Blücher (1857)

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Like the previous one, the article “Blücher” was the result of Marx’s and Engels’ joint work, as is seen in particular from Marx’s letters to Engels of September 17 and 21, and Engels’ letters to Marx of September 18, 21 and 22, 1857.

The bulk of the biographical material on Blücher was obtained by Marx.

Extant are his excerpts from The English Cyclopaedia (Vol. V, London, 1856), Meyer’s Conversations-Lexicon (Vol. 4, 1845) and Biographie universelle (Michaud) ancienne et moderne (Vol. 4, Paris, 1854), and from several works, in particular “Der Feldzug von 1813 bis zum Waffenstillstand und der Feldzug von 1814 in Frankreich” (in Hinterlassene Werke des Generals Carl von Clausewitz über Krieg und Kriegführung (vols. 7-8, Berlin, 1835-36) and Fr. Müffling’s Passages from My Life: Together with Memoirs of the Campaign of 1813 and 1814 (London, 1853). Marx also did the final editing and polishing up of the text. Marx included in the respective passages extracts from Engels’ letter of September 22, 1857 describing Blücher as a military leader and evaluating his activities in the major campaigns. This description, supplemented by factual material collected by Marx, forms the core of the article. Engels’ participation in the work on the article is also proved by the inclusion of his extracts from the above-mentioned book by Muffling, which was Marx’s main source. Marx’s notebook has the following crossed-out entry concerning the dispatch of the article to New York on October 30, 1857: “Blücher (8 1% columns Cyclopaedia) (Campaigns of 1813 and 1814).” Marx informed Engels of the dispatch of the article to Dana in his letter of October 31, 1857 (see present edition, Vol. 40). p. 172

Blücher, Gebhard Leberecht von, prince of Wahlstadt, Prussian field-marshal, born Dec. 16, 1742, at Rostock, in MecklenburgSchwerin, died at Krieblowitz, in Silesia, Sept. 12, 1819. He was sent in 1754, while a boy, to the island of Rügen, and there secretly enlisted in a regiment of Swedish hussars as ensign, to serve against Frederick II of Prussia. Made prisoner in the campaign of 1758, he was, after a year’s captivity, and after he had obtained his dismissal from the Swedish service, prevailed upon to enter the Prussian army. March 3, 1771, he was appointed senior captain of cavalry. In 1778, Capt. von Jägersfeld, a natural son of the margrave of Schwedt, being appointed in his stead to the vacant post of major, he wrote to Frederick II:

“Sire, Jägersfeld, who possesses no merit but that of being the son of the margrave of Schwedt, has been preferred to me. I beg your majesty to grant my dismissal.”

In reply Frederick II ordered him to be shut up in prison, but when, notwithstanding a somewhat protracted confinement, he refused to retract his letter, the king complied with his petition in a note to this effect: “Capt. von Blücher may go to the devil.” He now retired to Polish Silesia, married soon after, became a farmer, acquired a small estate in Pomerania, and, after the death of Frederick II, reentered his former regiment as major, on the express condition of his appointment being dated back to 1779. Some months later his wife died. Having participated in the bloodless invasion of Holland, he was appointed lieutenant colonel, June 3, 1788. Aug. 20, 1790, he became colonel and commander of the 1st battalion of the regiment of hussars he had entered in 1760.

In 1794 he distinguished himself during the campaign in the Palatinate against republican France as a leader of the light cavalry. Being promoted, May 28, 1794, after the victorious affair of Kirrweiler, to the rank of major-general, the actions of Luxemburg, Kaiserslautern, Morschheim, Weidenthal, Edesheim, Edenkoben, secured him a rising reputation. While incessantly alarming the French by bold coups de main and successful enterprises, he never neglected keeping the head-quarters supplied with the best information as to the hostile movements. His diary, written during this campaign, and published in 1796, by Count Goltz, his adjutant, is considered, despite its illiterate style, as a classical work on vanguard service.

After the peace of Basel he married again. Frederick William III, on his accession to the throne, appointed him lieutenant-general, in which quality he occupied, and administered as governor, Erfurt, Mühlhausen, and Münster. In 1805 a small corps was collected under him at Bayreuth to watch the immediate consequences for Prussia of the battle of Austerlitz, viz., the occupation of the principality of Anspach by Bernadotte’s corps.

In 1806 he led the Prussian vanguard at the battle of Auerstädt. His charge was, however, broken by the terrible fire of Davout’s artillery, and his proposal to renew it with fresh forces and the whole of the cavalry, was rejected by the king of Prussia. After the double defeat at Auerstädt and Jena, he retired down the Elbe, while Napoleon drove the main body of the Prussian army in one wild chase from Jena to Stettin. On his retrograde movement, Blücher took up the remnants of different corps, which swelled his army to about 25,000 men. His retreat to Lübeck, before the united forces of Soult, Bernadotte, and Murat, forms one of the few honorable episodes in that epoch of German degradation. Since Lübeck was a neutral territory, his making the streets of that open town the theatre of a desperate fight, which exposed it to a 3 days’ sack on the part of the French soldiery, afforded the subject of passionate censure; but under existing circumstances the important thing was to give the German people one example, at least, of stanch resistance. Thrown out of Lübeck, he had to capitulate in the plain of Ratekau, Nov. 7, 1806, on the express condition that the cause of his surrender should be stated in writing to be “want of ammunition and provisions. Liberated on his word of honor, he repaired to Hamburg, there, in company with his sons, to kill time by card-playing, smoking, and drinking. Being exchanged for Gen. Victor, he was appointed governorgeneral of Pomerania; but one of the secret articles of the alliance concluded, Feb. 24, 1812, by Prussia with Napoleon, stipulated for Blücher’s discharge from service, like that of Scharnhorst, and other distinguished Prussian patriots. To soothe this official disgrace, the king secretly bestowed upon him the handsome estate of Kunzendorf, in Silesia.

During the years that marked the period of transition between the peace of Tilsit and the German war of independence, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, the chiefs of the Tugendbund, desiring to extemporize a popular hero, chose Blücher. In propagating his fame among the masses, they succeeded so well, that when Frederick William III called the Prussians to arms by the proclamation of March 17, 1813, they were strong enough to impose him upon the king as the general-in-chief of the Prussian army. In the well-contested, but for the allies unfortunate, battles of Lützen and Bautzen, he acted under the command of Wittgenstein. During the retreat of the allied armies from Bautzen to Schweidnitz, he lay in ambush at Havnau, from which he fell, ‘ with his cavalry, on the French advanced guard under Maison, who, in this affair, lost 1,500 men and 11 guns. Through this surprise Blücher raised the spirit of the Prussian army, and made Napoleon very cagtt.ious in pursuit.

Blücher’s command of an independent army dates from the expiration of the truce of Trachenberg, Aug. 10, 1813. The allied sovereigns had then divided their forces into 3 armies: the army of the north under Bernadotte, stationed along the lower Elbe; the grand army advancing through Bohemia, and the Silesian army, with Blücher as its commander-in-chief, supported by Gneisenau as the chief of his staff, and Muffling as his quartermaster-general. These. 2 men, attached to him in the same quality until the peace of 1815, supplied all his strategetical plans. Blücher himself, as Muffling says,

“understood nothing of the strategetical conduct of a war; so little indeed, that when a plan was laid before him for approval, even relating to some unimportant operation, he could not form anv clear idea of it, or judge whether it was good or bad."

Like many of Napoleon’s marshals, he was unable to read the maps. The Silesian army was composed of 3 corps d’armée: 40,000 Russians, under Count Langeron; 16,000 men under Baron von Sacken; and a Prussian corps of 40,000 men under Gen. York. Blücher’s position was extremely difficult at the head of this heterogeneous army. Langeron, who had already held independent commands, and demurred to serving under a foreign general, was, moreover, aware that Blücher had received secret orders to limit himself to the defensive, but was altogether ignorant that the latter, in an interview, on Aug. 11, with Barclay de Tolly, at Reichenbach, had extorted the permission to act according to circumstances. Hence Langeron thought himself justified in disobeying orders, whenever the general-in-chief seemed to him to swerve from the preconcerted plan, and in this mutinous conduct he was strongly supported by Gen. York.

The danger arising from this state of things became more and more threatening, when the battle on the Katzbach secured Blücher that hold on his army which guided it to the gates of Paris. Marshal Macdonald, charged by Napoleon to drive the Silesian army back into the interior of Silesia, began tho battle by attacking, Aug. 26, Blücher’s outposts, stationed from Prausnitz to Kraitsch, where the Neisse flows into the Katzbach. The so-called battle on the Katzbach consisted, in fact, of 4 different actions, the first of which, the dislodging by a bayonet attack from a plateau behind a ridge on the right bank of the Neisse of about 8 French battalions, which constituted hardly one-tenth of the hostile force, led to results quite out of proportion to its original importance, in consequence of the fugitives from the plateau not being collected at Niedercrayn, and left behind the Katzbach at Kraitsch, in which case their flight would have had no influence whatever on the rest of the French army; in consequence of different defeats inflicted at nightfall upon the enemy by Sacken’s and Langeron’s corps stationed on the left bank of the Neisse; in consequence of Marshal Macdonald, who commanded in person on the left bank, and had defended himself weakly till 7 o’clock in the evening against Langeron’s attack, marching his troops at once after sunset to Goldberg, in such a state of exhaustion that they could no longer fight, and must fall into the enemy’s hand; and, lastly, in consequence of the state of the season, violent rains swelling the otherwise insignificant streams the fugitive French had to traverse—the Neisse, the Katzbach, the Deichsel, and the Bober— to rapid torrents, and making the roads almost impracticable. Thus it occurred, that with the aid of the country militia in the mountains on the left flank of the Silesian army, the battle on the Katzbach, insignificant in itself, resulted in the capture of 18,000 to 20,000 prisoners, above 200 pieces of artillery, and more than 300 ammunition, hospital, and baggage wagons, with baggage, &. After the battle Blücher did every thing to instigate his forces to exert their utmost strength in the pursuit of the enemy, justly representing to them that “with some bodily exertion they might spare a new battle.”

Sept. 3, he crossed the Neisse, with his army, and on the 4th proceeded by Bischofswerda to concentrate at Bautzen. By this move he saved the grand army, which, routed at Dresden, Aug. 27, and forced to retreat behind the Erzgebirge, was now disengaged,

Napoleon being compelled to advance with reenforcements toward Bautzen, there to take up the army defeated on the Katzbach, and to offer battle to the Silesian army. During his stay in the S. E. corner of Saxony, on the right bank of the Elbe, Blücher, by a series of retreats and advances, always shunned battle when offered by Napoleon, but always engaged when encountering single detachments of the French army. Sept. 22, 23, and 24, he executed a flank march on the right of the enemy, advancing by forced marches to the lower Elbe, in the vicinity of the army of the north. Oct. 2, he bridged the Elbe at Elster with pontoons, and on the morning of the 3d his army defiled. This movement, not only bold, but even hazardous, inasmuch as he completely abandoned his lines of communication, was necessitated by supreme political reasons, and led finally to the battle of Leipsic, which, but for Blücher, the slow and overcautious grand army would never have risked.

The army of the north, of which Bernadotte was the commander-in-chief, was about 90,000 strong, and it was, consequently, of the utmost importance that it should advance on Saxony. By means of the close connection which he maintained with Bülow and Wintzingerode, the commanders of the Prussian and Russian corps forming part of the army of the north, Blücher obtained the most convincing proofs of Bernadotte’s coquetry with the French, and of the impossibility of inciting him to any activity, so long as he remained alone on a separate theatre of war. Bülow and Wintzingerode declared themselves ready to act in spite of Bernadotte, but to do so they wanted the support of 100,000 men.

Hence Blücher’s resolution to venture upon his flank march, in which he persisted despite the orders he had received from the sovereigns to draw near to them on the left, toward Bohemia. He was not to be diverted from his purpose through the obstacles which Bernadotte systematically threw in his way, even after the crossing of the Elbe by the Silesian army. Before leaving Bautzen, he had despatched a confidential officer to Bernadotte, to inform him that, since the army of the north was too weak to operate alone on the left bank of the Elbe, he would come with the Silesian army, and cross at Elster on Oct. 3; he therefore invited him to cross the Elbe at the same time, and to advance with him toward Leipsic. Bernadotte not heeding this message, and the enemy occupying Wartenburg opposite Elster, Blücher first dislodged the latter, and then, to protect himself in case Napoleon should fall upon him with his whole strength, began establishing an intrenched encampment from Wartenburg to Bleddin. Thence he pushed forward toward the Mulde.

Oct. 7, in an interview with Bernadotte, it was arranged that both armies should march upon Leipsic. On the 9th, while the Silesian army was preparing for this march, Bernadotte, on the news of Napoleon’s advance on the road from Meissen, insisted upon retreating behind the Elbe, and only consented to remain on its left bank on condition that Blücher would resolve to cross the Saale in concert with him, in order to take up a position behind that river. Although by this movement the Silesian army lost anew its line of communication, Blücher consented, since otherwise the army of the north would have been effectually lost for the allies. Oct. 10, the whole Silesian army stood united with the army of the north on the left bank of the Mulde, the bridges over which were destroyed. Bernadotte now declared a retreat upon Bernburg to have become necessary, and Blücher, with the single view of preventing him from crossing [to] the right bank of the Elbe, yielded again on the condition that Bernadotte should cross the Saale at Wettin and take up a position there. Oct. 11, when his columns were just crossing the high road from Magdeburg to Halle, Blücher being informed that, in spite of his positive promise, Bernadotte had constructed no bridge at Wettin, resolved upon following that high road in forced marches.

Napoleon, seeing that the northern and Silesian armies avoided accepting battle, which he had offered them by concentrating at Duben, and knowing that they could not avoid it without retreating across the Elbe; being at the same time aware that he had but 4 days left before he must meet the grand army, and thus be placed between two fires, undertook a march on the right bank of the Elbe toward Wittenberg, in order by this simulated movement to draw the northern and Silesian armies across the Elbe, and then strike a rapid blow on the grand army. Bernadotte, indeed, anxious for his lines of communication with Sweden, gave his army orders to cross without delay to the right bank of the Elbe, by a bridge constructed at Aken, while, on the same day, Oct. 13, he informed Blücher that the emperor Alexander had, for certain important reasons, put him (Blücher) under his orders. He consequently requested him to follow his movements on the right bank of the Elbe with the Silesian army, with the least possible delay. Had Blücher shown less resolution on this occasion and followed the army of the north, the campaign would have been lost, since the Silesian and northern armies, amounting together to about 200,000 men, would not have been present at the battle of Leipsic. He wrote in reply to Bernadotte, that, according to all his information, Napoleon had no intention whatever of removing the theatre of war to the right bank of the Elbe, but only intended to lead them astray. At the same time he conjured Bernadotte to give up his intended movement across the Elbe. Having, meanwhile, again and again solicited the grand army to push forward upon Leipsic, and offered to meet them there, he received at last, Oct. 15, the long-expected invitation. He immediately advanced toward Leipsic, while Bernadotte retreated toward Petersberg. On his march from Halle to Leipsic on Oct. 16, he routed at Möckern the 6th corps of the French army under Marmont, in a hotly contested battle, in which he captured 54 pieces of artillery. Without delay he sent accounts of the issue of this battle to Bernadotte, who was not present on the 1st day of the battle of Leipsic. On its 2d day, Oct. 17, Blücher dislodged the enemy from the right bank of the Parthe, with the exception of some houses and intrenchments near the Halle gate. On the 18th, at daybreak, he had a conference at Breitenfeld with Bernadotte, who declared he could not attack on the left bank of the Parthe unless Blücher gave him for that day 30,000 men of the Silesian army. Keeping the interest of the whole exclusively in view, Blücher consented without hesitation, but on the condition of remaining himself with these 30,000 men, and thus securing their vigorous cooperation in the attack.

After the final victory of Oct. 19, and during the whole of Napoleon’s retreat from Leipsic to the Rhine, Blücher alone gave him an earnest pursuit. While, on Oct. 19, the generals in command met the sovereigns in the market-place of Leipsic, and precious time was spent in mutual compliments, his Silesian army was already marching in pursuit of the enemy to Lützen. On his march from Lützen to Weissenfels, Prince William of Prussia overtook him, to deliver to him the commission of a Prussian field-marshal. The allied sovereigns had allowed Napoleon to gain a start which could never be recovered, but from Eisenach onward, Blücher found himself every afternoon in the room which Napoleon had left in the morning. When about to march upon Cologne, there to cross the Rhine, he was recalled and ordered to blockade Mentz on its left bank; his rapid pursuit as far as the Rhine having broken up the confederation of the Rhine,2M) and disengaged its troops from the French divisions in which they were still enrolled. While the head-quarters of the Silesian army was established at Höchst, the grand army marched up the upper Rhine. Thus ended the campaign of 1813, whose success was entirely due to Blücher’s bold enterprise and iron energy.

The allies were divided as to the plan of operations now to be followed; the one party proposing to stay on the Rhine, and there to take up a defensive position; the other to cross the Rhine and march upon Paris. After much wavering on the part of the sovereigns, Blücher and his friends prevailed, and the resolution was adopted to advance upon Paris in a concentric movement, the grand army being to start from Switzerland, Bülow from Holland, and Blücher, with the Silesian army, from the middle Rhine. For the new campaign, 3 additional Corps were made over to Blücher, viz., Kleist’s, the elector of Hesse’s, and the duke of Saxe-Coburg’s. Leaving part of Langeron’s corps to invest Mentz, and the new reenforcements to follow as a second division, Blücher crossed the Rhine Jan. 1, 1814, on 3 points, at Mannheim, Caub and Coblentz, drove Marmont beyond the Vosges and the Saar, in the valley of the Moselle, posted York’s corps between the fortresses of the Moselle, and with a force of 28,000 men, consisting of Sacken’s corps and a division of Langeron’s corps, proceeded by Vaucouleurs and Joinville to Brienne, in order to effect his junction with the grand army by his left. At Brienne, Jan. 29, he was attacked by Napoleon, whose forces mustered about 40,000, while York’s corps was still detached from the Silesian army, and the grand army, 110,000 strong, had only reached Chaumont. Blücher had consequently to face the greatly superior forces of Napoleon, but the latter neither attacked him with his usual vigor, nor hindered his retreat to Trannes, save by some cavalry skirmishes. Having taken possession of Brienne, placed part of his troops in its vicinity, and occupied Dienville, La Rothière, and Chammenil, with 3 different corps, Napoleon would, on Jan. 30, have been able to fall upon Blücher with superior numbers, as the latter was still awaiting his reenforcements. Napoleon, however, kept up a passive attitude, while the grand army was concentrating by Bar-sur-Aube, and detachments of it were strengthening Blücher’s left flank. The emperor’s inactivity is explained by the hopes from the negotiations of the peace congress of Châtillon, which he had contrived to start, and through the means of which he expected to gain time.

In fact, after the junction of the Silesian army with the grand army had been effected, the diplomatic party insisted that during the deliberations of the peace congress the war should be carried on as a feint only. Prince Schwarzenberg sent an officer to Blücher to procure his acquiescence, but Blücher dismissed him with this answer:

“We must go to Paris. Napoleon has paid his visits to all the capitals of Europe; should we be less polite? In short, he must descend from the throne [...] and [...] until he is hurled from it we shall have no rest.”

He urged the great advantages of the allies attacking Napoleon near Brienne, before he could bring up the remainder of his troops, and offered himself to make the attack, if he were only strengthened in York’s absence. The consideration that the army could not subsist in the barren valley of the Aube, and must retreat if it did not attack, caused his advice to prevail. The battle was decided upon, but Prince Schwarzenberg, instead of bearing upon the enemy with the united force at hand, only lent Blücher the corps of the crown prince of Württemberg (40,000 men), that of Gyulay (12,000), and that of Wrede (12,000). Napoleon, on his part, neither knew nor suspected any thing of the arrival of the grand army. When about 1 o’clock, Feb. 1, it was announced to him that Blücher was advancing, he would not believe it. Having made sure of the fact, he mounted his horse with the idea of avoiding the battle, and gave Berthier orders to this effect. When, however, between old Brienne and Rothière, he reached the young guard, who had got under arms on hearing the approaching cannonade, he was received with such enthusiasm that he thought fit to improve the opportunity, and exclaimed, “L’artillerie en avant, Thus, about 4 o’clock, the affair of La Rothière commenced in earnest. At the first reverse, however, Napoleon no longer took any personal part in the battle. His infantry having thrown itself into the village of La Rothière, the combat was long and obstinate, and Blücher was even obliged to bring up his reserve. The French were not dislodged from the village till 11 o’clock at night, when Napoleon ordered the retreat of his army, which had lost 4,000 or 5,000 men in killed and wounded, 2,500 prisoners, and 53 cannon. If the allies, who were then only 6 days’ march from Paris, had vigorously pushed on, Napoleon must have succumbed before their immensely superior numbers; but the sovereigns, still apprehensive of cutting Napoleon off from making his peace at the congress of Châtillon, allowed Prince Schwarzenberg, the commander-in-chief of the grand army, to seize upon every pretext for shunning a decisive action.

While Napoleon ordered Marmont to return on the right bank of the Aube toward Ramerupt, and himself retired by a flank march upon Troyes, the allied army split into 2 armies, the grand army advancing slowly upon Troyes, and the Silesian army marching to the Marne, where Blücher knew he would find York, beside part of Langeron’s and Kleist’s corps, so that his aggregate forces would be swelled to about 50,000 men. The plan was for him to pursue Marshal Macdonald, who had meanwhile appeared on the lower Marne, to Paris, while Schwarzenberg was to keep in check the French main army on the Seine. Napoleon, however, seeing that the allies did not know how to use their victory, and sure of returning to the Seine before the grand army could have advanced far in the direction of Paris, resolved to fall upon the weaker Silesian army. Consequently, he left 20,000 men under Victor and Oudinot in face of the 100,000 men of the grand army, advanced with 40,000 men, the corps of Mortier and Ney, in the direction of the Marne, took up Marmont’s corps at Nogent, and on Feb. 9 arrived with these united forces at Sezanne. Meanwhile Blücher had proceeded by St. Ouen and Sommepuis on the little road leading to Paris, and established, Feb. 9, his head-quarters at the little town of Vertus. The disposition of his forces was this: about 10,000 men at his head-quarters; 18,000, under York, posted between Dormans and Château Thierry, in pursuit of Macdonald, who was already on the great post road leading to Paris from Epernay; 30,000 under Sacken, between Montmirail and La Ferté-Sous-Jouarre, destined to prevent the intended junction of Sébastiani’s cavalry with Macdonald, and to cut off the passage of the latter at La Ferté-Sous-Jouarre; the Russian general, Olsuvieff, cantoned with 5,000 men at Champaubert. This faulty distribution, by which the Silesian army was drawn up in a very extended position, en echelon, resulted from the contradictory motives which actuated Blücher. On the one hand, he desired to cut off Macdonald, and prevent his junction with Sébastiani’s cavalry; on the other hand, to take up the corps of Kleist and Kapzewitch, who were advancing from Chalons, and expected to unite with him on the 9th and 10th. The one motive kept him back, the other pushed him on.

Feb. 9, Napoleon fell upon Olsuvieff, at Champaubert, and routed him. Blücher, with Kleist and Kapzewitch, who had meanwhile arrived, but without the greater part of their cavalry, advanced against Marmont, despatched by Napoleon, and followed him in his retreat upon La Fère Champenoise, but on the news of Olsuvieff’s discomfiture, returned in the same night, with his 2 corps, to Bergères, there to cover the road to Chalons. After a successful combat on the 10th, Sacken had driven Macdonald across the Marne at Trilport, but hearing on the night of the same day of Napoleon’s march to Champaubert, hastened back on the 11th toward Montmirail. Before reaching it he was, at Vieux Maisons, obliged to form against the emperor, coming from Montmirail to meet him. Beaten with great loss before York could unite with him, the two generals effected their junction at Viffort, and retreated, Feb. 12, to Château Thierry, where York had to stand a very damaging rear-guard engagement, and withdrew thence to Oulchy-la-Ville. Having ordered Mortier to pursue York and Sacken on the road of Fismes, Napoleon remained on the 13th at Château Thierry. Uncertain as to the whereabout of York and Sacken and the success of their engagements, Blücher had, from Bergères, during the 11th and 12th, quietly watched Marmont posted opposite him at Etoges. When informed, on the 13th, of the defeat of his generals, and supposing Napoleon to have moved off in search of the grand army, he gave way to the temptation of striking a parting blow upon Marmont, whom he considered Napoleon’s rear-guard. Advancing on Champaubert, he pushed Marmont to Montmirail, where the latter was joined on the 14th by Napoleon, who now turned against Blücher, met him at noon at Veauchamps, 20,000 strong, but almost without cavalry, attacked him, turned his columns with cavalry, and threw him back with great loss on Champaubert. During its retreat from the latter place, the Silesian army might have reached Etoges before it grew dark, without any considerable loss, if Blücher had not taken pleasure in the deliberate slowness of the retrograde movement. Thus he was attacked during the whole of his march, and one detachment of his forces, the division of Prince Augustus of Preussen, was again beset from the side streets of Etoges, on its passage through that town. About midnight Blücher reached his camp at Bergères, broke up, after some hours’ rest, for Chalons, arrived -there about noon, Feb. 15, and was joined by York’s and Sacken’s forces on the 16th and 17th. The different affairs at Champaubert, Montmirail, Château Thierry, Veauchamps, and Etoges, had cost him 15,000 men and 27 guns; Gneisenau and Muffling being alone responsible for the strategetical faults which led to these disasters.

Leaving Marmont and Mortier to front Blücher, Napoleon, with Ney, returned in forced marches to the Seine, where Schwarzenberg had driven back Victor and Oudinot, who had retreated across the Yères, and there taken up 12,000 men under Macdonald, and some reenforcements from Spain. On the 16th they were surprised by the sudden arrival of Napoleon, followed on the 17th by his troops. After his junction with the marshals he hastened against Schwarzenberg, whom he found posted in an extended triangle, having for its summits Nogent, Montereau, and Sens. The generals under his command, Wittgenstein, Wrede, and the crown prince of Württemberg, being successively attacked and routed by Napoleon, Prince Schwarzenberg took to his heels, retreated toward Troyes, and sent word to Blücher to join him, so that they might in concert give battle on the Seine. Blücher, meanwhile, strengthened by new reenforcements, immediately followed this call, and entered Méry Feb. 21, and waited there the whole of the 22d for the dispositions of the promised battle. He learned in the evening that an application for a truce had been made to Napoleon, through. Prince Liechtenstein, who had met with a flat refusal. Instantly despatching a confidential officer to Troyes, he conjured Prince Schwarzenberg to give battle, and even offered to give it alone, if the grand army would only form a reserve; but Schwarzenberg, still more frightened by the news that Augereau had driven Gen. Bubna back into Switzerland, had already ordered the retreat upon Langres. Blücher understood at once that a retreat upon Langres would lead to a retreat beyond the Rhine; and, in order to draw Napoleon off from the pursuit of the dispirited grand army, resolved upon again marching straight in the direction of Paris, toward the Marne, where he could now expect to assemble an army of 100,000 men, Wintzingerode haying .arrived with about 25,000 men in the vicinity of Rheims, Bülow at Laon with 16,000 men, the remainder of Kleist’s corps being expected from Erfurt, and the rest of Langeron’s corps, under St. Priest, from Mentz.

It was this second separation on the part of Blücher from the grand army, that turned the scale against Napoleon. If the latter had followed the retreating grand army instead of the advancing Silesian one, the campaign would have been lost for the allies. The passage of the Aube before Napoleon had followed him, the only difficult point in Bliicher’s advance, he effected by constructing a pontoon bridge at Anglure on Feb. 24. Napoleon, commanding Oudinot and Macdonald, with about 25,000 men, to follow the grand army, left Herbisse on the 26th, together with Ney and Victor, in pursuit of the Silesian army. On the advice sent by Blücher, that the grand army had now but the 2 marshals before it, Schwarzenberg stopped his retreat, took heart, turned round upon Oudinot and Macdonald, and beat them on the 27th and 28th. It was Blücher’s intention to concentrate his army at some point as near as possible to Paris. Marmont, with his troops, was still posted at Sezanne, while Mortier was at Château Thierry. On Blücher’s advance, Marmont retreated, united on the 26th with Mortier at La Ferté-Sous-Jouarre, thence to retire with the latter upon Meaux. Blücher’s attempt, during 2 days, to cross the Ourcq, and, with a strongly advanced front, to force the 2 marshals to battle, having failed, he was now obliged to march on the right bank of the Ourcq. He reached Oulchy-le-Château March 2, learned in the morning of the 3d [about] the capitulation of Soissons, which had been effected by Bülow and Wintzingerode, and, in the course of the same day, crossed the Aisne, and concentrated his whole army at Soissons.

Napoleon, who had crossed the Marne at La Ferté-Sous-Jouarre, 2 forced marches behind Blücher, advanced in the direction of Château Thierry and Fismes, and, having passed the Vesle, crossed the Aisne at Berry-au-Bac, March 6, after the recapture of Rheims by a detachment of his army. Blücher originally intended to offer battle behind the Aisne, on Napoleon’s passage of that river, and had drawn up his troops for that purpose. When he became aware that Napoleon took the direction of Fismes and Berry-au-Bac, in order to pass the Silesian army by the left, he decided upon attacking him from Craonne on the flank, in an oblique position, immediately after his debouching from Berry-au-Bac, so that Napoleon would have been forced to give battle with a defile in his rear. Having already posted his forces, with the right wing on the Aisne, with the left on the Lette, half way from Soissons to Craonne, he resigned this excellent plan on making sure that Napoleon had, on the 6th, been allowed by Wintzingerode to pass Berry-au-Bac unmolested, and had even pushed a detachment on the road to Laon. He now thought it necessary to accept no decisive battle except at Laon.

To delay Napoleon, who, by Corbeny, on the causeway from Rheims, could reach Laon as soon as the Silesian army from Craonne, Blücher posted the corps of Woronzoff between the Aisne and the Lette, on the strong plateau of Craonne, while he despatched 10,000 horse under Wintzingerode, to push on by Fetieux toward Corbeny, with the order to fall upon the right flank and rear of Napoleon, as soon as the latter should be engaged in attacking Woronzoff. Wintzingerode failing to execute the manoeuvre intrusted to him, Napoleon drove Woronzoff from the plateau on the 7th, but himself lost 8,000 men, while Woronzoff escaped with the loss of 4,700, and proved able to effect his retreat in good order. On the 8th, Blücher had concentrated his troops at Laon, where the battle must decide the fate of both armies. Apart from his numerical superiority, the vast plain before Laon was peculiarly adapted for deploying the 20,000 horse of the Silesian army, while Laon itself, situated on the plateau of a detached hill, which has on every side a fall of 12, 16, 20 to 30 degrees, and at the foot of which lie 4 villages, offered great advantages for the defence as well as the attack. On that day, the left French wing, led by Napoleon himself, was repulsed, while the right wing, under Marmont, surprised in its bivouacs at nightfall, was so completely worsted, that the marshal could not bring his troops to a halt before reaching Fismes. Napoleon, completely isolated with his wing, numbering 35,000 men only, and cooped up in a bad position, must have yielded before far superior numbers flushed with victory. Yet on the following morning, a fever attack and an inflammation of the eyes disabled Blücher, while Napoleon yet remained in a provocatory attitude, in the same position, which so far intimidated the men who now directed the operations, that they not only stopped the advance of their own troops which had already begun, but allowed Napoleon to quietly retire at nightfall to Soissons.

Still the battle of Laon had broken his forces, physically and morally. He tried in vain by the sudden capture, on March 13, of Rheims, which had fallen into the hands of St. Priest, to restore himself. So fully was his situation now understood, that when he advanced, on the 17th and 18th, on Arcis-sur-Aube, against the grand army, Schwarzenberg himself, although but 80,000 strong against the 25,000 under Napoleon, dared to stand and accept a battle, which lasted through the 20th and 21st. When Napoleon broke it off, the grand army followed him up to Vitry, and united in his rear with the Silesian army. In his despair, Napoleon took a last refuge in a retreat upon St. Dizier, pretending thus to endanger, with his handful of men, the enormous army of the allies, by cutting off its main line of communication and retreat between Langres and Chaumont; a movement replied to on the part of the allies by their onward march to Paris. On March 30 took place the battle before Paris, in which the Silesian army stormed Montmartre. Though Blücher had not recovered since the battle of Laon, he still appeared at the battle for a short time, on horseback, with a shade over his eyes, but, after the capitulation of Paris, laid down his command, the pretext being his sickness, and the real cause the clashing of his open-mouthed hatred against the French with the diplomatic attitude which the allied sovereigns thought fit to exhibit. Thus he entered Paris, March 31, in the capacity of a private individual. During the whole campaign of 1814, he alone among the allied army represented the principle of the offensive. By the battle of La Rothière he baffled the Chatillon pacificators; by his resolution at Méry he saved the allies from a ruinous retreat; and by the battle of Laon he decided the first capitulation of Paris.

After the first peace of Paris he accompanied the emperor Alexander and King Frederic William of Prussia on their visit to England, where he was feted as the hero of the day. All the military orders of Europe were showered upon him: the king of Prussia created for him the order of the iron cross; the prince regent of England gave him his portrait, and the university of Oxford the academical degree of LL. D.

In 1815 he again decided the final campaign against Napoleon. After the disastrous battle of Ligny, June 16, though now 73 years of age, he prevailed upon his routed army to form anew and march on the heels of their victor, so as to be able to appear in the evening of June 18 on the battle field of Waterloo, an exploit unprecedented in the history of war. His pursuit, after the battle of Waterloo, of the French fugitives, from Waterloo to Paris, possesses one parallel only, in Napoleon’s equally remarkable pursuit of the Prussians from Jena to Stettin. He now entered Paris at the head of his army, and even had Muffling, his quartermaster-general, installed as the military governor-general of Paris. He insisted upon Napoleon’s being shot, the bridge of Jena blown up, and the restitution to their original owners of the treasures plundered by the French in the different capitals of Europe. His first wish was baffled by Wellington, and the second by the allied sovereigns, while the last was realized. He remained at Paris 3 months, very frequently attending the gambling tables for rouge-et-noir.

On the anniversary of the battle on the Katzbach, he paid a visit to Rostock, his native place, where the inhabitants united to raise a public monument in his honor. On the occurrence of his death the whole Prussian army went into mourning for 8 days.

Le vieux diable as he was nicknamed by Napoleon, “Marshal Forwards,” as he was styled by the Russians of the Silesian army, was essentially a general of cavalry. In this speciality he excelled, because it required tactical acquirements only, but no strategetical knowledge. Participating to the highest degree in the popular hatred against Napoleon and the French, he was popular with the multitude for his plebeian passions, his gross common sense, the vulgarity of his manners, and the coarseness of his speech, to which, however, he knew, on fit occasions, how to impart a touch of fiery eloquence. He was the model of a soldier. Setting an example as the bravest in battle and the most indefatigable in exertion; exercising a fascinating influence on the common soldier; joining to his rash bravery a sagacious appreciation of the ground, a quick resolution in difficult situations, stubbornness in defence equal to his energy in the attack, with sufficient intelligence to find for himself the right course in simpler combinations, and to rely upon Gneisenau in those which were more intricate, he was the true general for the military operations of 1813-’15, which bore the character half of regular and half of insurrectionary warfare.