12 failures of Napoleon Bonaparte. The French did not know such a defeat as at Leipzig. Its scale exceeded all expectations. More than 70 thousand people were killed, wounded, captured or simply fled. Napoleon lost 325 guns and 900 ammunition boxes, the enemy got 28 banners and eagles, as well as countless trophies of a different kind.
Prelude to the final act
Napoleon could hardly recover from the terrible blow in the "Battle of the Nations", but in order for the drama to really end, he had to be left without an army at all. This will happen later - following the defeat at Waterloo. After Leipzig, the French emperor was a wounded beast, perhaps mortally, but still only wounded.
In addition to direct losses, the loss of control over Central Europe was no less dangerous for the empire. Together with the remnants of the Great Army, the fortress garrisons from the Oder, Elbe and Wesel, which actually constituted another army, albeit not as efficient as the best Napoleonic regiments, could not retreat. Marshal Gouvion Saint-Cyr would be forced to surrender in Dresden, and Davout was locked up in Hamburg.
The superiority of the Allies in forces became too obvious to be compensated for by the Napoleonic genius. However, the most important thing was that following the Russians, the Prussians, the Swedes and the Saxons, and even the Austrians ceased to be afraid of Napoleon. However, the latter already in 1809 showed the French their ability to fight to the last.
The caution of their commander, Prince Schwarzenberg, noted by many historians, was quite understandable - for a long time, even the frantic Blucher did not dare to fight alone against the main forces of the French. Marshal "Forward" already in the company of 1813 was not inferior to Napoleon in the courage of decisions and skill of execution.
The Bavarians were almost the last of the German allies to recoil from the emperor. The future field marshal K. von Wrede, who had done several campaigns side by side with the French, managed to sign an agreement in the Tyrolean town of Riede on October 8, a week before Leipzig, with Prince Reiss, who represented the interests of Austria. Wrede received from his overlord, King Maximilian, the right to decide for himself when to leave the Emperor Napoleon, leaving the Rhine Union.
It was to the lot of the Bavarians, who were actually in the rear of the French army, that had the task of cutting off its retreat. It was not possible to inflict a fatal blow on the French at Leipzig - Schwarzenberg never gave the order to the reserves to cross the Elster in time. In this case, very few could leave the Great Army. Most surprisingly, there was enough fresh strength for such a maneuver, but the Corsican escaped again. The allies prepared the second Berezina for him on the Rhine.
In the meantime, Napoleon, whose troops were hastily leaving Leipzig, managed to locate the remaining units between Markranstedt and Weissenfels. The Russians, Austrians, Prussians and Swedes were also exhausted in the "Battle of the Nations" and preferred to powerful persecution the very "golden bridges" for Napoleon, for which military historians still criticize Kutuzov.
The great army still managed to snap back on the banks of the Saale at Neuselen, but its main forces went to Erfurt - on the main road leading to Frankfurt on the Main and further to the Rhine.
Nobody wanted to win
Not only the Napoleonic army, but also the allies were in a state that boxers usually call "groggs". Only the almost fresh forces of Bernadotte's Northern Army could do something, but their commander as usual waited. Perhaps he was already seriously thinking not about the Swedish, but about the French throne, and in such hopes he was occasionally supported by none other than Napoleonic Foreign Minister Talleyrand.
At the same time, the very Treaty of Reed, which was immediately approved by the Prussian king and the Russian tsar, became something of a foundation for the policy of restoring the old European dynastic order. No Bonapartes. And for the unification of Germany, which Gneisenau, Scharngorst and, of course, Blucher, who had just received the rank of Field Marshal for Leipzig, so longed for, the time had not yet come.
The return of Bavaria to the ranks of the anti-French coalition happened at a time when Napoleon had already squeezed all the juices out of it, but everyone recognized the Electors of Wittenberg as kings. At first, Wrede himself did not expect to meet with the Great Army, believing that it was retreating to Koblenz.
With a small force (only 43 thousand people), he would hardly dare to stand in the way of Napoleon, especially since the chances of support from the allies were very dubious. Even Blucher did not make it to Hanau. It was there that the Bavarians, who equally hated the Prussians, the Austrians, and the French, decided to fight with their former allies, although they planned to defeat only the flank guard with a force of about 20 thousand people.
The allied forces did not have time to reach Ganau for several reasons at once. The main thing is that Blucher, who was once again forced to act alone, had to retreat to Giessen and Wetzlar. To resist Napoleon, he again lacked the strength. But Wrede had even less strength. In addition, the large Allied headquarters also believed that Napoleon would return to Koblenz to cross the Rhine.
In principle, Wrede could have resisted if the pressure on Napoleon from the rear was in any way tangible. But then the Great Army would definitely have gone through Koblenz. But on October 28, at Hanau, three Bavarian and two Austrian infantry divisions with cavalry lined up against it, supported by the Russian cavalry detachment of General Chernyshev.
Wrede sent another division back to Frankfurt. There is only one passage from Hanau to it, and the ancient city itself was located at the mouth of the Kinzig River along its southern bank at the confluence with the Main. The French who approached immediately began to look for a more advantageous position for the attack, since bypassing would require too much stretching of forces, as a result of which they lose their superiority, and also risk getting hit in the rear from Blucher or Schwarzenberg's Main Army.
Blood for blood
The battle unfolded only on October 30, the allies lost time, during which they could well drive the French into a trap. By the beginning of the attack at Hanau, Napoleon had at hand no more than 17 thousand infantry of Marshal MacDonald and cavalry of Sebastiani, but the dense forest did not give Wrede the opportunity to assess the enemy's forces.
However, the young Bavarian troops, in whose ranks there were only a few who managed to return from the Russian campaign, fought with rare dedication. The French fell on the left flank of Wrede, constantly receiving reinforcements, and the Bavarians limited themselves to defense, counting on the approach of the main forces of the allies.
A series of attacks by infantry and cavalry, which was soon supported by the cannons of the Guards, pulled up to the edge of the forest by General Drouot, forced Wrede to order the withdrawal of the left wing cavalry into Ganau. The right flank, which consisted of infantry, pulled back to the other side of the Kinzig towards evening, and the crossing had to be carried out under the cross artillery and rifle fire of the French.
The new positions of Wrede, who received a serious wound, were right on the road from Ganau, which had to be left under the threat of blocking in the raster of two rivers. The left flank rested against the Main channel, the right - into a dense forest. Napoleon's army, which had already concentrated all its 60 thousand, entered Hanau the next morning, and the Bavarians remained on their flank.
The French did not dare to march past them, fearing a blow to the train and rearguards from the allied forces, which could have time to connect. Meanwhile, neither Blucher nor the Main Bohemian Army had time to reach the battlefield.
A decisive blow from the corps of Marmont, Bertrand and Ney forced the Bavarians to retreat even further away from the main road. The French were able to return to their bank of Kinzig and continue their retreat. Wrede, despite being wounded, continued to lead the battle, but the order to attack Hanau was given only when most of the Great Army advanced towards Frankfurt.
Napoleon managed to pass the new Berezina quite easily, although two battalions from Bertrand's corps, left in Hanau to cover the bridges across Kinzig, were almost completely destroyed. Together with them, the French lost about 10 thousand more stragglers and wounded, among whom was the famous Polish General Sulkowski, who replaced the deceased Marshal Poniatowski.
What's behind the Rhine
After a bloody battle at Hanau, Napoleon managed to leave on 2 November across the Rhine at Mainz. Blücher's Silesian army could only watch the retreat of the French rearguard. On November 4, Blucher wrote with undisguised irritation to one of his colleagues from Giessen:
“We have done a great job: the French are beyond the Rhine, but there is an oversight, otherwise the great Napoleon with the rest of his huge army would have been destroyed at Hanau. He made his way, despite the fact that the Bavarian general Wrede did everything not to let him pass.
But he was still weak to completely destroy him. I constantly followed on the heels of the French emperor and every day came to the bivouacs, which he left. I was left on this path, I stepped right into his rear when he was fighting Wrede.
Only God knows why in the end I received the order to take the direction of Giessen, and the main army wanted to follow the enemy with its vanguard. This vanguard, however, was two transitions behind me and came too late to help Wreda. And so the really caught emperor slipped away."
With the departure of Bavaria, not only the Union of Rhine collapsed, but the whole of northern Germany was not just occupied by the allies, but ceased to be part of the Napoleonic empire. It got to the point that the Austrian crown, which Napoleon deprived of the primacy in Germany, took under temporary control the principality of Westphalia and even the duchy of Berg, the possession of Marshal Berthier, chief of staff of the Grand Army.
The blockade and then the fall of Hamburg, only postponed by the stubbornness of Marshal Davout until Napoleon's abdication, can also be considered direct consequences of the collapse of the Rhine Union. The French emperor, taught by the sad experience of Acre, as you know, tried to avoid prolonged sieges of fortresses, but at the turn of 1813 and 1814 he actually abandoned his numerous garrisons in Germany.
He made no secret of his hopes that he could rely on them in the new company that he would start because of the Rhine. However, in early 1814, he had to fight on the other side of the great river, which has always been considered the natural border of France.
On November 4, the Silesian army, led by Blucher, arrived at Giessen and Wetzlar, despite all the difficulties of the transition and bad weather. In the next two days, the Bohemian army entered the old German royal city - the capital of Hesse. The large audience did not hide their glee, however, it more than once rejoiced at the entry of Napoleon's troops.
This is how the "allied agreements" of Napoleonic France with the princes of the Rhine Union ended. A campaign began in France, half against the decisive will of the Allies, who were ready to make Napoleon the most tempting proposals for peace. Nevertheless, on November 11, Field Marshal Blucher wrote to his wife:
“I am on the Rhine and am busy crossing the proud river. The first letter that I write to you, I want to date from the inner coast, what do you say to that, you unbeliever, I hope to write to you from Paris and send you wonderful things …"
After six weeks of long-awaited rest on New Year's Eve, Blucher's army crossed the Rhine at Kaub. Among the top officials of the Allies, they really rushed to Paris, it seems, only this Prussian field marshal and the Russian Tsar Alexander I.
