MAP PLAN BATTLE BAUTZEN GERMANY NAPOLEON NAPOLEONIC WAR

BATTLE
OF
 BAUTZEN

20 & 21 MAY 1813.

 Showing the positions of the French, Prussian and Russian Allies, cavalry, infantry and artillery.

 Continuing their retreat from the mauling at Lutzen, the Prusso-Russian army of Generals Wittgenstein and Blucher was finally ordered to halt at Bautzen by Tsar Alexander and King William Frederick 111.

 The Allied army was almost 1000,000 men strong but was being followed by 115,000 under Napoleon Bonaparte, who had 85,000 more men under Marshal Ney within marching distance.

 Wittgenstein drew his men up in two strong defensive lines along a 10-kiilometre front, with strong points in villages and along ridges.

 By the 19^th, Bonaparte had set up his plan to pin the enemy to their lines and then bottle them up with Ney’s men, but, concerned that the Prusso-Russians had more men on the field than they actually had, the emperor would not spring his trap until they had been softened up.

The next day the attack began around midday, Hours of heavy fighting saw the French overpowering the first defensive lines and seizing the town of Bautzen itself.

 By nightfall, the French were ready to cut the defenders off from their line of retreat but Ney became confused and his faulty positioning left the door open for the Allies to escape.

 Fighting on the 21^st was hard and after several hours the initial success of the renewed French attacks began to lose impetus.

 Again Ney became distracted by tactical matters, the seizing of the village of Preititz, and lost sight of the strategic importance of his sealing the Allies in.

 By 4pm, however, the Prusso-Russians were being pushed back and when the Imperial Guard was sent in they began an all-out retreat.

 While Bautzen was a success for Bonaparte it was not a decisive result. Both armies lost some 20,000 men but Ney’s failure to cut the line of retreat robbed the French of complete victory.

Original antique steel plate engraving published
in 1848 with original hand colour

This is one of a series of maps and plans of sieges and battles drawn up by Alexander Keith Johnston, geographer at Edinburgh to Queen Victoria, and published as an atlas to accompany Sir Archibald Alison’s Monumental History Of Europe.
Paper size is 9 by 7¼ inches.
A genuine antique not a reproduction.