Six Days' Campaign

The Six Days' Campaign (10–15 February 1814) was a final series of victories by the forces of Napoleon I of France as the Sixth Coalition closed in on Paris. As was said by his contemporary enemy, the Austrian general Johann von Nostitz-Rieneck, this campaign demonstrated Napoleon's tactical mastery "to the highest degree."

When the Napoleonic army was preparing to strike at Blücher's Russo-Prussian Army of Silesia, the latter's headquarters underestimated this threat. The Army of Silesia was stretched out on the march towards Paris. Its Russian corps commander Osten-Sacken had already made contact with the advanced Napoleon's units on 8 February, but did not report to Blücher, while its chief of staff Gneisenau made another blunder, namely, he believed that Napoleon's full movement from Villenauxe to Sézanne was only a reconnaissance after the leading French cavalrymen, who had come into view, retreated. A Russian officer arrived at Blücher's headquarters late on the 9th and reported to him and the staff that the army was under threat from the south, while on the night of the 10th intelligence discovered Napoleon himself already at Sézanne. Early on the 10th Napoleon attacked the central corps of the Army of Silesia, which was at Champaubert. Thus the Six Days Campaign began.

It was fought from 10 February to 15 February during which time Napoleon in the course of his lightning offensive, whilst his opponent did not have time to react, inflicted four defeats on the Army of Silesia by engaging its individual parts sequentially in the Battle of Champaubert, where he routed the entire corps and wedged into the central section of the enemy army, the Battle of Montmirail and the Battle of Château-Thierry, where he defeated the advanced forces and forced them to escape north-east beyond the Marne, and the Battle of Vauchamps, where he decisively pushed back the force under Blücher himself. With the exception of Champaubert, these battles took place with Napoleon's tactical inferiority in numbers. Napoleon's 30,000-man army, having suffered the loss of 3,400 men, managed to inflict 17,750 casualties on Blücher's force of 50,000–56,000.

The advance of the Army of Bohemia under Prince Schwarzenberg toward Paris compelled Napoleon to abandon his pursuit of Blücher's army, which, though badly beaten and dispersed, was soon replenished by the arrival of reinforcements. Five days after the defeat at Vauchamps, the Army of Silesia was back on the offensive.

By the start of 1814 the Sixth Coalition had defeated the French both in Germany (see German Campaign of 1813 ) and in Spain (see Peninsular War § End of the war in Spain), and were poised to invade France from the north-east and south-west.

On the north-eastern front three Coalition armies were preparing to invade France, however by the time that Six Days' Campaign ended only two armies had crossed the frontier into France:

At the same time Wellington invaded France over the Pyrenees. Leaving Marshals Soult and Suchet to defend south-west France, Napoleon commanded the French resistance in north-east France.

Napoleon had about 200,000 men in all, of whom upwards of 100,000 were held by the Duke of Wellington on the Spanish frontier (see Invasion of south-west France), and 20,000 more were required to watch the debouches from the Alps. Hence less than 80,000 remained available for the east and north-eastern frontier. If, however, he was weak in numbers, he was now operating in a friendly country, able to find food almost everywhere and had easy lines of communication.