The Battle of Fère-Champenoise (25 March 1814) was fought between two Imperial French corps led by Marshals Auguste de Marmont and Édouard Mortier, duc de Trévise and a larger Coalition force composed of cavalry from the Austrian Empire, Kingdom of Prussia, Kingdom of Württemberg, and Russian Empire. Caught by surprise by Field Marshal Karl Philipp, Prince of Schwarzenberg's main Coalition army, the forces under Marmont and Mortier were steadily driven back and finally completely routed by aggressive Allied horsemen and gunners, suffering heavy casualties and the loss of most of their artillery. Two divisions of French National Guards under Michel-Marie Pacthod escorting a nearby convoy were also attacked and wiped out in the Battle of Bannes. The battleground was near the town Fère-Champenoise located 40 kilometres (25 mi) southwest of Châlons-en-Champagne.
After being defeated at the Battle of Arcis-sur-Aube on 20–21 March 1814, Emperor Napoleon moved to the east. He hoped to draw the Coalition armies away from Paris by cutting their supply lines, but Schwarzenberg's army instead began moving west toward Paris. Meanwhile, Marmont and Mortier were marching to join Napoleon, pursued by Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher's Allied army. As the two marshals moved east near Fère-Champenoise they unexpectedly came into collision with Schwarzenberg heading west and Blücher moving south. Belatedly realizing they were marching into a trap, the French began a withdrawal to the west. After six hours of orderly retreat, a sudden violent rainstorm made it difficult for the French foot soldiers to fire their muskets and the Allies' enormous superiority in cavalry proved decisive. With the corps of Marmont and Mortier crippled, the Allied capture of Paris was practically inevitable and the Battle of Paris followed on 30 March
Background
Napoleon's operations
On 9–10 March 1814, Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher's 100,000-man Coalition army defeated Napoleon's 39,000-strong army in the Battle of Laon. After drubbing the French on 9 March, Blücher became incapacitated by fever and an eye ailment, so command devolved upon his chief of staff August Neidhardt von Gneisenau. Though Gneisenau was a brilliant strategist, he was not capable of leading an army. The acting commander allowed his beaten foes to continue the fight the next day and then slip away that night without being pursued. On 13 March, Napoleon fell on Emmanuel de Saint-Priest's Russian VIII Corps and a Prussian brigade in the Battle of Reims. The Allied force was scattered with losses of 3,000 men and 23 guns, including Saint-Priest who was fatally wounded.
After three days of reorganization, Napoleon left Auguste de Marmont and Édouard Mortier, duc de Trévise with 21,000 troops to watch Blücher while he tried to outflank Karl Philipp, Prince of Schwarzenberg's main army by moving against Arcis-sur-Aube. Marshal Michel Ney marched southeast from Reims to recapture Châlons-sur-Marne. At this time, Schwarzenberg's army threatened to cross the river Seine and press back Marshal Jacques MacDonald's wing of the French army. News of Saint-Priest's rout reached Coalition headquarters on 16 March. This prompted the Austrian field marshal to make the intelligent decision to fall back and reassemble his army between Troyes and Arcis-sur-Aube.
Believing that it was only necessary to deliver a sharp blow to send the cautious Schwarzenberg into retreat, Napoleon occupied Arcis at mid-day on 20 March. Soon after, a large body of Coalition horsemen threw back the French cavalry, but the situation was stabilized that evening after a tough struggle. The next day, Napoleon ordered an attack only to find his 28,000 soldiers facing 80,000 Allies. Thanks to Schwarzenberg's hesitation, the French emperor quickly pulled his army to the north bank of the Aube covered by stout rearguard fighting, but the Battle of Arcis-sur-Aube on 20–21 March was a Coalition victory.
After this setback, Napoleon determined to operate against the Allied supply line stretching back to the river Rhine while adding the fortress garrisons to his army. Accordingly, he moved northeast toward Vitry-le-François with the intention of continuing east along the river Marne to Saint-Dizier. By this maneuver, the French emperor hoped to lure the Allies after him and away from Paris.
MacDonald's wing was in great peril as it moved east on the north bank of the Aube. Though Marshal Nicolas Oudinot's corps held the northern suburb of Arcis-sur-Aube, MacDonald's own corps only reached the vicinity of Arcis at 9:00 pm on 21 March. Étienne Maurice Gérard's corps was farther west at Plancy-l'Abbaye while François Pierre Joseph Amey's division brought up the rear at Anglure. Jean François Leval's rearguard successfully destroyed the bridges and the Allies did not attempt to force their way across the Aube that evening. Because of Allied inertia, MacDonald successfully held the north bank of the Aube on 22 March. Finding Vitry-le-François solidly held by 5,000 Russians, Napoleon with Ney's corps, the Imperial Guard and his cavalry crossed the Marne south of the town and continued toward Saint-Dizier. On the way, the French light cavalry seized a Coalition convoy and dispersed its two-battalion escort.
On the night of 22 March, MacDonald's troops silently left their blocking position opposite Arcis-sur-Aube and marched through Dosnon and Sommesous toward Vitry-le-François. Amey was supposed to guard the artillery park, but by a misunderstanding, that general marched his division northwest to Sézanne. Consequently, the Russian Guard Light Cavalry Division attacked the unguarded wagon train, carrying off 15 artillery pieces and 300 prisoners while destroying the gunpowder and spiking 12 cannons. Coming on the scene, Gérard's corps rescued what was left of MacDonald's artillery park. Despite constant skirmishing with Karl Philipp von Wrede's Allied corps during the day, MacDonald got his troops safely across the Marne late on 23 March. At that hour, Napoleon was in Saint-Dizier with his Guard while Ney was between there and Vitry.
Marmont's operations
Blücher's army finally lurched into motion on 18 March, with its commander wearing a lady's green silk hat in order to protect his inflamed eyes from the sun. On this day, Ludwig Yorck von Wartenburg's corps compelled Étienne Pierre Sylvestre Ricard's division to abandon Berry-au-Bac though the French managed to destroy the bridge over the river Aisne. Marmont had overall command of the forces facing Blücher and his orders were to cover Paris and stop his foes from crossing the Aisne. Mortier was at Reims while Henri François Marie Charpentier's division held Soissons. Since Blücher had 109,000 troops while the French only mustered 13,000 infantry and 3,600 cavalry, it was plain that the Allies could not be stopped for long. In order to block the road to Paris and to rendezvous with Charpentier, Marmont fell back southwest toward Fismes and called in Mortier from Reims. He believed that Blücher wished to bring him to battle, but in fact the Prussian field marshal was heading for Reims and Châlons-sur-Marne to link up with Schwarzenberg.
Blücher assigned only the corps of Yorck and Friedrich Graf Kleist von Nollendorf to follow Marmont. By 19 March, Blucher had established two bridges over the Aisne and sent Ferdinand von Wintzingerode's corps south to capture Reims. Wintzingerode occupied Reims at daybreak on 20 March after it was evacuated by Augustin Daniel Belliard who led Mortier's cavalry. At this hour, Louis Alexandre Andrault de Langeron's Russian corps was at Berry-au-Bac while Fabian Gottlieb von Osten-Sacken's Russian corps was nearby at Pontavert. Blücher ordered Wintzingerode to hold Reims with his infantry and send his cavalry to Épernay and Vitry-le-François. Charpentier left a 2,800-man garrison in Soissons before pulling out to join Marmont and Mortier. On 21 March, there was a cavalry scuffle at Oulchy-le-Château between Yorck and Kleist's cavalry and the French, but the Prussians did not pursue. Having picked up Charpentier's division, Marmont and Mortier crossed the Marne at Château-Thierry and destroyed the bridge. Also on the 21st, Marmont received a dispatch from Napoleon rebuking him for not retreating from Reims toward Châlons-sur-Marne and ordering him to move back in that direction. On 22 March, the two marshals headed east toward Étoges. That day Friedrich Wilhelm Freiherr von Bülow's Prussian corps appeared before Soissons and began bombarding the place.
By nightfall on 23 March, Marmont's troops were in Vertus while Mortier's corps reached Étoges. That evening near Bergères-lès-Vertus, Christophe Antoine Merlin's French advance guard drove off some Allied cavalry, capturing 100 troopers and 16 wagon loads of plunder. A French staff officer found some enemy dispatches in Vertus that indicated the armies of Schwarzenberg and Blücher might link up and march toward Paris. The two marshals believed they were planted to trick the French so the information was disregarded. By the evening of 23 March, Oudinot and MacDonald's corps arrived at Saint-Dizier, Ney's troops were to the south at Wassy and Napoleon and the Imperial Guard were yet farther south at Doulevant-le-Château. Well in advance of the rest, Napoleon's cavalry reached Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises near Bar-sur-Aube. On 23 March, the divisions of Michel-Marie Pacthod with 4,000 men and Amey with 1,800 men reached Sézanne. They found an 80-wagon food and equipment convoy in the village with its escort of 800 foot soldiers and one squadron of the 13th Hussar Regiment. Finding that Marmont and Mortier were nearby, they set out with the convoy toward Étoges. Soon after they left Sézanne, Jean Dominique Compans arrived in the village to set up a communications base, followed by two cavalry march regiments.
On 23 March, Wintzingerode with 8,000 cavalry and 40 guns arrived near Vitry-le-François while Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov with Wintzingerode's infantry plus Langeron and Sacken were coming up behind. Yorck and Kleist reached Château-Thierry. After a captured French message indicated that Napoleon was at Saint-Dizier, the Allies decided to merge their two armies and go after Napoleon with 200,000 troops. With the French emperor already blocking their supply line to Germany, the Allies determined to establish a new line from the Netherlands to Laon. At Bar-sur-Aube, Emperor Francis I of Austria was warned to leave for Dijon. Francis fled to safety with the Austrian Army of the South a few hours ahead of the French cavalry. On the evening of 23 March, a message from Napoleon's Chief of Police Anne Jean Marie René Savary was intercepted by Friedrich Karl von Tettenborn's Cossacks. It stated that there was nothing in the arsenals and treasury at Paris and that the city's increasingly restive population was demanding peace. More information arrived from Napoleon's enemies in Paris.
After looking at the captured messages, Czar Alexander I of Russia at his headquarters at Sompuis concluded that the Allied armies should advance on Paris. He asked Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly, Hans Karl von Diebitsch and Karl Wilhelm von Toll for their advice. Barclay wished to follow Napoleon but Toll wanted to move on Paris while sending 10,000 cavalry to hide the maneuver from Napoleon. After Diebitsch came around to Toll and Alexander's point of view, they convinced first King Frederick William III of Prussia and then Schwarzenberg of their plan. On 24 March, Schwarzenberg's army moved north toward Vitry-le-François, but new orders were issued for the following day. Wintzingerode was instructed to chase after Napoleon with his cavalry force. The VI Corps supported by the IV Corps were ordered to march west toward Fère-Champenoise with their combined cavalry in front. The Guards and Reserves were directed on the same place from Sompuis while the III Corps was to move north from Mailly-le-Camp. Vorontsov, Langeron and Sacken of Blücher's army were instructed to move west from Châlons-sur-Marne toward Étoges. By the evening of 24 March, Schwarzenberg's host was near Vitry, on the east bank of the river Coole (Côle).
Battle
Fighting withdrawal
After a lively debate between Belliard and the two marshals over what was the best route to approach the Marne, on 24 March the French marched through Fère-Champenoise and Vatry. Henri Catherine Balthazard Vincent moved toward Montmirail with 300 men watch for Yorck and Kleist. During the day, Mortier's cavalry scouted in the direction of Châlons and Saint-Quentin-sur-Coole, finding only a few hundred enemy cavalry in Châlons and no Allied troops near Nuisement-sur-Coole. Marmont scouted toward Maisons-en-Champagne and found no enemies. Based on these reports, the two marshals decided that Schwarzenberg was south of Saint-Dizier, maneuvering against Napoleon. Bolstered in their opinions by the day's reconnaissances, Marmont and Mortier failed to reconsider even when large numbers of campfires were observed that night beyond the Coole. Marmont's troops camped between Vatry and Soudé while Mortier's bivouacked farther north.