War of the Sixth Coalition

• 1. Introduction

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  The War of the Sixth Coalition ended one of the most consequential military careers in history, and it did so not with a single catastrophic battle but with a slow, grinding attrition across three separate theatres of war. At its peak, nearly a million Allied troops were arrayed against roughly 900,000 French soldiers spread from Iberia to Hamburg to the fields outside Leipzig. The questions worth asking are not simply who won, but how a man who had seemed invincible after victories like Austerlitz managed to hold off six nations for two more years after losing an army of at least 370,000 casualties in Russia alone, and why, in the end, it was his own marshals who finally told him the war was over.

• 2. The Wreck of the Grande Armee

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  On the 24th of June 1812, a force of as many as 650,000 men crossed the Neman river into Russia, roughly half of them French and the rest drawn from allied or subject territories. What came back was almost unrecognizable as a fighting force. Total losses reached at least 370,000 dead and wounded and another 200,000 captured. By November, only 27,000 fit soldiers recrossed the Berezina river. The retreat had been shaped by lack of food, desertion, brutal winter cold, and relentless attacks from Commander-in-Chief Mikhail Kutuzov's forces and local militias. Russia itself paid an enormous price, losing around 400,000 men, but the critical difference lay in supply lines. The Russians could replenish their armies far more quickly than Napoleon could replace his losses, particularly his cavalry and wagons, which were essentially irreplaceable. Napoleon left his shattered force before it reached French soil, returning to Paris to prepare a defence. The armies he would field next would be built from scratch, filled with young conscripts called "Marie-Louises" who were barely familiar with military affairs and were called up from October 1813 through to 1815.

• 3. Building the Coalition

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  Charles John, formerly French Marshal Jean Baptiste Bernadotte and now Crown Prince and Regent of Sweden, began the diplomatic groundwork for the coalition even before the Russian campaign was over. Though Sweden was still technically at war with Britain and Russia remained a perennial Swedish enemy, he dispatched diplomats to both London and St. Petersburg. Sweden signed the secret Treaty of Saint Petersburg with Russia on the 5th of April 1812, then formalized peace with Britain through the Treaty of Oerebro on the 18th of July 1812. His motivations were sharpened on the 9th of January 1812, when French troops abruptly occupied Swedish Pomerania, confiscating estates and taking Swedish officers and soldiers prisoner. Prussia's break from France came from a different direction entirely. Under the Treaty of Tilsit signed on the 9th of July 1807, Prussia had been compelled to support Napoleon's Russian invasion. General Ludwig Yorck von Wartenburg found himself isolated after his French superior Marshal MacDonald retreated, and on the 30th of December 1812 he signed the Convention of Tauroggen with Russian General Hans Karl von Diebitsch, effectively neutralizing his corps without his king's consent. Prussia was outraged in court but publicly jubilant. Yorck was suspended pending court-martial, though Diebitsch refused to let the order reach him through Russian lines. The matter resolved itself when the Treaty of Kalisch on the 28th of February 1813 formally placed Prussia on the Allied side. Austria moved more cautiously, shifting from French ally to armed neutrality in February 1813 and not declaring war until August of that year, after Napoleon's disastrous meeting with foreign minister Metternich, during which Napoleon threw his hat to the ground and stamped on it.

• 4. The Trachenberg Plan

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  During the Armistice of Plaswitz, which ran from the 4th of June 1813 to the 13th of August, three Allied sovereigns met at Trachenberg Castle in Silesia to coordinate their strategy. Alexander of Russia, Frederick William of Prussia, and Carl Johan of Sweden sat down together, and Bernadotte drew on fifteen years of experience as a French general and his personal familiarity with Napoleon. The resulting Trachenberg Plan, authored primarily by Carl Johan and Austrian Chief of Staff Field-Marshal Lieutenant Joseph Radetzky, called for a Fabian strategy: avoid direct combat with Napoleon himself, engage and defeat his marshals wherever possible, and slowly encircle the French with three independent armies until Napoleon could be cornered at a numerical disadvantage. By the end of the armistice, the Allies had 512,000 troops in the first line and 350,000 in reserve or besieging French garrisons. Gebhard von Blucher commanded the Army of Silesia with 105,000 troops; Carl Johan led the Army of the North with 125,000; and Prince Karl von Schwarzenberg commanded the primary Army of Bohemia, 257,000 strong. The total Allied frontline by nationality ran to 184,000 Russians, 162,000 Prussians, 127,000 Austrians, 39,000 Swedes, and 9,000 other Germans. Napoleon raised his forces to around 650,000 in the region, though only 250,000 were under his direct command, with another 120,000 under Nicolas Charles Oudinot and 30,000 under Davout.

• 5. Leipzig and the Fall of Germany

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  The Battle of Leipzig from the 16th to the 19th of October 1813 became the largest battle fought in Europe until the Second World War. Napoleon withdrew roughly 175,000 troops to Leipzig in Saxony expecting to fight a manageable defensive action, but by the time the battle concluded three Allied armies totalling more than 430,000 troops had converged on him. Napoleon's army was ultimately reinforced to 191,000. The result was a defeat, though Napoleon managed a relatively orderly westward retreat until a catastrophic mistake: the bridge over the White Elster was blown prematurely, stranding 30,000 French troops who were taken prisoner. German vassal states had already been abandoning Napoleon in the weeks before Leipzig. Bavaria officially ranged itself against Napoleon on the 8th of October 1813. A body of Saxon troops defected to Bernadotte's army during the battle itself. Westphalian troops were deserting King Jerome's army in large numbers. After withdrawing from Leipzig, Napoleon defeated a Bavarian army at Hanau on the 30th to the 31st of October 1813 before pulling what remained of his forces back into France. In November 1813, the Allies offered the Frankfurt proposals: Napoleon could remain Emperor but France would be reduced to its natural frontiers, retaining Belgium, Savoy, and the Rhineland while surrendering Poland, Spain, the Netherlands, and most of Italy and Germany. Metternich warned Napoleon these were the best terms he was likely to see. Napoleon delayed, and by December the Allies had withdrawn the offer.

• 6. The War in Iberia

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  Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, broke French power in Spain in 1813 while the drama in Germany was unfolding. Wellington planned to shift his supply base from Lisbon to Santander and swept north with a combined force. At the Battle of Vitoria on the 21st of June, 53,000 British troops, 27,000 Portuguese, and 19,000 Spaniards routed 65,000 French under Joseph Bonaparte. The French never recovered their strategic position in Spain after that day. Marshal Soult was given command of the remnant French forces and launched a counter-offensive, dealing the Allies defeats at the Battle of Maya and the Battle of Roncesvalles. He was ultimately pushed back and fled after the allied victory at Sorauren on the 28th and the 30th of July. On the 7th of October, after Wellington received word that hostilities in Germany had resumed, Allied forces crossed the Bidasoa river into France. On the 11th of December, Napoleon agreed to a separate peace with Spain through the Treaty of Valencay, offering to release and recognize Ferdinand VII as King of Spain in exchange for a complete cessation of hostilities. The Spanish had no intention of trusting him. Fighting continued into France, where Wellington fought battles against Marshals Soult and Suchet at Vera pass, the Nivelle, the Nive near Bayonne from the 10th to the 14th of December 1813, Orthez on the 27th of February 1814, and Toulouse on the 10th of April.

• 7. The Last Campaigns and Abdication

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  In the final months of the war Napoleon fielded fewer than 80,000 soldiers against a Coalition force of between 370,000 and 405,000 engaged in the French campaign. He had issued a decree for 900,000 fresh conscripts, but only a small fraction were ever raised. During his Six Days' Campaign in early February he won multiple engagements against numerically superior enemy forces marching on Paris. At the Treaty of Chaumont on the 9th of March, the Allies formally agreed to preserve the Coalition until Napoleon's total defeat. On the 31st of March, Coalition armies entered Paris with Tsar Alexander I at the head of the procession, followed by the King of Prussia and Prince Schwarzenberg. On the 2nd of April, the French Senate passed the Acte de decheance de l'Empereur, formally deposing Napoleon. Napoleon wanted to fight on and march on Paris. His soldiers and junior officers were willing to follow him. His marshals were not. On the 4th of April at Fontainebleau, Marshal Ney led the confrontation and told Napoleon: "the army will obey its chiefs." Napoleon abdicated on the 11th of April 1814. The Treaty of Paris followed on the 30th of May 1814 between France and the Great Powers including Britain. The last active campaign of the entire war was not fought in France but in Norway, where on the 14th of August 1814 the Convention of Moss concluded hostilities after Sweden, under Bernadotte, brought Norwegian forces to armistice terms. The Union between Sweden and Norway was formally established on the 4th of November 1814, when the Storting elected Charles XIII of Sweden as King of Norway.