{
 "slug": "lutzen-1813",
 "title": "Battle of Lützen (1813)",
 "status": "draft",
 "era": "1775–1815",
 "date_text": "2 May 1813",
 "start": "1813-05-02",
 "end": "1813-05-02",
 "war": "Napoleonic Wars",
 "cdb90_war": "THE NAPOLEONIC WARS",
 "place": {
  "name": "Around Gross Görschen, Kaja, Rahna and Klein Görschen, south-west of Leipzig, Saxony",
  "lat": 51.22,
  "lon": 12.2,
  "wikidata": "Q329534"
 },
 "lede": "On 2 May 1813 Wittgenstein's Russians and Prussians struck the flank of Napoleon's march on Leipzig and nearly broke Ney's raw conscripts. Napoleon rallied them and won at dusk, but without cavalry he could not turn the field into a rout.",
 "result": "French victory, but not a decisive one",
 "result_cdb90": "attacker loss",
 "belligerents": [
  {
   "role": "attacker",
   "name": "Russo-Prussian army under Wittgenstein",
   "commanders": [
    "Peter Wittgenstein (commander-in-chief)",
    "Gebhard von Blücher (wounded)",
    "Ludwig Yorck von Wartenburg (took over the Prussians)",
    "Alexander I and Frederick William III (present)"
   ],
   "strength": {
    "value": 70000,
    "low": 70000,
    "high": 96000,
    "source": "s2"
   },
   "casualties": {
    "value": 20000,
    "low": 11500,
    "high": 30000,
    "source": "s2"
   }
  },
  {
   "role": "defender",
   "name": "French Army of the Main and Army of the Elbe",
   "commanders": [
    "Napoleon I",
    "Michel Ney (III Corps)",
    "Auguste de Marmont (VI Corps)",
    "Henri Bertrand (IV Corps)",
    "Jacques MacDonald (XI Corps)",
    "Jacques Lauriston (V Corps)",
    "Édouard Mortier (Young Guard)"
   ],
   "strength": {
    "value": 78000,
    "low": 78000,
    "high": 145000,
    "source": "s2"
   },
   "casualties": {
    "value": 22000,
    "low": 18000,
    "high": 22000,
    "source": "s2"
   }
  }
 ],
 "sections": {
  "background": "Napoleon's Grande Armée had been destroyed in Russia in 1812. Prussia, which had fought beside France, signed the Treaty of Kalisz with Russia in February 1813 and declared war in March. French forces under Eugène de Beauharnais fell back through Germany while Napoleon raised about 200,000 largely inexperienced conscripts.\n\nThe Russians and Prussians, now under Wittgenstein after Kutuzov's death, advanced to the Saale. They counted on their cavalry, which Napoleon's new army badly lacked, and on the veterans in the Russian ranks. Napoleon left Mainz on 26 April and crossed the Saale on 30 April, marching on Leipzig in several columns. He believed the Allied main body was far off near Altenburg, and he had too little cavalry to learn otherwise.\n\nWittgenstein saw a chance. His plan was a surprise attack on Napoleon's right flank, with Blücher crossing the Elster in two columns, Kleist holding Leipzig, and the Russian Guard in reserve. Ney's III Corps lay around Lützen, on the right of the French march, and the Allies planned to hit that flank with Blücher's troops while the rest of the army struck behind it. The Allied attack was meant to begin early in the morning. It did not. Napoleon, for his part, expected no major battle on 2 May, and Ney had ignored orders to send out strong reconnaissance. Neither side knew where the other was in strength, and neither expected the battle that took place on this ground, south-west of Leipzig.",
  "forces": "Napoleon's army was young. The infantry were conscripts, many only weeks in uniform, and cavalry and horse artillery were scarce. He had perhaps 140,000 men in the Army of the Main and some 62,000 more under Eugène, but only a little under half were on the field when the fighting began. The corps came up piecemeal through the afternoon: Ney's III Corps first, then Marmont, Bertrand, MacDonald, and Napoleon's Guard.\n\nThe Allies had about 88,000 available, with about 5,000 Cossacks, and committed about 70,000, half Prussian and half Russian. Their cavalry was a real asset. Command was awkward. Wittgenstein had replaced the dying Kutuzov, but Miloradovich and Tormasov, senior to him, answered to the Tsar, so Wittgenstein's direct control covered only Blücher and Wintzingerode. Alexander I and Frederick William III were both present. The Allies fielded more guns than the French, 552 to 372 on one count.\n\nOn the day both sides committed far fewer men than they had on paper, and the Allies fought with the larger share of their strength.",
  "course": "**Morning.** At about 10:00 Lauriston attacked Kleist at Lindenau, west of Leipzig, and Kleist fell back; the Allies evacuated Leipzig by about 13:00. This was the action that Napoleon, looking east, thought was the main business of the day. The Allied main body, meanwhile, was late. The advance was meant to start at 01:00 and be in position by 07:00; the leading troops were not in place until about 11:00.\n\n**Gross Görschen and the four villages, 11:45–14:00.** Blücher attacked about 11:30–11:45 against the villages of Gross Görschen, Klein Görschen, Rahna and Kaja. A reconnaissance had reported only recruits. He found two full divisions and paused for a bombardment, which gave Souham time to occupy Gross Görschen. The bombardment began about noon; after some forty minutes Klüx's brigade attacked and took Gross Görschen, and Souham soon retook it. Gross Görschen changed hands several times in the next hours. About 13:00 Zieten took Klein Görschen and other Prussians took Rahna. Ney counterattacked with Souham, Girard and Brennier, retaking Klein Görschen and Rahna but not Gross Görschen, Roeder's reserve brigade then pushed the French out of Klein Görschen again. Ney's line was close to collapse by 14:00.\n\n**Napoleon arrives, 14:30.** Napoleon reached the field at about 14:30 and found III Corps near breaking. He rallied the conscripts in person. Marmont later wrote that Napoleon was in greater personal danger than at any other time in his career. The Guard reached Kaja, which Ricard's division retook about 15:00. Napoleon held back the Guard, saying the battle \"turns about Kaja\". Bertrand and Marmont were delayed on the flanks by Allied forces.\n\n**Blücher wounded, Yorck attacks, 15:00–17:30.** Blücher was wounded, and Yorck took command of the Prussians. The Tsar refused to commit the Russian Guard and grenadiers for a decisive assault. About 16:00 Wittgenstein committed Yorck's reserves; Hünerbein and Horn took Klein Görschen and Rahna. Lanusse's Young Guard brigade cleared Kaja. By 17:30 the French flank forces had arrived. The Allies retook two of the central villages, but Napoleon's forces were now concentrated and outnumbered the Allied troops in front of them. MacDonald advanced on Eisdorf on Ney's left, and Bertrand linked up with Marmont's right.\n\n**The Guard attack, about 18:00.** Drouot massed 70 to 80 guns at close range south-west of Kaja. Four columns of Young Guard under Mortier, supported by the Old Guard and the remains of III Corps, advanced on the centre. MacDonald and Latour-Maubourg took Eisdorf and Kitzen. The Allied line gave way. Darkness ended the fighting; Napoleon needed about two more hours of daylight to make the victory decisive. The Tsar and Wittgenstein did not accept defeat on the field; they withdrew after learning that Leipzig had fallen, and Napoleon held Lützen and the ground.",
  "aftermath": "French losses of about 20,000 were at least as great as the Allies' and perhaps greater. Napoleon had the field and the road to Dresden, but not a destroyed enemy. His pursuit was crippled by the shortage of cavalry: Marmont's infantry were checked when nine Prussian cavalry squadrons mauled Bonnet's division, and Napoleon himself had to take shelter in an infantry square. The Allies withdrew to Dresden and Meissen and crossed the Elbe. The war's next big battle came at Bautzen on 20–21 May, where Napoleon again won, again lost heavily, and again could not finish the enemy.\n\nGerhard von Scharnhorst, the Prussian reformer and Wittgenstein's chief of staff, was wounded at Lützen. The wound was minor, but the hasty retreat denied him treatment and a fatal infection followed. Napoleon accepted an armistice on 4 June. Britain granted subsidies to Russia and Prussia, the pause let the Allies reorganise, and it encouraged Austria to join them when it expired. Napoleon later regarded that truce as the undoing of his power in Germany.",
  "wargaming": "Lützen suits a corps-level game on a table covering the four villages and the flat ground around Kaja. At a scale of about 1,000 men to a battalion-sized block or a regiment per base, the roughly 150,000 men engaged fit on a large table; a divisional-scale game with one base per few hundred men gives a manageable evening.\n\nThe key terrain is the four villages, which change hands repeatedly and anchor everything. The interesting asymmetries are timing and quality. The French arrive in waves, so the early turns belong to the Allies and the later turns to Napoleon. Rate the French conscripts as raw but numerous, the Allies as better in cavalry, and give Napoleon a Guard that cannot be committed until he chooses.\n\nThe central decision is the Tsar's reserve. Let the Allied player decide, as Alexander did, when to commit the Russian Guard and grenadiers, and what the delay costs. The natural what-ifs are an Allied attack in the early morning as planned, a Russian Guard thrown in at 16:00, or French cavalry in the numbers Napoleon needed to pursue. Use the Drouot grand battery as a scenario trigger: from about 18:00 it destroys a sector of line at close range."
 },
 "images": [
  {
   "file": "File:Bataille de Lutzen, 2 mai 1813.jpg",
   "kind": "painting",
   "caption": "The Battle of Lützen, 2 May 1813, painted by Joseph Beaume in 1836–1837.",
   "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Bataille_de_Lutzen%2C_2_mai_1813.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original",
   "thumb": "https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0e/Bataille_de_Lutzen%2C_2_mai_1813.jpg/960px-Bataille_de_Lutzen%2C_2_mai_1813.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail",
   "page": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bataille_de_Lutzen,_2_mai_1813.jpg",
   "licence": "Public domain",
   "licence_url": "",
   "artist": "Joseph Beaume",
   "credit": "https://collections.chateauversailles.fr/?lng=fr/query/ce6a0960-e185-431f-8ba9-c589536ab67e#/query/4bce5240-503a-4138-9365-e1c77310b96b",
   "width": 1884
  },
  {
   "file": "File:Frühjahrsfeldzug 1813.png",
   "kind": "map",
   "caption": "Map of the spring campaign of 1813 in Saxony.",
   "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Fr%C3%BChjahrsfeldzug_1813.png?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original",
   "thumb": "https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8c/Fr%C3%BChjahrsfeldzug_1813.png/960px-Fr%C3%BChjahrsfeldzug_1813.png?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail",
   "page": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fr%C3%BChjahrsfeldzug_1813.png",
   "licence": "CC BY 3.0",
   "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0",
   "artist": "Memnon335bc",
   "credit": "Own work",
   "width": 1839
  },
  {
   "file": "File:Battle of Lutzen 1813 by Fleischmann.jpg",
   "kind": "painting",
   "caption": "The battle of Lützen, in a nineteenth-century print by Fleischmann.",
   "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Battle_of_Lutzen_1813_by_Fleischmann.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original",
   "thumb": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Battle_of_Lutzen_1813_by_Fleischmann.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled",
   "page": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Battle_of_Lutzen_1813_by_Fleischmann.jpg",
   "licence": "Public domain",
   "licence_url": "",
   "artist": "Artist: FLEISCHMANN, Andreas Johann (1811 – 1878)",
   "credit": "McGill University Libraries, [1]",
   "width": 689
  },
  {
   "file": "File:Blessure du général Scharnhorst à la bataille de Lützen, le 2 mai 1813.jpg",
   "kind": "illustration",
   "caption": "The wounding of General Scharnhorst at Lützen, 2 May 1813.",
   "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Blessure_du_g%C3%A9n%C3%A9ral_Scharnhorst_%C3%A0_la_bataille_de_L%C3%BCtzen%2C_le_2_mai_1813.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original",
   "thumb": "https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a2/Blessure_du_g%C3%A9n%C3%A9ral_Scharnhorst_%C3%A0_la_bataille_de_L%C3%BCtzen%2C_le_2_mai_1813.jpg/960px-Blessure_du_g%C3%A9n%C3%A9ral_Scharnhorst_%C3%A0_la_bataille_de_L%C3%BCtzen%2C_le_2_mai_1813.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail",
   "page": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blessure_du_g%C3%A9n%C3%A9ral_Scharnhorst_%C3%A0_la_bataille_de_L%C3%BCtzen,_le_2_mai_1813.jpg",
   "licence": "Public domain",
   "licence_url": "",
   "artist": "Carl Röchling",
   "credit": "Jean Tranié et Juan-Carlos Carmigniani, Napoléon 1813 : la campagne d'Allemagne , Pygmalion/Gérard Watelet, 1987, p. 90.",
   "width": 1857
  },
  {
   "file": "File:Peter Wittgenstein by Karl August Senff 1815.jpg",
   "kind": "portrait",
   "caption": "Peter Wittgenstein, the Allied commander-in-chief, painted by Karl August Senff in 1815.",
   "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Peter_Wittgenstein_by_Karl_August_Senff_1815.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original",
   "thumb": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Peter_Wittgenstein_by_Karl_August_Senff_1815.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled",
   "page": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Peter_Wittgenstein_by_Karl_August_Senff_1815.jpg",
   "licence": "Public domain",
   "licence_url": "",
   "artist": "Karl August Senff",
   "credit": "https://books.google.com/books?id=N8pIAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=karl+august+senff&source=bl&ots=Zg7boCElce&sig=Xjln2BfwwobKUvq872MjEJCN8Ms&hl=en&sa=X&ei=YRVMUL6_GJTq2wWlqYCABg&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=karl%20august%20senff&f=false",
   "width": 699
  },
  {
   "file": "File:Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830) - Field-Marshal Gebhardt von Blücher (1742-1819) - RCIN 405148 - Royal Collection.jpg",
   "kind": "portrait",
   "caption": "Field Marshal Gebhard von Blücher, by Sir Thomas Lawrence.",
   "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Sir_Thomas_Lawrence_%281769-1830%29_-_Field-Marshal_Gebhardt_von_Bl%C3%BCcher_%281742-1819%29_-_RCIN_405148_-_Royal_Collection.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original",
   "thumb": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Sir_Thomas_Lawrence_%281769-1830%29_-_Field-Marshal_Gebhardt_von_Bl%C3%BCcher_%281742-1819%29_-_RCIN_405148_-_Royal_Collection.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled",
   "page": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sir_Thomas_Lawrence_(1769-1830)_-_Field-Marshal_Gebhardt_von_Bl%C3%BCcher_(1742-1819)_-_RCIN_405148_-_Royal_Collection.jpg",
   "licence": "Public domain",
   "licence_url": "",
   "artist": "Thomas Lawrence",
   "credit": "Royal Collection",
   "width": 506
  }
 ],
 "sources": [
  {
   "id": "s1",
   "title": "Battle of Lützen (1813) (Wikipedia)",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_L%C3%BCtzen_(1813)",
   "kind": "web"
  },
  {
   "id": "s2",
   "title": "Battle of Lützen, 2 May 1813 (History of War)",
   "url": "https://www.historyofwar.org/articles/battles_lutzen_1813.html",
   "kind": "web"
  },
  {
   "id": "s3",
   "title": "Digby Smith, The Napoleonic Wars Data Book, Greenhill, 1998 (not read; cited by s1)",
   "url": null,
   "kind": "book"
  },
  {
   "id": "s4",
   "title": "Michael V. Leggiere, Napoleon and the Struggle for Germany, vol. 1, Cambridge University Press, 2015 (not read; cited by s1)",
   "url": null,
   "kind": "book"
  }
 ],
 "cdb90": [
  135
 ],
 "order": 86,
 "url": "https://battles.georgewyrd.com/lutzen-1813/",
 "oob": [],
 "oob_lwtv": [],
 "scenarios": [],
 "orbat": null,
 "orbat_lwtv": null,
 "reading": {
  "prose": [],
  "history": [],
  "fiction": [],
  "poetry": []
 },
 "reading_lwtv": {
  "prose": [],
  "poetry": []
 },
 "photos": [],
 "photos_kind": "photographs",
 "newspapers": null
}