Page images
PDF
EPUB

CHAP.

X.

38.

before the

battle.

Vandamme's dispositions were soon made. He took post on the high ground in front of Culm, looking towards Töplitz, his right resting on the monntains, his centre 1813. crossing the great road to Töplitz, his left in the plain Measures on extending towards the hamlet of Karwitz. On the side both sides immediately of the Allies, the Austrian division under Prince Philip of Hesse Homburg, with the whole Allied cavalry, was on the right; the Russians under Ostermann, with the grenadiers, in the centre and left; the Russian Guards in reserve, supported by a great battery of 100 guns. Count Colloredo, with the 1st Austrian corps, had orders to make a flank movement to his right, and then to turn and attack the enemy's left. Kleist, with his Prussians, was to gain the summit of the defile of Nollendorf, directly in the enemy's rear. The forces thus accumulated were now greatly superior to those of the enemy; they amounted to fully 60,000 men, while the French troops, weakened by the combats and fatigues of the preceding days, could not number 40,000.* The Young Guard, by Napoleon's orders, lay inactive at Pirna, twenty miles in the rear; while Vandamme, imprudently thrust forward into the heart of the Allied army, was combating with forces nearly double his own, in circumstances where defeat, from his line of retreat Marm. v. being cut off, was utter ruin. To make the faulty dis- 165; Thiers, positions of the French Emperor complete, he committed 341; Jom. what Marmont justly calls the "inconceivable fault of not even letting Vandamme know that he had recalled his 238, 239. Guard, and that he was not to be supported."1+

* "Les Alliés supposaient à Vandamme tout au plus 30,000 hommes, tandis qu'il en avait 40,000 sous la main."-THIERS, xvi. 342.

+"Ayant reçu la nouvelle de l'échec eprouvé par le Maréchal Oudinot devant Berlin et des revers du Maréchal Macdonald sur le Katzbach, Napoléon résolut de rester, de rapeller sa Garde, et il eut le tort incroyable de ne pas faire prevenir Vandamme. On a dit qu'il s'était mis en route, et que se trouvant tout à coup indisposé il avait rétrogradé. Ce fait est inexact; et le Général Gersdorff, général Saxon, m'a declare formellement qui n'ayant pas quitté un moment le palais pendant le 28 et 29, il avait la certitude absolue que Napoléon n'était pas sorti ces jours là de Dresde. La Garde seule s'était mis en mouvement, et il la rappella ainsi que je viens de dire. Vandamme se trouva donc seule et

xvi. 340,

iv. 401, 402;

Lond. 126,

127; Cath.

CHAP.

X.

The result of the battle, fought under such circumstances, could not be doubtful; important, indeed decisive of the campaign, as the success gained proved, it was Total defeat less glorious to the Allied arms than the heroic resistance

1813. 39.

of the French.

of the Russian Guards and grenadiers, to forces double their own on the preceding day. The French left, charged in flank by the Russian cavalry whilst engaged in front by Colloredo's Austrians, fell into disorder, and was cast back upon the centre in front of Culm. The Austrians, in admirable order, advanced steadily through the French line, at right angles to its front; and Vandamme in vain endeavoured to stop their progress by a fresh brigade which he brought up, but which was overthrown in its turn.At the same time, the Russians were gradually but steadily gaining ground on the right, over their adversaries posted on the slope of the mountains, and had taken three guns. Nothing, however, was as yet decided, when at ten o'clock a rolling of carriages was heard on the heights behind, on the road to Pirna, followed by the discharges of tirailleurs on either side of the steep declivity by which the road passed. The French soldiers, believing it was the Young Guard under Mortier coming up to their support, prepared to resume the offensive, and hoped yet to accomplish their mission by wresting Töplitz from the Allies. The latter were proportionally depressed, for they did not venture to hope it could be friends coming in this way, directly in the rear of the French; and the impression was universal that it was fresh troops arriving, who would wrest from them a triumph otherwise within their grasp. 1 Thiers, xvi.“ Vain illusion! terrible awakening!" says Theirs. Van344, 345; damme hastened to the rear, never doubting he was to meet 125; Cat the Young Guard, and on a nearer approach he saw the iv. 129; Allied uniforms! It was Kleist, with 18,000 Prussians, 316, 317. who, having been informed by the King of Prussia of what was going forward at Culm, and directed to operate against

Lond. 124,

239; St Cyr,

Fain, ii.

sans appui dans la plaine de Culm. Vainqueur le 29, il fut accablé le 30 par les forces immenses que se jeteront sur lui."-MARMONT, v. 165.

X.

1813.

the French flank, had left the chaussée of Altenberg, along CHAP. which he was retiring, followed by St Cyr, and taken the bold resolution of crossing by mountain-paths to the Peterswalde road, which he reached just in time to appear on the rear of Vandamme in the very heat of the action.

40.

of Van

Vandamme's case was desperate, but the stout soldier neither lost his presence of mind nor gave up hope. Total defeat Having consulted with General Haxo, he arrived at damme. the conclusion that there was nothing to be done but to form his troops into a solid mass, and, at all hazards, force his way through Kleist's columns. To effect this desperate assault, he drew back his two best brigades, Quyot and Reuss, which had been advanced to the front, and, forming them in close column, gave them orders to charge up the pass, right through the Prussians. Dunesme's brigade was charged on the left with the onerous duty of restraining Colloredo and Knoring's dragoons ; while in the centre, on the heights of Culm, a large battery was placed, supported by the brigade Doucet, with instructions to fire with the utmost vigour on the Russians under Milaradowitch, who were opposed to them, and when they could resist no longer, to abandon their guns to their fate. But all these efforts were unavailing. "Schwartzenberg," says Sir Charles Stewart, "intrusted Barclay de Tolly with the principal direction of the attack, and he had 6000 grenadiers of the Russians, 2000 infantry, and 4000 cavalry, with 12,000 Austrians led by Colloredo, under his command. On all sides the attack was commenced with the utmost vigour. The enemy's line was turned by the skill and bravery of the Austrians under Count Colloredo, the cavalry charging repeatedly; while upon the other flank, General Milaradowitch, with the Russian Imperial Guard, hussars, and grenadiers, forced successively every position which the enemy attempted to defend. Upon this point above 40 pieces of artillery, 60 tumbrils, and a great quantity of

1813.

Stewart to

reagh, Sept.

MS.; Thiers,

347: Fain,

41.

conflict in

rear.

CHAP. baggage fell into the hands of the Russians. Completely X. beaten in the front of the position, and intercepted in the rear by General Kleist, nothing was left to the enemy but a SSC desperate and precipitate dispersion. Five hundred French Lord Castle- horse dashed through the Prussian landwehr up the pass, 4, 1813, and actually took possession, for a few minutes, of the whole xvi. 346, of Kleist's artillery, but it was immediately recovered by ii. 316, 317. the rapid advance of the Russian and Austrian cavalry.": While this great success was being achieved in the Desperate plain in front of Culm, a still more decisive advantage the pass in Was gained in the pass in rear. The Prussians, seeing the French advancing in good order, and with a firm countenance against them, and knowing that St Cyr and Marmont were on their trace, and the Young Guard directly in their rear on the road to Pirna, deemed themselves surrounded and cut off, and saw no chance of safety but in cutting their way right through the middle of Vandamme's corps, and so regaining the road to Töplitz, at the point of the bayonet. With more reason Vandamme's men deemed themselves cut off, and saw no chance of escape but in cutting their way up the pass through Kleist's men. Thus the two armies, equally desperate, and alike determined to brave all hazards rather than surrender, were precipitated on each other in wild confusion in the ravine; the Prussians tumultuously pouring down, the French as wildly striving up. The defile was so narrow that there was no room to pass each other, and the hostile columns fairly met, breast to breast, knee to knee, each striving with desperate resolution to force the way through the other. A scene of matchless horror ensued in the gorge. Shut in between its rugged banks, thirty thousand men on the two sides, alike brave and desperate, strove to force their way through each other's throng. In the tumult Kleist was seized by the French, but speedily delivered; Vandamme was made prisoner, and finally retained by the Prussians. The broken fragments of his force which finally emerged from

X.

1813.

this military chaos, threw away their arms and dispersed, CHAP. making the best of their way through the woods and over the hills to Peterswalde, where they found shelter under cover of St Cyr's corps. But they arrived in a state of utter disorganisation.* Twelve thousand men in woeful plight, and without their arms, escaped in this manner; 7000, with Vandamme himself and General Haxo, with sixty pieces of cannon, and two eagles, and 300 ammunition-waggons, were taken. The total loss of Thiers, xvi. the French in the two days exceeded 20,000 men, while 346-348; that of the Allies was under 5000, of whom 3200 fell 389; Bout. under Ostermann on the first day. The remains of Van- 43; Jom. damme's corps, after this disaster, numbering little above Cath. 239. 10,000 men, were placed under Count Lobau's orders.1

1 Lond. 127;

St Cyr, iv.

45; Wilson,

iv. 402, 403;

effect of this

This glorious victory, coming as it did at the very 42. time when decisive successes, as will immediately appear, Great moral were gained in other quarters, universally raised the victory. spirits of both the officers and soldiers in the Allied armies, and had a most powerful effect on the future issue of the war. "It has amply compensated," says Sir Charles Stewart, "the failure before Dresden, and, with Blucher's brilliant victory on the Katzbach, renewed all the former enthusiastic hopes of the Allied armies." Nor was its success less conspicuous in restoring concord among them, and removing those heartburnings and jealousies which were beginning to spring up after the disaster before Dresden. The Prince Regent of England now sent the order of the Garter to the Emperor of Russia, as a mark of his high esteem and regard; it was conveyed to his Imperial Majesty by Sir T. Tyrwitt, who suffered not a little difficulty in reaching him, through the execrable roads and marching columns in the moun- Lond. 128. tains. At the same time the Emperor of Austria con

"Generals Philippon and Duvernet are employed in rallying what remains of their troops; their number, I think, exceeds 10,000. We are furnishing them with cartridges and cannon; indeed, we would put them in a respectable situation, if we could only keep up their spirits."-ST CYR to BERTHIER, 31st August 1813; ST CYR, iv. 389.

2

« PreviousContinue »