Battle of Vauchamps

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  The Battle of Vauchamps, fought on the 14th of February 1814, ended a remarkable six-day stretch in which Napoleon repeatedly beat the same enemy. Field-marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher had suffered losses at Champaubert, Montmirail, and Chateau-Thierry in quick succession. By the morning of the 14th, he was pressing what he believed was an isolated and weakened French corps. He was wrong. What followed would strip his Army of Silesia of as many as 10,000 men in a single day, with the French suffering fewer than 600 casualties in return. How did an army that held the numerical advantage end up nearly losing its commander along with its guns and flags? The answer lies in cavalry, terrain, and a set of orders Napoleon had quietly issued the night before.

• 2. A Trap Built Overnight

  ›

  Late on the 13th of February, Blucher had regrouped his forces at Bergeres-les-Vertus and launched an attack against Marshal Auguste de Marmont's single division. He pushed Marmont out of Etoges and advanced toward Champaubert and Fromentières, aiming directly at the rear of Napoleon's main force. On paper, this was a sound move. Marmont's corps was weak, and a successful strike at the French rear could have unravelled Napoleon's position entirely. What Blucher could not know was that Napoleon had already read his intentions. The Emperor left Chateau-Thierry at roughly 3 o'clock in the morning of the 14th, taking with him the cavalry of the Guard and the Cavalry Reserve under General Emmanuel de Grouchy. He headed directly for the village of Vauchamps. He left a small portion of his forces behind under Marshal Edouard Mortier, duc de Trevise, with orders to continue pressing the retreating enemy to the west. The forces Napoleon carried east represented something Blucher had not counted on: a combined-arms hammer falling on an army that had spent its cavalry strength and left its squares exposed on open ground.

• 3. The Morning Fight at Vauchamps

  ›

  Blucher occupied Champaubert early on the 14th and sent his vanguard as far forward as Fromentières and then Vauchamps, confident the French would continue to fall back. Marmont, commanding only the Lagrange division and 800 men from the Ricard division, had been cautiously retreating toward Montmirail. Toward 9 o'clock in the morning, Blucher ordered General Hans Ernst Karl, Graf von Zieten to push his brigade and some cavalry forward from Vauchamps toward Montmirail. Zieten's advance guard was startled when Marmont's men stopped giving ground and counterattacked sharply, driving Zieten's men back into Vauchamps. A violent French cannonade dispersed the accompanying Prussian cavalry. Marmont then pressed the attack with both brigades of Ricard's division: the 1st brigade moved south of the Montmirail-Vauchamps road, under cover of the Beaumont forest, while the 2nd brigade advanced directly north of the road toward the Prussian position. Marmont's leftmost brigade entered Vauchamps itself, but found the village heavily defended by Zieten's men and was soon thrown back. Marmont responded by launching his five squadrons of cavalry, including four elite Imperial Guard duty squadrons from the Emperor's own escort under General Lion. Those squadrons drove the Prussians back, capturing one entire battalion that had taken shelter in an isolated farm.

• 4. The Moment Blucher Recognized the Emperor

  ›

  Zieten pulled back toward Fromentières, where Generals Kleist and Kapsevitch arrived, having heard the guns and marched their corps forward from Champaubert. Marmont pursued with both his divisions along the road, now supported on his left by Grouchy, who had arrived with the divisions of Saint-Germain and Doumerc and was pushing past Janvilliers to cut off Zieten's retreat. On Marmont's right, General Jean Francois Leval's 7th Division, which numbered 4,500 soldiers, had been steadily moving up the valley of the Petit Morin river to outflank the Prussians from the south. The French Imperial Guard artillery was also now deployed and firing. Zieten's men drew back in good order and formed into infantry squares to resist Grouchy's cavalry. Then, toward 2 o'clock in the afternoon, Blucher made his assessment of the battlefield and recognised that Napoleon himself was present. He immediately ordered a general withdrawal through Champaubert toward Etoges and directed part of his artillery to safety. The decision was correct; the execution proved impossible.

• 5. Cavalry Across Open Ground

  ›

  For a time, the broken terrain between Vauchamps and Fromentières protected Blucher's retreating squares. Grouchy's horsemen could not get at them properly, and Blucher led what observers described as an exemplary retreat to Fromentières and Janvilliers. Past those villages, the landscape flattened. On the open ground beyond, Grouchy's cavalry had the space to operate. With Doumerc's and Saint-Germain's divisions pressing Zieten's right and Nansouty's Guard cavalry, including Laferriere-Levesque's division and four service squadrons under Lefebvre-Desnouettes, pressing his left, Zieten's brigade was cut off from the rest of the army. Grouchy's cuirassiers broke the infantry squares and took no fewer than 2,000 prisoners. The rest of Zieten's brigade was routed. Blucher then ordered Kleist's corps south of the road and Kaptzevitch's corps north of it, attempting a continued withdrawal toward Etoges in echelon. Grouchy, now reinforced by Bordesoulle's division, commanded three cavalry divisions and drove hard into the Coalition squares. Several squares broke, with soldiers fleeing into the Etoges forest. In the disorder, Blucher himself came within moments of capture, as did his chief of staff Gneisenau, along with Generals Kleist, Kapsevitch, and Prince Augustus of Prussia.

• 6. The Night Rout at Etoges

  ›

  Blucher managed to cross the forest of Vertus and reach Etoges, where Prince Urusov's division had been left in reserve. Russian General Udom, with 1,800 men and 15 cannon, was ordered to hold the position by occupying the park at Etoges. Udom's troops were exhausted from the long day of retreat and fighting, and with night now fallen, they believed themselves safe. Doumerc's cuirassiers formed unseen in the darkness and launched a single charge. It was enough. Panicked Russian soldiers fled in disorder. The French captured Prince Urusov, 600 men, and eight artillery pieces. The French sailors' regiment from Lagrange's division then entered the village of Etoges. Blucher abandoned the position and made a hasty retreat toward Vertus and Bergeres, eventually opting for a speedy night march. The next day he brought his remaining men to Chalons, where he was joined by Yorck's and Sacken's corps. By then the damage was done: historian Alain Pigeard places overall Army of Silesia losses between 9,000 and 10,000 men for the day, against a French casualty figure of around 600.

• 7. What the Day Cost and What It Enabled

  ›

  French author Jean-Pierre Mir breaks down the Army of Silesia's losses with some precision. He records 3,500 Prussian casualties in Kleist's corps, including killed, wounded, and missing, plus 2,000 prisoners. The Russian corps suffered around 3,500 killed, wounded, or missing, and also lost 15 cannon and 10 flags. Those figures, if combined with the 2,000 prisoners Grouchy took when he broke Zieten's squares, and the battalion captured earlier in the village fighting, explain how the total loss could approach 10,000 men. Military historian Jacques Garnier, writing in Jean Tulard's Dictionnaire Napoleon, notes that only the muddy, waterlogged ground prevented the French from achieving an even larger margin of victory. The wet soil hampered the efficient deployment of French artillery and infantry and gave the retreating Coalition squares more time than terrain alone would have allowed. Garnier also records the strategic consequence that followed: after Vauchamps, Napoleon turned south and fell upon the Army of Bohemia, commanded by Prince of Schwarzenberg, at the Battle of Mormant.