Russia Against Napoleon_ The True Story of the Campaigns of War and Peace - Dominic Lieven [238]
MacDonald and his corps commanders decided that it would be fatal to try to rally their men or oppose the Russians. Their only chance was to outrun them and subsequently find a safe spot to regroup and rebuild the men’s shattered morale. This was probably realistic but it guaranteed that huge numbers of stragglers would desert or be scooped up by the Russian cavalry and Cossacks. It also meant abandoning the detached divisions of Ledru and Puthod to their fate. Ledru escaped but Puthod decided to try to link up with MacDonald’s fleeing corps. Marching north-westwards from Hirschberg, Puthod was shadowed all the way by Major-General Iusefovich’s cavalry. The Russians intercepted Puthod’s report to MacDonald which outlined his plans and his line of march. On 29 August they encircled and trapped his division near Löwenberg with its back to the river Bober, which the heavy rain had made impossible to ford. General Rudzevich waited to press his attack until Prince Shcherbatov’s Sixth Corps had arrived. Against such overwhelming odds resistance was pointless, and Puthod surrendered with more than 4,000 men and 16 guns. His division had begun the autumn campaign just two weeks before with over 8,000 men in its ranks. Very few of them escaped to serve Napoleon again.46
Not until the first week in September did the allied pursuit come to a halt. By then MacDonald’s army had been pushed right back into Saxony and had lost 35,000 men even according to French sources. The Army of Silesia had also lost heavily but very many of its missing men were exhausted Prussian militiamen who would in time return to the ranks. This was far less true of the French wounded and missing, who had been overrun by the allied advance. Napoleon could not afford such losses. Nor could he afford to have Blücher established within striking range of Dresden, the Elbe crossings and the other allied armies. The disaster which had befallen MacDonald’s army made it very unlikely that the emperor would be able to execute his plan to take his Guards and reserves north to deal with Bernadotte.
Victory hugely raised the morale and confidence of Blücher’s army and resolved many of the tensions which had existed among its commanders. Langeron’s disobedience was forgiven. Blücher’s report to Alexander on the battle of the Katzbach won for Sacken promotion to full general and the Order of St George, second class. The day after the battle Blücher told every Prussian within earshot that victory had been owed in great part to Sacken’s handling of his cavalry and artillery. The next time Sacken rode past Yorck’s corps he was greeted with volleys of cheers from the Prussian troops. All this was balm for the soul of a man who for many years had seen himself as the victim of injustice and bad luck. The battle of the Katzbach was the turning point in Sacken’s fortunes. He would die many years after the war a prince, a field-marshal and one of the most respected figures in Russia.47
However great Blücher’s victories were, in the end the fate of the campaign would rest above all on the performance of the main allied army, in other words Schwarzenberg’s Army of Bohemia. It contained many more troops than the armies of Bernadotte and Blücher combined. Only the Army of Bohemia could hope to confront