THE HAMMER OF THE WAR GOD

Nansouty’s brilliant cavalrymen were already awake and their general having divined to some extent the part he was to play in the glorious day, the eleventh of February, the trumpets were already calling his horsemen to arms when Marteau delivered the order and took his place by the General as the Emperor’s representative, a high position and great responsibility for so young a soldier.  They made a hasty breakfast and broke camp.  Indeed, there was little to break.  The words are only used figuratively, since they had no tents.  In half an hour after Marteau had left the Emperor’s headquarters, the squadrons were formed.  Nansouty, attended by his staff and the young officer, galloped to the head of the column, gave the word of command and the gallant horsemen trotted down the road.

They had been posted near Fromentieres, about two miles from Champaubert, for the night.  The roads were bad, but they took to the fields, and by six o’clock they had passed through the town of Montmirail, easily driving out a few straggling battalions which occupied it.  By eight o’clock they were in touch with the columns of Sacken at Vieux Maisons.  A bit of woodland covered their approach.  It was not until they were almost upon them that Sacken’s advance came in touch with them.  The French horse followed the Russian outposts and advance guards at a gallop back to the main column, upon which they fell impetuously.  Batteries were also deployed in the woods and opened on the Russians.

Sacken’s men had started after breakfast in a rather leisurely way, and they had not progressed very far when Nansouty surprised them.  The French rode down the advance regiments, threw the heads of the columns into confusion, and then galloped back to the shelter of the wood.  Believing that he was about to be attacked in force, Sacken deployed, wasting much valuable time before he discovered this was only a cavalry feint, whereupon he moved forward.  It was ten o’clock before he reached a large farm called Haute-Épine.  By that time Napoleon was ready for him.  He had left Marmont back at Champaubert to hold back Bluecher.  He threw Mortier forward on the Chateau-Thierry road to check Yorck.  He put Friant, the veteran and splendid fighter, in echelon along the La Ferte road; withdrew Nansouty’s cavalry to cover his own right, and put Ney and Ricard in his main battle line between Friant on the road and the river on the left.  The guard, with Maurice’s cavalry d’elite, he posted on the edge of the woodland, north of Montmirail, ready to throw to the northwestward to Marmont, or to the west to the support of Ney and Friant, as events might determine.  These dispositions were barely completed before the battle was joined by the Russian advance.

Sacken, who really outnumbered the forces opposed to him by at least two thousand men, since Mortier’s corps, guarding the northwest road, was perforce inactive, and since six thousand men had been left at Champaubert under Marmont to retain Bluecher, attacked with the utmost stubbornness and gallantry.  He could make no impression on Friant, echeloned on the main road, and before the resolute resistance his advancing divisions slowly obliqued to the right toward another walled farmhouse, called Épine-aux-Bois, in a stretch of lowland watered by a brook.

Napoleon, seeing the whole course of the battle clearly, laid a trap for him.  He withdrew Nansouty from the battle, and ordered Ricard, in command of his extreme left, to retreat slowly, fighting as if defeated.  Sacken, as he saw the wavering on his right, threw his heaviest battalions and regiments upon that point, and attacked with headlong impetuosity.  At the same time he had enough men left to keep Friant busy and in check.  Napoleon, seeing the success of his ruse, suddenly brought up the Guard.  He threw it around the right flank of Friant, and Sacken’s left immediately began to give way.  Ricard stopped his retreat suddenly and stood like a stone wall.  His withdrawing Eagles moved forward.  The advance of the Russian right stopped also, the Muscovite officers and soldiers were greatly amazed by the sudden resistance of an enemy retreating a moment since.  One division of the Guard moved out to the support of Friant, who also advanced.  The other division joined Mortier, who was in a hot fight with Yorck’s cavalry and light infantry.  Napoleon now turned to General Maurice, who had ridden up in advance of his horsemen.

“There”-he pointed down the hill toward the dark masses of the Russian right-“there’s your chance, General.”

The Comte de Vivonne needed but the word.  Turning in his saddle he raised his sword.  His cavalry had been waiting with unconcealed impatience during the morning.  Eagerly they responded to the command.  Dashing down the hill they fell on the puzzled Russian infantry around Épine-aux-Bois.  Ricard’s men opened to give them way.  What had been a triumphant advance was turned into a retreat.  The retreat bade fair to be a disaster, but the Russians, as has been noted, were splendid defensive soldiers.  They formed squares.  Although regiment after regiment had been ridden over and beaten to pieces, those who remained fought stubbornly.

Sacken perceived now that his only hope was to effect a junction with Yorck.  He withdrew his men under cover of his artillery to Vieux-Maisons, and began to lead them by the left flank, at the same time sending frantic messages to Yorck, imploring him to hasten.  But Yorck’s guns were mired.  He had only the teams attached to them.  He could get no other horses.  He was unaccountably delayed.  He had faced about at the sound of the firing, but the movements of his main body were slow, deliberate.  Nansouty, who had opened the battle, was now sent in by Napoleon to deliver the coup-de-grace.  With characteristic gallantry he fell upon the Russian columns.

Sacken was driven from the field.  In killed, wounded, and prisoners he had lost half his force and all of his guns.  His troops streamed westward through roads and woods in wild confusion.  He would have been annihilated then and there but for the arrival of Yorck.  The Prussian at last fell on Mortier’s weak corps and the Guard on the northern road.  Mortier’s men were outnumbered four to one.  They made a desperate resistance, but it was not until Napoleon ordered up the other division of the Guard, which had only been lightly engaged, and Maurice’s cavalry, that Yorck’s advance was checked.

The short day had drawn to a close.  Preparations were made to pass the night on the field and in the town.  All of Sacken’s baggage train and provisions had fallen into Napoleon’s hands.  Montmirail had been a more decisive victory than Champaubert.  Twenty thousand men had been eliminated from calculations for the time being.  Sending couriers to Macdonald to move down the banks of the Marne with all possible speed, to get in the rear of Yorck, with whom he purposed to deal on the morrow, Napoleon, in high spirits, made preparations for the next day’s battle.

The next morning, the thirteenth, leaving a heavy force to check any possible attack by Sacken, who had, with incredible energy and labor, partially at least reorganized his shattered troops, but who was too weak to do anything more than lead them away from any possible touch with Napoleon’s troops, the Emperor advanced toward the little village of Chateau-Thierry.  Yorck, by this time, had learned the full details of the disaster to Sacken.  Indeed, several of Sacken’s brigades had joined him, considerably augmenting his force.  But he was now no match for Napoleon.  To stay meant annihilation.  He hastily made his disposition for a rear guard defense and a withdrawal.  He made a stubborn rear guard battle of it during the day, and, although he lost heavily in men, guns and supplies, he finally succeeded in crossing the Marne and breaking the bridges behind him.

Macdonald had moved tardily.  If he had shown half the enterprise of the Emperor he would have been at the crossing of the Marne in good time and Yorck would have been caught in a trap whence he could not have extricated himself.  As it was, Napoleon added largely to the number of prisoners taken and the number of enemies killed.  Altogether he had put twenty-five thousand men out of action, in killed, wounded and prisoners.  He had taken one hundred and twenty guns-so many that he had to tumble them into the creeks and rivers, because he could not transport them all.  He had rearmed and reclothed and provided for his gallant little army at the expense of the enemy.  It was an exploit of which even he could be proud.  On the other hand, in these operations the French had lost some four thousand men killed and wounded, and, as their army was so small, they could ill afford such a diminution of their forces.

Meantime, Bluecher, apprised of these disasters, and at last awakened to his peril, bravely marched westward.  He had come in touch with Marmont, and had driven him out of Champaubert after a desperate resistance.  The day after the elimination of Yorck, the fourteenth, Napoleon headed his tired but triumphant troops back over the road to Champaubert, sending word to Marmont to hold the Prussians in check as long as possible, to dispute every rod of the way, but not to throw away his precious men or bring on a general engagement until the Emperor arrived.

The morning after that Napoleon fell on Bluecher, who clearly outnumbered the French.  But the allies were dismayed and disheartened.  The name of the Emperor whom they had defeated and driven across Europe was again full of terror to them.  The French were accordingly elated.  They would not be denied.  Marmont’s men, intoxicated with the news of the success of the other divisions of the army, just as soon as they were given the word, which was just as soon as Napoleon could bring up their comrades, fell on Bluecher like a storm.  They came in battle contact in the village of Vauchamps.  The fighting was of the most desperate character.  The battle was harder than all of the others put together.  Bavarians, Prussians, and Russians, fighting under the eye of brave old Bluecher himself, who recklessly exposed his person on the field, were tenacious and courageous to the highest degree, but the tactics and dispositions of Napoleon, the spirit of his men, his own equally reckless exposure of his person under fire, and a cavalry dash at the allied rear at Janvilliers, finally turned the wavering tide of battle.  The allies began to retreat, the French followed.

The French pursued relentlessly, but with splendid skill and determination Bluecher himself in command of the rearguard fought them off.  Napoleon had foreseen this.  He had massed all the cavalry under Grouchy and had sent them on a long round-about march across country to get in Bluecher’s rear.  Just beyond Champaubert, in a dense wood in front of the village of Etoges, the retreating allies found the road barred by the cavalry.  Grouchy had been provided with sufficient artillery to enable him to hold the retreat in check; but the mud still prevailed, many horses had been shot and killed, the peasants’ horses drawing the guns had been unable to keep pace with the necessarily rapid movements of the cavalry, and the batteries had not come up.  Nor was there any supporting infantry.  Indeed, the retreat of the Prussians had been so sudden and so rapid that Grouchy’s horse had been hard put to it to intercept them.

The regiments leading the allied retreat were formed in squares, and with musketry and cannon animated with the courage of despair, they forced a passage through the charging, barring masses of the French cavalry, not, however, without losing several of the squares in the process.  It was their only possible way to safety.  As it was, Bluecher himself narrowly escaped capture.

Napoleon’s soldiers had fought five pitched battles in four days.  As a preparation, they had marched thirty miles, night and day, over incredible roads.  They were now utterly exhausted.  They could do no more.  They must have a good rest.  Bluecher’s forces had been scattered, eliminated, defeated in detail.  There was now nothing for the Field Marshal to do but to retreat and rally his men.  The success of the Emperor had been brilliant in the extreme.

The fighting was not over, however, for thirty miles to the southward lay the vast army of Schwarzenberg.  Napoleon might have pursued Bluecher to the bitter end.  Military critics say he should have done so.  To him, however, on the spot, it seemed proper to leave Bluecher for the time being and endeavor to repeat on Schwarzenberg the marvelous tactics of the five days’ fight.

The next morning, the fifteenth, he started back to Nogent whence he had come.  Victor and Oudinot had been fighting hard with Schwarzenberg, but the news of Napoleon’s victories had finally caused the cautious Austrian to stop.  He began the recall and concentration of his own scattered divisions.  He, at least, would not be caught napping.  As usual the enemy learned something, even in defeat.

Speed was still essential to Napoleon.  His men had had twenty-four hours of rest.  His horses were comparatively fresh.  The weather had changed, the roads were frozen, horribly rough, but still much more passable than before.  Once again the Emperor resorted to the peasantry.  They, too, had been intoxicated with the news of his victories, many of which they had witnessed and, in the plunder resulting, had shared.  They brought their horses which they had hidden in ravines and forests when the country was overrun by the enemy.  This time, instead of attaching them to the guns which their own teams-recruited from the captures-could draw on the hard roads, Napoleon had them hitched to the big farm wagons.  Into the wagons he loaded his infantry.  And at the highest speed of the horses the whole force made its way to the southward.  To other victories-to defeats-to what?

The Emperor began once again to dream of an empire whose boundaries would be the Vistula instead of the Rhine.