18th of June

The Battle of Waterloo was the climax of the summer campaign

The next morning the decisive battle began at Waterloo . Napoléon let the British-Dutch army attack head-on, but this was well entrenched and was able to repel the attacks. The French battle plan from the beginning included a flank attack by Grouchy on the British eastern flank, but by the time that order reached him he was already east of the Prussians at Wavre and was involved in the battle of Wavre . While one Prussian corps was able to hold up Grouchy's attack, the others marched to Waterloo and now attacked Napoleon's army on the eastern flank. With the deployment of the young guard, Napoleon was able to hold off this attack until evening, but since Wellington's troops still held out, the French army was now trapped. When Wellington's troops repelled the last attack by the old guard, the battle was decided and the French had lost.

20th June

In the battle near Namur, General Vandamme defended the city, but had to retreat that evening.

June 27th

The French tried in vain to establish a bridgehead at the Oise in the battle at Compiegne.

June 28th

General von Pirch II captured the town and 14 cannons in the battle near Villers-Cotterets. At the same time, General von Zieten advanced on Nanteuil. At Levigneu he met the French and captured two cannons.

2nd July

The 1st Prussian Corps throws the French back in the battle near Sevres.

3rd of July

In the battle near Issy, the Prussians were able to defend the strategically important location.

After this defeat, the French army evacuated Paris and withdrew across the Loire according to an agreement with the Allies. This ended the campaign.

consequences

After the defeat at Waterloo, Napoleon Bonaparte was badly beaten, but he planned to continue the war with the troops remaining in France and to recruit 150,000 men. However, since Austrian and Russian troops (General de Tolly ) also invaded France in addition to the armies of Wellington and Blucher , the French parliament no longer believed in a victory for Napoleon and withdrew its support. General Davout recommended that he use his armies to overthrow parliament and return to rule as sole ruler, but he refused, realizing that his backing in the country was dwindling, and Davout feared that parts of the army would not support this and would rebel. Accordingly, this would have meant a civil war. So Napoléon abdicated again and was exiled to St. Helena , where he died in 1821. The Napoleonic Wars were finally over and Europe's borders were redrawn , as decided at the Congress of Vienna .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Günther Rothenberg: The Napoleonic Wars. BVH Brandenburgisches Verlagshaus, Berlin 2000, p. 195.
  2. ^ Bernard Cornwell: Waterloo. A battle changes Europe. Rowohlt, Hamburg 2015, p. 43.
  3. ^ Bernard Cornwell: Waterloo. A battle changes Europe. Rowohlt, Hamburg 2015, p. 46.
  4. ^ Bernard Cornwell: Waterloo. A battle changes Europe. Rowohlt, Hamburg 2015, p. 49.
  5. ^ Marian Füssel: Waterloo 1815. CH Beck, Munich 2015, p. 28.
  6. ^ Bernard Cornwell: Waterloo. A battle changes Europe. Rowohlt, Hamburg 2015, p. 82.
  7. ^ Bernard Cornwell: Waterloo. A battle changes Europe. Rowohlt, Hamburg 2015, p. 74.
  8. ^ Bernard Cornwell: Waterloo. A battle changes Europe. Rowohlt, Hamburg 2015, p. 76.
  9. ^ Bernard Cornwell: Waterloo. A battle changes Europe. Rowohlt, Hamburg 2015, p. 108.
  10. ^ Marian Füssel: Waterloo 1815. CH Beck, Munich 2015, p. 39.
  11. ^ Bernard Cornwell: Waterloo. A battle changes Europe. Rowohlt, Hamburg 2015, p. 114.
  12. ^ Günther Rothenberg: The Napoleonic Wars. BVH Brandenburgisches Verlagshaus, Berlin 2000, p. 209.
  13. ^ Franz Herre: Napoleon. A biography. Hugendubel, Munich 2006, p. 282.
  14. ^ Günther Rothenberg: The Napoleonic Wars. BVH Brandenburgisches Verlagshaus, Berlin 2000, p. 209.