Napoleonic Battles

The action whoich doomed Nappy was not even military IMO, the decision to sack Tallyerand.

what costed Napoleon most casualties in the Russian camapign were Cossacks, in rearguard actions on the advance and in innumerous raids durign the retreat. Napoleon lost most men on his advance to Moscow, not on the retreat. battles like Mir, Vinkovo and 1st Krasnoie decimated his cavalry forces more than anything before or after.

there are a couple more that could be mentioned, but those three i mentioned are in my opinion the most decisive.

Yes but it stupid to resume the napoleonic battles to the defeat of napoleon.
Friedland is a decisive battle because do a term to the war of prussia and russia against france.

Originally posted by Temujin what costed Napoleon most casualties in the Russian camapign were Cossacks, in rearguard actions on the advance and in innumerous raids durign the retreat...

Non-battle related losses were much higher, especially during the retreat during which the weather was very bad.  That was generally true of all Napoleonic campaigns, but much more so of the retreat during bad weather through a 'devastated' zone.

Originally posted by deadkenny Non-battle related losses were much higher, especially during the retreat during which the weather was very bad.  That was generally true of all Napoleonic campaigns, but much more so of the retreat during bad weather through a 'devastated' zone.

yes thats true, but i was comparing with pitched battles, which didn't significantly reduced the French forces proportionate to what the Russians fielded against them.

well, we must look at the bigger picture 

after the resuming of hostilities for the autumn campaign of 1813, the Austrian Army of Bohemia marched in full strenght towards the Saxon capital of Dresden. this was held by Napoleons formidable marshal Gouvion St. Cyr and had also strong defensive works. the allies commenced their attack on the city while Napoleon with his Grande Armee marched to St. Cyrs support and after two days fighting, Napoleon with his now numerically stronger Army pushed the Army of Bohemia from the gates of Dresden back over the Erzgebirge into Austria (Bohemia).

so far so good. to analyze the situation: Napoleon was faced on three sides with enemy armies, in the north the Army of the North under the cautious crownprince of sweden, in the east the headstrong Bl�cher with the Army of Silesia and in the south again the cautious Marshal Schwarzenberg with the main Army of Bohemia. Bl�cher remained defensive at first while Schwarzenberg resumed the offensive against Dresden from the south. Napoleon recognized the Army of Bohemia as the main thread and determined to face her. to keep the other armies on distance, he send first Oudinot and later Ney to take and destroy Berlin, both who were defeated by von B�lows corps of the Army of the North. against Bl�cher, he has sent Marshall MacDonald who was equally defeated by Bl�cher. for the southern theater, he had Marshall Gouvion St. Cyr who occupied Dresden with his corps. Napoleon planned to reinforce Dresden himself and take the strenghtened I Corps of Vandamme to cross the Elbe south of Dresden and to fall the Army of Bohemia in its flank. in case of sucess, Napoleon promissed Vandamme to elevate him tot eh rank of Marshall.

now, ignoring the other fronts, we have the coalition on the offensive and Napoleon meetign the threat himself with a plan that would knock the whole Army of Bohemia out of the war in one single blow. while the battle of Dresden went exactly to his plans, the sucessive events did not quite turn out as they should have.

after Dresden, teh corps of the Army of Bohemia retreated in disorder back over the sfatey of the erzgebirge into Bohemia with Vandamme on their heels. at the village of Kulm, the French met with the Divisions of Ostermann-Tolstoi and Eugene of W�rttemberg, who managed under severe losses on both sides to stop the French advance with the Russian Guards. this determiend stand allowed other coalition forces to rally and come up the next day to participate in the battle. the French were with their backs against the Erzgebirge and as they would see the next day, the Russian Guards were reinforced by more Russian and Austrian divisions and their only retreat route, from which they came was blocked by Zietens Prussian corps who happened to retreat following the route of Vandammes I corps.
the French infantry was driven against the mountians and were tiher killed or captured, the corps cavalry charging headlessly through the surprised Prussian lines back into safety. the marshal-to-be Vandamme was captured by Russian J�gers. as a result, Schwarzenberg issued a victory proclamation which greatly raised the morale as troops from all coalition countries destroyed Napoleosn largest corps and caputred its commanders. the King of Prussia established the Iron Cross as award for the participants of this battle. the most important point was, that Napoleons plan was not only foiled but actually reversed, his strongest and best corps was no more and he lost the strategic initiative. added to that the failures of his subordinates, he had to concentrate his forces in the vicinity of Leipzig, with the well known result.

therefore, i have to considder the battle of Kulm as turning point in the 1813 campaign. Leipzig is only overstated as the largest battle of the Nap Wars and as "battle of nations" for propagandistic nations. even though the french army was encircled at Leipzig, Napoleon managed to slip through and the coalition failed to destroy the French Army and to capture Napoleon, both of who would contine their ressistance in France with sometimes great sucesses.

Originally posted by Temujin Originally posted by deadkenny Non-battle related losses were much higher, especially during the retreat during which the weather was very bad.  That was generally true of all Napoleonic campaigns, but much more so of the retreat during bad weather through a 'devastated' zone. yes thats true, but i was comparing with pitched battles, which didn't significantly reduced the French forces proportionate to what the Russians fielded against them.

The key point I was making was that the difference between the northern and southern routes related directly to the non-battlefield losses.  Also note that having to disperse more widely to 'forage' an already devastated area made the French even more vulnerable to raids by Cossacks etc.  Finally, although it is true that in terms of numbers the French suffered more attrition in the advance to Moscow than in the retreat - during the advance those that could not keep up were 'lost' to their units, but were not likely dead and thus were not permanently lost.  During the retreat, it was far more likely that those attrition losses were 'permanent', as they were left for dead or fell into enemy hands. 

Originally posted by deadkenny At Kulm the French were outnumbered by good Allied troops.  Although they may have 'escaped' with fewer losses, I do not see what prospect they had of 'winning'.  In fact the true 'turning point' of the 1813 campaign was the armistice.  Although Napoleon may have had a chance to defeat the Russian / Prussian forces he was facing before the armistice, and in fact he had them 'on the ropes', he was in a much worse position afterwards against what he was facing.  I just don't see any realistic chance for a major French victory at Kulm.  At least at Leipzig Napoleon had managed to concentrate a large enough force against part of the converging Allied armies to be able to defeat a portion of them.  That he allowed himself to be engaged in a multi-day battle at Leipzig, and to be defeated by the concentrated enemy armies and then lost heavily during the retreat led directly to the loss of Germany and all of the garrison that were still holding out.  None of that was evident after Kulm, but it clearly was after Leipzig.  That is why Leipzig is rightly regarded at the most decisive and important battle of the campaign, not just the 'largest'.

no no no, you miss out on quite a few points here.

first, if Vandamme had carried out the pursuit of the Army of Bohemia as Napoleon had envisaged in his plan, the main coalition army would have been seriously mauled and crippled for the rest of the campaign, it could have even convinced the still hesistant and war-torn Austrians to drop out of the coalition. it just went different as Kulm was not planed the way it happened by neither side. it also deprived Napoleon of his main striking arm, the overstrenght I Corps. also, as noted already, it forced Napoleon to withdrew to Leipzig, where he was pinned down by the Coalition. without Kulm, there would have been no Leipzig in the first place.

second, no matter how often you repeat it, the Prusso-Russian coalition was NOT on the ropes, they were able to withdrew from both battles without losing their morale or esteem to carry on the fight. there is not a single evidence that this was the case and i don't see why you fix your opinion so strongly on this misconception?

third, Napoleon only had that many troops concentrated at Leipzig because his diversionary attacks which i mentioned earlier have all been defeated and streamed back to the grande armee, but none of those battles was as important as Kulm. and Napoleon only was at Leipzig in the first place because of Kulm. that Napoleon lost at Leipzig had various reasons but none of those was his responsibility. at Liebertwolkwitz Murat lost againstt eh enemy cavalry even though he had different orders. this resulted basically in losing the south to the coalition. later Marmont lost against B�low at M�ckern after a bloody battle and the north was lost to Napoleon and the coalition further tightened their grip. after Yorcks Corps won at Wartenburg the Northwest was also losta nd with Bl�chers arrival and that of the main troops from the Army of Bohemia, the battle of Wachau was botched again by Murat who failed in the great cavalry charge and on the coalition side descided by Eugene of W�rttemberg who didn't allowed hsi Russian troops to withdraw just like it happened at Kulm. in both instances individual courage and the will to hold up the defense ensured that Napoleon would not regain the initiative and that his plans were foiled. had the Russian Guards bent at Kulm, Vandamme could have continued his advance and the retreating coalition forces would not have been able to rally and counterattack the I corps. the battle of Leipzig itself, was not decisive in any way. Napoleon already descided on a fighting retreat. the left bank of the Elster was not strongly enough guarded by few Austrian troops and Napoleon could make for a rather relaxed fightign retreat which went more or less accordign to his plan for a change. also the Bavarian intervention at Hanau couldn't do anything to seriously stop the French retreat behind the Rhine. this shows that the French Army was far from broken. the garrisons were left behind in Germany puposedly so that in case of a decisive victory in France 1814, Napoleon could immediately push forward back into Germany and re-establish hegemony in central europe. also, none of the German minors switched their allegiance as a result of Leipzig, in fact the change of sides of Bavaria caused a domino effect which eventually caused all neighbouring states to change sides by force, rather because of nationalistic feelings which was the reason propagated after the Nap Wars. since Bavaria already switched allegiance before Leipzig the battle itself was no reason.

The problem with your characterization is that there was practically no prospect of the French achieving what you're claim - i.e. the 'severe mauling' of the Allies' army and knocking Austria out of the coalition.  Vandamme was stopped by Osterman, which was pretty well inevitable given that the Allies had more troops, and good ones at that (including the Russian Guard).  The part that was 'unfortunate' for the French was von Kleist hitting Vandamme in the flank while he as engaged frontally by the other Allied forces.  So, as I said, Kulm might have ended with the French escaping with fewer losses, but not with the incredible victory you claim.  I might just as well say Leipzig was more important because Napoleon might have destroyed all of the Allied armies gathered there in one shot.  That wasn't going to happen, and nor were the Allies going to be 'mauled', nor Austria knocked out, by the result at Kulm.