On the tenth of February, 1814, for the first time in many days, the sun shone brightly. Nevertheless there was little change in the temperature; the thaw still prevailed. The sun's heat was not great enough to dry the roads, nor was the weather sufficiently cold to freeze them. As the Emperor wrote to his brother, with scarcely any exaggeration, there was still six feet of mud on highways and by-paths.
Napoleon, by rapid marching at the head of Maurice's Squadrons d'Élite, mounted grenadiers, chasseurs, hussars and dragoons, had easily attained a position in front of the van of the army commanded by Marmont, which had rested a few hours at St. Prix, where the road crossed the Petit Morin on a bridge. His requisition on the peasantry had been honored, and great numbers of fresh, vigorous draft horses had been brought in from all sides. There was not much speed to be got out of these farm animals, to be sure, but they were of prodigious strength. The ordinary gun teams were relieved, and numbers of these plow-horses attached to the limbers pulled the precious artillery steadily toward the enemy.
Scouts had discovered the fact that Olsuvieff's division was preparing breakfast on the low plateau upon which was situated the village of Champaubert, which had been observed by Marteau and Bal-Arrêt. Napoleon reconnoitered the place in person from the edge of the wood. Nansouty's cavalry had earlier driven some Russian skirmishers out of Baye, but Olsuvieff apparently had no conception of the fact that the whole French army was hard by, and he had contented himself with sending out a few scouts, who, unfortunately for him, scouted in the wrong direction.
While waiting for the infantry under Marmont to come up, Napoleon sent Nansouty's cavalry around to the left to head off Olsuvieff's advance and interpose between him and the rear guard of Sacken's division. Even the noise of the little battle—for the skirmish was a hot one—a mile down the road, did not apprise the Russian of his danger, and it was not until the long columns of the French came out of the wood and deployed and until the guns were hauled into the clearing and wheeled into action, that he awoke to the fact that an army was upon him and he would have to fight for his life.
With his unerring genius Napoleon had struck at the key position, the very center of Blücher's long drawn-out line. With but thirty thousand men attacking eighty thousand he had so maneuvered as to be in overwhelming force at the point of contact! In other words, he had got there first with the most men. Blücher's army was separated into detachments and stretched out over forty miles of roads.
Olsuvieff's division comprised five thousand men with twenty guns. At first Napoleon could bring against him not many more than that number of men and guns, to which must be added Nansouty's small cavalry division. And Olsuvieff, with all the advantages of the position, made a magnificent defense. As a defensive fighter the stubborn Russian took a back seat for no soldier in Europe. But the most determined resistance, the most magnificent courage, could not avail against overwhelming numbers, especially directed and led by Napoleon in person, for with every hour the numbers of the assailants were increased by the arrival of fresh troops, while with every hour the defense grew weaker through casualties.
Olsuvieff might have surrendered with honor at midday, but he was a stubborn soldier, and he realized, moreover, that it was his duty to hold Napoleon as long as possible. Even the most indifferent commander could not fail to see the danger to Blücher's isolated corps. Couriers broke through to the east to Sacken and Yorck, who together had over thirty-five thousand men under their command, and to the west to Blücher, with as many more men, telling all these commanders of the extreme peril of the center and of the frightfully dangerous situation in which their carelessness and the ability of their great enemy had involved them. The noise of the firing, too, was carried far and wide over the broad open fields and cultivated farms of the rolling prairie of Champagne.
Blücher, however, could not credit the intelligence. He believed it impossible for Napoleon to have escaped from Schwarzenberg. He could not conceive that Napoleon would leave the Austrians unopposed to march to Paris if they would. He could not think that even Napoleon would venture to attack eighty thousand men with thirty, and, if he did, he reasoned that Sacken and Yorck and Olsuvieff, singly or in combination, were easily a match for him. The messengers must surely be mistaken. This could only be a raid, a desperate stroke of some corps or division. Therefore, he halted and then drew back and concentrated on his rear guard waiting for further news.
Sacken and Yorck were nearer the fighting. They could hear and see for themselves. They at once gave over the pursuit of Macdonald and retraced their steps. Olsuvieff made good his defense until nightfall, when the survivors gave up the battle. Fifteen hundred men of his brave division had been killed on the plateau. As many more were wounded and captured, most of whom subsequently died, and there were about two thousand unhurt prisoners. Their ammunition was exhausted. They were worn out. They were overwhelmed by massed charges at last. Blücher's line was pierced, his center crushed, and one of the finest divisions of his army was eliminated.
In the wagon train recaptured at Aumenier had been found arms and provisions and ammunition. Another Prussian wagon train, blundering along the road, was seized by Maurice's cavalry, which had been sent scouting to the eastward. From the Russian camp the starving French had got food, more arms and clothing. The dead were quickly despoiled, even the living were forced to contribute to the comfort of their conquerors. It was night before the last French division got up from Sézanne, but there was enough food and weapons for all.
A new spirit had come over that army. What had seemed to them a purposeless, ghastly march through the mud was now realized to be one of the most brilliant manoeuvres Napoleon had ever undertaken. The conscripts, the raw boys, the National Guards, many of whom had been in action for the first time that day, were filled with incredible enthusiasm. They were ready for anything.
But the army must have rest. It must be permitted to sleep the night. Accordingly the divisions were disposed in the fields. Those who had fought hardest were given quarters in the village; the next were placed in the captured Russian camp; the others made themselves as comfortable as they could around huge fires. The poor prisoners had little or nothing. The ragged French were at least better clothed than they were in the morning. The defenseless had arms and the whole army had been fed. There was wine, too; the Russian commissariat was a liberal one. There was much laughter and jovialness in the camps that night. Of course, the guard and the other veterans expected nothing else, but to the youngsters the brilliant stroke of Napoleon was a revelation.
As the little Emperor rode from division to division, sometimes dismounting and walking through the camps on foot, he was received with such acclaim as reminded him of the old days in Italy. And, indeed, the brief campaign which he had so brilliantly inaugurated can be favorably compared to that famous Italian adventure, or to any other short series of consecutive military exploits in the whole history of war.
They said that the Emperor had hesitated and lost his great opportunity at Borodino. They said that he had frightfully miscalculated at Moscow, that his judgment had been grievously at fault in the whole Russian campaign. They said that he had sat idle during a long day when the fortunes of his empire might have been settled at Bautzen. They said that, overcome by physical weariness, he had failed to grasp his great opportunity after the victory at Dresden. They said that Leipsic and the battles that preceded it showed that he had lost the ability to see things with a soldier's eye. They declared that he made pictures and presented them to himself as facts; that he thought as an Emperor, not as a Captain. They said that in this very campaign in France, the same imperial obsession had taken such hold upon him that in striving to retain everything from Holland to the end of the Italian peninsula he stood to lose everything. They said that, if he had concentrated all his armies, withdrawn them from outlying dependencies, he could have overwhelmed Blücher and Schwarzenberg, the Czar Alexander, the Emperor Francis and King William, and that, having hurled them beyond the Rhine, these provinces in dispute would have fallen to his hand again. They said that his practical omnipotence had blinded his judgment.
Those things may be true. But, whether they be true or not, no ............