Tag: Blücher
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Guard Grenadier Philippe Ballut at Lützen and Bautzen, 1813 …
In the evening, with the 2nd Grenadier Regiment occupying the ground on a plateau, the soldiers sighted the town of Lützen, with its round bell tower and a tall belfry tower dominating the large tile roofed buildings. The French cavalry had already entered the town to capture a few stragglers. It was known that Blücher…
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A report on the battle of Craonne, March 1814 …
On 7 March, the general received the order to proceed to Craonne; he was far from expecting to enter the line with troops comprising conscripts who only had been assembled for twenty days, during which time they had travelled more than a hundred leagues and had barely had time to learn how to load a…
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On the battle of Möckern (1813), witnessed by an officer …
Narcisse Faucheur, a nineteen-year-old officer in the 26th Infantry Regiment, recounts his experiences fighting at the northern sector of the Leipzig battlefield … … As I do not have any intention nor the possibility of providing you with a strategic account of the great battle which was being prepared, I will limit myself to recount…
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Spying on the Prussian army, 1809 …
Stettin, 22 January 1809. Monsieur le Maréchal (Davout), According to the latest reports from an associate whom I sent to Starqard, and who has managed to make contact with someone who is very close to General Blücher, it is a fact that Prussia is recruiting troops, and that it is not former soldiers who are…
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Turmoil on the Katzbach (1813), a report of General Sébastiani …
In accordance with the orders of Your Excellency (Marshal Macdonald), I left Brockendorf on the 26th (of August) at seven o’clock in the morning to march on Jauer via the road to Kroïtsch. Brought to a halt in the defile of Nieder-Crayn, I established myself in front of Gietendorf at nine o’clock, and I marched…
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Memoirs of a Dutch cavalry officer at Waterloo …
Heuvingh recounts his time serving in the 4th Regiment of Dutch-Belgian Light Dragoons in the 1815 campaign … … Hardly had the Dutch government been informed that Napoleon, in March 1815, had escaped from the island of Elba and returned to France, when the various military corps soon received orders to advance to the southern…
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Waterloo through the eyes of an aide-de-camp …
Another excerpt of Alexandre de Chéron’s recollections on the battle of Waterloo. He was a lieutenant in the 26th Light Infantry Regiment and became an aide-de-camp to General de La Houssaye. The latter could not join the campaign … On the 18th, we held the right [flank] of the army. It was actually on our…
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Recounting the Waterloo campaign, as witnessed by an officer …
Alexandre de Chéron, a lieutenant in the 26th Light Infantry Regiment who became aide-de-camp to General de La Houssaye (the latter remained in Paris), wrote a letter to his superior dated 22 June 1815. The officer describes the battle of Waterloo as he experienced it : Mon général, You should be grateful that you are…