Battle Of Château-Thierry (1814)

The Battle of Château-Thierry (12 February 1814) saw the Imperial French army commanded by Emperor Napoleon attempt to destroy a Prussian corps led by Ludwig Yorck von Wartenburg and an Imperial Russian corps under Fabian Wilhelm von Osten-Sacken. The two Allied corps managed to escape across the Marne River, but suffered considerably heavier losses than the pursuing French. This action occurred during the Six Days' Campaign, a series of victories that Napoleon won over Prussian Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher's Army of Silesia. Château-Thierry lies about northeast of Paris.

After defeating Napoleon in the Battle of La Rothière, Blücher's army separated from the main Allied army of Austrian field marshal Karl Philipp, Prince of Schwarzenberg. Blücher's troops marched northwest and followed the Marne valley in a thrust toward Paris while Schwarzenberg's army moved west through Troyes. Leaving part of his badly outnumbered army to watch Schwarzenberg's slow advance, Napoleon moved north against Blücher. Catching the Silesian Army badly strung out, Napoleon demolished Zakhar Dmitrievich Olsufiev's Russian corps in the Battle of Champaubert on 10 February. Turning west, the French emperor defeated Sacken and Yorck in the hard-fought Battle of Montmirail on the following day. As the Allies scrambled north toward Château-Thierry's bridge across the Marne, Napoleon launched his army in hot pursuit but failed to annihilate Yorck and Sacken. Napoleon soon found that Blücher was advancing to attack him with two more corps and the Battle of Vauchamps was fought on 14 February.

Prelude

The Allies were jubilant after beating Napoleon in the Battle of La Rothière on 1 February 1814. In particular, Blücher and his generals believed that the war would soon be over. Pleading the difficulty of supplying the combined armies along a single line of communication, Schwarzenberg agreed to allow Blücher's army to operate along a more northerly route. Schwarzenberg's Army of Bohemia would march west through Troyes along the Seine River, while Blücher would move north to Châlons-sur-Marne and then drive west along the Marne valley toward Meaux. The Russian corps of Peter Wittgenstein and a Cossack scouting force under Alexander Nikitich Seslavin would provide the link between the two armies. One historian estimated that the two Allied armies numbered 200,000 between them, against 70,000 French.

The Allies totally lost contact with Napoleon's retreating army. Already on 4 February, Schwarzenberg started to become anxious about his left flank and began pulling Wittgenstein's corps to the south, away from Blücher. On 5 February, Russian General Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly ordered Seslavin's force away to the extreme left flank without notifying Blücher. Over the next few days, the Prussian field marshal mistakenly continued to believe that Seslavin watched the gap on his left flank. At this time, Napoleon began to consider the possibility of moving against Blücher's army. The French emperor calculated that Marshals Claude Perrin Victor and Nicolas Oudinot with 39,000 troops would be able to hold off the cautious Schwarzenberg. Meanwhile, Napoleon gathered a strike force of 20,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry and prepared to march against Blücher.

By 8 February, Blücher's advancing Army of Silesia spread itself out across . Farthest to the west was Sacken's cavalry at Viels-Maisons while his infantry was at Montmirail. The Russian was in pursuit of Marshal Jacques MacDonald's 10,000-man French corps. Also following MacDonald was Yorck's corps which reached Dormans

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