What happened at the Battle of Hanau?
On 30 October 1813 Napoleon's army, retreating from Leipzig, found about 43,000 Austrians and Bavarians under Karl Philipp von Wrede blocking its road at Hanau. A battery of about fifty Guard guns under Drouot broke Wrede's line and drove it back across the Kinzig. On 31 October the French marched on toward Frankfurt and the Rhine.1
Less than two weeks after the Battle of Nations at Leipzig, Napoleon's beaten army was streaming west toward the Rhine and France. Near the old town of Hanau, east of Frankfurt, a new enemy stood across its road: the army of Bavaria, which had been Napoleon's ally only weeks before.
A former ally across the road
Bavaria changed sides on 8 October 1813 under the Treaty of Ried, and General Karl Philipp von Wrede was given command of a joint Bavarian and Austrian army. Rickard and napoleon-empire.org both put it at about 43,000 men; the House of Bavarian History gives about 30,000. The House of Bavarian History explains why Wrede marched to fight at all: he wanted to show the Allies that Bavaria's change of sides was meant seriously.2
Wrede reached Hanau on 29 October. According to the House of Bavarian History he expected to meet only Napoleon's rearguard. He drew most of his army up north of the Kinzig river, in front of the Lamboy forest, with the river at its back; the only bridge for his infantry was the Lamboy bridge east of the town, and both Rickard and napoleon-empire.org judge the position a dangerous one.3
The fight in the forest
On the morning of 30 October Napoleon sent Victor and Macdonald into the woods. Rickard puts the French at hand at about 17,000 men, under Victor, Macdonald and Sebastiani, and napoleon-empire.org gives the same figure, so for the first hours Wrede had the larger force. By about noon the French had cleared the woods facing Wrede's center. Rickard writes that Wrede now knew he was facing Napoleon himself and chose to fight on.4 › Napoleon Bonaparte
Drouot's fifty guns
The decisive idea came from General Antoine Drouot of the Guard artillery. He found a track through the forest north of the main road, and by about three in the afternoon two battalions of the Old Guard had cleared the woods in front of Wrede's left. Drouot brought about fifty guns through and opened fire, with Sebastiani's cavalry and the heavy cavalry of the Guard behind the battery.5
The French guns outfought the Allied batteries. To save them, the Allied cavalry charged the guns; napoleon-empire.org writes that some 7,000 horsemen were stopped by grapeshot about fifty paces from the muzzles, and the House of Bavarian History, too, records that Wrede's cavalry attack failed and that the French cavalry then fell on the flank of his infantry. This is the moment Horace Vernet painted in 1824.6
Wrede's center gave way with the river behind it. Men crowded onto the narrow Lamboy bridge, and hundreds drowned trying to get across the Kinzig. The fighting ended in the evening, and Napoleon, with the road to Frankfurt now open, did not pursue.7
The second day
At about two in the morning of 31 October the French bombarded Hanau, and Wrede gave up the town; French troops under Bertrand and Marmont occupied it. While the main army filed past, Wrede counterattacked and, by the accounts of Rickard and the House of Bavarian History, retook Hanau; napoleon-empire.org says the attempt failed. He was badly wounded in the assault. His attacks on the French rearguard at the bridges were beaten off, and Rickard concludes that he had gained nothing for his heavy losses.8
Counting the cost
The losses are given very differently. Napoleon-empire.org puts the Austro-Bavarian losses at about 5,000 killed and wounded and nearly as many prisoners, and the French at only 2,000 to 3,000. Rickard puts Wrede's losses at 9,250 for 28 to 31 October, 3,400 Austrians and 2,900 Bavarians of them in the battle itself, and says the French lost few men. Both agree that the Allies picked up about 10,000 French stragglers in those days.9
On to the Rhine
Hanau kept Napoleon's road home open. Napoleon-empire.org has him in Frankfurt on 31 October and across the Rhine at Mainz on 2 November, while Rickard dates the main army's arrival at Frankfurt to 2 November. The army that came back was worn out, and Rickard notes it was losing its discipline. The Allies did not give Napoleon time to rebuild it: they invaded France early in 1814.10
The battle left an echo in music. On 8 December 1813 Beethoven's Seventh Symphony had its first performance in the great hall of the University of Vienna, at a charity concert for soldiers wounded at Hanau, on the same program as his Wellington's Victory.11
