page_title: German Campaign of 1813
section_title: Spring Campaign
hierarchical_section_title: German Campaign of 1813 / Spring Campaign
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Deutsche Karte des Frühjahrsfeldzug 1813 in Deutschland, während der Befreiungskriege. Die Arbeit basiert maßgeblich auf: Heinz Helmert/ Hansjürgen Uszeck: Europäische Befreiungskriege 1808 bis 1814/15 (2. Aufl.), Berlin (Ost) 1981, S. 205 und wurde mit Inkscape erstellt. English: German map of the Spring-Campaign 1813 in Germany during the Napoleonic Wars. The work is based mainly on: Heinz Helmert/ Hansjürgen Uszeck: Europäische Befreiungskriege 1808 bis 1814/15 (2. Aufl.), Berlin (Ost) 1981, S. 205 and was created using Inkscape.
context_page_description: The German Campaign was fought in 1813. Members of the Sixth Coalition, including the German states of Austria and Prussia, plus Russia and Sweden, fought a series of battles in Germany against the French Emperor Napoleon, his Marshals, and armies of the Confederation of the Rhine - an alliance of most of the other German states - which ended the domination of the First French Empire.
  After the devastating defeat of Napoleon's Grande Armée in the Russian Campaign of 1812, Ludwig Yorck von Wartenburg – the general in command of the Grande Armée's German auxiliaries – declared a ceasefire with the Russians on 30 December 1812 via the Convention of Tauroggen. This was the decisive factor in the outbreak of the German Campaign the following year.
  The Spring Campaign between members of the Sixth Coalition and the First French Empire ended inconclusively with a summer truce. Via the Trachenberg Plan, developed during a period of ceasefire in the summer of 1813, the ministers of Prussia, Russia, and Sweden agreed to pursue a single allied strategy against Napoleon.
context_section_description: The Coalition allies, aware of the gradual strengthening of their enemy's forces but themselves as yet unable to put more than 200,000 in the field, had left a small corps of observation opposite Magdeburg and along the Elbe to give timely notice of an advance towards Berlin; and with the bulk of their forces had taken up a position about Dresden, whence they had determined to march down the course of the Elbe and roll up the French from right to left. Both armies were very indifferently supplied with information, as both were without any reliable regular cavalry capable of piercing the screen of outposts with which each endeavoured to conceal his disposition, and Napoleon, operating in a most unfriendly country, suffered more in this respect than his adversaries.
  On 25 April Napoleon reached Erfurt and assumed the chief command. On this day his troops stood in the following positions. Prince Eugène, with Lauriston's, Macdonald's and Regnier's corps, on the lower Saale, Marshal Ney in front of Weimar, holding the defile of Kösen; the Imperial Guard at Erfurt, Marshal Marmont at Gotha, General Bertrand at Saalfeld, and Marshal Oudinot at Coburg, and during the next few days the whole were set in motion towards Merseburg and Leipzig, in the now stereotyped Napoleonic order, a strong advanced guard of all arms leading, the remainder—about two-thirds of the whole—following as "masse de manœuvre", this time, owing to the cover afforded by the Elbe on the left, to the right rear of the advanced guard.
  Meanwhile the Russians and Prussians had concentrated all available men and were moving on an almost parallel line, but somewhat to the south of the direction taken by the French. On 1 May, Napoleon and the advanced guard entered Lützen. Russian General Wittgenstein, who now commanded the Coalition allies in place of General Kutusov, hearing of his approach, had decided to attack the French advanced guard, which he took to be their whole force, on its right flank, and during the morning had drawn together the bulk of his forces on his right in the vicinity of Gross-Görschen and Kaya.
caption: Map of the spring 1813 campaign.
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