The Battle of Craonne (7 March 1814) was fought between an Imperial French army under Emperor Napoleon I opposing a combined army of Imperial Russians and Prussians led by Prussian Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher. The War of the Sixth Coalition engagement began when the bulk of Napoleon's army tried to drive Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov's 22,000 Russians off the Chemin des Dames plateau to the west of Craonne. After a bitter struggle, Napoleon's attacks compelled Vorontsov's force to withdraw, but French casualties exceeded Russian losses. While the battle raged, Blücher's attempt to turn Napoleon's east flank ended in failure due to poor planning.
In late February 1814, Blücher's army separated from the main Allied army of Austrian field marshal Karl Philipp, Prince of Schwarzenberg, moving northwest and making a dash at Paris. Napoleon left Marshal Jacques MacDonald with one army to observe Schwarzenberg and started after Blücher with another army. Blücher evaded Napoleon's attempt to trap him and retreated north toward Laon, picking up reinforcements as he went. Russian forces under Ferdinand von Wintzingerode and a Prussian corps led by Friedrich Wilhelm Freiherr von Bülow would soon give Blücher a huge numerical advantage over the French. Napoleon came into contact with Vorontsov's corps on the evening of 6 March, believing that he had Blücher on the run. The next contest would be the Battle of Laon on 9–10 March.
Craonne is located 25 kilometres (16 mi) southeast of Laon and about 90 kilometres (56 mi) northeast of Paris.
Background
Operations
On 22 February 1814, Schwarzenberg with nearly 150,000 Allied troops faced Napoleon with half that number at Troyes. Because bad news arrived from the south and the Allied army was poorly supplied, but mainly because he believed that he was outnumbered, Schwarzenberg ordered a retreat that evening. Disappointed that no battle was going to be fought, Blücher proposed that his army separate from the main army and operate to the north. To this Schwarzenberg agreed and Blücher's 53,000 soldiers began moving northwest. When he realized that the Prussian field marshal's army was headed for Paris, Napoleon left 42,000 troops under Marshal Jacques MacDonald to contain Schwarzenberg and marched after Blücher with 35,000 men. An additional 10,000 soldiers under Marshals Auguste de Marmont and Édouard Mortier stood between the Prussian field marshal and Paris.
Marmont and Mortier blocked Blücher's advance on 28 February when they defeated Friedrich von Kleist's corps in the Battle of Gué-à-Tresmes. The following day, Blücher again failed to push the reinforced French out of his path, but time had run out. On 2 March the Prussian field marshal realized that Napoleon was following him and decided to retreat to the north bank of the Ourcq River. He knew that Wintzingerode's Russians and Bülow's Prussians were nearby and hoped to join them soon. The premature surrender of Soissons allowed Blücher to more easily cross to the north bank of the Aisne River on 3–4 March. By this time Napoleon knew that Wintzingerode had joined Blücher, giving him at least 70,000 men to oppose 48,000 French troops. However, the French emperor believed that Bülow was still well to the north near Avesnes-sur-Helpe.
Pre-battle maneuvers
In fact, Blücher may have had as many as 110,000 troops by this time. They were distributed as follows – Russians: Wintzingerode (30,000), Louis Alexandre Andrault de Langeron (26,000), Fabian Gottlieb von Osten-Sacken (13,700); Prussians: Bülow (16,900), Kleist (10,600), Ludwig Yorck von Wartenburg (13,500). For his part, Napoleon had 34,233 troops on 2 March while Marmont and Mortier had been reinforced to 17,000 men but lost possibly 3,000 casualties in the week before Craonne. Yet, Napoleon hoped to get to Laon before Blücher's army arrived there. On 5 March, Napoleon was at Fismes from where he hoped to move straight north to Laon. Since he lacked a pontoon bridge to cross the Aisne, the French emperor directed his forces to move northeast to Berry-au-Bac where there was a stone bridge. Berry-au-Bac was on the direct road from Reims to Laon. On this day, Napoleon ordered Jan Willem Janssens at Mézières to gather up the Ardennes garrisons and operate in Blücher's rear areas. Janssens promptly obeyed and the movements of his troops threw a scare into the Allies.
At 5:00 am on 5 March, Guard cavalry divisions under Pierre David de Colbert-Chabanais and Louis Marie Levesque de Laferrière surprised and captured Reims and its Allied garrison. Napoleon ordered Étienne Marie Antoine Champion de Nansouty to seize Berry-au-Bac with a cavalry force consisting of Rémi Joseph Isidore Exelmans' division and Louis Michel Pac's brigade. At the Battle of Berry-au-Bac, Nansouty's troopers overran some Russian cavalry and captured 200 men and two guns, but the main prize was their seizure of the bridge. Louis Friant's 1st Old Guard Division and Claude Marie Meunier's 1st Young Guard Division crossed and occupied positions as far north as Corbeny. From 3:00–6:00 pm on 5 March, Marmont and Mortier tried to capture Soissons from its Russian garrison, but were repulsed. The Russians sustained 1,056 casualties, while the French lost 800–900 men. Another source calculated French losses as 1,500 men.
Blücher realized that Napoleon was trying to reach Laon by the Reims road. He sent Bülow and his wagon trains back to Laon. The Prussian commander began to shift his other forces to the northeast. By 6 March Napoleon had 30,500 men near Berry-au-Bac. He planned to send an advanced guard north toward Festieux, but needed to make sure of Blücher's intentions. During the day of 6 March, Meunier's division encountered Russian forces near Vauclair Abbey (Vauclerc) while two battalions of the Old Guard were needed to flush out Craonne's Russian defenders. At first Blücher directed his army to concentrate near Craonne, but he decided that position was too cramped for his 90,000 men. He also heard that French cavalry were advancing north on the Reims road. Changing plans, Blücher planned to assemble 10,000 cavalry and 60 horse artillery guns under Wintzingerode and send it toward Festieux. Wintzingerode's force consisted of 5,500 of his own horsemen plus all of the reserve cavalry belonging to Langeron and Yorck. Blücher ordered Wintzingerode's infantry, commanded by Vorontsov, to remain behind and directly oppose Napoleon's army.
Battle
6 March
By 5:00 pm on 6 March, Meunier captured Vauclair Abbey from the Russians. Meunier and the Old Guard battalions captured Heurtebise Farm several times, but its Russian defenders threw them out each time and remained in possession of the place. The Russian forces involved were the 13th and 14th Jäger Regiments. That evening, Meunier withdrew a little to the north while the Old Guards occupied part of the Chemin des Dames ridge that they seized. Pierre François Xavier Boyer's division was at Bouconville in support of Meunier, one Old Guard brigade was at Craonne and the other was at Corbeny, Exelmans' horsemen were at Craonnelle and Joseph Boyer de Rébeval's division was at La Ville-aux-Bois-lès-Pontavert. The divisions of Colbert, Laferrière, Philibert Jean-Baptiste Curial, Henri François Marie Charpentier and Nicolas-François Roussel d'Hurbal were at Berry-au-Bac. Still south of the Aisne were Mortier at Cormicy, Jean-Toussaint Arrighi de Casanova at Roucy and Marmont more distant at Braine. With him, Mortier had the infantry divisions of Charles-Joseph Christiani and Paul-Jean-Baptiste Poret de Morvan and the cavalry division of Jean-Marie Defrance.
Blücher planned to have Vorontsov defend against a French attack on the Chemin des Dames ridge, while Sacken remained in support farther west at Braye-en-Laonnois. While Napoleon was facing Vorontsov, Wintzingerode's cavalry, followed by Kleist, York and Langeron, would move east on the north side of the Ailette River, then strike Napoleon's right flank and rear. Wintzingerode's cavalry was supposed to gather at Filain before setting out on its march and was expected to arrive at Festieux at dawn. One difficulty was that Wintzingerode's horsemen would first have to move west along the Chemin des Dames ridge to reach Filain. When Wintzingerode arrived at Filain during the night, he found that the cavalrymen of Yorck and Langeron were already in camp with their horses unsaddled. In the circumstances, Wintzingerode decided to wait until daybreak to start on his march, but he neglected to order a reconnaissance of the roads.
7 March: Plans
The Chemin des Dames (Ladies' Road) starts on the Soissons-Laon road and runs east along a continuous ridge to Craonne and then loses elevation before rising again a little at Corbeny. The ridge has an average height of 400 feet (122 m) above the Aisne valley on the south. North of the Ailette there is more ground of a similar elevation. The slope was wooded and steeper on the north side where the marshy Ailette ran west before joining the Oise River. The ridge varies from 200 yards (180 m) to 2 miles (3.2 km) in width. It is narrow in the places where ravines encroach from north and south. The Russian position was naturally strong because the ridge in front was narrow and easily targeted with artillery fire. North of the narrows were the Marion Woods while the Quatre Heures Woods were to the south. The ridge was steep on the right flank but even more so on the left. The disadvantage on the left flank was that the slope was so steep that it provided the French with "dead ground" or places where they could approach without coming under cannon fire.
At 8:00 am on 7 March, Vorontsov deployed his corps facing east in three lines, spaced 400 to 500 yards (366 to 457 m) apart. The first Russian line was 1.5 miles (2 km) long and a distance of 1,100 yards (1 km) west of Heurtebise Farm. The first line consisted of 14 battalions of Nikolay Vasilyevich Vuich's 24th Division, Mikhail Ponset's brigade of the 14th Division and the 13th Jägers. On the right of the first line were the Pavlograd Hussars and four Cossack regiments under Alexander Christoforovich Benkendorf. The 14th Jägers held the Heurtebise Farm and drew up in skirmish formation in front of the first line. The advance force was led by Afanasy Ivanovich Krasovsky and included two squadrons of the Pavlograd Hussars on the jägers' right. The village of Ailles on the left flank was held by skirmishers.
The Russian second line was made up of the seven battalions of Vasily Laptiev's 21st Division. The third line under Pavel Aleksandrovich Stroganov comprised nine battalions in Nikolay Nikolaevich Hovansky's 12th Division and Sergey Fyodorovich Zheltukhin's brigade of 13th Division. Nikolay Diomidovich Myakinin commanded the corps artillery which deployed 12 heavy and 24 light guns in the center under Colonel Vinspar. The 12 guns of Horse Artillery Battery Nr. 11 were on the right flank and the 12 guns of Horse Battery Nr. 9 were on the left. Six guns of Heavy Foot Battery Nr. 28 were of the left of the second line dominating the slope on the left. There were 24 light and six heavy guns held in reserve. During the battle 18 guns from the reserve were brought forward as replacements while 12 guns were used during the retreat. Since 1811 Russian artillery batteries each numbered 12 field pieces.
According to one authority, Vorontsov commanded roughly 16,300 infantry, 1,000 regular cavalry, 1,000 Cossacks and 96 artillery pieces. Farther east at Cerny-en-Laonnois were 4,000 regular cavalry led by Ilarion Vasilievich Vasilshikov and 1,500 Cossacks under Akim Akimovich Karpov. This cavalry force was part of Sacken's command. Sacken's infantry was posted too far east to help Vorontsov. A second source credited Vorontsov with 16,000 infantry, 2,000 cavalry and 96 guns, plus Vasilshikov's 4,000 horsemen.
Napoleon had 23,573 infantry and 6,350 cavalry available, plus 102 guns. However, the 8,000 men from the Guard divisions of Christiani and Poret de Morvan were not destined to be used. One historian credited Napoleon with 30,000 troops and the Allies with 50,000. Napoleon planned to launch a frontal assault on Vorontsov's Russians, using Marshal Claude Perrin Victor's corps and Curial's division. These formations were to be assisted by Friant's division and the reserve artillery. On the French right flank Marshal Michel Ney would lead the divisions of Meunier and Pierre Boyer to attack. On the left, Nansouty was instructed to lead Exelmans and Pac to turn the Russian flank. By 8:00 am, Napoleon was aware that his enemies intended to fight.