time when his attempts to mobilize French resources were already facing unprecedented difficulties and opposition. The formidable system of conscription, at its most effective in the period 1810–13, was at last beginning to run down in the face of Napoleon’s insatiable demands. Most of the conscripts summoned to the depots in November 1813 did not turn up, and could not have been armed, equipped or officered even had they done so. Napoleon had not expected the allies to invade in winter and their offensive threw his plans to levy a new
From there he marched south-eastwards, hoping to catch and destroy Blucher’s force before it could link up with Schwarzenberg. Fortunately for Blucher, the Russian cavalry captured a staff officer with Napoleon’s plans. Also lucky was the fact that Peter Pahlen and part of the main army’s cavalry was nearby. Pahlen delayed the advancing French and covered the march of Blucher’s troops towards Brienne, where they arrived after midday on 29 January.
Late on that winter afternoon Napoleon’s infantry attacked Brienne in three columns. Blucher’s headquarters was in the chateau of Brienne, from which he had an excellent view of the advancing enemy. He immediately spotted that the French left-hand column was vulnerable to a cavalry attack and ordered Ilarion Vasilchikov to charge into the enemy flank and rear, which brought the French infantry to a halt. Later that evening, however, on the other allied flank, French infantry burst into Brienne in the darkness past Olsufev’s small corps. Blucher and Sacken only just escaped capture and one of the latter’s key staff officers was killed. Once the initial surprise had passed, the Russian troops rallied and Blucher retreated to link up with the main army on the heights of Trannes just a few kilometres south of Brienne. But Sacken was furious with Olsufev, whom he blamed for the whole episode.40
Napoleon followed Blucher and established his headquarters in the village of La Rothiere, just north of the heights at Trannes. For two days the armies watched each other without moving. By midday on 1 February Napoleon believed that the allies were aiming to move around his western flank and ordered his reserves away from La Rothiere to watch them. Soon afterwards, however, it became clear that Blucher was on the point of attacking the French line. Napoleon had fewer than 50,000 men to cover a front of 9.5 kilometres, which was too few. His right flank rested on the river Aube at the village of Dienville. The village of La Rothiere was in the centre of his line, which stretched out to La Giberie on his left. Blucher commanded Sacken’s and Olsufev’s troops from the Army of Silesia, which stood in his centre opposite La Rothiere.
On their left were Gyulai’s Austrian Army Corps, which he ordered to attack Dienville. On the right was the Wurttemberg Army Corps under their crown prince, whose task it was to assault La Giberie. On their own these troops barely outnumbered the French but the allies had more than double their number available within range of the battlefield.
Gyulai’s attack on the strong French position at Dienville failed. The crown prince of Wurttemberg also had great difficulties deploying enough troops in the narrow defiles and swampy terrain around La Giberie to push back the French defenders. In the end he was rescued by Wrede’s Bavarian corps which came up behind the enemy left flank and forced Marshal Marmont to retreat. Schwarzenberg had not ordered Wrede to join the battle but the Bavarian commander had marched to the sound of the guns on his own initiative.
By far the fiercest fighting occurred in and around La Rothiere, however. Three-quarters of all allied casualties occurred here. Sacken’s infantry assaulted La Rothiere in two columns: Johann Lieven attacked from the front down the road and Aleksei Shcherbatov moved forward a few hundred metres to the east. This was the first time that the Army of Silesia had fought under Alexander’s eye and Sacken was determined to impress. The Prussian official history writes that ‘Lieven’s column attacked the village with their bands playing and the soldiers singing’. With a snow storm blowing into their backs, the Russian infantry stormed into the village with their bayonets, without pausing to fire. Major-General Nikitin, the commander of Sacken’s artillery, was unable to drag all of his guns forward to support the attack because of the heavy mud. So he left thirty-six guns behind and double- harnessed the rest. Between them Lieven and Shcherbatov cleared La Rothiere after bitter fighting, only then to face a ferocious counter-attack in the early evening from Napoleon’s Guards. In this fighting both Marshal Oudinot and Lieven were wounded. In the end, the issue was decided by the Russian reserves, in this case the 2nd Grenadier Division, which came up to support Sacken and drove the enemy out of La Rothiere once and for all. The French lost 73 guns and 5,000 men, the allies barely fewer. But the main element in the allied victory was moral. In the first battle of the campaign, Napoleon had been defeated on French soil. His troops’ morale slumped. In the following days many French soldiers deserted and set off for their homes.41
Sacken’s report on the battle concluded with a courtier’s flourish: ‘On this memorable and triumphant day Napoleon ceased to be the enemy of mankind and Alexander can say, I will grant peace to the world.’ Language like this was dangerously premature. Napoleon was not dead yet and the Army of Silesia was to be punished for its overconfidence in just a few days’ time. For Sacken himself, however, the battle had been a triumph. For his victories in 1813 he had been promoted to full general and awarded a string of decorations. Now Alexander granted him the very coveted Order of St Andrew and made him a present of 50,000 rubles. Probably most important for Sacken, however, was the emperor’s remark to him on the day after the battle: ‘You have conquered not only your foreign but also your domestic enemies.’ The old battle with Bennigsen dating back to 1807 which had embittered Sacken and threatened his career was now decided in his favour. His great enemy would end his life as a general and a count. Sacken would race past him, both a field-marshal and a prince.42
The day after the battle the allied leaders held a conference in the chateau of Brienne to decide future strategy. When the time to begin the meeting arrived, apparently Blucher was nowhere to be found and the various dignitaries scattered to track him down. It was Alexander who discovered him, deep in the wine cellars, plucking the best bottles from the racks. The conference decided that the main army and the Army of Silesia must split up, allegedly because it was impossible to feed them if they remained together. Schwarzenberg would advance on Paris from the south along the river Seine. Blucher would approach from the west along the Marne.43 In many ways this was to revert to the model of 1813 and to face the same dangers. Napoleon would be operating on interior lines between the two allied armies. By now he would be well attuned to Schwarzenberg’s caution and slowness, and to Blucher’s boldness and willingness to run risks. In the autumn of 1813 Napoleon had missed his chance to exploit this weakness. Now it had returned in even more clear-cut form. Unlike in the autumn, Napoleon would not have to exhaust himself by marching great distances to strike one or other allied army. Since all military operations were taking place in a small area, he could hope to defeat one enemy army and race back to face the other in a handful of days. Moving in his own country, he could mobilize local knowledge, transport and manpower to use side roads, tap food supplies and be forewarned about enemy actions. He also controlled most of the key river crossings. In addition, in February 1814 Blucher was even more inclined to take risks than before since he shared the widespread view that Napoleon’s demise was imminent. By 7 February he and Alexander were discussing how to quarter the troops when they reached Paris.44
Meanwhile Schwarzenberg was even more cautious than in the previous year. The great numerical superiority of the allies seems to have merely increased his worries about the difficulties of commanding and feeding so vast an army. He was intensely concerned about the security of his long line of communications stretching back to Basle and across the Rhine. He exaggerated the size of Napoleon’s army and, still more, of the force which Marshal Augereau was trying to form in Lyons, believing that Augereau might strike into the allied rear in Switzerland. In these circumstances Schwarzenberg was very opposed to any further move forwards. As he wrote to his wife on 26 January, ‘any advance on Paris is in the highest degree contrary to military science’.45
To do the commander-in-chief justice he was not alone among the allied generals in this view. Knesebeck argued that it would be very difficult to feed the army in the region around Troyes through which they would have to approach Paris. The various allied corps could only move up and down the north–south highways leading to the capital since the side roads were almost impassable at this time of year. Lateral movements and mutual support among the allied corps would therefore be slow at best. Meanwhile Napoleon could feed himself from the fertile
