In the first place it was by no means certain that Francis II would take the uncompromising line suggested by Stadion in the event of Napoleon rejecting any of the Austrian minimal conditions, seeking delay, or winning victories over the allies on the battlefield. In addition, when Nesselrode three weeks later finally got to meet Field- Marshal Schwarzenberg and General Radetsky, the two key officers of the Army of Bohemia, they assured him that it had never been conceivable for the Austrian army to cross the Bohemian frontier before 20 June. Russian bafflement and suspicion was inevitable. Did Stadion speak for Metternich? What were the slippery foreign minister’s true views and did he speak for Francis II? Did any Austrian statesman understand, let alone control, what the army was doing to prepare for war?60
Categorical Austrian assurances of support were a powerful additional reason for the allies to risk another battle against Napoleon by stopping their retreat at Bautzen. Nevertheless, though there were excellent reasons for trying to gain time and delay Napoleon, the decision was a very risky one. At the battle of Bautzen on 20–21 May the allies could muster only 96,000 men: Napoleon had double that number present by the end of the battle and his superiority was even greater as regards infantry, which would be the decisive arm on the battlefield. On the map the terrain at Bautzen seemed to favour a stout defence. When they arrived on the scene, as was their habit, the Russian troops immediately began to dig entrenchments and fortifications. Although individual strong points were formidable, however, the position was divided up into a number of sectors by streams and ravines. It would be very difficult to coordinate the defence or move reserves from one sector to another. Above all, the allied position was too extended for such a relatively small force. The Russians had four times fewer men per kilometre than had been the case at Borodino.
Count Langeron arrived at Bautzen with Barclay de Tolly’s detachment just four days before the battle. After the fall of Thorn they had marched at speed to the rescue of the main army. At the battle of Bautzen Langeron’s corps, under Barclay’s overall command, stood on the far right flank of the allied line, against which Napoleon’s decisive stroke – as it turned out – was to be directed, under the command of Marshal Ney. In his memoirs Langeron commented that the ground offered many advantages to its defenders but 25,000 men were needed to hold it; he had only 8,000. Eugen of Wurttemberg’s corps was on the allied left flank. Like Langeron, he recognized that the decision to stand at Bautzen had been taken above all for political reasons. In his view, ‘given how much we were outnumbered and given the very extended position we were holding we could not expect victory in the battle but just to inflict losses on the enemy and to conduct an orderly retreat protected by our numerous cavalry’.61
Fighting the leading general of the day at a two-to-one disadvantage, the danger was that they would be routed. Even another Friedland, let alone an Austerlitz, would probably have destroyed this allied coalition, as had happened to so many before it. A victory equal to Friedland was actually within Napoleon’s grasp on 21 May and would probably have occurred but for the mistakes of Marshal Ney.
Napoleon’s plan was simple and potentially devastating. On 20 May his limited attacks and feints would pin the allied main body along the whole defensive line which ran from the foothills of the Bohemian mountains on their left to the Kreckwitz heights on their right. These attacks would continue on 21 May. Given French numbers, it was easy to make these attacks very convincing and even to force the allies to commit part of their reserve to stop them. But the crucial stroke would be made on 21 May by Ney and Lauriston’s corps on Barclay’s position on the far right of the allied position near Gleina. In overwhelmingly superior numbers they would drive through Barclay and into the allied rear, cutting across the only roads which would allow the allies to make an orderly retreat eastwards to Reichenbach and Gorlitz, and threatening to push the enemy in disorderly rout southwards over the Austrian frontier. This plan was fully viable and was indeed helped by Alexander’s obsession that the main threat would come on his left, with Napoleon attempting to lever the allies away from the Bohemian frontier and thereby wreck the chances of coordinating operations with the Austrians. In contrast, Wittgenstein correctly understood that the main danger would come in the north. By now Alexander had lost confidence in Wittgenstein, however, and was almost acting himself as de facto commander-in-chief. Moreover, Wittgenstein did not help matters by telling the emperor that Barclay commanded 15,000 men whereas in reality he had barely half that many.62
On 20 May the battle went according to Napoleon’s plan. Fierce fighting raged down the whole allied front as far north as the Kreckwitz heights and Alexander committed part of his reserves to drive back what he saw as the French threat on his left. Meanwhile Barclay’s men were bothered by nothing more than a few skirmishers. On the next morning battle was renewed from the Bohemian foothills to Kreckwitz, but Ney and Lauriston also entered the fray.
The battle on the far right began at about nine in the morning. Barclay quickly realized that there was no hope of stopping the overwhelming numbers with which he was faced. All he could hope to do was fight a delaying action on the heights near Gleina and protect the key lines of retreat as long as possible. Langeron commented that in particular his 28th and 32nd Jaeger regiments showed both skill and heroism that morning, holding off the French until the last minute and allowing the Russian artillery to escape after inflicting heavy casualties. Barclay himself went forward among his jaegers, inspiring them by his quiet courage in extreme danger. For all the Russians’ coolness and the temporary respite won by a counter-attack by Kleist’s Prussians, the situation became increasingly desperate as Ney’s pressure built up and part of Lauriston’s corps threatened to envelop Barclay’s right flank. When the village of Preititz finally fell to the French at three in the afternoon it would have been easy for Lauriston to move forward to cut the vital allied line of retreat down the road to Weissenburg.
Instead, providentially, Ney allowed himself to become over-excited by the ferocious struggle occurring to his right on the Kreckwitz heights, where Blucher was holding out against an attack by Soult, whose force included Bertrand’s corps and Napoleon’s Guards. Instead of pushing south-east towards the allied line of retreat, Ney not only directed his own corps south-westwards against Blucher but also ordered Lauriston to support him. Faced by these overwhelming numbers, old Blucher, still haranguing his men to fight like the Spartans at Thermopylae, was persuaded, very unwillingly and just in time, to retreat down the road which Barclay’s men were still keeping open. The Russian Guards and heavy cavalry were ordered up to cover the retreat.
The allied right and centre moved down the road to Reichenbach and Weissenburg, the left down the parallel road through Loebau to Hochkirch. This retreat was essentially a flank march across the front of much more numerous enemy forces after two days of exhausting battle. Langeron comments that ‘it was nevertheless achieved in the greatest order and without suffering the slightest loss, just like all the other retreats that this admirable Russian army made during the war, thanks to its perfect discipline, its obedience and to the innate courage of the Russian officers and soldiers’. No doubt Langeron was a biased witness but Baron von Odeleben, a Saxon officer on Napoleon’s staff, watched the Russian rearguard on 21 May and recorded that ‘the Russians retired in the greatest order’ and ‘made a retreat, which may be considered as a
For Napoleon, the outcome of Bautzen was a great disappointment. Instead of a decisive victory he had merely pushed the allies back along their line of retreat after losing 25,000 men as against 10,850 Russian and Prussian casualties. His pursuit of the retreating allies brought him no more joy. The day after Bautzen, on 22 May, the French caught up with the Russian rearguard at Reichenbach. Its retreat was blocked by a traffic jam in the streets of the town but this did not fluster its commanders, Miloradovich and Eugen of Wurttemberg. Once again Odeleben was watching:
The dispositions made for the defence of the height in question confer the highest honour on the commander of the Russian rearguard. The road to Reichenbach, which comes out opposite the hill, turns where it leaves the town. The Russian general took advantage of the position until the last moment, and his troops did not withdraw until the French came up in such strong numbers that resistance became totally impossible. Directly after, he was seen defending another height between Reichenbach and Markersdorf, where he again arrested the march of the French.64
This was Eugen’s ‘retreat in echelon’ in action and the snail-like progress it imposed on the French infuriated Napoleon and inspired him to such impatient rage that he took over the command of the advance guard himself. That evening the Russian rearguard took up yet another defensive position behind the village of Markersdorf. When Napoleon pressed on through the village the first shot of the Russian artillery mortally wounded his Marshal of the Court and closest friend, Geraud Duroc. Four days later at Hainau the Prussian cavalry ambushed and routed an incautious French advance guard under General Maison. As usual, these exploits of the allied rearguards bought their comrades the time to make an orderly retreat, but in the last ten days of the spring 1813 campaign they
