The battle of Lützen, by Narcisse Faucheur (26th Line Regiment)

Narcisse Faucheur (1794-1875, serving in the 26th Line Regiment) and the battle of Lützen …

… I leave the broad outlines behind me and begin to tell the narrative of events that I have witnessed with my own eyes.

At the end of the previous chapter I explained to you how we left Naumberg. We marched on Weissenfels where the guns rang out. Marshal Ney had just made himself master of the place, and therefore we arrived just in time to catch the last cannonballs which the enemy had to hurl at us that day.

We bivouacked at Weissenfels. The following day, 1 May 1813, a small engagement took place in front of Weissenfels in which Marshal Bessières was killed. At that moment we stood a distance behind the battlefield, but when Marshal Ney had driven the enemy back, we arrived on the very ground where Marshal Bessières had just been killed. I vividly remember seeing a general lying in a carriage who, it was said, had just been hit by a cannonball. However, we did not know who the general was, whose body, moreover, was covered with a coat, and it was only in Dresden that we found out about Bessières’ death.

Our division, having been ordered to push to the right, entered a ravine whose outlet led into the plain of Lützen. We moved forward with the greatest caution, taking care to be preceded by numerous scouts in order to occupy the summit of the two small hills which dominated the ravine in question on the right and left. We bivouacked on these hillocks.

The next morning, 2 May 1813, from the small height which we occupied, we very distinctly saw our troops marching through Lützen on Leipzig. We remained in this position until about ten o’clock, when we received the order to leave the ravine, where the major part of our division was located, and deploy into the plain of Lützen, in squares by battalion.

By noon the ordered movement was executed. We were near a village, which I have since been told is called Starsiedel, when we were peppered by a heavy cannonade. Our artillery immediately moved forward and into the interval of the squares, and for a time that I cannot specify, the battle continued under cannon fire. In front of us, on a small eminence, we noticed a numerous cavalry which, at every moment, made the appearance to charge us.

On our left, there were several villages where they were fighting fiercely. Marshal Ney with his whole army corps occupied these villages which had repeatedly been captured and lost by the Prussians.

The battle was at its height when a cry of ‘Long live the Emperor’ rang out across the line. It was, in fact, Napoleon himself who was moving across the battlefield to animate the soldiers, most of whom experienced battle for the first time.

Our regiment stood in square, with arms at the ready, receiving without flinching the numerous cannonballs that the enemy hurled at us. But on our side, our artillery was also wreaking havoc in the ranks of the mass of cavalry which was opposing us and which, on several occasions, attempted charges on our squares. They never reached our bayonets. Each time we were threatened with a charge; the guns were placed at the corners of the threatened front, and all the non-commissioned officers and skirmishers headed to the side that was due to be engaged. When the enemy cavalry was seen to be sufficiently close, it was repulsed by mitraille and musket fire, and then withdrew. Shortly afterwards they would pretend to try again, or to put it better, other squadrons would replace those that had been repulsed.

I witnessed all this with composure and I will even say with a certain pleasure. At the time being, we formed the extremity of the right wing of our army, and as we had neither ditch, nor ravine, nor a battery of cannon to support and provide us with defence against the multiple attacks of the Prussian cavalry, I told myself that if this cavalry undertook a diversion and caught us in the rear, we would be greatly exposed.

At a short distance from our square, in front and a little to the right, there stood a small wood no bigger than three or four times the garden I currently own. Following this wood and our [battle] line, there lay the village of Starsiedel. Now, as it was likely that the enemy supposed that we had troops hidden in the wood and in the village, they overwhelmed these two positions with cannon fire, which was very fortunate for us, as therefore many projectiles did not reach our square.

Our general, eager to find out if the small wood did not conceal an unknown cause which attracted such a strong cannonade on it, ordered one of his aides-de-camp to ride rapidly with all the speed his horse could muster to the wood, to reconnoitre it, and return promptly to report to him what he had seen. This aide-de-camp galloped off and soon found himself in the wood with a Russian officer who was most probably there for the same purpose. With a pistol shot he hit the Russian, finished him off with his sabre, took off his cartridge pouch which bore the Russian coat of arms, and returned triumphantly to our square to present an account of his mission to the general. This aide-de-camp was called Fournier. He came from Issoire, was drawn from the elite of the Guard and was then made a lieutenant. Fournier was rewarded for this brilliant action.

I did not know then that he was from Issoire. If I had known I would not have failed, in spite of the inferiority of my rank (I was then only a fourrier), to try to make his acquaintance, because I had many friends at Issoire among the young men of the foremost families. It was only after the fall of the Empire that I had the opportunity to see Fournier again, who had become a captain at the age of twenty-four, after having made such a good start in his military career. But the brilliant officer whose fate I had so often envied, when he was aide-de-camp to General Coehorn, was far from content when I had the opportunity to see him again at Clermont, five or six years after Lützen. He had been put on half pay for having been a passionate Bonapartist, and as he had no fortune he had ended up marrying a minor dressmaker from Issoire.

But let us return to the battlefield. The enemy had probably realised that they were unnecessarily shelling the small wood and the village, for no sooner had the aide-de-camp reported his mission to the general than all the cannonballs which, a few moments before, had been raining down on these two points, were directed at us, and there were many of them. Fortunately, not all of them reached us, many passed over our heads, others fell at our feet, ricocheted and overshot the square.

Soon the situation changed. General Drouot, at the head of eighty pieces, established himself near us, dividing his fire between the troops facing us and those attacking the villages which stood our left; villages which, having been captured and retaken several times during the day, formed the key position, for on the possession of these villages depended the outcome of the battle.

We had been fighting for several hours without, in my opinion, achieving any result, when loud cries of ‘Long live the Emperor’ were heard, followed by the following words: ‘The battle is won, the Army of Italy has made its junction. The Emperor orders to advance’. Very few soldiers probably understood what this junction meant, and I will admit that I was one of them. But for French soldiers the order to move forward is always well received, and for my part I preferred to advance rather than to witness cannonballs sweeping away our lines without us being able to make use of our muskets.

All the generals proceeded to the front of the troops, and at the moment when the advance was taking shape, we observed the appearance, on our right, of numerous and dense columns of troops, which were being preceded by a furious cannonade. It was the corps of Marshal (sic) Bertrand which entered the line and came at last to fill the gap, which had been there for a long time, on our right.

With Drouot’s artillery on one side and Bertrand’s on the other, we were quickly pulled out of the dangerous position we were in. It was a frightful clash, the earth shook under our feet. Still marching in square formation, we advanced rapidly and attacked in turn the troops in front of us. Cavalry charges and infantry fusillades were successively employed to stop us. But these measures were futile, as the same forward movement was executed on the whole front of the army.

This unstoppable advance determined the retreat of the enemy. The night had arrived but it did not arrest our pursuit. Unfortunately, we had no cavalry, with the result that we were unable to reap the full benefit of our victory. While following the enemy, we had to act with caution, for they had a fine and numerous cavalry with which they could do us a great deal of harm if a square allowed itself to be intimidated, and this is precisely what happened as the night was quite dark.

For some time now the guns had ceased to rumble. We were beginning to take a breather and placed all the squares in the order they were to occupy, when the Prussian cavalry all of a sudden swept over us with rage. A regiment of light infantry, which stood in its path and was not sufficiently on its guard, was unexpectedly caught and sabred, their fleeing soldiers came to seek refuge near us. Unfortunately, the darkness prevented them from recognising in which direction they were to fire, with the result that a shoot-out took place between Frenchmen. It was during this brawl that Marmont’s first aide-de-camp was killed. This marshal was even obliged to enter a square in order not to be cut down by the Prussians. After a while, the confusion, which is inseparable from such a charge, was overcome and the Prussians set off again at full gallop, sending us a few volleys of mitraille. To support their potential retreat, the enemy had taken the precaution of bringing along several pieces of light artillery.

This last charge, later confirmed to have been led by Blücher himself, was the last (military) incident of the day …

Source : Faucheur, Narcisse, Mon histoire, à mes chers enfants et petits-enfants, Lille, 1886, pp. 160-166.