Waterloo Commanders by Andrew Uffindell

Author:Andrew Uffindell [Uffindell, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Modern, 19th Century
ISBN: 9781781596975
Google: rbTNDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
Published: 2007-07-01T03:17:51+00:00

On the 18th, Napoleon began to retreat and the next day, the Allies attacked his rearguard holding Leipzig itself. Blücher wanted to be the first into the city and yelled his usual battle cry ‘Vorwärts! Vorwärts!’ His Russian soldiers eventually realized what he was shouting and promptly nicknamed him ‘Marshal Forwards!’ At last the fighting was over, completing a disastrous defeat for Napoleon. Blücher greeted the Emperor of Austria, the Tsar of Russia and the King of Prussia inside the city and was made Field Marshal. He informed his wife on 25 October: ‘I no longer know what to do with the decorations, for I am laden like an old coach horse. But the thought that makes it all worthwhile for me is that I was the one who humiliated the arrogant tyrant.’

The victorious Allies pressed westwards up to the Rhine, the eastern frontier of France. Blücher wrote to his wife on 3 November:

The great undertaking is now finished, the French are completely thrown over the Rhine. For successive days I have always advanced my headquarters in the evening to where Napoleon had previously left and I have always slept on the same spot. He has lost most of his army, especially his artillery, and if we had not made great mistakes, he himself would have been lost with all his army. But he will not be moving back into Germany soon, for what he saved is in a miserable condition.

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