Battle of Hanau
30/31 October 1813
The Great Escape
By Colin Allen
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Following the disaster of Leipzig Napoleon resolved to regroup his forces in France and continue the struggle. The route chosen for the retreat back to the homeland was via Jena, Erfurt, Eisenach, Fulda, Gelnhausen, Frankfurt and then Mayence. In Erfurt, from October 23rd to 25th, Napoleon reorganised the shattered remnants of his army and, on the 26th, set out on the long journey to Mayence. The order of march was as follows: Advanced Guard:
Young Guard Cavalry Division (Lefebvre-Desnouettes) 2nd Corps (Victor) 11th Corps (Macdonald) Main Body:
3rd Corps (Marmont) 5th Corps (Marmont) Division Durutte Division Semele Old Guard Infantry 1st Cavalry Corps Old Guard Cavalry (Nansouty) Reserve Artillery Rear Guard:
Young Guard (Mortier & Oudinot) 4th Corps (Bertrand) 4th Cavalry Corps Division Guilleminot Brigade Morio All of these units were terribly under strength. Lieutenant Jolyet
of the 14th Legere, 11th Corps, noted,
and the historian Pelet commented,
The artillery wasn't quite as badly off, something which was to prove
vital at Hanau, Pelet again stating,
In total the force came to about 66,000 men with about 30,000 stragglers and walking wounded. Napoleon was well aware that the enemy would attempt to block his retreat and ordered an extremely rapid march in order to try and reach France before the Allies could stop him. This led to a great many of the young conscripts and the wounded dropping out, victims of the cold, hunger and the physical exertion. Matters got worse on October 27th when the Wurttemburg contingent of 4th Corps left the army to return home, having received orders to do so from their King. Despite the adverse conditions the ragged army took only five days to march from Erfurt to Hanau. M. Guerre, a corporal of artillery, commented, "On October 25th commenced the lamentable exodus, the horses died in their hundreds but we didn't have time to cook them. Our sole resources consisted of cabbages, turnips and beetroot." L. Vionnet, commander of the 2nd Tirailleurs of the Guard, noted in his diary, "23rd October: Distribution of biscuit and brandy; first distribution since 15th October." At Hanau the road to Frankfurt ran through the Lamboi Wald and then into an open plain, bordered to the north by boggy land around the Kresbach stream and to the south by the Kinzig river and the town of Hanau, which stood on the north bank of the River Main (See map). Waiting there was an Austro-Bavarian force under General de Cavalerie, Count Wrede. The advanced guard, a brigade of cavalry, had arrived on October 28th with the main body following the next day. Wrede immediately formed up for battle, basing his dispositions on the assumption that the French would be arriving via the Gelnhausen and Ruckingen roads. In this he was correct but he also assumed, fairly understandably, that the French would be totally disorganised by the pursuit which he assumed that the Army of Bohemia was carrying out. In fact the Allies had failed to carry out an effective pursuit, giving the Emperor time to reorganise his depleted ranks at Erfurt. Wrede's army consisted of two corps, one Austrian and one Bavarian, each consisting of two infantry divisions and a cavalry division. The bulk of the artillery was divided up amongst the brigades and each corps had, in addition, an artillery reserve. Also present, but not under Wrede's command, was an Austro- Russian force consisting of an Austrian raiding corps under Colonel Mensdorf and a force of cossacks under Orloff-Denisoff and Czernitcheff. Wrede's dispositions were as follows: Right Wing:
2nd Bavarian Division, on both banks of the Kinzig, by the Lamboi Bridge. Austrian Regiment Jordis, behind the 2nd Bavarian Division. Centre:
Austrian Hussar Regiment Szekler, to the right of the above. Left Wing:
Immediately behind them three lines of cavalry:
1st Bavarian Cavalry Brigade 3rd Bavarian Cavalry Brigade 2nd Line:
Austrian Cuirassier Regiment Liechtenstein. 3rd Line:
Austrian Uhlan Regiment Schwarzenberg. Supporting the Artillery:
By the Kresbach:
On the Friedberg road:
In Reserve:
It has to be said that this was a dreadful deployment, the bulk of the army being forced to fight with their backs to a river, the only bridges over which were either in the front line or far too far to the rear. What Napoleon thought of it will soon be revealed. On the night of October 29/30th Napoleon was near Gelnhausen, well aware from cavalry patrols and prisoners that Wrede was in place and waiting for him at Hanau. Under his immediate command were the 2nd Cavalry Corps, the 11th and 15th corps under Macdonald, Victor's 2nd Corps, the Old Guard infantry and the Guard artillery and Cavalry. Marmont, with the 3rd and 6th Corps and Durutte's Division was a day's march to the rear and Bertrand was a further day's march behind him with the 4th Corps and Guilleminot's Division. The non-combatants and stragglers were sent off to the north with the baggage under the protection of Arrighi's 3rd Cavalry Corps. Napoleon's plan was simple; to push through the Lamboi Wald and then envelop the enemy left with the cavalry in order to push the Allies back behind the Kinzig and open the Frankfurt road. The deployment was to be as follows: Victor was to form the left with his flank resting on the Kinzig. To his right was Macdonald, then the Old Guard and, on the extreme right, Nansouty's cavalry, while Lefebvre-Desnouettes' cavalry was detached to the north in order to deal with the cossacks. In total the army occupied a front of some 1200 metres. At 08:00 3,000 tirailleurs, in other words all of Macdonald's corps, led by the Marshal himself, attacked General Lamotte's Bavarian skirmishers and rapidly pushed them out of the forest. This attack was supported by the 2nd Corps, also fighting as skirmishers, led by Victor in person, and Sebastiani's cavalry, who repeatedly charged the Bavarians and made a valiant but hopeless attempt to charge the main allied battery. By noon the Allied skirmishers had been pushed back to their main line of battle and the French troops debouched from the forest in order to harass the enemy infantry and artillery. This musketry duel lasted for several hours with heavy casualties on either side but eventually the fire of the Bavarian artillery forced the French back into the cover of the trees. At about 15:00 Napoleon arrived at the edge of the forest and carried out a personal reconnaissance of the enemy lines under heavy fire. Drouot begged him to retire but he replied,
Having done so he commented,
The Emperor then approved Drouot's plan to force his artillery through the wood to the north of the Gelnhausen road after the artillery general assured him that, with 50 guns and two battalions of the Guard, he could force a passage through the enemy lines. In order to support them Napoleon ordered the Guard cavalry to advance to a position from where, at a favourable moment, they could fall on the enemy cavalry. Meanwhile, the rest of the Guard formed up in columns in support of the line troops at the edge of the forest while Lefebvre-Desnouettes took on the Austro-Russian force on the Friedberg road. Macdonald and Victor continued to pin the Austro-Bavarian right and centre while the artillery, protected by two battalions of the Middle Guard under Curial, gradually deployed on the edge of the forest until all 50 guns were in position. A fierce artillery duel now began, lasting for about an hour. However, the Allied artillery was very short of ammunition and was forced to retire behind its supporting troops. In order to cover this manoeuvre, Wrede ordered his cavalry to charge the French grand battery. Three lines of cavalry, 7000 men on a frontage of 400 metres, moved forward, working up to the charge. When they were 50 paces from the guns, the French artillery, mostly from the Imperial Guard, opened fire with canister, ripping great holes in the Allied ranks. A few squadrons managed to reach the guns but were counter charged by the Chasseurs-a-Cheval of the Guard. The Allied cavalry were then charged in their left flank by Saint-Germain's cuirassiers and the Guard Dragoons and Grenadiers-a-Cheval. They fled back to the Friedberg road, where they rallied behind Czernitcheff's cossacks. Nansouty and Sebastiani's cavalry now pressed on to attack the squares of the I.R. Archduke Rudolph and Deroy's Brigade, whose 5th and 8th regiments suffered heavily, while Drouot took the opportunity to advance his guns to within 400 metres of the enemy line. However, the Allied cavalry had now rallied and made another attempt to charge the French guns, but were again routed by the guard cavalry, among whom the 3rd Gardes d'Honneur particularly distinguished themselves. By 17:00 Wrede had decided to retreat. His artillery and infantry were almost out of ammunition and his cavalry was in a very poor state. In order to cover his retreat over the Kinzig, from where he hoped to be able to menace the French rear guard, he ordered Beckers and Bach to attack the French left. Napoleon countered by moving two battalions of the Old Guard to Neuhof and these proved sufficient to halt the attack. The Allied retreat turned into a shambles as, with no cavalry to protect them and extremely few crossing places over the river, the infantry were harried by the French cavalry. I.R. Jordis and several hundred Bavarians were forced away from the bridges and many of them were drowned trying to swim the river. By 19:00 the Allies had managed to rally around Lehrhof and were still in control of Hanau. The French camped in the forest in the cold and damp. Further west, Excelmans had secured the Frankfurt road and Lefebvre-Desnouettes had driven back the cossacks. The cost of the day's fighting was heavy, possibly 15,000 men lay dead or wounded on the field. Marmont, accompanied by the remnants of the 3rd and 6th Corps, arrived in the evening and was ordered to take Hanau in order to assure the passage of the rear guard, baggage and the stragglers. At 02:00 on the 31st October, Marmont began to bombard the town and sent Charriere's Brigade into the assault. The attack failed in the face of determined resistance from Diemar's Brigade and Marmont continued the bombardment, which set fire to most of the north-west of the town. The Austrians, who were under orders to withdraw if the French fired the town, pulled out via the Nuremburg gate and rejoined the rest of the Allied army around Lehrhof. At 08:00 a delegation of the town's magistrates approached Napoleon in order to commit their town to his protection. Following his meeting with them, the Emperor continued his retreat towards Frankfurt, accompanied by the Guard and the corps of Sebastiani, Macdonald and Victor. Marmont was left to await Bertrand's arrival and, in order to provide extra fire power, he was given several batteries of Guard artillery. At 09:00 Marmont occupied Hanau and captured the Lamboi bridge. He marched his men through the town and attacked the enemy to the south, forcing them back to the Main from where they counter-attacked, the Regiments Archduke Rudolph and Jordis particularly distinguishing themselves and forcing the French left back to the Lamboi bridge. Marmont, who was only fighting for time, began a slow withdrawal back towards Hanau. By noon Bertrand had arrived, deploying his men as follows in order to win time for Mortier to arrive with the rear guard: Division Guilleminot, supported by Morio, covered the Lamboi bridge, placing twelve guns at its end. Division Fontanelli occupied the south-east suburbs of the town. Division Morand was placed in reserve to the north-west of Hanau, with its guns covering the Kinzig bridge. Marmont then marched off after Napoleon, leaving Bertrand with 2,500 men facing more than 20,000 Allies. Noting the lack of enemy troops Wrede ordered an all-out attack. The left wing was to take the town while the right was to capture the Lamboi bridge in order to take the French in the rear. Becker's Division, supported by an Austrian and a Bavarian regiment, were to take the bridge, with additional help from a battery of 32 guns. When the bridge was taken the remaining cavalry were to cross over in order to cut the French line of retreat. To the west, Wrede, personally led the Grenadier Battalion Frisch, supported by the rest of the Grenadier division, the 3rd Jager battalion and two battalions of the I.R. Archduke Rudolph, followed by the Szekler Hussar Regiment, to assault the town, a total of 5,000 Austrians and one Bavarian. On the Allied right a lengthy artillery duel was under way and the Bavarian infantry attacked three times before finally being repulsed by the men of Lejeune and Gruyer, Guilleminot's brigade commanders. 200 were taken prisoner and the remainder thrown back in considerable disorder. Meanwhile, on the other flank, Wrede's assault had carried the Nuremburg gate and penetrated into the town, pushing back Fontanelli's Italians. The Austrians then pushed on to their objective, the Kinzig bridge. Heavily outnumbered, the Italians were pushed back remorselessly and were only saved by Morand's artillery firing canister at the Austrian columns, which began to waver. Among the casualties was Wrede, who received a ball in the stomach. Bereft of leadership and suffering heavily, the Austrians began to retreat through the burning town, amid heavy snow. FML Fresnel took over command and ordered a general retreat, allowing Bertrand, who had heard that Mortier was travelling by a different route, to move off towards Frankfurt. Reports of casualties vary as the following show: Firstly Napoleon, "We took 6,000 prisoners, several colours and several cannon. The enemy lost 6 generals killed and wounded. Their loss was around 10,000 killed, wounded or captured. Ours was 4-5,000 killed or wounded." Next Plotho, "This bloody affair cost the French at least 15,000 men killed, wounded or captured. The loss of the Austro-Bavarian army was 9,237 men" Jomini, "The loss of the Allies in the Battle of Hanau amounted to 10,000 men, of which 4,000 were prisoners. The French losses were also considerable; if one considers the sick and wounded who were taken since the 16th, marching alone in front of the advanced guard, they could not have lost less than 6,000 men." Fresnel reported losses of 7,000 on the Allied side against 15,000 French. Whatever the actual losses, they were undoubtedly heavy, mostly caused by the large amount of artillery present and the need for haste on the French side, which precluded the use of any elaborate tactics, as did the state of the French troops, many of whom were suffering from Typhus and exposure. The French had fought superbly, especially Bertrand's heavily outnumbered men during the battle on the 31st. However, this fight was largely pointless as Mortier, coming up behind him with 4-5,000 men, decided to by-pass Hanau to the north. Thus many of those who fell on that day gave their lives for no useful purpose. On November 4th the units of the Grande Armee were re-united at Mayence, ready to carry on the fight. More Hanau
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