The Campaign of 1814: Chapter 16, Part VI
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The Napoleon Series The Campaign of 1814: Chapter 16, Part VI By: Maurice Weil Translated by: Greg Gorsuch THE CAMPAIGN OF 1814 (after the documents of the imperial and royal archives of Vienna) _____________________ THE ALLIED CAVALRY DURING THE CAMPAIGN OF 1814 ________________________ CHAPTER XVI. OPERATIONS OF THE ARMY OF SILESIA UNTIL THE MARCH OF THE EMPEROR ON ARCIS-SUR-AUBE (from 5 to 17 March). CRAONNE. - LAON. - REIMS. Dissatisfaction caused by the orders of Gneisenau. --On the left wing of the Army of Silesia, the order of Gneisenau was reluctantly obeyed. They had stopped, but neither Yorck nor Kleist could bring themselves to the thought of losing, without cause, all the benefits of their brilliant coup de main. The astonishment and amazement of the generals had been matched by the rage of the soldier, who did not understand this sudden stop. Without the need to consult them, Yorck and Kleist immediately dispatched to headquarters in Laon, trusted officers to expose with their complaints and protests, the projects whose execution, far from jeopardizing the salvation the Army of Silesia, would have completed the annihilation of the Marmont and placed the Emperor in an almost desperate situation. The Count of Brandenburg came first to Laon; he had, on behalf of Yorck, begged Gneisenau to allow the two Prussian corps to debouch on the rear of Napoleon. As operating in this way would prevent the Emperor from crossing the Lette (Ailette) again: one had a chance to take him; in any case it was sure to inflict serious losses when he would open the way to Soissons. Gneisenau remained unshaken. "The Emperor stands before Laon," he responded to all the arguments, and this urged his redoubled prudence. Returned a second time by Yorck. Brandenburg was not happy. Dejected and desperate by the responses of Gneisenau he met at the gates of Laon, Colonel von Grollmann, Chief of Staff of the IInd Corps, who had protested in the name of Kleist against the termination of the pursuit. There was still hope that the personal influence of Grollmann, who enjoyed an old friendship with Gneisenau, would successfully overcome the resistance and fears of the Chief of the General Staff. It did not happen; far from seeking the annulment of the provision given in the morning, Grollmann was forced to bring his general and Yorck an order dictated to both generals to approach Laon and come back, Yorck to Athies, Kleist to Eppes . Not content to stop after a won battle, Gneisenau further compelled the victorious troops to fall back. If the Emperor could tell he alone represented an army of 100,000 men, one can conclude from what happened at Laon on 10 March that without Blücher there was no Army of Silesia. Everything stopped, everything languished from the time the disease struck him down and stopped him from infusing the power of his energy and hatred in the minds of his advisers, of his collaborators. Gneisenau, despite all his merits, despite all his intelligence, for all his share in the success of his leader, was nothing without him. Having no influence, no standing over the soldiers, Gneisenau neither inspired any confidence among the corps commanders who, Prussians as well as Russians, considered him a pedantic and as a man devoid of any practicality. In a letter written by Müffling, 12 March, we find these words: "The attack made by Napoleon, 9 March, was imprudent. That of 10 March was the height of imprudence." But then what about the commandment that tolerates and undergoes twice of such imprudence! Napoleon had attained, through its boldness of the 10th, the object he had for that day: he wanted to impose and he succeeded, so as he could safely perform his retirement in the afternoon and reach Soissons. It was said at that time in the army that Blücher suffered from a derangement of his mental facilities; they gave as evidence the fact that Yorck have received orders with a signature upside down. The truth is that Field Marshal suffered from Ophthalmia which prevented him from personally and directly following the course of the fight, to weigh and consider the resolutions he had to take as commander in chief. Müffling, says again later of these events, in a letter to Droysen, 13 December 1847, and forgetting the share of responsibility incumbent on him in the resolutions taken by Gneisenau, said, "Sacken was beside himself. Vorontsov during this ridiculous and childish fight, with which Napoleon sought to deceive us on 10th in the morning, hastened to ask me why we had returned and canceled the orders; he considered the new provisions as a calamity, as a disaster. Langeron, who, as the oldest of the generals of the Army of Silesia, afraid of being forced to take command and feeling justifiably that he wouldn't be obeyed by the Prussian generals, exclaimed leaving the Field Marshal's room "In the name of God, take that corpse with you." Until then, the personality of Blücher prevented jealousies, suspicions and rivalries from emerging. From when Gneisenau took over the management of operations, long stifled dissent broke out not only between Prussians and Russians, but between Prussians and Prussians. What would have been done in such circumstances if a Russian general had been intermediately charged as commander in chief? Up to Craonne it was the Russians who had always marched in the front line and it stopped operations at the same time when, because of the considerable losses sustained by them in recent actions, the Field Marshal had decided that the Prussians take the lead of the army. Yorck, more than any other generals, had been deeply mortified by the order of Gneisenau, he attributed to the personal animosity of the chief of staff, with whom he had long been at variance. Too self-possessed to let it show, too proud for recrimination, Yorck bowed to the orders and hid under a false gaiety, under apparent calm, feelings that animated and rage simmering in him. At 10 at night, he had brought his corps to Athies. The distress was so great around Laon that the inhabitants of nearby villages came to beg the Prussian general to give them bread. The cold was so intense that, despite the formal orders of Yorck, the Prussians, to warm up, lit and kindled their bivouac fires, first with the chairs, then with the roof skeleton of the church. These acts of indiscipline and vandalism were hardly likely to calm the resentment and discontent of Yorck. The corps of Kleist spent the night at Veslud and at Festieux; Langeron and Sacken at Chambery; Bülow, in Laon. The troops of Winzingerode bivouacked at Semilly and Molinchart. The cavalry of Katzler at Corbeny; that of Benckendorff, to Berry-au-Bac. Although, thanks to the timidity of Gneisenau, the Emperor had escaped from the danger that could have come from a movement of the corps of Yorck, Kleist and Langeron maneuvering by Bruyères and the château of Corneil against his right, by Festieux, Corbeny and the plateau of Craonne against his rear, it was nonetheless high time for him to think about retirement and take advantage of the hesitations and unexpected delays in the Army of Silesia. Action of the Cossacks of Benckendorff at Crouy. --While there was still fighting in Laon, Benckendorff was ordered to menace the rear of the French army. Unable to debouch at Laffaux, guarded by the cavalry of General Grouvel which ensured communications between Soissons, Chavignon and Étouvelles, forced to make a big detour to Anizy-le-Château, Coucy-le-Chateau, Bagneux and Vauxrezis, he had reached the hills south of Terny, managed to throw a few parties between Laffaux and Soissons beside Crouy, manhandled the French cavalry posts and fell back in the night before the battalion of the Vistula coming out of Soissons. In withdrawing, he had captured Baron Malouet, Prefect of the Aisne, traveling by carriage from Soissons to Laon on the orders of the Emperor, and almost took Nansouty who, hotly pursued, had slashed the Cossacks and won the banks of the Aisne. The general, whose horse was killed when he was run into the river, had been obliged to escape, jumping into the water and crossing the Aisne by swimming.1 Marmont prepares to retire on Roucy and Fismes. --Marmont was at Berry-au-Bac whose Commander, warned by fugitives from the disaster of Athies, had to barricade the approaches and the bridge. The Marshal2 had rallied his world somehow; but his infantry had no cartridges and the artillery reduced to ten pieces, lacked ammunition. The Russian light cavalry had appeared at La Bôve and on the plateau of Craonne. Fearing on the one hand, a movement of the vanguard of the Army of Silesia on Vailly and from there on to the left bank of the Aisne, wanting on the other to approach the Emperor and Soissons, the Marshal, having communicated his intentions to General Corbineau in Reims, after having advised him to recall the detachment sent to the side of Rethel, decided to stand the 11th in the morning, in Roucy and Fismes. Marmont was so little thinking of staying in an isolated position and in a point like that of Berry-au-Bac, where he might both be cut from the Emperor as soon as Allies would have crossed the Aisne at Vailly, as attacked in front by the troops who had driven him from Athies, and finally threatened on his rear, and on his right by the Russians of Saint-Priest, the Prussians of Jagow and the cavalry of Tettenborn.