Russia Against Napoleon

On the morning of 26 August, faced with a very dangerous situation, Prince Eugen remained calm and showed excellent skill and judgement. Given Vandamme’s overwhelming superiority in numbers, all Eugen could hope to do was to delay his advance and gain time for reinforcements to arrive. He decided that his only chance of doing this was to stop the French from deploying out of the woods surrounding Königstein for as long as possible. A number of factors worked to his advantage. Vandamme moved slowly and failed to get his artillery into action until the battle was well under way. The Russian artillery was thereby able to break up the initial French efforts to form up in attack columns in front of the woods. In addition, even when the French did force their way forward from the woods Eugen occupied a strong position, protected in front by a gully and anchored in the villages of Krietzschwitz and Struppen. The Russians fought with skill and courage, skirmishing effectively. They suffered more than 1,500 casualties and inflicted more. Every reserve had to be committed, including even Leopold’s cuirassiers, despite the fact that this was very poor ground for heavy cavalry. Eugen just hung on but it was clear that he would have no chance of holding his position the next day against overwhelming numbers whose commanders could smother the Russians with artillery fire and turn their flanks.⁶²

On the evening of 26 August, having delayed the French for a day, Eugen knew that he must retreat. The question was in which direction. He could not simultaneously cover the right flank of the allied army before Dresden and the allied line of retreat down the highway to Bohemia. To do the former required a retreat to the north, while protecting the route into Bohemia meant moving southwards down the Teplitz highway. With the battle at Dresden in full swing and the allies aiming to storm the city Eugen decided that the top priority was to stop Vandamme marching northwards to roll up their right flank. This was a fully reasonable choice at the time it was made and with the information available to Eugen, but when Schwarzenberg decided on a general retreat the next day it meant that Vandamme was in a position to block the movement of Eugen or any other allied forces down the Teplitz highway back to Bohemia.

Schwarzenberg’s orders for the retreat to Bohemia went out at six in the evening of 27 August. They were drawn up by Radetsky and Toll. The army was to retreat in three groups. Roughly half the Austrian troops, including Klenau’s detachment and the remnants of the left wing, were to march almost due west to Freiberg and from there to turn south-west and rejoin the Chemnitz highway at Marienberg. This would take them back to Commotau. The rest of the Austrian forces, including Colloredo’s men, were to retreat to Dippoldiswalde. From there half would march via Frauenstein and the other half via Altenberg back to Dux in Bohemia. Meanwhile all the Russians and Prussians under Barclay and Kleist – in other words half the entire army – would retreat south-eastwards via Dohna on to the Teplitz highway before the defile at Berggieshubel. From there they would retreat down the highway to Teplitz via Peterswalde.⁶³

These orders were ‘modified’ by some of the generals to whom they were sent. In part this was because they were unrealistic and had been overtaken by events. Of the three groups, the only one to march more or less according to plan was the central Austrian column, which set off quickly in the early evening of 27 August and got away, exhausted but unscathed, to Dippoldiswalde. On the allied left, however, it was impossible for Klenau’s men to follow the planned retreat westwards via Freiberg since the Freiberg road was already occupied by Murat. The Austrian commanders also flatly refused to take the next parallel road to the south since this led through the Tharandt forest and had caused them dreadful difficulties in their advance to Dresden. They therefore struck out to the south-west via Pretschendorf. From there some of the Austrian troops marched to Dux while others rejoined the Chemnitz highway at Marienberg and there turned left to march back to Commotau. Though the initial stages of this retreat were exhausting, dangerous and chaotic, by the night of 28 August the Austrian troops were no longer in danger of being cut off. They had been helped greatly by Murat’s rather lackadaisical pursuit. Most of Murat’s cavalry in any case headed too far to the west and lost touch with the main Austrian body.