La Bataille de Berlin 1813

emperor and his staff (Radetzsky) pushed for Prince Schwarzenberg, who had commanded the Austrian contingent in the French invasion of Russia in 1812. Schwarzenberg’s diplomatic tenor would prevail and he would guide the Coalition for the next year.

Charles John would be named commander of the Coalition Army of the North, and the Swedes got the rest of what they wanted so they stayed in the Coalition.

Radetzky at Leipzig 1813

The debate over who would actually lead the Coalition armies took up much of the conference time. Once that was resolved with the Austrians leading the Coalition overall, and their choice of Schwarzenberg as the leader of the Army of Bohemia, the discussion of strategies could then take place. Ironically, it would be military heroes from the French Revolution who would determine how Napoleon could be beaten. The Tsar had brought back the former French Revolutionary Military hero General Jean Moreau from his exile in America. Moreau was in active communication with Swedish Crown Prince Charles John (Bernadotte), a former Napoleonic Marshal. Both Bernadotte and Moreau, along with the Swiss staff officer Baron Antoine-Henry Jomini, who had defected from the French side after Bautzen, had strongly counseled that direct battle with Napoleon should be avoided. Jomini had his own revolutionary background. All of them would lobby the Austrian chief of staff Radetzky that that should be the Coalition position moving forward.

Radetzky and the former French soldiers were further convinced of their position by the general lack of success by Napoleonic subordinates in both Russia in 1812 and in Spain

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