Trachenberg Plan

Last updated
War of the 6th Coalition: 1813
Napoleon's
battles
Day
Losses
Battle
Led by
0
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2.200
Möckern
Eugène
Lützen
27
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22.000
Bautzen
45
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20.000
51
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1.400
Haynau
Maison
56
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2.200
Luckau
Oudinot
109
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3.000
Großbeeren
Oudinot
112
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30.000
Katzbach
Macdonald
Dresden
112
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10.000
115
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25.000
Kulm
Vandamme
123
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23.000
Dennewitz
Ney
133
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1.500
Göhrde
Pécheux
145
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2.100
Altenburg
Lefebvre
146
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700
Rosslau
Ney
150
BSicon uKBHFxa.svg
1.900
Wartenburg
Bertrand
Leipzig
163
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79.000
Hanau
177
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4.500

Day: days gone since 5 April 1813, Battle of Möckern
Losses: French soldiers killed+wounded+captured
Red dot: French tactical victory

Contents

War of the 6th Coalition: 1814
Napoleon's
battles
Day
Losses
Battle
Led by
0
BSicon uKBHFa.svg
700
Bar-sur-Aube(1)
Mortier
Brienne
5
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3.000
Rothière
8
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4.000
9
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?
Lesmont
Lagrange
Champau.
18
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600
Montmirail
19
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2.000
Thierry
20
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400
Vaucham.
22
BSicon KBHFxa.svg
600
Mormant
25
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600
Montereau
26
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2.000
35
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3.100
Bar-sur-Aube
Macdonald
36
BSicon KBHFxa.svg
250
Tresmes
Macdonald
37
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1.300
Julien
Augereau
39
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3.000
Laubressel
Macdonald
Craonne
43
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5.400
Laon
45
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6.500
47
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700
Mâcon
Musnier
Reims
48
BSicon KBHFxa.svg
600
56
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1.000
Limonest
Augereau
Arcis
56
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3.000
61
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10.000
Champenoise
Augereau
Dizier
62
BSicon KBHFxa.svg
600
66
BSicon uKBHFe.svg
5.000
Paris
Joseph

Day: days gone since 24 Jan 1814, Bar-sur-Aube(1)
Losses: French soldiers killed+wounded+captured
Red dot: French tactical victory

The Trachenberg Plan was a campaign strategy created by the Allies in the German Campaign of 1813 during the War of the Sixth Coalition, and named for the conference held at the palace of Trachenberg. [1] The plan advocated avoiding direct engagement with French emperor, Napoleon I, which had resulted from fear of the emperor's now legendary prowess in battle. Consequently, the Allies planned to engage and defeat Napoleon's marshals and generals separately, and thus weaken his army while they built up an overwhelming force even he could not defeat. It was decided upon after a series of defeats and near disasters at the hands of Napoleon at Lützen, Bautzen and Dresden. The plan was successful, and at the Battle of Leipzig, where the Allies had a considerable numerical advantage, Napoleon was soundly defeated and driven out of Germany, back to the Rhine.

Development

Former Marshal of the Empire Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, later Crown Prince Charles John of Sweden, co-author of the Trachenberg Plan Karl XIV Johan, king of Sweden and Norway, painted by Fredric Westin.jpg
Former Marshal of the Empire Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, later Crown Prince Charles John of Sweden, co-author of the Trachenberg Plan

The plan held elements of a number of other plans developed over the past two years by men such as Russian generals Karl Wilhelm von Toll, Barclay de Tolly and former French General, and Napoleon's erstwhile rival, Jean Victor Moreau, who was in correspondence with Charles John and en route to Sweden in summer 1813. However, the final plan was primarily an amalgam of two prior works that had been developed in parallel: the Trachenberg Protocol and the Reichenbach Plan, [2] created by Crown Prince Charles John of Sweden (formerly Napoleon's Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte) whose experience with the tactics and methods of the Grande Armée, as well as personal insight on Napoleon's strategies, proved invaluable, and the Austrian chief of staff of the Sixth Coalition, Joseph Radetzky von Radetz.

Charles John had given a great deal of military advice to Tsar Alexander I of Russia during the 1812 Russian Campaign (after having turned down Alexander's offer of generalissimo of the Russian armies) on how to defeat the French invasion, and was able to see the successful practical outcomes of some of his theories and strategies that had been used by the Russians. [3] Charles John refined his strategies over the next year, applied them to the probable theater of operations of Northern Germany, and presented them to Alexander and Frederick Wilhelm III of Prussia at the Trachenberg Conference, held on 9-12 July 1813 during the Truce of Pläswitz. The Allied sovereigns, after modifications to take into account the various policy considerations necessary to keep the disparate coalition partners happy, adopted Charles John's proposals as the basis of the general Coalition campaign plan. [4] Meanwhile, Radetzky and the Austrians had been developing their own campaign plan in parallel, despite not officially joining the Sixth Coalition until 12 August 1813, based on the presumed theater of Saxony and Northeast Germany with a final decisive battle as its climax, the details of which folded well into the protocol agreed to at Trachenberg. The combined, modified version of the two prior campaign plans became known as the Trachenberg Plan. [5] [6] [7]

See also

References

  1. Leggiere, Michael V. (2015). Napoleon and the Struggle for Germany: The Franco-Prussian War of 1813. Vol. II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 51–54. ISBN   978-1-107-08054-6.
  2. Leggiere 2015 , pp. 51–60.
  3. Barton, Dunbar Plunket (1925). Bernadotte: Prince and King 1810–1844. London: John Murray. pp. 40–43. OCLC   4960538.
  4. Scott, Franklin D. (1935). Bernadotte and the Fall of Napoleon. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. pp. 88–90.
  5. Leggiere 2015 , p. 62.
  6. Barton, Dunbar Plunket (1930). The Amazing Career of Bernadotte 1763–1844. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. pp. 283–284. OCLC   5002874.
  7. Scott 1935 , p. 90.

Further reading