Russia Against Napoleon

Blücher reacted in accordance with the Trachenberg plan. His corps retreated and refused to become engaged in a major battle. As one might by now expect, the Russians did this with cool professionalism. On the right wing, outside Bunzlau, Sacken waited calmly for the five hours that it took the corps of Ney, Marmont and Sebastiani to deploy against him. Then he left it to the disciplined skill of Lieven’s infantry and Ilarion Vasilchikov’s horsemen to mount a rearguard action that frustrated the enemy commanders and kept the French at a respectful distance. In the Belostok Regiment alone ten soldiers won military medals for their calmness, courage and skill in the rearguard action at Bunzlau on 21 August. The infantry was helped enormously by the fact that Vasilchikov was one of the ablest light cavalry commanders in Europe and his regiments were far superior in every way to the horsemen of General Sebastiani’s French Second Cavalry Corps, by whom they were opposed.²⁸

On the other wing of Blücher’s army Langeron’s rearguard also performed well under heavy pressure. Its cavalry was ably commanded by General Georgii Emmanuel, the son of a Serbian colonist in southern Russia. The overall commander of the rearguard was Aleksandr Rudzevich, a Crimean Tatar who had been baptized into the Orthodox Church at the age of 12. In principle, Rudzevich, a trained staff officer, was Langeron’s chief of staff. In fact, however, Langeron used his quartermaster-general, Colonel Paul Neidhardt, in this role and employed Rudzevich as his troubleshooter wherever the going was toughest. He wrote in his memoirs that Rudzevich, unique in his combination of staff training and long combat experience in the Caucasus, was much the ablest general in his Army Corps. For once, Blücher and Gneisenau agreed wholeheartedly with Langeron’s opinion. Gneisenau wrote to the Prussian chancellor, Hardenberg, that on 21 August Rudzevich’s rearguard risked being cut off by very superior enemy forces. Many generals would have lost their balance and judgement in so dangerous a position but Rudzevich had reacted with intelligence, calm and courage, pushing the French back and getting his men across the river Bober under their noses.²⁹

How the Prussian troops, and above all the Landwehr, would cope with mounting a rearguard action against Napoleon was more uncertain. In fact the Prussians fought with courage and discipline in the four-day retreat back from the river Bober to behind the river Katzbach, where Blücher’s advance had commenced only eight days before. The Army of Silesia’s marches and counter-marches exhausted the troops, however, and in particular the Prussian militia. The 6th Silesian Landwehr Regiment, for example, was 2,000 strong when Blücher’s advance began; eight days later it had melted down to just 700 men. Above all, this was due to the speed of the army’s advance and subsequent retreat. In addition, it took time for Blücher’s staff to get into their stride: the Army of Silesia had after all only come together on the very eve of the campaign. In the retreat from the Bober to the Katzbach columns sometimes crossed or got entangled in baggage trains. Night marches were a particular source of exhaustion to Yorck’s corps.

Given the personalities involved, it was inevitable that tempers would explode. After a furious argument with Blücher, Yorck sent in his resignation to Frederick William III, noting that ‘it may be that my limited abilities do not enable me to understand the brilliant conceptions by which General Blücher is guided’.³⁰ Blücher’s worst problems were with Langeron. Though personalities played a part, a more basic issue was their main cause. When the Trachenberg plan was originally devised, of the three allied groupings the only one explicitly urged to caution was the Army of Silesia. This was because at that time it seemed that this army would be only 50,000 strong. By the beginning of the campaign its numbers had actually doubled but Blücher’s instructions from the monarchs still urged him to avoid major battles. Blücher promptly responded that, if these were his orders, then the allies needed to find an alternative commander more suited to caution. Barclay and Diebitsch replied, no doubt in the monarchs’ name, that of course no one could stop the commander of 100,000 men from seizing whatever opportunities presented themselves. On this assurance Blücher accepted the command.³¹