The Radiant Republic

Brigadier General Jean-Victor Moreau remained in his marching tent and, in the brief interval of the sunset’s lingering glow, took a piece of chamois leather and carefully polished the gold stars on the epaulettes of his service coat until they shone. It was a routine that belonged to Moreau as surely as breathing. After any long march, this was the first item of personal order; next came the tall boots, polished until they gleamed with oil; only then did he eat and rest. It was the most basic standard by which an officer’s appearance was judged.

Of course, as a senior commander, Moreau could have left such trivialities to an orderly or an aide, rather than doing them himself—just as that loud, slovenly Italian with the great mustache, General Masséna, always did. By the calendar, Moreau and Masséna had both been among the last group of officers promoted to Brigadier General in late 1792.

In the vote held by the senior officers—Moncey, Berthier, Hoche, Chassé, Senarmont, and the rest—Masséna, thirty-five, entered the list of general-officer recommendations submitted to the supreme Command Headquarters without the least resistance. Although Colonel Masséna had repeatedly violated discipline in the war of 1792 and been punished by General Moncey, the backing of the old Champagne Composite Regiment—the so-called “Bordeaux faction”—still carried the “clown of the Italian opera house” into the rank of Brigadier General exactly as he wished.

When the meeting reached Moreau, there was a slight complication. Chassé and Senarmont argued that Moreau’s loyalty seemed somewhat uncertain and required further observation; Moncey and Berthier objected and insisted that the Breton, distinguished in merit and fierce in action, must be put forward. In the end, it was General Hoche’s final remark that stilled the dispute: “Commandant André has always held Moreau in high regard, and expects him to assume greater responsibilities in the battles ahead.” Only then did the officers’ quarrel subside.

Afterward, Moreau was told the root of the matter: trouble stirred in secret by his royalist fiancée—Millie Daulot—whose engagement to him had been arranged by Moreau’s father, himself a royalist. Persuaded by his superior, General Kellermann, and by friends, Moreau finally broke with Millie Daulot and married Mademoiselle Éléonore, Kellermann’s youngest daughter, whose own fiancé had just died beneath the guillotine in Paris. For that same reason, Moreau had to leave his father-in-law’s Army of the Rhine (the Third Army) and transfer to the Army of the Meuse under General Moncey.

By coincidence, the Italian-descended Masséna, promoted at the same time, was also in the Army of the Meuse—the Second Army thereafter. As Brigadier Generals, Moreau and Masséna served as acting divisional commanders of the Second and Third Infantry Divisions respectively. The Army of the Meuse had expanded too quickly after the War of National Defense and the Belgian campaign; and when the Belgian garrison corps was formed, General Brune had also drawn away a great many officers from the Army of the Meuse (the Second Army).

As for General Macdonald, transferred back from the Army of the Moselle, he not only commanded the First Division but also served as deputy commander of the First Army. Rumor said that once the Second Prusso-French War ended, the Elbe Army Group commander, General Moncey, would submit his resignation as commander of the Second Army to the supreme Command Headquarters, and that General Macdonald—also of the “Bordeaux faction”—would take the post.

“Enough, my friend.” Moreau waved a hand and cut off Colonel Decon’s attempt to push the subject further. He knew exactly what his friend wanted: for Moreau to succeed Macdonald as commander of the First Division—gaining promotion to Major General in the process—and then to recommend Decon for promotion as well.

Colonel Decon, resentful, had polished only half of his friend’s boots before flinging them aside in irritation. Moreau did not take offense; smiling, he picked them up and finished the work himself.

“I heard that Italian opera actor...” The words were already out when Decon saw Moreau’s expression darken; he immediately corrected himself. “Fine—General Masséna. On today’s march, his Third Division sang that song, ‘Farewell to the Women of France,’ and he even changed the lyrics to: ‘In 1792 we sang it to defend Reims; in 1793 we sing it to enter Berlin!’ Look at it—the battle hasn’t even begun, and the Italian Third Division is already showing off to the Breton Second Division.” (Note: this is the former Soviet version; the female solo at the Berlin opera house earlier belonged to the Balkan War version.)

“Damn it—remember this: whether the Second Division or the Third, both belong to France, and both belong to Commandant André!” Moreau finally snapped. After the lesson that had nearly cost him his commission, this General’s political awareness had indeed sharpened. Even in private, he watched his language carefully.

“All right, Victor. I’m only stating a fact.” Colonel Decon lowered his head and softened his tone; he knew he had touched a taboo.

Although the supreme commander did not stay with the army often, his absolute control of military power—beginning with the Champagne Composite Regiment, then the composite brigade, the composite division, his later corps and Army Group—had never wavered. Even General Moncey, after becoming a theatre commander, was expected to give up the post of commander of the Second Army on his own initiative. Yet André rejected that; he required Moncey to hold on until the Second Prusso-French War was over. Meanwhile, the gendarmerie and the Military Intelligence Office patrolled the camps day and night like two tireless hounds.

They fell silent for a long while. Then Moreau said to Decon, “At dawn tomorrow, the infantry brigade you command will take the baiting mission. Remember it—come back alive. And one more thing: General Moncey has drafted a list of generals for evaluation, to be submitted to the Army Group headquarters after the war. Your name is on it.”

Two kilometres from the Second Division’s camp, General Masséna was in his tent with his younger friend, Colonel Suchet, making coffee. The scent of coffee mixed with fresh milk filled the air; yet Masséna, who lived for drink, had no interest in it. The Italian wanted only to smash the Prussians as soon as possible so he could enjoy Champagne, red wine, or whisky—anything but the Germans’ watery, cat-piss beer.

When a steaming cup of milk coffee was handed to him, he treated it like bitter medicine and tried to swallow it in one go—only to scald himself so badly that the General hopped about for a while. Suchet held back his laughter and moved to pour another cup, but Masséna refused outright. He called for his aide and had the last half-bottle of his private red wine brought over.

Once the aide was out of earshot, Masséna turned to Suchet and asked in a low voice, “Now tell me: your name should have been on the promotion list before the new year. Why was it struck off before the officers’ review? Besides, by common practice, any officer transferred from the staff to a front-line unit should be promoted one grade.”

The Lyonnais took a sip of coffee and answered calmly, “I refused it. I want to command cavalry, not infantry. Besides—Colonel Davout and I are the same, aren’t we? He wasn’t promoted either.”

Masséna did not believe him. He pressed on in a whisper, “Still because you recommended that Pichegru? Yet General Hoche of the First Army values that mathematics teacher, and he wasn’t punished. As for poor Davout—heh—he seems worse off than Moreau. They say his wife and mother both had dealings with émigré nobles of the Royalist Party. Fortunately, Commandant André sent gendarmes in advance to rescue them from the mob.”

Suchet could not be bothered with the old rogue’s malicious gloating. He pointed at the fine Brigadier General’s uniform and said, “Stop wasting money on this kind of outdated dress. When the war ends, our Army Group will be the first to change uniforms.”

With the upgrade of standard weapons, and the fiscal pressure brought by the army’s growing numbers, Commandant André no longer wished to fund dazzlingly ornate uniforms. A common French infantryman’s full clothing cost 200 to 250 francs; equipping a Guards Chasseur à Cheval with a complete set cost 951 francs; a grenadier of a regular infantry regiment cost 300 francs; and a cavalryman usually cost more than 500 francs. The most expensive were the heavy cavalry protected by armor—about 2,000 francs per man. None of this even included the purchase of costly parade dress uniforms, and it covered only a single set of spring-and-autumn service wear.

After the War of National Defense, André began considering extending the “green jacket” model to the whole army. It could serve multiple purposes at once, both as training and combat clothing and as everyday service dress. Aside from officers’ parade uniforms, André planned to remove expensive woolen materials—dirty easily and wearing poorly—from uniform manufacture, including shirts and coats, and to replace them uniformly with comfortable, sweat-absorbing cotton cloth.

In headgear, the tall shako would remain; for field-grade officers and above, there would be a soft, boat-shaped cap. All headgear would continue to bear the revolutionary tricolor cockade of red, blue, and white. Tight, uncomfortable white breeches would be replaced across the board by looser trousers. The officers’ fringed epaulettes would be reserved only for parade dress; ordinary service and training-combat uniforms would instead use the rank epaulettes designed by Commandant André, allowing quick identification of grade.

In short, branch colors would be distinguished by the epaulette border and stripes: infantry in blue, cavalry in red, artillery and other branches in white. Officer ranks would be distinguished by stars and the number of stripes: a General would have no stripes, only large stars—one star for Brigadier General, two for Major General, three for Lieutenant General, four for General, and five for Marshal. Field-grade officers would have two stripes and small stars; company-grade officers would have one stripe and small stars.

As for organization, the army would adopt a strict hierarchy from top to bottom: Command Headquarters, Army Group (temporarily assigned), Army (the regular corps-level formation), division, brigade, regiment, battalion, company, platoon, and squad. After the war, infantry at the regiment level would be held to about 1,000 men; brigades to 3,000; divisions to 10,000; and armies to 20,000 to 30,000.

All these changes arose because, at the beginning of the new year, the military committee in Paris seemed to have lost its head and began granting high ranks recklessly to civilians. When revolutionary painters, craftsmen, and writers—men who understood nothing of military affairs and had no battlefield merit—suddenly became Major Generals, Lieutenant Generals, and even Marshals, André decided to abandon the title of “Marshal of the Republic,” retaining only the designation of supreme commander, while omitting the word “Northern.”

...

Returning to the Prussian front, under the operational plan of Moncey and Scharnhorst, the Beelitz River south of Beelitz would be the key point of the battle. With Brunswick—Lüneburg withdrawn, Prussia had lost the support of its four surrounding allies and found itself more isolated than ever in European diplomacy. Even the British, who traditionally supported Berlin, could not openly side with Prussia, because London’s gentlemen could not evade the fact that Berlin had been the first to tear up the armistice. Even so, British diplomats still opposed any scheme by André to dismember Prussia in any form.

Thus, the side eager to fight was no longer the French invader, but the Prussians defending their own soil. Under a revised plan drafted by the Army Group staff, a small force would be sent to entice the Prussian army across the Beelitz River in pursuit, while the central column and the reserve—working with the heavy artillery regiment—would deliver a destructive blow to the Prussian main body on the south bank...

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Three kilometres north of the Beelitz River, the Prussian headquarters occupied an old castle on the high ground north of Beelitz. Fresh from the bath, Blücher wore a thick white wool dressing gown, with a gray headscarf—something a woman might wear—wrapped around his head. In cotton slippers, he took a pinch of snuff from a tortoiseshell snuffbox, stuffed it into his nostrils, strolled to his desk, and began to study the operational map laid out there.

Colored pins on the map marked the Prussian forces in the field, the locations of supply depots, and the artillery parks. Of the French situation south of the Beelitz River, however, he knew little. Yet this morning, the forward reconnaissance brought a shocking report: the Franco-Saxon Coalition facing him numbered more than 100,000. That was plainly an exaggeration.

Although his staff officers did not believe the report, Blücher’s suspicious temperament made him unwilling to fight a decisive battle with the French on the open ground only a few kilometres away. Yet the King’s Command Headquarters at Potsdam pressed the forward command again and again, leaving the long-legged General no choice but to set a battle plan for tomorrow.

Agitated and restless, Blücher—fond of drink, snuff, women, and gambling, and accustomed to coarse manners and foul talk—decided to ease himself before the battle. He instructed an aide outside the door and soaked himself in a long, comfortable hot bath. It was said that the idle supreme commander of the French army always claimed that a single thirty-minute hot bath each day helped preserve a man’s vigor.

And indeed it did. An hour later, the fierce old General proved it thoroughly on two city prostitutes. Even so, the Prussian commander slept poorly that night. Blücher absurdly dreamed that a French soldier had made him pregnant—and that the child was an elephant.

At dawn on February twentieth, the Battle of Beelitz—decisive for the outcome of the Second Prusso-French War—began at last.

On the North German Plain of mild continental climate, though the cold was no longer biting and the lakes were frozen over, the weather around Beelitz was still harsh; before dawn, the temperature had already fallen below 0 degrees Celsius. Fortunately, tireless French engineers had worked through the night and, atop the river’s drifting ice, built three simple pontoon bridges, sparing the infantry brigade assigned as the vanguard from wading through an icy river that would have reached their knees.

At 4:40 a.m., under the cover of vast forests, darkness, and thick fog, 4,000 French infantry stepped carefully onto five pontoon bridges and crossed the Beelitz River in silence, accompanied by two artillery companies. To protect the line of retreat, Brigadier Decon ordered his deputy, Lieutenant Colonel Gudin, to remain near the north bank with half the force and one artillery company. Decon himself led the remaining 2,000 soldiers and the other six guns farther north to conduct the raid in person.

Because of the darkness, fog, and dense forest—and because marshy ground appeared and vanished along both sides of the road—Decon’s column moved very slowly. A march that should have taken fifteen minutes consumed nearly an hour before the assault force finally crept up to the Prussian defensive position.

Around 6:00 a.m., dawn drove back the night. The first winter sunlight pierced the fog between the trees, turning into harsh bands of light that fell across Colonel Decon’s broad face. With the fog as cover, he lay with several officers on muddy ground flecked with old snow, binoculars raised, studying the Prussians’ movements scarcely twenty paces away.

Behind the officers, a hundred metres back in the woods, the soldiers assigned to the raid sat one by one on the freezing snow under orders from the rear officers, eating what looked like a casual pre-battle ration: a small packet of green raisins. It followed a new recommendation by Surgeon Larrey, who held that sweets could reduce or ease soldiers’ pre-battle anxiety.

Beyond the lenses lay a small village unmarked on the military map. Decon frowned. Through the binoculars he saw it was not large, with only one main street; dense, low houses scattered along both sides. In ordinary times, it likely held only a little more than 100 households.

Perhaps because it lay near the battlefield, most inhabitants had been evacuated to the Beelitz town area two kilometres away. In the village, apart from soldiers, there were only a little more than twenty farmhands dressed as herdsmen, moving back and forth between granaries stacked with grain and the livestock sheds, feeding and tending the mules and heavy draft horses used to pull the Prussian guns and supply wagons.

Minutes later, Decon and his officers withdrew into the woods. Their final judgement was that the Prussian garrison in and around the village numbered only a few hundred. From uniforms and behavior alone, they appeared to be a logistics and baggage detachment that supplied the front, not a forward combat position.

At first, Decon suspected the reconnaissance had marked the map incorrectly—or that the Prussians had shifted their troops. But when he unfolded the map again, everyone realized the truth: the fog and darkness had led them astray. Without noticing, 2,000 men had drifted off the planned route and target, and, by sheer accident, slipped into the enemy rear, near a supply depot.

Fight, or withdraw? The decision hung in Decon’s mind.

Decon understood perfectly: once the firing began, if the Prussian army recovered and wrapped around his rear, his isolated raiding force of 2,000 would struggle to break through a heavily held line. Moreau’s orders were to lure the enemy to the south bank, not to get entangled in positional fighting or storming fortified points.

And yet—if he did not strike, it would be a crime against opportunity. Two Prussian prisoners seized by the grenadiers confirmed that the Prussians had more than 1,000 mules and draft horses in the village stables, and that more than 1,000 tons of flour were stored in a large warehouse nearly ten metres high—two weeks of rations for tens of thousands of Prussian troops.

“Did you see any Prussian cavalry, or any artillery positions?” Decon asked the majors beside him, men who had reconnoitered with him. As he feared, every answer was no.

“And our guns?” the brigade commander asked the artillery officer who had come up. The captain pointed to the left: six guns were already deployed tens of metres away in the designated direction, waiting only for the colonel’s order.

In truth, the artillery captain found the situation dull. Under the operational requirement, all his guns would have to be spiked and abandoned—“gifted” to the Prussians—before the infantry withdrew, because the brigade’s task was only to bait the enemy, even though the guns themselves had been captured on Prussian soil.

Decon explained his reasoning and asked his officers: withdraw quietly, or attack. Under the lure of great merit, the officers—high in spirits—urged him to gamble and strike the depot in the Prussian rear, not only to seize the horses, but to destroy the grain-filled warehouse.

With agreement reached, Decon issued orders to a courier: “Ride to the pontoons and tell Lieutenant Colonel Gudin that when the fighting begins here, the covering force is to launch an immediate feint against the Prussian positions and keep a corridor open for our retreat.”

Then he turned to his officers. “Gentlemen, make your preparations. Attack in ten minutes. The whole action must be finished within twenty minutes, and we withdraw at once. And fetch the engineers—I want to ask them something. May the Virgin Mary bless us.” As he spoke, Decon crossed himself; the officers followed suit.

“Colonel—most of what’s stored in that warehouse is flour?” an engineer second lieutenant asked. When Decon nodded, the young man grinned. “Then there’s no need to bring the artillery over. We can handle it ourselves. We’ll make sure not a single sack of flour, not one potato, not even a grain of corn is left—let the Prussians eat mud.”

Ten minutes later, when the second round of shells from the artillery companies fell into the village, the Prussian garrison of a few hundred finally understood: the French on the far bank had attacked—and had somehow slipped through two forward lines in silence and penetrated the baggage camp.

These logistics troops were plainly raw recruits who had never seen a battlefield, lacking both experience and nerve. They dared not meet the French head-on. When 2,000 Frenchmen charged in tight columns with bright bayonets fixed, the Prussians scattered at once, throwing down their weapons and fleeing without a trace.

Decon quickly ordered the pursuing to stop. He directed the soldiers to drag away every mule and draft horse tied in the sheds, and he sent half his force out to prepare to block the Prussian counterattack that would soon come. At the same time he signaled the engineers to blow the flour warehouse at once.

The second lieutenant led his engineer detachment to smash the lock and rush inside. Staring at the mountains of grain, he shouted, “First and second teams—lay the fuses and set the charges. Third, fourth, and fifth teams—throw at least thirty sacks or barrels of flour into the air. Remember it: detonate in ten minutes, on the dot!”

...

“What?” At the news, Blücher—still undressed—leapt naked from the bed, so violently that the two prostitutes beside him shrank under the covers, hardly daring to breathe. “The French crossed two lines, hit the rear depot, drove off more than 1,000 mules and draft horses, and blew up our largest grain warehouse? Damn it—the forward commanders should be shot.”

He snatched up a dressing gown at random and kicked at the bedcovers twice, then tossed a few thalers down as a sign for the prostitutes to dress and get out. “Tell me—how many French took part?”

The aide, a colonel, stammered, “The exact number is unclear, but General Rudolf estimates two divisions—at least 20,000 French—took part in the raid, because the forward reconnaissance found that the French have built five pontoon bridges on the Beelitz River.”

“Two divisions?” Blücher muttered, dressing as he listened.

From the beginning, a raid by only a few thousand French had thrown the Prussian army into confusion. It was only when the warehouse explosion thundered up from the rear that General Rudolf, commanding the forward sector, finally came to his senses.

Enraged and humiliated, Rudolf quickly moved 20,000 men to surround and block the French force raiding the depot. Yet with the desperate cover of Lieutenant Colonel Gudin’s detachment, Colonel Decon still led 3,200 men of the First Brigade out of the encirclement, driving their captured livestock before them, and withdrew rapidly to the safety of the south bank over the five pontoon bridges.

The brigade lost seven or eight hundred brave soldiers, yet the gain was substantial. They seized a great number of mules and heavy draft horses, depriving the Prussian army’s guns and baggage trains of one-third of their traction power. The immediate consequence of the total destruction of the largest grain warehouse was even more severe: with only a few days’ food on hand, the Prussian commanders faced a harsh choice—either attack the French at once and gamble everything on victory, or retreat to the Michendorf–Nuthetal line fifteen kilometres away, at the risk of collapsing morale, and try to regroup for a later fight.

General Rudolf, humiliated by the French, chose the first course without hesitation. In his report to General Blücher, he offered contrition and described the misfortune of the depot being raided. Then, without missing a beat, he claimed he had faced a major French assault of at least two divisions—and that within thirty minutes, the heroic Prussian troops had completely smashed the attackers, then launched a full counteroffensive and driven the French back to the south bank of the Beelitz River.

Now, with his “great victory” secured, Rudolf did not stop on the north bank. He was leading 20,000 “brave” men and thirty-five guns across the Beelitz River over the French pontoons, preparing to launch a frontal assault on the French positions on the south bank within an hour.

Hearing this, Blücher swore that if that man Rudolf stood before him, he would hack off both his legs with his sabre. The loss of more than 1,000 mules and two weeks of rations for tens of thousands was heartbreaking—but that was no excuse for a General to go to war in a fit of rage.

Blücher bitterly regretted yielding to the pressure of King Wilhelm II’s staff and placing an impulsive old man in charge of the forward positions. Under his own original plan, a portion of the Prussian army was supposed to draw the French main force into an attack tomorrow morning, then envelop and destroy it—or at least cripple it.

Now it was too late. Every Prussian formation would have to accommodate General Rudolf’s recklessness. The previous deployment had been wrecked and reduced to wastepaper. Regret was meaningless; Blücher immediately drafted new orders. He called for a messenger and commanded:

“Orders: General Kalckreuth will remain in Beelitz. All other forces are to move and cross the Beelitz River with me, to link up with General Rudolf. The officers are to remember: artillery crosses first. Also, request reinforcements from the Potsdam headquarters at once—send them to the Michendorf–Nuthetal line.”

...

On the south bank, two kilometres behind the river, Moreau’s Second Division and Masséna’s Third Division were already assembled along a ten-kilometre front, in strict readiness, supported by more than 100 guns of André’s artillery, waiting quietly for the Prussians to walk into the trap. On the left-rear flank, Macdonald’s First Division and two Saxon cuirassier regiments stood ready to reinforce if the front went badly, or to join in the great counterattack.

At the very moment the 20,000 Prussians crossed the Beelitz River, General Lefebvre and the Fourth Column (the reserve)—30,000 French, including 6,000 light cavalry and fifty guns—had already made a secret flanking march to the upper reaches of the Beelitz River on the right wing, to a point only five kilometres from the south-bank battlefield. As soon as the army reached the river, General Lefebvre was the first to dismount. He hung his general’s boots around his neck, rolled his trouser legs high, went barefoot, and waded across the Beelitz River first—water only to his calves, not even reaching his knees.