Battle of Champaubert, 1814: the first blow of Napoleon's Six Days

In early February 1814 Napoleon seemed beaten. His attempt to defend the frontier had failed almost without a fight, and he had escaped from La Rothière with his army intact but his position desperate. Within a week he struck back. Champaubert was the first of four victories in five days, the run known as the Six Days Campaign, and it restored, for a while, the morale of his army and his own confidence.²

The Allies split up

After La Rothière on 1 February, Napoleon fell back to Troyes on the Seine. The Allies decided to divide: Schwarzenberg's Army of Bohemia would pin him on the Seine, while Blücher's Army of Silesia moved north into the Marne valley and advanced on Paris, with only Marshal Macdonald's weak forces in front of it.³

Blücher's corps were soon spread out over a long distance. According to Rickard, on 9 February Sacken was at Montmirail, Yorck to the north near the Marne, Blücher himself at Vertus with part of Kapzevich's men, and Kleist still back at Châlons. Napoléon et Empire notes that Blücher and his cavalry were almost 80 kilometers apart, far too dispersed for the corps to support each other. In the middle, at the crossroads of Champaubert, stood the weak Russian IX Corps of Lieutenant General Zakhar Olsufiev.⁴

Napoleon's march north

Napoleon saw the opening. On 6 February he planned the maneuver, and on 7 February he set off north, leaving only about 20,000 men to face the main Austrian army. Marshal Marmont reached Sézanne and then pushed toward Champaubert, and early on 9 February the reports Napoleon needed came in: the Allied army was strung out across his front.⁵ › Napoleon Bonaparte

The Allies hardly believed such a move possible. When Napoleon's vanguard reached the area on the evening of 9 February, Blücher, who thought the French were still at Sézanne, set off south with Kleist and Kapzevich to try to get around them, leaving Olsufiev exposed.⁶

A corps that chose to fight

Olsufiev had warning but did little with it. He failed to guard the bridge over the Petit Morin at Saint-Prix, where the road passed through a narrow valley that a small force could have held. On the morning of 10 February his 5,000 men and 24 guns were deployed around Baye, south of Champaubert. He had no cavalry, which had been sent to the vanguard.⁷

Despite being badly outnumbered, and against the advice of his generals, Olsufiev decided to stand. John Rickard of HistoryOfWar.org suggests he may have wanted to restore his reputation after the earlier battles of the campaign, or expected help from Blücher; Napoléon et Empire links his stubbornness to Blücher's harsh words to him after Brienne and La Rothière.⁸

The battle

Marmont's infantry led the attack, Lagrange's division on the left and Ricard's on the right. The Russians were driven from Baye and from a new line south of the village. The fighting stayed stubborn through the morning; on the French left Lagrange ran into the main Russian battery and fell back, until Ney and Napoleon arrived with two more divisions and the Guard artillery around midday.⁹

The decisive move came from the cavalry. About 2,000 French horsemen rode around through Fromentières, west of Champaubert, and got into the Russian rear. Olsufiev tried to break out east toward Étoges and found the road cut, then turned toward Montmirail and ran into the cavalry. His troops scattered north toward La Caure and the woods.¹⁰

The brigade left in Champaubert under General Poltoratsky held out longest, fighting from house to house until its ammunition ran out, and then surrendered. In the woods, already surrounded by the French, Olsufiev was captured. Rickard writes that he was taken by a 19 year old conscript with six months' service.¹¹

The cost and what followed

Rickard puts the Russian loss at about 1,200 killed and 1,800 captured, with most of the guns, and says between 1,000 and 2,000 men escaped north under Generals Kornilov and Udom. Napoléon et Empire puts the survivors who reached Étoges at about 1,500 of the 5,000. That evening Napoleon had Olsufiev and his staff to dinner at the house where he spent the night.¹²

The victory went to Napoleon's head. He sent word to his envoy Caulaincourt, then negotiating with the Allies, to take a harder line. Blücher, who had refused for much of the day to believe the attack was serious, fell back to Vertus and ordered Sacken and Yorck to fight their way east to him. Napoleon turned west instead and beat Sacken the next day at Montmirail.¹³