Memory of Flames

CHAPTER 14

IT was 21 March and Napoleon was surveying the Bohemian army under the command of Generalissimo Schwarzenberg, from the heights of the plateau south of Arcis-sur-Aube. The Emperor blinked, incredulous. He had defeated the Allies over and over again, and this was the result! Those massed ranks blanketing the horizon. A hundred thousand men at the very least. Divisions, methodically formed into giant rectangles, made up a spider’s web awaiting the attack of the French army. But the latter comprised only thirty thousand soldiers, since some of the troops had been scattered during manoeuvres and battles ... Napoleon had thought the Austro-Russian force was retreating! They had to be retreating. He continued to scour the hordes for signs of disorder, or for movements backwards ...

Finally he reached the inescapable conclusion. It was the French who would have to retreat. But in which direction?

The most obvious solution was to withdraw to Paris, to protect the capital. But what would the Allied armies do then? They would unite into one, having learnt the dangers of operating separately. Schwarzenberg’s Bohemian army would join forces with Marshal Blucher’s Silesian army, and they, reinforced by other diverse troops, would both be joined by the nearest units of Bernadotte’s Army of the North. The French would be ignominiously forced back to Paris ... Several members of the imperial general staff advised retiring to Paris, but only because they could not envisage any other course of action.

Napoleon then took one of the most important decisions of his career. He had been plotting the manoeuvre for several days and had discussed it with his marshals, who, in the main, opposed it. They considered it too complicated and, above all, too risky. But it offered the only possibility of victory, and so that day Napoleon decided to press ahead with it. The French army would not turn back towards Paris; it would go round the Allied army to threaten its rear. The enemy needed vast amounts of supplies to feed and equip such a quantity of troops. And the Emperor was counting on his own prestige. The enemy feared him when he was in front of them, so what general would dare turn his back on him? His tactic would sow panic in the Allied ranks. He wanted to force his enemies to pursue him. He would also be leading them away from Paris, towards the east, where he would rally fresh troops who were stationed in strongholds. But the danger of the tactic was obvious: no one would be defending the road to Paris. It was a gamble, a throw of the dice.