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Updated: May 31, 2025
His first battle was Dresden, and there Napoleon gave him a drubbing of the severest character; and the loss of that battle would have carried with it the loss of the cause for which it was fought by the Allies, had it not been that at the very same time were fought and won a series of battles, at the Katzbach and elsewhere, which were due to the boldness of Blücher, who was old enough to be Schwartzenberg's father, with more than a dozen years to spare.
The French infantry and cavalry who had been driven down from the Jauër plateau thought themselves safe from their enemies once they had crossed the river, but the Prussians had sent a strong column to a bridge upstream of that at Chemochowitz, where they had crossed the Katzbach, so that having arrived on the bank which we had quitted in the morning, we were astonished to be attacked by squadrons of Uhlans.
Such a man is "one of them." Napoleon never recovered from the effects of the losses he experienced at Kulm and on the Katzbach, losses due entirely to the wetness of the weather. He went downward from that time with terrible velocity, and was in Elba the next spring, seven months after having been on the Elbe.
Chap. 27. After the unhappy affair at the Katzbach, Marshal Macdonald, in an attempt to re-unite his troops, indicated as rallying points the towns of Bunzlau, Lauban, and Gorlitz. A pitch-dark night, rutted roads and continuous torrential rain made movement slow and very difficult; and many soldiers, particularly those of our allies, went astray or lagged behind.
On the 28th of September, after reviewing our army corps, the Emperor treated me with quite exceptional benevolence, for although he very rarely gave more than one reward at a time, he created me an officer of the Legion of Honour, a Baron, and awarded me a grant of money...He loaded favours on the regiment, saying that it was the only one of Sébastiani's corps which had maintained good order at the Katzbach, had captured some enemy guns and had driven off the Prussians whenever they met them.
I saw nothing of this kind either at Ulm, Jena, Eylau, Bautzen, Dresden, Culm, or Leipsic; neither did it occur at Austerlitz, Friedland, Katzbach, or Dennewitz. I am not aware that Wellington, in any of his battles, ever marched in deployed lines to the attack of an enemy in position. He generally awaited the attack.
Napoleon himself forced Blücher back to the Katzbach, but had to retire again to defend Dresden from the Austrians; and his lieutenant, Macdonald, was defeated in the battle of the Katzbach on August 26th.
On the 7th of August Frederick was thirty miles west of Liegnitz. Here he halted for a day, and on the 9th marched to the Katzbach valley, only to find that Daun was securely posted on the other side of the river, and Lacy on the hills a few miles off. The next morning Frederick marched down the bank of the Katzbach to Liegnitz, Daun keeping parallel with him on the other side of the river.
At the same time, the 26th of August, a most glorious victory was gained by Blucher in Silesia. After having drawn Macdonald across the Katzbach and the foaming Neisse, he drove him, after a desperate and bloody engagement, into those rivers, which were greatly swollen by the incessant rains.
So, on the 26th of August, the day on which the Emperor was winning a resounding victory at Dresden, Macdonald lost the battle of Katzbach. The area which we occupied was dotted with small wooded hills, which, although practicable for cavalry, made movement difficult, but, by the same token, offered much advantage to the infantry.
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