La Bataille de Bautzen 1813

Wittgenstein at First Möckern on April 5. Wittgenstein had taken over for the gravely ill General Kutusov as the overall commander of the Coalition army. Kutusov died a few weeks later. The Coalition victory at Möckern proved that the Coalition was viable against the French army in Central Germany, triggering what would be called the German War of Liberation. But the French still had Napoleon; and he had the power to change the outcome in the region. Aggressively Moving The French Forward While Eugene was defending French interests in Central Germany, back in Paris, Napoleon had immediately set himself about rebuilding the French army in France (see article on The French 1813 Miracle of Restoring La Grande Armée ). In the course of the next few months, Napoleon was able to put a few hundred thousand new troops under arms and march them to meet Eugene and the remnants of what had been the Russian invasion force in Central Germany. Napoleon arrived in Erfurt on April 25 and took over command of all French forces in the area. He immediately went on the offensive by aggressively moving the French forward with all of his corps. He set a trap by pushing Ney’s corps out by itself to attract the Coalition attention. Wittgenstein fell for the trap and attacked near Lutzen, just south of Leipzig, on May 2. Ney was able to hold the Coalition attention on the French left, while Napoleon was able to pin the Coalition troops on his center and right. The Emperor, who was first an artilleryman, was able to establish a grand battery of roughly a 100 guns which was able to wreak havoc on the Coalition center and left. If Napoleon had had any substantial amounts of good quality cavalry, he would have been able to pursue the battered Coalition army. However, he didn’t; and Wittgenstein was able to exit without much difficulty. The weakness of the French (and known by Napoleon) was demonstrated in that almost everything went right in terms of their plan, but with almost no cavalry, and horrendous casualties suffered by Napoleon’s inexperienced and de-conditioned infantry, those factors

General Peter Wittgenstein

La Bataille de Bautzen 1813

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