Conflict: The War of the Sixth Coalition
Combatants: French vs. Prussians/Russians
Location: France
Outcome: French victory
In February of 1814, allied armies under the command of Prussian Field Marshal Gebhard von Blucher marched on Napoleon Bonaparte's Paris from the east. Yet when the allied armies became separated, Bonaparte (now emperor Napoleon I) seized the opportunity to attack the divided forces.
On February 10th, Bonaparte's French army of 30,000 destroyed an entire allied corps at Champaubert. Napoleon then turned west and caught two more separated allied corps near Montmirail. The French army destroyed another corps here and drove the second off the field. Without slowing, Napoleon now turned back north and forced the Prussians in the area to retreat across the Marne River.
Known as the "Five Days", Napoleon Bonaparte's operation is ranked as one of the greatest achievements in Western military history. In the course of the week, the allies lost about 9,000 troops; the French took approximately 2,000 casualties.
Points of Interest:
The week after Montmirail, Napoleon's French troops defeated an Austrian army twice their size.
Napoleon would be forced to abdicate just two months after the "Five Days", but returned a year later to once again plunge Europe into war.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Sources:
Dupuy, Trevor N., Johnson, Curt, & Bongard, David L. (1992). The Harper's Encyclopedia of Military Biography. New York: Castle Books (HarperCollins).
Dupuy, R. Ernest & Dupuy, Trevor N. (1993). The Harper's Encyclopedia of Military History. New York: HarperCollins.
Eggenberger, David (1985). An Encyclopedia of Battles: Accounts of Over 1,560 Battles from 1479 B.C. to the Present. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.
Haythornthwaite, Philip J. (1990). The Napoleonic Source Book. New York: Facts on File.
Comentários