Ferry, another ferry
Field Marshal Blucher, having ferried his Silesian army across the Rhine, actually dragged the allied forces into France. But many were beyond the Rhine even before the Prussians. However, they did not have to fight again immediately - the opponents preferred to take a break in winter quarters.
Alexander I "did not even want to dwell on the Rhine for a long time, but to go straight to Paris in winter, but our allies seemed to be in awe at the sight of the borders of France, probably from their unsuccessful assassination attempts in previous wars." So wrote about the beginning of the company in 1814, its participant - the historian A. I. Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky. The allied headquarters, in which Alexander I again gathered all the monarchs by the beginning of spring (very early in France), was located in Langres.
But hostilities were opened by the impatient French emperor, for whom the winter invasion was by no means a surprise. Napoleon went to the army from Paris, and he left the military leadership in the capital not to one of the marshals, but to his brother Joseph, for whom the way to Spain, it seems, had already been ordered. Towards the evening of January 26, the emperor arrived in Chalon-sur-Marne, at his next main apartment.
Napoleon had no more than 70 thousand at his disposal against the nearly 200 thousand forces of the allies. All his calculations were related to the fact that Schwarzenberg and Blucher constantly had to separate forces not only for full satisfaction, but also to protect communications and the blockade of numerous fortresses. In addition, the Swedish Crown Prince Bernadotte, at the head of the Northern Army, was not at all eager to fight on his native land.
Napoleon once again got the opportunity to act along the internal lines of operation, collecting maximum forces against individual units of the allied armies. Between Chalon and Vitry-le-François at this time concentrated the center of the French army, which, out of habit, was still called the Great. These were the corps of marshals Ney, Victor and Marmont, each with a force no larger than the old division, as well as Pear's small cavalry.
The emperor decided to pull the left wing of Marshal MacDonald from Mezieres to Chalon - through Rethel, and the right wing, which was made up of the guard under the command of Marshal Mortier, moved back to Troyes, blocking another direct road to Paris. To the right of the guards, on the banks of the Ionna at Auxerre, only the detachment of General Alyx remained.
Napoleon decided not to delay offensive actions, having given all the necessary orders. Taking off from their winter quarters, his forces were to unite at Vitry, and from there, through Saint-Dizier and Joinville, move to Chaumont. Thus, having become between the Main (former Bohemian) and Silesian armies of the allies, the French could strike at the head columns of one or another army, and break their scattered corps.
Marshal Augereau set the task of the emperor to drive the allies away from Lyon, then acting on the rear of Schwarzenberg's army. In isolation from the main forces, only the regiments of General Meison remained, who was to defend the northern borders of France in case of an invasion of another Allied army under the command of Bernadotte. The fact that Bernadotte divided his army, sending Russian and Prussian corps to cleanse Holland of French garrisons, and he and his Swedes moved to Denmark, became known much later.
We are not only advancing. We win
Napoleon remained in Chalon for only 12 hours, and went through Vitry to Saint-Dizier, expelling from there the detachment of General Lanskoy, which Blucher left for communication with York. On French soil, the emperor immediately began to do much better with intelligence. It was she who reported that the positions of the Main Army around Langres were widely scattered, and Blucher, with most of the forces of his army, made a move to Brienne, trying to bypass the French.
Napoleon immediately sent Mortier orders to Troyes to join his right flank, and moved behind the Silesian army. In the battle of Brienne, the French almost defeated Blucher's troops while crossing the Ob. The salvation for the Russian and Prussian troops actually became the order of the emperor, intercepted by the Cossacks, to Marshal Mortier, after which the Silesian army managed to gather almost all its forces against Napoleon.
Having concentrated his corps, Blucher was ready to immediately retreat to Tranne and Bar-sur-Aub, so as not to break away from the main army of Schwarzenberg. But Napoleon had already attacked the Russian and Prussian lines, despite the fact that the Silesian army was reinforced by the vanguard of Count Pahlen from the Wittgenstein corps. At Brienne there was no extreme ferocity, but the battle lasted until late at night, not only General Saken and Field Marshal Blucher were almost captured, but also Napoleon himself, who twice went to the line of fire.
The retreat of the Russians and Prussians to Trann allowed the French emperor to declare his first victory in the company. The relative lack of success at Brienne forced the Allies to concentrate the main forces on Bar-sur-Oboe, and several divisions from the Main Army managed to join Blucher in convenient positions at Trann.
Napoleon did not pursue the Silesian army, but stopped at La Rottier, as he received incorrect information about Schwarzenberg's promotion to Auxerre. It was in the positions at La Rotiere that the French were attacked by Blucher, who managed to concentrate more than 100 thousand people for a decisive battle. The Prussian field marshal was impatient to take revenge for Brienne, although he understood that the decisive battle was still far away.
How serious the attitude of the allied command was is evidenced by the fact that Alexander I and the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm with a few retinues had arrived in Trann by that time. Schwarzenberg and Barclay de Tolly immediately rode there from the positions, but the command in the battle remained with the Prussian field marshal.
The victory went to the allies only after the Bavarian Wrede corps came to their aid. All night after the battle, the French had to retreat across the Aub and Voir rivers along two narrow roads. The strong rearguards, which Napoleon left on the crossings, retreated at dawn on February 2, but even the Main Army did not succeed in a big pursuit due to a heavy snowfall.
Which road leads to Paris?
Napoleonic troops in the 1814 campaign of the year will only later become distinguished by rare swiftness, and in this case they had to retreat even from Brienne. After the departure of the French, three monarchs gathered in the Brienne castle on the evening of February 2 - the Austrian emperor Franz urgently arrived from Vienna and all the commanders-in-chief were with them, except for Bernadotte.
In order to ensure an irreversible march to Paris, it was necessary to once again divide forces due to difficulties with supplies, and especially with foraging. The thousands of Cossack cavalry had a good appetite, and without it, the allied troops could have been simply blind on enemy territory.
The Silesian army was sent to Chalon to join the corps of Lanzheron, York and Kleist, and it was to advance along the Marne through the Meaux directly to Paris. For the Main Army, a path was mapped out to the French capital on both banks of the Seine. The coordinated offensive began with the fact that the Allies lost Napoleon's army for two days.
Only on February 5, the main apartment received a report from Count Ozharovsky that Marshal Marmont pulled his corps to Arsy-sur-Aube, and Napoleon with the main forces went first to Troyes, and then moved in the direction of Nogent. Schwarzenberg did not believe this and advanced towards Troyes with extreme caution, preferring to keep his forces as compact as possible.
When it became clear that even the French rearguard had withdrawn from this town without a fight, the Union headquarters promptly moved to Troyes. Here the allied command found the message about the beginning of peace negotiations in Chatillon. Callencourt, who replaced Talleyrand there, skillfully bargained for the fact that the first condition for France to return to the borders of 1792 would be an immediate truce. The first to reject him was Emperor Alexander I.
Even Blucher with the Silesian army was not very active against the French at that time, and Napoleon was pursued only by the corps - the Russian Wittgenstein and the Bavarian Wrede. The operations of Platov's Cossacks, the detachments of Seslavin, Dibich and Lubomirsky did not in the least prevent Napoleon from quietly waiting in Nogent for the old regiments from Spain and even from afar to direct the preparation of the 170,000th replenishment from the new conscription.
The opponents completed the first ten days of February in the following position: the main army of Schwarzenberg, with a force of more than 150 thousand people, was slowly being pulled up from positions at Troyes to the crossings on the Seine, the 70-thousand-strong Silesian army of Blucher, breaking into several mobile detachments, began to operate towards Paris, at that time how 100 thousand Frenchmen under the command of Napoleon did not move from their place at Nogent. Only Marshal MacDonald took the main park towards Moe in case of need to collect it at the walls of Paris.
