At a glance
- Blücher advances to finish Marmont
- Marmont turns, with the Guard behind him
- Grouchy's cavalry ride round the Allied flank
- Blücher retreats for hours in squares to Étoges
- About 6,000 Allied losses for about 600 French
The full account
Blücher did not know how badly things had gone in the west. On the 13th he pushed forward from Vertus with Kleist’s and Kapzevich’s corps and drove Marmont back from Étoges through Champaubert to Vauchamps. Napoleon marched back east from Château-Thierry through the night.
On the morning of the 14th, Marmont turned and counter-attacked, with the Guard coming up behind him. Grouchy’s cavalry swept around the Allied right through the woods. Blücher saw the danger and ordered a retreat. He formed his infantry into squares and fell back for hours across open country, under constant charges by the French cavalry.
By nightfall the column had reached Étoges, where a final French bayonet attack fell on men who had laid down their arms to search for food. The Prussians lost about 4,000 men and seven guns, nearly half of Kleist’s strength. Kapzevich lost more than 2,000. The French lost about 600.
In the four days’ fighting … Blucher’s army of about 56,000 men had lost over 16,000 men and 47 guns. Napoleon’s loss had been only about 4000.F. Loraine Petre, Napoleon at Bay, 1814 (1914)
Why it mattered
In four battles Napoleon had cost an army of about 56,000 men more than 16,000 men and 47 guns, at a cost of about 4,000 French. Petre calls it rightly "the finest" manoeuvre he made in 1814.
