On 25 March 1814, at Fère-Champenoise in Champagne, Allied cavalry routed the corps of Marshals Marmont and Mortier and destroyed the column of Generals Pacthod and Amey, mostly National Guards, who fought in squares until surrounded. The French lost some 10,000 men, and the Allies marched on Paris. On 25 March 1799 Archduke Charles defeated Jourdan at Stockach.
Battle of Fère-Champenoise
25 March 1814 · 212 years ago
The road to Paris lies open
After the fighting at Arcis-sur-Aube, Napoleon marched east toward Saint-Dizier to strike at the rear of the Allied armies, hoping to draw them away from Paris. The Allies did not follow him. On 24 March they decided to march on Paris instead: the Grand Army was to advance on Fère-Champenoise on the 25th, and Blücher's Army of Silesia was to join it.1
In their path stood Marshals Marmont and Mortier, who were marching to join the emperor and did not know that the way was blocked. On the night of the 24th Marmont halted at Soudé-Sainte-Croix and waited for Mortier there. Their two corps numbered about 16,500 men by Houssaye's count, 19,000 by Petre's and 22,000 by Danilevsky's.2
A running fight across the plain
At about 8 a.m. the cavalry of Count Pahlen, the Allied advance guard, found Marmont drawn up near Soudé-Sainte-Croix. The Allied cavalry attacked without waiting for its infantry, and more squadrons kept arriving. The marshals joined forces and fell back toward Fère-Champenoise under repeated charges, their infantry in squares.3
At the defile of Connantray General Jamin's brigade was broken and taken. Then panic seized the French cavalry and spread to the infantry; guns and baggage were abandoned as the fugitives poured through Fère-Champenoise. By evening the marshals had escaped to Allemant with what was left of their corps.4
The last squares of the National Guard
From the heights the French heard heavy gunfire behind them and for a moment believed that Napoleon was coming to their aid. It came from the column of Generals Pacthod and Amey, two divisions escorting a large convoy of food and ammunition to the emperor. Houssaye and Petre count 4,300 men and 16 guns, most of them National Guards and barely trained conscripts. The Fondation Napoléon describes the National Guards of 1813 and 1814 as villagers and townsmen without real military training.5
While the column halted near Villeseneux to eat, it was attacked by the cavalry of the Army of Silesia. It fell back in squares toward Fère-Champenoise, and near Clamanges Pacthod gave up the convoy to save his men. Near Fère-Champenoise it ran into the Allied monarchs themselves and the cavalry of the Grand Army; Russian guns opened on the squares, and the column was cut off before it could reach the marshes of Saint-Gond.6
Officers rode forward to call for surrender. One of them, Colonel Rapatel, an aide-de-camp of the Tsar, was shot dead. Only when his squares were broken and he himself was wounded did Pacthod surrender. Only a small part of the column reached the marshes; the rest were killed, wounded or taken, and Amey too was captured. Sir Charles Stewart, writing to Lord Castlereagh from Allied headquarters the next day, said they had “defended themselves in a most gallant manner, although young troops, and being Gardes Nationales”; Petre writes that they fought like veterans.7
A cavalry victory
The losses are given differently. Petre puts the total French loss for the day at some 10,000 men and over 60 guns; Plotho and Danilevsky count 10,000 prisoners and 80 guns. Petre and Danilevsky put the Allied loss at 2,000 men.8
On the Allied side nearly all the fighting was done by cavalry and horse artillery. Marmont, in his memoirs, called it a mere skirmish “où il n’y a pas eu un seul homme d’infanterie engagé du côté de l’ennemi” (in which not a single infantryman was engaged on the enemy side; our translation).9
The marshals fell back to Paris, where the Allies attacked on 30 March. That battle is told on our page for 30 March, and the wider campaign in our guide to the greatest Napoleonic battles.10
Battle of Stockach
25 March 1799 · 227 years ago
Also on 25 March: Stockach, 1799
In 1799, at Stockach in southwest Germany, the Austrian army of Archduke Charles defeated the French army of General Jourdan. Grenadier battalions and cuirassiers brought up from the Austrian reserve on the Liptingen road turned the fight, and the French fell back. Jomini judged the losses of the two sides roughly equal.11
