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could have had disastrous consequences. The heroes of the day were Yorck’s infantry, Vasilchikov and his cavalry, and Fabian von der Osten-Sacken. During the pursuit, however, it was Langeron’s corps which achieved much the most spectacular results. This did not come across in Blücher and Gneisenau’s account of the battle. It would, of course, take time for Blücher to forget Langeron’s insubordination. Moreover the Prussian leaders had good reason to try to build up the Landwehr’s self-respect and morale by glowing accounts of its merits. In a secret report, the Prussian military government of Silesia had no need to go in for propaganda, however. Rejoicing in the liberation of their province and the destruction of MacDonald’s army, their account of the pursuit of the defeated enemy ascribed the catastrophe which had overtaken the French to Langeron alone.42

This was to go too far, because Yorck and Sacken did also contribute to the French debacle. On the evening of the battle Blücher ordered both men to cross the Katzbach immediately and hasten the enemy’s flight. This was impossible. The allied troops were far too tired, the Katzbach was in full flood, and the night was pitch-black. The next day Yorck did just manage to get across the bridge and fords near Weinberg but immediately ran up against a well-organized French rearguard. There was nothing surprising in this, since three-quarters of Souham’s corps had barely been in action the previous day.

Meanwhile Sacken’s attempts to get across the fords between Schmogwitz and Liegnitz were thwarted by the flooded river banks and the depth and current of the Katzbach river, which the constant heavy rain had turned into a torrent. The Russians lost a day by having to march all the way to Liegnitz and cross the Katzbach there. All this meant that the French had time to mount a relatively orderly, albeit dangerously rapid, retreat. Many stragglers and baggage were lost but no large units were cut off or destroyed. Nevertheless casualties were high. On 29 August, with the retreat far from over, Third Corps’s roll-call revealed that 930 men were dead, 2,722 wounded and 4,009 missing. On 3 September Sacken reported to Petr Volkonsky that his army corps had captured 2 generals, 63 officers, 4,916 men and 50 guns since 25 August. By then the French had retreated right back out of Silesia and over the border into Saxony.43

Langeron’s men set off in pursuit of the French before dawn on 27 August. Their commander no doubt felt the need to redeem his poor performance on the previous day. Once again Rudzevich commanded the advance guard though he was now strengthened by regiments of Baron Korff’s cavalry corps and by the whole of Lieutenant-General Petr Kaptsevich’s Tenth Corps. Almost none of Korff’s and Kaptsevich’s men had fought on 26 August and they were therefore full of beans. By contrast the French troops were exhausted after two weeks of ceaseless marches, pouring rain, little food, and a day’s battle in which initial victory had turned suddenly into defeat and an exhausting night-time retreat. The chief of staff of Korff’s cavalry corps wrote in his memoirs that ‘it is incredible to what extent a lost battle and a few days of very bad weather depressed the morale of the French troops’. This is harsh. Even Wellington’s infantry might have gone to pieces if abandoned by their commissariat and cavalry, and forced to mount rearguard actions with muskets unusable because of the rain against a mass of well-disciplined enemy cavalry, supported by horse artillery and thousands of fresh infantry. But it is true that the exceptionally exhausting last few days played to the strengths of the tough Russian soldiers and to the weaknesses of Napoleon’s young conscripts. It is also true that although French élan was unmatchable when things were going well, in times of adversity French troops very often lacked the disciplined calm and solidity of the Russian infantry.44

On 27 August, when the Russians caught up with the French rearguards, many of the latter collapsed. Near Pilgramsdorf, the