The Battle of Arcis-sur-Aube (20–21 March 1814) saw an Imperial French army under Napoleon face a much larger Allied army led by Karl Philipp, Prince of Schwarzenberg during the War of the Sixth Coalition. On the second day of fighting, Emperor Napoleon finally realized he had blundered into battle as he was massively outnumbered, and immediately ordered a masked retreat. By the time the Austrian Field Marshal Schwarzenberg realized Napoleon was retreating, most of the French had already disengaged and the Allied pursuit afterwards failed to prevent the remaining French army from safely withdrawing to the north. This was Napoleon's penultimate battle before his abdication and exile to Elba, the last being the Battle of Saint-Dizier.
While Napoleon fought against Prussian Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher's Russo-Prussian army to the north, Schwarzenberg's army pushed Marshal Jacques MacDonald's army back toward Paris. After his victory at Reims, Napoleon moved south to threaten Schwarzenberg's supply line to Germany. In response, the Austrian field marshal pulled his army back to Troyes and Arcis-sur-Aube. When Napoleon occupied Arcis, the normally cautious Schwarzenberg determined to fight it out rather than retreat. The clashes on the first day were inconclusive and Napoleon mistakenly believed he was following up a retreating enemy. On the second day, the French advanced to high ground and were appalled to see between 74,000 and 100,000 enemies in battle array south of Arcis. After bitter fighting with Napoleon personally participating, the French troops fought their way out, but it was a French setback.
Background
Operations in the north
At the end of February 1814, Napoleon discovered that the Allied armies of Schwarzenberg and Blücher had separated and that Blücher's army was making a lunge at Paris with 53,000 soldiers. Only 10,000 men under Marshals Auguste de Marmont and Édouard Mortier stood in Blücher's path. The French emperor left 42,000 troops under marshals MacDonald and Nicolas Oudinot to contain Schwarzenberg's main army and headed northwest with 35,000 soldiers to deal with the Prussian field marshal. Marmont and Mortier repulsed Blücher in the Battle of Gué-à-Tresmes on 28 February. However, Napoleon failed to catch Blücher who slipped out of the trap. At this time, the French emperor adopted a plan to first drive Blücher far away to the north, then to gather up the French frontier garrisons and finally to swoop down on Schwarzenberg's supply line to Germany.
As Napoleon's 48,000-man army chased Blücher's army to the north, the Allies absorbed many reinforcements. These were led by Russian general Ferdinand von Wintzingerode and Prussian general Friedrich Wilhelm Freiherr von Bülow. The French emperor believed that his opponent had 70,000 soldiers, but in fact, Blücher's army numbered 110,000. On 7 March, Napoleon fought against Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov's Russians in the Battle of Craonne which one authority called a French Pyrrhic victory. On 9–10 March Blücher defeated Napoleon's much weaker army in the Battle of Laon. Marmont's corps was routed, but Napoleon bluffed the Allies into not pursuing his beaten army. On 12 March an Allied corps under Emmanuel de Saint-Priest seized Reims from its French garrison. Napoleon immediately ordered his army to march to that city where he won the Battle of Reims the next day. Saint-Priest was mortally wounded and his corps routed with a loss of 3,000 men and 23 guns.
Napoleon strikes south
Napoleon spent three days resting his troops at Reims while Marshal Michel Ney reoccupied Châlons-sur-Marne. Ney was joined by a 3,000-man division that Jan Willem Janssens brought in from the Ardennes garrisons. The French emperor desired to move east to gather up other garrisons, but Schwarzenberg's offensive to the south compelled him to march in that direction. While Napoleon operated against Blücher in the north, the main Allied army pressed MacDonald back toward Paris. On 27 February, Schwarzenberg defeated Oudinot in the Battle of Bar-sur-Aube, forcing MacDonald to withdraw to the west. The Allies overpowered MacDonald on 3–4 March at the Battle of Laubressel. Schwarzenberg occupied Troyes but halted there until 12 March in a welter of indecision. Encouraged by news of Blucher's victory at Laon, the main Allied army crossed the River Seine and drove MacDonald beyond Provins by 16 March. Schwarzenberg's offensive came to a sudden halt when tidings of Napoleon's success at Reims arrived in the Allied camp.
Napoleon decided to move against Schwarzenberg with 24,000 soldiers plus reinforcements, while Marmont and Mortier with 21,000 troops observed Blücher's army. The French emperor determined to march toward Arcis-sur-Aube, hoping to reach Troyes in the rear of the Allied main army. On 17 March Schwarzenberg withdrew his army toward the area between Troyes and Arcis. The following day, Napoleon's advance guards drove Schwarzenberg's cavalry south toward Arcis, creating alarm among the Allied leaders. The Austro-Bavarian V Corps under Karl Philipp von Wrede was ordered to hold Arcis until the remainder of Schwarzenberg's army could retreat east from Troyes to Bar-sur-Aube. In the afternoon of 19 March, the French began to cross the River Aube at Plancy-l'Abbaye. A cavalry division under Louis-Michel Letort de Lorville continued southwest to Méry-sur-Seine where it captured an Allied pontoon train. The French cavalry divisions of Remi Joseph Isidore Exelmans and Pierre David de Colbert-Chabanais moved east on the south bank of the Aube from Plancy to Pouan-les-Vallées, halfway to Arcis.
Schwarzenberg interpreted this information as an indication that Napoleon's main thrust was along the axis Plancy-Méry-Troyes. Believing that his communications were no longer threatened, he determined in the evening of 19 March to mass his army between Troyes and Arcis with the intention of advancing against the French. The Austrian army commander ordered Crown Prince William of Württemberg to assume command of the Allied III, IV and VI Corps and move to Charmont-sous-Barbuise, midway between Arcis and Troyes. The Guards and Reserve under Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly were directed to cross from the north to the south bank of the Aube and take a position at Mesnil-Lettre. On this day, MacDonald's army was moving east along the north bank of the Seine with its leading elements at Pont-sur-Seine.
Napoleon believed that Schwarzenberg was in full retreat east to Bar-sur-Aube. In order to hurry the main Allied army on its way, the French emperor decided to move east on both the north and south banks of the Aube to seize Arcis. Once he gave the Allies a good shove, Napoleon planned to take the French army across the Marne at Vitry-le-François, march east and add the eastern garrisons to his army. The French emperor planned to add MacDonald's 30,000 troops and Marmont's 20,000 men to his army while on the march. Napoleon's assessment of the situation was correct until Schwarzenberg decided to assume the offensive late on 19 March.
Battle
First day
On 20 March, Schwarzenberg ordered Wrede to take position at Saint-Nabord-sur-Aube while extending the Crown Prince of Württemberg's three corps between there and Voué. The Austrian field marshal intended to begin a westward advance at 11 am. Assuming that Napoleon was marching across his front from Plancy to Méry, Schwarzenberg hoped to smash into the exposed French flank. However, Napoleon was advancing east, not south, which threw off all of the Austrian army commander's plans. In the event, the Crown Prince misunderstood his instructions and moved his troops to Prémierfait, taking them out of the day's battle. Normally a proponent of vigorous measures, Tsar Alexander disapproved of Schwarzenberg's resumption of the offensive.
Early in the morning, Ney and Horace Sebastiani's cavalry advanced east along the south bank of the Aube. At 10:00 a.m. the French-occupied Arcis-sur-Aube which was abandoned by Wrede's Bavarians. Local residents repeatedly warned that large Allied forces were within 12 miles (19 km) of Arcis. Ney and Sebastiani forwarded this information to Napoleon but the French emperor refused to believe it. The French quickly repaired the bridge over the Aube, which was only partially demolished by the Allies. Ney's original orders called for his troops to cross to the north bank in preparation for a move eastward. Ney placed Janssens' division with its left flank in Torcy-le-Grand on the south bank of the Aube. Sebastiani's cavalry took a position to Janssens' right while Pierre François Xavier Boyer's division was placed in reserve. (Boyer's division had only one brigade. Its second brigade was detached at the end of February and later became the third brigade of Jean François Leval's division.)
At 1:00 pm. Napoleon arrived along the northern bank of the Aube river, crossed the bridge and met with Ney at Torcy-le-Grand. Convinced that the Allies were in full retreat, the French emperor accepted the report of a staff officer that only 1,000 Cossacks were nearby. Though he now knew that the Crown Prince's left wing was out of touch, Schwarzenberg finally gave the order to launch an attack at 2:00 pm. Wrede's infantry advanced on Torcy-le-Grand while a mass of Allied cavalry moved forward to challenge Sebastiani's horsemen. Paisiy Sergeevich Kaisarov ordered an artillery bombardment, followed with a cavalry charge by his Cossacks, the Archduke Joseph Hussar Nr. 2 and Szekler Hussar Nr. 11 Regiments and Leopold von Geramb's Austrian light cavalry brigade. The attack overthrew Colbert's division in the first line and soon involved the defeat of Exelmans' division in the second line.
As a mob of fleeing French cavalry galloped for the Arcis bridge, Napoleon drew his sword and rode into their path shouting, "See who will re-cross the bridge before me". At the same time, the crack troops of Louis Friant's Old Guard division began crossing the bridge and took up a position to defend Arcis. Sebastiani's badly shaken horsemen slowly began to recover from their panic and reorganize. During this crisis an Allied howitzer shell landed sputtering near the rallying troops. Seeing his soldiers flinching from the missile, Napoleon intentionally rode his horse directly over the bomb. The shell exploded and killed the horse, which went down, taking the emperor with it. Napoleon soon emerged unscathed from a cloud of smoke, mounted a fresh horse and rode off to inspect his army.
Wrede sent more cavalry to reinforce Kaisarov and ordered Anton Volkmann's Austrian brigade to capture Torcy-le-Grand. The Bavarian corps commander hoped to seize the Arcis bridge to prevent more French reinforcements from arriving. Spearheaded by the Austrian Archduke Rudolf Infantry Regiment, Volkmann's first attack broke into Torcy-le-Grand but was repelled by Guillaume Charles Rousseau's brigade. However, Volkmann's second attack drove the French from Torcy-le-Grand and it was necessary for Boyer's troops to recapture the village, supported by intense artillery fire. Wrede ordered Peter de Lamotte's Bavarian division to execute a third assault. The Allies captured Torcy-le-Grand for the third time but were ejected from the place by two Old Guard Grenadier battalions, a squadron of mounted gendarmes and a squadron of lancers. Between 5:00 and 8:00 pm, the French repulsed repeated assaults by the brigades of Volkmann, Georg Habermann and Prince Karl Theodor of Bavaria. The Allies detached the 1st Russian Grenadier Division under Pavel Nikolaevich Choglokov from the Reserve and sent it to support Wrede's corps. The Archduke Rudolf Regiment suffered 500 casualties in the bitter fighting. Janssens was wounded and replaced by Étienne Nicolas Lefol.
At 2:00 pm, Letort's guard cavalry left Méry with the newly captured pontoon train. During the afternoon, they became embroiled with the Crown Prince's cavalry under Peter Petrovich Pahlen, Prince Adam of Württemberg and Johann Nepomuk von Nostitz-Rieneck. Letort's horsemen inflicted 100 casualties on their foes while sustaining the loss of 120 men and three pontoons. Though assisted by Jean Nicolas Curely's brigade from Sigismond Frédéric de Berckheim's cavalry division, the French were driven back to Méry. Nevertheless, that evening Letort set out for Arcis via Plancy, leaving the pontoon train with Berckheim.
At dusk, a 2,000-strong cavalry division under Charles Lefebvre-Desnouettes rode into Arcis. A new 4,500-man Young Guard division led by Christophe Henrion made it as far as Plancy before stopping to rest. Sebastiani's rallied cavalry had skirmished with Kaisarov's Allied horsemen all day. Deciding upon a night attack using Lefebvre-Desnouettes' fresh cavalry, Sebastiani placed guard lancers and Éclaireurs in the front rank, supported by cuirassiers. He hoped to silence an Allied artillery battery on Wrede's left flank. Sebastiani's "magnificent" charge smashed Kaisarov's Cossacks and then veered to the left, pressing back some Austrian regiments. What was remarkable is that the attack included the jaded troopers of Colbert and Exelmans, who were routed earlier in the day. A brigade of Russian grenadiers formed a square and repelled the French horsemen. Bavarian, Russian, Austrian, and even a Prussian Guard cavalry squadron concentrated against the French, forcing their enemies to pull back, though they did it in good order. The cavalry of the two armies ended the fight with the village of Nozay between them.