Leipzig 1813

Bertrand--The First & Final Bonapartist

The strategic position of the French on the morning of October 16, 1813 around Leipzig was imperiled by the proximity of Hungarian General Ignaz Gyulai's III Austrian Corps to the important town Lindenau, located just west of Leipzig. Not only was the French line of communications dependent on the westerly road out of Leipzig and towards France, but any French evacuation from the area must necessarily go through Lindenau. French possession of the town was imperative, and any Austrian threat to its possession would need to be eliminated.

Napoleon's plans for a great victory in the south of the Leipzig battlefield would be challenged when Gyulai decided to attack the

lightly defended Lindenau on October 16, 1813. Like so often in the 1813 campaign, and so often in his life, Napoleon had called upon the ever reliable Count Bertrand to salvage a dangerous situation---but this time Bertrand and his IV Corps were needed both to save Lindenau and also to be the reinforcements that would turn the tide of battle in the south of Leipzig, where Napoleon had hoped to save his campaign, and thus his empire. ( The French and Coalition victory conditions for La Bataille de Lindenau are predicated upon keeping both possession of Lindenau and positively or negatively affecting the flow of French reinforcements to the southern end of the battlefield.) As Napoleon attempted to recover from the disaster that was the Russian campaign, his creativity to find the leadership to assist him in this desperate defense of the Empire would be sorely tested. The Russian campaign had exhausted his marshals; Davout was governing Hamburg; and Rapp was besieged in Danzig. The Spanish ulcer was continuing to consume marshals and generals alike. Long-retired generals would soon be returned to action, and Les Invalides would soon take on the appearance of an officers' candidate school rather than a hospital, as the injured and the maimed would be gathered and sent off to Germany for the 1813 campaign. It was out of this leadership vacuum that Napoleon plucked Henri -Gatien, Comte Bertrand, to lead what would become one of his most important formations, the IV Corps, during both the spring and fall 1813 campaigns in Germany. As the Battle of Leipzig approached, Bertrand's IV Corps had found itself heavily engaged throughout both the spring and fall campaigns. The corps found itself at Lützen and Bautzen in the spring. Then as the autumn campaign opened, Bertrand’s corps was assigned to Ney's command driving on Berlin. While the French lost at Dennewitz, the IV Corps proved to be the one segment of Ney's command that was steadfast and covered itself with glory. In early October of 1813, the IV Corps also performed well in the combat of Wartemburg. The result of this extended and constant combat was that the IV Corps was weakened and reduced to about 10,000 effectives before the Battle of Lindenau and the rest of the Leipzig actions ( despite their generally good performance prior to Leipzig, IV Corps was a brittle formation and Bertrand would need to be careful to keep it a force in being). But it had seemed that as the campaign progressed, both Bertrand and his IV Corps grew and improved their performance with every new battle.

Marshal Emterprises

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