The Napoleon Options: Alternate Decisions of the Napoleonic Wars by Jonathan North

Author:Jonathan North [North, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Frontline Books
Published: 2017-05-31T07:00:00+00:00

The transfer of his force back to the north of the stream was not so easy, however. At their first sight of swarms of the feared Cossacks closing in on them, the train personnel in the park on the new Moscow-Smolensk road rode for their lives. Some, close to the three small bridges which had been built over the Kolotscha at Alexinki, headed south for the safety of the Imperial Guard. If they found other vehicles blocking their way, they frequently cut the traces of their own teams, abandoned their guns and wagons, and rode off as fast as they could. A huge and jumbled mass of such vehicles soon formed at Valueva. At Alexinki guns and limbers, caissons and carts, jammed the bridges and fell off the open sides, so that movement in either direction became impossible. Thus it was that although Prince Eugene’s infantry and cavalry repassed the stream with little trouble, his artillery was held up south of it for over an hour, and was unable to participate in the battle to the north due to the fact that the northern bank dominated the southern and rendered the French gunners blind.

By this time Napoleon was aware that something was amiss. He rode north from the Schewardino redoubt to see for himself. When he arrived at Alexinki, the roar of explosions from amidst the massive sea of abandoned artillery wagons told him that the Cossacks were systematically destroying his precious reserve ammunition. He gave rapid orders for II Cavalry Corps to be pulled back from its position in reserve before the Flèches, and to cross the Kolotscha at Fomkino, cut through the swarm of refugees west of Valueva and strike into the Cossacks. Claparede’s Vistula Legion was to be forwarded from the Reserve to support Eugene. The assaults on the Flèches were to continue with greater intensity, but V (Polish) Corps was told to abandon its drive in the south against Utitza and to pull back to Schewardino village, behind I and III Corps at the Flèches. The Westphalians were also to come north again in support of I Corps.

In the lull which followed the withdrawal of Eugene’s and Grouchy’s men from before the Grand Battery, the Russians reorganised, reinforced and resupplied its garrison. Noting the absence of any infantry before them, they advanced Dochturov’s VI Corps to the Semenowskaya stream and brought five batteries (sixty guns) forward from the 300gun Army Artillery Reserve. The thin – and thinning – screen of Bavarian cavalry could stand this assault no longer and, seeking cover from the galling fire, fell back to the west. Clouds of Russian Jägers trotted forward over the Semenovska stream to consolidate their hold on the area.

This tipped the scales in Russia’s favour. Although Kutuzov was too cautious to press further forward with large formations, Napoleon’s offensive had been thrown completely out of gear. In the north his forces – without artillery for over an hour – were badly mauled, and the loss of so much ammunition and over seventy guns in the chaos there crippled his counter-stroke.

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