Clausewitz, page 22
Since the Austrians contributed the most men to the coalition, they insisted upon naming the commander-in-chief of the Allied forces. They selected Austrian field marshal Prince Karl Philipp zu Schwarzenberg. Schwarzenberg was forty-two at the time, not especially ambitious, and possessed of more diplomatic than military skills. The historian Gordon Craig likens him to General Dwight David Eisenhower wrangling the Allied forces in Europe during the Second World War. The comparison is apt; Schwarzenberg, like Eisenhower, needed the skills to navigate the political machinations of the fourteen nations that eventually comprised the Allied coalition of 1813–1814. In addition to the French, the unfortunate Schwarzenberg had to deal constantly with King Frederick William, Czar Alexander (one of whose advisors now included Jomini, who had defected from the French), and their various chiefs of staff and hangers on, as well as his own emperor and the domineering Metternich. “It really is inhuman what I must tolerate,” he wrote, “surrounded as I am by feeble-minded people, fools of every description, eccentric project makers, intriguers, asses, babblers.” All of this did little to further Allied unity of action and purpose.9
The Allies’ strategic plan for fighting the war is traditionally attributed to the chief of Schwarzenberg’s general staff, Lieutenant Field Marshal Count Radetzky von Radetz, who would become famous for his campaign in Italy in 1848–1849. Historian Dominic Lieven gives the bulk of the credit for its composition to von Toll, Czar Alexander’s chief quartermaster general. It undoubtedly had input from many fathers. Scharnhorst had wanted a multipronged advance whereupon the Allies would quickly concentrate for battle, but the Austrians, despite all the changes in warfare wrought by the French Revolution, still favored an eighteenth-century war of march and maneuver that did not emphasize battle. Radetzky, realizing that Austria would not stay out of the struggle, had submitted his plan in May 1813. In June he met with Toll at the czar’s headquarters. In July the Allies (not including Austria, which had not yet joined) met at Trachenberg and agreed upon a plan proposed by Bernadotte and Toll similar to Radetzky’s, but which was later altered to make it even more like the Austrian proposal. Toll, under whom Clausewitz had served in Russia, helped produce a compromise between competing programs. Bernadotte gave him a hand in this.10
The Allied strategy became known as the “Trachenberg Plan,” after the castle of this name located not far from Breslau, where they made the agreement. It was essentially a strategy of attrition, designed to make Napoleon split his forces to counter Allied advances, and wear down his armies using superior numbers and resources. One could also describe it as “simultaneous pressure,” meaning the Allies would press Napoleon at different points at the same time using their three armies. This would rob Napoleon of the advantage of interior lines. The constant pressure would also prevent him from concentrating his forces against one of the Allied armies and crushing it, thus enabling him then to defeat the Allies in detail.11
There was an important caveat to the Allied plan: They would attack only smaller elements of the French army—“the Austrian Army to be the pivot, while the Allies would form the swinging wings.” If Napoleon gathered sufficient forces under his direct command to attack the Allies, they would withdraw to keep from becoming embroiled in a fight with a more numerous force. As Clausewitz noted, “The strategic [operational, in this instance, we would call it today] talent of Bonaparte could not be expected from any of his marshals. Therefore, the more he was obliged to place his forces into the hands of others, the better.” Attack weakness, withdraw in the face of strength; this defined Allied strategy, and they hoped this would allow them to preserve sufficient power to later strike a decisive blow.12 The difficulty for the Allies—obviously—became implementing their strategy.
To execute their plan, the Allies fielded four primary armies, three of which were multinational forces. They would not have used the modern term “burden sharing,” but that is exactly what the coalition did. Each of these armies provided an operational prong of the strategy. Bernadotte commanded the 100,000-man Army of the North based at Berlin, a mixed force of Prussians, Swedes, and Russians. Blücher commanded the Silesian Army in the center, a Prussian-Russian force of 87,000. Austrian field marshal Schwarzenberg commanded the main force, the 252,000-man Army of Bohemia, the bulk of which camped south of the Erzgebirge Mountains in northern Bohemia northeast of Prague; Prussian and Russian units beefed up an Austrian core. The last force was Bennigsen’s Russian Reserve Army of 60,000 in Poland.13
The generals implementing the Allied strategy had specific instructions for their operational prongs. The Allies believed Napoleon would aim his major blow at Schwarzenberg or Bernadotte and planned accordingly. Schwarzenberg planned to push into Saxony on the Elbe’s left bank. Bernadotte was to advance southward. If Napoleon attacked him, or if he had to withdraw, Bernadotte was to hit the French flank. Bernadotte was also to use some of his forces (Wallmoden’s corps) to pin Davout in Hamburg, while marching others toward Leipzig. If he faced attack, he was to retreat while the other Allies struck the French. Blücher—while covering Silesia and with the Russian general Bennigsen protecting the communications of the czarist forces—was to advance against the French to and over the Elbe, then link up with Bernadotte, without getting into a major clash unless it was one he was sure he could win. If Napoleon moved against him, he was to fall back and pull the French into Silesia. The problem—as well as benefit—of having Blücher in command was that he almost always thought he could win. Unlike many of the other Allied commanders, he had no fear of defeat. Indeed, it seems to have had essentially the same effect on his willingness to continue the war against Napoleon as victory. Bennigsen was ordered to march on Glogau (now Głogów in southwestern Poland), supporting any Allied attack and thwarting any French thrust into the Polish lands.14
The Russo-German Legion—where Clausewitz landed—formed an element in Wallmoden’s corps of Bernadotte’s Army of the North. A treaty was signed in July to take the Legion into British pay and increase its numbers to 10,000. Clausewitz, as we’ve seen, was still penciled in to serve as the unit’s chief staff officer. “As much as I hate leaving Gneisenau,” he told Marie, he thought his new posting a good one, “an appropriate sphere of action” for him. He also appreciated the salary: 2,500 talers a year, which meant he now made more than the famous professor Fichte.15 But when he reached Berlin a few days later, he discovered that the Legion would probably be operating as a corps of observation against the French and Danish troops in Hamburg and Holstein, a role that put Clausewitz out of the primary theater of action, and of which he wrote Marie, “is not very welcome to me.”16
Clausewitz joined the Legion at Schwerin in early August, where Wallmoden was reviewing it. He and Wallmoden knew one another, having become acquainted in Kalisch in the spring of that year. “He received me in his usual way,” Clausewitz told Marie, “with neither honor nor repulse.” A few days later Wallmoden surprised him by naming him quartermaster general of, he told Marie, “his not inconsiderable army.” As Wallmoden’s quartermaster general, Clausewitz was the chief planning and administrative officer. He plotted the route of march, managed the supplies, organized the movements, and guided and advised in the deployment of troops for combat. A rough modern equivalent might be the executive officer of a command, with the responsibilities of the supply or logistics head included. His training, education, and experience had prepared him for this. “I’ve been up to my ears in papers,” he told Marie after taking up his new post, “because I’m still missing all of the assistants and overall the entire composition of the army is still very new.” He believed this was the most important job he had yet been given, though he would have been even happier if their army had had a more important mission.17
Wallmoden’s corps was a diverse bunch: Swedes, Mecklenburgers, Hanoverians, Hanseatic troops, the British King’s German Legion, Cossacks, British hussars, a half battery of British rocket troops, a Prussian Freikorp unit, and the Russo-German Legion. The Legion had six battalions of infantry, eight hussar squadrons, and two batteries of horse artillery of eight guns each. Wallmoden had 22,729 men, 18–20,000 fewer than his primary opponent, Davout. The Legion had an authorized complement of 10,000, but at the beginning of August it only had 6,000 men, and was still being built up to its authorized strength. A British officer who inspected the Legion in mid-August judged it well-turned out and well-led, especially considering the newness of the force.18 Serving alongside Clausewitz in the Legion’s key positions were a number of other Prussians who had left their homeland to enter Russian service in 1812, including Lt. Colonel Alexander Wilhelm von der Goltz and Major Friedrich zu Dohna, who led the cavalry. To call it the “Russo-German” Legion was a misnomer. Though originally raised by the Russians among former Germans, its recruitment practices did not remain limited. For example, a roster of the nationalities of the members of the Legion’s First Hussar Regiment included Germans from Prussia, Saxony, Hanover, and Bavaria, but it also included Poles, Russians, Danes, Dutch, Flemings, Swiss, and even a dozen Frenchmen among the unit’s ranks. An infantry unit added Italians and Spaniards to the national mix, and even a couple of Americans.19
As Clausewitz and Wallmoden prepared their men, Napoleon concentrated the bulk of his army in the area of Bautzen and Dresden, in the homeland of his Saxon ally. He planned to initially sit on the defensive, allowing the Allies to come to him, whereupon he would concentrate and force a battle, hoping to do this very early in the campaign. He again aimed to make north Germany the theater of decision by seizing Berlin (and dispatched a force under Oudinot to do this), destroying Bernadotte’s army, and then driving to Stettin on the Baltic coast. Oudinot would be supported by Davout’s advance toward Berlin from his Hamburg base, with some other units reinforcing him and forming the link between Oudinot and Davout.20
Napoleon changed his plan on August 13. He had 300,000 men at Dresden, and created the 120,000-man “Army of the Bober” to protect Oudinot’s right as the marshal marched against Berlin. Napoleon then moved the bulk of his forces in an effort to destroy Blücher’s Army of Silesia. Marshal Marmont warned his emperor that he had divided his forces too much and that this could rob him of the strength necessary to win a decisive battlefield victory over the Allies. Napoleon replied that he had taken everything into account and that “the rest depends upon Fortune.”21
The scale of warfare, however, had changed. Depending upon one battlefield victory—for either side—was not the sure route to success it had been even in 1809. The depths of the resources in manpower and equipment available to each side meant that tactical prowess, though indeed critical, was not the single key to success. Defeat in a single battle did not stand the same chance it once had of breaking the will of the opponent. Operational and strategic capability and execution mattered as well because even when one side won a battle, the enemy had armies in the field in other locations. Modern warfare had arrived.
Writing later, Clausewitz identified another problem facing Napoleon when the fighting began anew, one foreshadowing On War’s discussion of the “center of gravity” while also offering the Emperor an alternative approach. For Napoleon, there was “a lack of an object of strategic attack that would have had enough importance to decide the entire matter. No operation could be mounted to force any of the three Allies into a separate peace.” Clausewitz argued that “the only option remaining open to Bonaparte, like Fredrick the Great in the Seven Years War and everyone else in a similar situation, was to remain in between his enemies and to grind them down little by little with individual victories, to divide them, and to discourage them.” He believed Napoleon had to concentrate his main elements at Dresden because it gave him a strong position from which to strike at Brandenburg (which contained the Prussian capital of Berlin), Silesia, or even Austrian Bohemia.22
The French prong that Napoleon hoped to aim at Berlin faced Wallmoden and Clausewitz. The Crown Prince Bernadotte’s general instructions to Wallmoden were to stop Marshal Davout where possible, especially by trying to pin his forces in their garrisons in Hamburg and the Baltic coast city of Lübeck. When the war began, Wallmoden was to secure the route between the Trave, which emptied into the Baltic northeast of Lübeck, and the Elbe to the south. If Davout advanced, and they were too strong for Wallmoden, he was to retire without fighting. He should hold along the Stecknitz if they could, but if they had to fall back farther, General Vegesack’s divisions were to retreat along the coastline to Stralsund, which had a garrison of between 3,000 and 4,000 new English troops. If Wallmoden could not retreat there, he was to withdraw with the rest of his corps toward Berlin in order to protect the rear of the crown prince’s army. Acting as a corps of observation against Davout—basing initially in Hagenow (about fifty-five miles east of Hamburg)—was not something that either Clausewitz or Wallmoden relished.23 There was little fame or glory to be won here.
At an August 13 meeting with his Prussian subordinate commanders Bülow and Tauentzien, Bernadotte revealed his fear that his inexperienced army had to protect too much territory, while also facing dangers from Davout’s forces in Hamburg, the French garrison holding Stettin in his rear, and those at Wittenberg, Magdeburg, and Torgau. He did not think the other Allied commanders could be relied upon to help, and feared Napoleon aimed at him—a former French marshal—as well as Berlin. Bernadotte, instead of following the Trachenberg Plan, wanted to do what he thought best for himself, Sweden, and his Army of North Germany: nothing. If pressed, he planned to abandon the defensive lines south of Berlin—and even the capital itself—without a fight. His Prussian commanders rebelled—especially Bülow (the brother of the military theorist whom Clausewitz criticized in his first published work)—and Bernadotte bent to their suggestions to put one corps south of Berlin, and most of the army north and east of the capital while masking Magdeburg with 5,000 Landwehr and protecting nearby Genthin and Burg. In general, the Prussians distrusted Bernadotte and doubted his willingness to fight against his former homeland.24
Hostilities began anew on the night of August 16–17. Blücher inaugurated the Allies’ fall campaign. Basing in Silesia, he pushed westward with his force. Launching from Bohemia, Schwarzenberg advanced down the Elbe to Dresden, linking up with a Russian force. Bernadotte’s main army advanced south of Berlin from Brandenburg.25
Napoleon had the central position and set about implementing his plan. He sent Oudinot against Berlin and went after Blücher to try to destroy the Army of Silesia. Attacked by Napoleon’s forces on August 21, Blücher followed the Allied strategy and began to withdraw. Bülow, Bernadotte’s subordinate, defeated Oudinot at Grossbeeren on August 23; Oudinot began retreating. Then Napoleon received word of Schwarzenberg’s advance. He next turned west to stop Schwarzenberg, who was advancing on Dresden. He next sent a corps under Vandamme to try to hit the rear of Schwarzenberg’s army. Napoleon could have had Vandamme reinforce Dresden while he struck the Allied army with his main force, but did not.26
Dresden, Saxony’s capital, had 30,000 inhabitants, and straddled the Elbe. Napoleon used it as his base of operations in the region; it was part larder, part ammo dump, part hospital. When they reached the city, Allied hesitation about storming it gave Napoleon time to shift his forces and mount a savage attack against them on August 27. The Allies suffered 35,000 casualties. They withdrew from the wreckage of the battle during the night of the 27th into Bohemia along three routes, keeping Napoleon from landing the killing blow. Napoleon sent part of his forces after them, including a corps under Vandamme. The Allies saw a chance to redeem their situation and struck Vandamme at Kulm on August 29, destroying his corps.27
Napoleon now debated whether he should strike for Prague or Berlin. He chose the latter, which fit into his earlier Grand Plan. To Napoleon, Berlin still remained a decisive point. In reality, however, the Allied strength lay not in Berlin but in their armies—the biggest of which was Schwarzenberg’s. Napoleon struck northward with his full fury. He sent Ney to make the attempt on Berlin, giving him Oudinot’s old command, as well as objective, and decided to lead a supporting force himself against the Prussian capital.28
The Allied fortunes now changed quickly as Napoleon’s plan unraveled. After dispatching Ney against Berlin, Napoleon had to abandon his plans because he needed to join MacDonald to reorganize this defeated army, which Blücher had crushed on August 26 (the same day as Dresden) on the Katzbach River in the midst of a downpour and was now pursuing it. Napoleon intended to smash Blücher, and did press him, but Blücher realized what was going on and again retreated in line with the Trachenberg Plan. Ney—who never received the news that Napoleon was no longer coming to support him—was defeated by Prussian forces under Bülow and Tauentzien at Dennewitz on September 6. The battle could have been even more lopsided but for Bernadotte’s refusal to commit his Swedish battalions until after the contest had been decided. The defeat at Dennewitz sent ripples through Napoleon’s German allies. Bavaria defected, joining the Allies on October 8. Other German states would follow.29
Emboldened by their series of victories, the Allies outlined their political objectives with the September 7 Treaty of Teplitz. Prussia, Russia, and Austria decided to partition the Duchy of Warsaw, restore both Prussia and Austria to their pre-1805 standings, end the independence of the smaller German states between the Austrian and Prussian frontiers and the Rhine, and reestablish the pre-1803 realms of the continent’s northwest. Critically, they again agreed to make no separate peace with France.30
