The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot

O >> Oliver C. Colt >> The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47

It was at this critical moment that I appeared on the other side
of the stream with the squadron which I had hurriedly brought
with me. I ordered them to dismount, and while one man held four
horses, the rest, armed with their carbines, ran to the
footbridge, which was guarded by a squadron of Prussians. The
Prussians being on horseback and having only a few pistols as
firearms, were unable to reply to the sustained fire from the
carbines of our Chasseurs, and were forced to remove themselves
to a distance of several hundred paces, leaving behind some forty
dead and wounded.

The troops who had been shut in the farmyard wanted to take
advantage of this momentary respite to force the main gate and
make a rush for it on horseback; but I called to them not to
attempt it, because to join me they would have had to cross the
footbridge, which they could do only one by one, and at this
point they would offer a target to the Prussians who would
undoubtedly charge and destroy them. The river banks were
garnished by many trees, amongst which an infantrymen can easily
withstand the attacks of cavalry, so I placed the dismounted men
along the riverside, and once they were in communication with the
mill's yard, I passed a message to the men there to dismount
also, take their carbines, and while a hundred of them held off
the enemy by their fire, the remainder could slip behind this
protective screen and pass the horses from hand to hand over the
footbridge.

While this manoeuvre, covered by the fire from a cordon of 180
dismounted Chasseurs, was proceeding in an orderly fashion, the
Prussian lancers, furious that their prey was about to escape,
tried to disorganise our retreat by a vigourous attack, but their
horses, caught up in the willow branches, amid the numerous holes
and pools of water, could scarcely move at a walk over the muddy
ground, and could never reach our foot-soldiers, whose well-aimed
fire, directed at close range, inflicted on them heavy losses.

The Prussian major who led this charge, forcing his way boldly
into the centre of our line, killed with a pistol shot to the
head, Lieutenant Bachelet, one of my good regimental officers. I
greatly regretted his loss, which was, however, promptly revenged
by the Chasseurs of his section, for the Prussian major, hit by
several bullets, fell dead beside him.

The death of their leader, the numerous casualties they had
suffered, and above all the impossibility of getting at us
determined the enemy to give up the enterprise and they withdrew.
I was able to pick up the wounded and make my retreat without
being followed. My regiment lost in this deplorable affair an
officer and nine troopers killed, and thirteen who were made
prisoner, among whom was Lieutenant Marechal. The loss of these
twenty-three members of the regiment I found all the more
distressing because it served no useful purpose, and fell wholly
on the finest soldiers in the unit, most of whom had been
earmarked for decoration or promotion. I have never forgotten
this undeserved setback! It resulted in our taking a poor view of
General Exelmans, who got away with a reprimand from General
Sebastiani and from the Emperor, who was influenced by his
friendship with Murat. Old General Saint-Germain, a former
commander, and almost the creator, of the 23rd Chasseurs, for
whom he had retained much affection, having stated loudly that
Exelmans deserved exemplary punishment, the two generals fell out
and would have come to blows if the Emperor had not personally
intervened. Major Lacour, whose incapacity had been largely
responsible for this catastrophe, I no longer regarded with any
confidence.

Chap. 25.

After the 21st, 22nd and 23rd of August, days on which we had
defeated Field-marshal Blucher's corps, and forced him to retire
behind the Katzbach, the Emperor gave orders for the follow-up on
the next day. However, on hearing that the combined army of the
allies, some 200,000 strong, commanded by Prince Schwartzenberg,
had just emerged, on the 22nd, from the mountains of Bohemia and
was heading for Saxony, Napoleon, taking his Guard, as well as
the cavalry of Latour-Maubourg and several divisions of infantry,
hastened by forced marches to Dresden, where Marshal Saint-Cyr
had shut himself in with the troops he had hurriedly withdrawn
from the camp at Pirna On leaving Silesia, the Emperor told
Marshal Ney to follow him, and left Marshal Macdonald in charge
of the large force which he left on the Bobr, that is to say the
3rd, 5th and 11th Infantry Corps and the 2nd Cavalry, with a
powerful element of artillery, making a total of 75,000 men. The
control of such a great body of combatants was too much for
Marshal Macdonald, as subsequent events will show.

You must have noticed that the larger the number of troops
involved, the less detail I give of their movements: firstly
because this could require an enormous work, which I might not be
able to complete, and secondly because it could make the reading
of these memoirs too wearisome. I shall therefore be even more
concise in my description of events in the War of 1813, in which
600,000 to 700,000 men took part, than I have been in describing
previous campaigns.

On the 25th of August, the allies having surrounded the town of
Dresden, whose fortifications were not proof against a major
attack, the position of Saint-Cyr became critical for he had no
more than 17,000 French troops to resist the immense numbers of
the enemy. The latter, badly served by their spies, were unaware
of the approaching arrival of Napoleon, and full of confidence in
their superior numbers, they delayed the attack until the
following day. This confidence was increased when they were
strengthened by two Westphalian regiments who had deserted from
King Jerome to join the Austrians.

The worried Marshal Saint-Cyr expected to be attacked on the
morning of the 26th; but he was reassured as to the outcome of
the struggle by the presence of the Emperor, who had arrived that
very day at an early hour, at the head of the Guard and a
numerous body of all arms. Soon after his arrival, the enemy, who
still thought that they faced only Saint-Cyr's Corps, assaulted
the town in force and captured several redoubts. The Russians and
the Prussians, who now controlled the suburbs of Pirna, were
attempting to break down the Freyberg gate when, on the Emperor's
orders, it swung open to allow the emergence of a column of
infantry of the Imperial Guard, the leading brigade of which was
commanded by General Cambronne!... It was as if the head of
Medusa had appeared!... The enemy recoiled horrified, their guns
were captured at the double and the gunners killed on their
mountings! Simultaneous sorties were made from all the gates of
Dresden with the same results, and the allies, abandoning the
redoubts they had taken, fled into the surrounding country where
they were pursued by the cavalry to the foot of the hills. On
this first day the enemy had 5000 men put out of action, and we
took 3000 prisoners. The French had 2500 killed or wounded,
amongst the latter there being five generals.

The next day it was the French army which took the initiative,
although they had 87,000 fewer men than their adversaries. The
action was at first fierce and sanguinary; but the rain which
fell in torrents on the heavy soil soon covered the battle-field
with pools of muddy water through which our troops moved with
much difficulty on their advance towards the enemy. Nevertheless,
advance they did, and the Young Guard had already driven back the
enemy left, when Napoleon, having observed that Prince
Schwartzenberg, the allies' commander-in-chief, had not given
sufficient support to his left wing, overwhelmed it with an
attack by Marshal Victor's infantry and Latour-Maubourg's
cavalry.

King Murat, who was in command of this part of the line, was
highly successful. He forced his way through the pass of Cotta
and outflanking Klenau's corps, he separated it from the Austrian
army and attacked it, sabre in hand, at the head of his
carabiniers and Cuirassiers. Klenau was unable to withstand this
fearsome charge, almost all his battalions were compelled to
surrender, and two other divisions of infantry suffered the same
fate.

While Murat was defeating the enemy left, their right wing was
routed by the Young Guard, so that after some three hours,
victory was assured and the allies beat a retreat towards
Bohemia.

As a result of this second day of heavy fighting, the enemy left
on the field of battle 18 flags, 26 cannons and 40,000 men, of
whom 20,000 were prisoners. The main losses were suffered by the
Austrian infantry, who had two generals killed, three wounded and
two taken prisoner.

It may be remarked that at this epoch percussion caps were
virtually unknown, and the infantry of all nations still used
flint-lock muskets, which it was almost impossible to fire once
the priming powder became wet. Now, as it had rained without
ceasing for the whole day, this contributed largely to the defeat
of the enemy infantry by our cavalry, and gave rise to an
extraordinary incident.

A division of Cuirassiers, commanded by General Bordesoulle,
found itself facing a strong Austrian infantry division formed
into a square. Bordesoulle called on the enemy general to
surrender, which he refused to do. Bordesoulle then pointed out
to the Austrian that not one of his men's guns was capable of
being fired, to which he replied that his men could defend
themselves successfully with their bayonets, as the cavalry,
whose horses were in mud up to their hocks, would be unable to
charge them down. "Then I will blast your square with my
artillery!" "But you don't have any guns, they are stuck in the
mud." "If I show you my cannons, which are behind my first
regiment, will you then surrender?" "I would have no alternative,
for I would have no means of defence."

The French general then advanced, to within thirty paces of the
enemy, a battery of six guns, the gunners with their slow-matches
in their hands, prepared to fire on the square. At this sight the
Austrian general and his division laid down their arms.

The rain having prevented the infantry of both armies from using
their muskets and greatly slowed the movements of the cavalry, it
was the artillery which, in spite of the difficulty of
manoeuvering on the rain sodden ground, played a decisive role:
in particular the French artillery, whose teams of horses
Napoleon had doubled up, using animals from the headquarters
wagons, which remained safely in Dresden; so that our guns did
great damage, and it was one of their cannon-balls which struck
Moreau.

It had been rumoured for some time that the former illustrious
French general had returned to Europe and had joined the ranks of
his country's enemies. Few people believed this, but it was
confirmed in the evening following the battle of Dresden in a
bizarre manner. Our advance-guard was in pursuit of the routed
enemy when one of our Hussars saw, on entering the village of
Notnitz, a magnificent Great Dane, which seemed to be searching
in distress for its owner.

He took hold of the dog, and read on its collar the words "I
belong to General Moreau." He was then told by the cure of the
village that that General Moreau had undergone a double
amputation in his house. A French cannon-ball had landed in the
middle of the Russian general staff, it had struck one of the
General's legs, and going through his horse had then struck the
other. This had happened at the moment when the Austrian army had
been defeated, and to prevent Moreau falling into French hands,
the Emperor Alexander had arranged for him to be carried by some
Grenadiers until, the pursuit having slackened, it was possible
to dress his wounds and amputate both legs. The Saxon cure who
had witnessed this cruel operation, said that Moreau, who was
well aware that his life was in danger, had repeatedly cursed the
fate that had left him mortally wounded by a French missile,
amongst the enemies of his country. He died on the 1st of
September, and the Russians took away his body.

No one in the French army regretted the death of Moreau, when it
was known that he had taken arms against his country. A Russian
envoy came to claim the dog on behalf of Colonel Rapatel,
Moreau's aide-de-camp, who had stayed with him; it was returned
but without the collar, which was given to the King of Saxony and
is now on display in Dresden.

As Prince Schwartzenberg, the commander of the enemy troops
defeated at Dresden, had given Teplice as the rallying point for
the remains of his defeated armies, the Austrians retreated
through the valley of Dippoldiswalde, the Russians and the
Prussians on the Telnitz road, and the remnants of Klenau's corps
via Freiberg. Napoleon accompanied the French columns which were
pursuing the vanquished as far as Pirna, but just before he
arrived in that town, he was taken by a sudden indisposition, due
perhaps to the fact that he had spent five days constantly on
horseback, exposed to incessant rain.

It is one of the misfortunes of princes that there are always to
be found in their entourage people who, to demonstrate their
attachment, claim to be alarmed at the slightest indisposition
and exaggerate the precautions which should be taken, which is
what happened on this occasion. The master-of-horse,
Caulaincourt, advised the Emperor to return to Dresden, and the
other great officers dared not give the much more sensible advice
to continue to Pirna, which was no more than a league distant.
The young Guard was already there and the Emperor would have been
able to have the rest which he required while remaining in a
position to guide the movements of the troops in pursuit of the
enemy, which he could not do from Dresden which was much further
from the center of operations.

Napoleon then left to Marshals Mortier and Saint-Cyr the task of
supporting General Vandamme, commander of 1st Corps, who,
detached from the Grande Armee for three days, had defeated a
Russian corps and now threatened the enemy rear, had cut the road
from Dresden to Prague and occupied Peterswalde, from where he
dominated the Kulm basin and the town of Teplice, a most
important point through which the allies had to make their
retreat. However the return of the Emperor to Dresden nullified
these successes and led to a disastrous reverse which contributed
greatly to the fall of the Empire.

General Vandamme was fine and courageous officer who, already
well-known from the earliest wars of the revolution, had been
almost continually in command of various Corps during those of
the empire; so that it was surprising that he had not yet been
awarded the baton of a marshal; withheld, perhaps, because of his
brusque and abrupt manner. His detractors said after his defeat
that his desire to obtain this coveted honour had driven him,
with no more than 20,000 men, to stand rashly in the path of
200,000 of the enemy, with the aim of barring their passage; but
the truth is that having been informed by the Emperor's chief of
staff that he would be supported by the armies of Marshals
Saint-Cyr and Mortier, and been given a direct order to capture
Teplice and so seal off the enemy's line of retreat, General
Vandamme had perforce to obey.

Under the impression that he would be supported he descended
boldly, on the 29th of August, towards Kulm from where, pushing
enemy troops before him, he sought to reach Teplice; it is a
certainty that if Mortier and Saint-Cyr had carried out the
orders which they had been given, the Russian, Austrian, and
Prussian forces stuck on the appalling roads, cut off from
Bohemia and finding themselves attacked in front and in the rear,
would have laid down their arms. Vandamme would have then been
eulogised by the same people who have since blamed him.

However that may be, Vandamme arrived at Teplice on the morning
of the 30th of August to be confronted by the division of
Ostermann, one of the best of the Russian generals. Vandamme went
confidently into the attack, as he saw, coming down from the
heights of Peterwalde, and taking the route which he had taken
the day previously, a body of troops which he took to be the
armies of Mortier and Saint-Cyr, whose help the Emperor had
promised him. But instead of friends, these newcomers were two
large Prussian divisions commanded by General Kleist, and which,
on the advice of Jomini, had passed between the corps of Mortier
and Saint-Cyr without these two marshals taking any notice, such
was the reluctance of Saint-Cyr to got to the aid of one of his
colleagues. A reluctance which, on this occasion, spread to
General Mortier. Neither of them budged and this at a time when
their co-operation joined to the gallant efforts of Vandamme
would have led to the total defeat of the enemy, whose columns of
infantry, cavalry, artillery, and baggage were piled up in
disorder in the narrow passes of the high mountains which lie
between Silesia and Bohemia.

In place of the help he was expecting, General Vandamme saw
appear the two divisions of General Kleist, which instantly
attacked him. Vandamme, continuing to fight the Russians of
Ostermann in front of Teplice, turned round his rear-guard to
face Kleist, whom he attacked furiously, but although the enemy
was weakening, the huge reinforcements which they recieved,
bringing their strength to around 100,000 men as opposed to
Vandamme's remaining 15,000, made him think, in spite of his
courage and tenacity, that he should retire towards the corps of
Mortier and Saint-Cyr, whom he believed to be close at hand in
accordance with what Prince Berthier had written to him on the
Emperor's instructions.

On their arrival at the pass of Telnitz, the French found it
occupied by General Kleist's divisions, who completely blocked
their passage; but nevertheless, our battalions, preceded by the
cavalry of General Corbineau who, in spite of the rough,
mountainous terrain, had insisted on remaining the advance-guard,
fell on the Prussians with such ferocity that they overcame them
and broke through the pass after taking all the enemy guns, from
which they took away only the horses because of the bad state of
the roads.

Any soldier will be aware that such a success could be won only
at the cost of many casualties, and after this savage engagement
the strength of 1st Corps was greatly reduced. However, Vandamme,
completely surrounded by forces ten times more numerous than his
own, refused to surrender and placing himself at the head of two
battalions of the 85th, the only ones left to him, he hurled
himself into the midst of the enemy in a fight to the death. But
his horse having been killed, a group of Russians seized him and
made him prisoner. It is said that he was brought before the
Emperor Alexander and his brother, the Grand Duke Constantin,
and was rash enough to exchange insults with them. He was then
taken to Wintka, on the frontier of Siberia, and did not see his
country again until after the peace of 1814.

The battle of Kulm cost 1st Corps 2000 men killed and 8000 made
prisoner, amongst whom was their commanding general. The 10,000
who were left managed to fight their way through the enemy lines
to join Saint-Cyr and Mortier. Those two generals had gravely
failed in their duty by not pursuing the beaten enemy and instead
stopping, Saint-Cyr at Reinhards-Grimme and Mortier at Pirna,
from where they could hear the noise of the battle being fought
by Vandamme.

It is surprising that, from nearby Dresden, Napoleon did not send
one of his aides-de-camp to make certain that Saint-Cyr and
Mortier had gone to the aid of Vandamme, as he had ordered. The
two marshals, having failed to carry out their orders, should
have been court-martialled, but the French army, overwhelmed by
the enormous number of enemies which Napoleon had raised against
it, had reached such a point of exhaustion that had Napoleon
wished to punish all those who failed in their duty, he would
have had to dispense with the services of almost all his
marshals. He therefore did no more than reprimand Saint-Cyr and
Mortier.

He had an increasing need to conceal his disasters, for it was
not only at Kulm that his troops had suffered a reverse, but at
all points of the immense line which they occupied.

(Subsequent historical research has made it quite clear that as
Napoleon was in control of the operations the two marshals were
entirely correct in waiting to receive his instructions, as they
did not know to where he intended them to go. As for the order to
support Vandamme with two divisions, it did not arrive until the
30th, that is to say at a time when the catastrophe had already
occurred, and no blame can be attributed to the marshals.)

Chap. 26.

It has been rightly said that in the last campaigns of the
Empire, battles were rarely fought with any skill unless Napoleon
himself was in command. It is regrettable that this great captain
was not fully aware of this, and placed too much confidence in
his lieutenants, of whom several were not up to the tasks which
they presumed to undertake, as will be seen from some examples.
Instead of ordering his corps commanders, when they were acting
on their own initiative, to remain as much as possible on the
defensive until he could come with a powerful reserve to crush
the force facing them, the Emperor allowed them too much
latitude, and, as each one was jealous of his own reputation and
wanted to have his personal Battle of Austerlitz, they often
went, ill-advisedly, on the offensive and were defeated as a
result.

This is what happened to Marshal Oudinot, to whom Napoleon had
given a considerable army made up of the Corps of Bertrand and
Reynier, in order to keep a watch on the numerous Prussian and
Swedish troops stationed near Berlin under the command of
Bernadotte, who had now become the Prince of Sweden. Marshal
Oudinot was not as strong as his opponent and should have
temporised, but the habit of advancing, the sight of the steeples
of Berlin, and the fear of not living up to the confidence
Napoleon reposed in him, led him to push forward Bertrand's
corps, which was repulsed, a setback which did not prevent
Oudinot from persisting in his aim of taking Berlin. However, he
lost a major battle at Gross-Beeren and was forced to retire via
Wittemberg, having suffered heavy losses.

A few days later, Marshal Macdonald, whom Napoleon had left on
the Katzbach at the head of several army corps, thought that he
also would take advantage of the liberty given him by the absence
of the Emperor to attempt to win a battle, which would compensate
for the bloody defeat which he had endured on the Trebia during
the Italian campaign of 1799; but once more he was defeated!

Macdonald, although personally very brave, was constantly
unfortunate in battle, not that he lacked ability but because,
like the generals of the Austrian army, and in particular the
famous Marshal Mack, he was too rigid and blinkered in his
strategic movements. Before the battle he drew up a plan of
action which was almost always sound, but which he should have
modified according to circumstances; this, however, his stolid
temperament did not permit. He was like a chess player who, when
he plays against himself, can make all the right moves, but does
not know what to do when a real opponent makes moves which he had
not foreseen. So, on the 26th of August, the day on which the
Emperor was winning a resounding victory at Dresden, Macdonald
lost the battle of Katzbach.

The French army, 75,000 strong, of which my regiment was a part,
was drawn up between Liegnitz and Goldberg, on the left bank of
the little river named the Katzbach,(Kaczawa) which separated
them from several Prussian Corps commanded by Field-marshal
Blucher. The area which we occupied was dotted with small wooded
hills, which, although practicable for cavalry, made movement
difficult, but, by the same token, offered much advantage to the
infantry. Now, as the main body of Macdonald's troops consisted
of this arm, and he had only 6000 cavalry of Sebastiani's Corps,
and as the enemy had 15 to 20,000 horse on the immense plateau of
Jau‰r,(Jawor) where the ground is almost everywhere level, it was
plainly Macdonald's duty to await the Prussians in the position
which he occupied. In addition to this, the Katzbach does not
have a steep approach on the left bank, where we were, but on the
other side it does, so that to reach the plateau of Jau‰r one has
to climb a high hill covered with rocks and affording only a
steep and stony road.

The Katzbach, which runs at the foot of this hill has no bridges
except at the few villages and only some narrow fords, which
become unpassable on the least rise in the water-level. This
river covered the French army front, which was greatly in our
favour; but Marshal Macdonald wanted to attack the Prussians, and
he abandoned this highly advantageous position and put the
Katzbach at his back by ordering his troops to cross it at
several points. Sebastiani's cavalry, of which Exelmans'
division, which included my regiment, formed a part, were
instructed to cross the river by the ford at Chemochowitz.