page_title: Battle of Mormant
section_title: Armies
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Mormant / Battle / Armies
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Stellung der Truppen im Winterfeldzug 1814 in Frankreich am 16.2.1814 abends
context_page_description: The Battle of Mormant was fought during the War of the Sixth Coalition between an Imperial French army under Emperor Napoleon I and a division of Russians under Count Peter Petrovich Pahlen. Enveloped by cavalry led by François Étienne de Kellermann and Édouard Jean-Baptiste Milhaud and infantry led by Étienne Maurice Gérard, Pahlen's outnumbered force was nearly destroyed, with only about a third of its soldiers escaping. Later in the day, a French column led by Marshal Claude Perrin Victor encountered an Austrian-Bavarian rearguard under Anton Leonhard von Hardegg and Peter de Lamotte in the Battle of Valjouan. Attacked by French infantry and cavalry, the Allied force was mauled before it withdrew behind the Seine River. The Mormant-Valjouan actions and the Battle of Montereau the following day marked the start of a French counteroffensive intended to drive back Karl Philipp, Prince of Schwarzenberg's Allied Army of Bohemia. The town of Mormant is located 50 kilometres southeast of Paris.
context_section_description: Schwarzenberg had over 100,000 soldiers in his main army. A week later, on 23 February, the army counted Moritz von Liechtenstein's 2nd Light Division (4,000), Bianchi's I Corps (13,000), Gyulai's III Corps (11,000), Württemberg's IV Corps (10,000), Wrede's V Corps (21,000), Wittgenstein's VI Corps (15,000) and Barclay's Guard and Reserve Corps (30,000). This reckoning was made after the Battle of Montereau which cost the I Corps 2,000 casualties and the IV Corps 2,844 casualties. When Schwarzenberg heard about Blücher's defeats, he ordered his army to pull back behind the Seine. Instead of obeying, Wittgenstein aggressively pushed his corps west beyond Provins toward Nangis while his advanced guard under Pahlen reached Mormant. On 16 February, Wrede's corps was near Donnemarie-Dontilly except for Anton von Hardegg's division which was in Nangis. Württemberg's corps was near Montereau with advance guards near Melun. Bianchi's corps was south of the Seine between Moret-sur-Loing and Villeneuve-la-Guyard with advance guards farther west in Fontainebleau. Gyulai's corps was in Pont-sur-Yonne, Barclay's Russian Reserves were near Nogent while Liechtenstein's division and the Austrian Reserves were at Sens.
  Napoleon massed his army near Guinges by the evening of 16 February. The Imperial Guard forces included Louis Friant's Old Guard division (4,500), Marshal Michel Ney's Young Guard divisions (3,000) and Guard cavalry under Louis Marie Laferrière-Levesque, Rémi Joseph Isidore Exelmans and Louis Michel Pac (3,000 total). The line troops consisted of Victor's II Corps (6,549 men, 40 guns), from Oudinot's VII Corps (7,516 men, 34 guns), from MacDonald's XI Corps (8,797 men, 37 guns), Édouard Jean Baptiste Milhaud's V Cavalry Corps (4,700) and François Étienne de Kellermann's VI Cavalry Corps (2,788). In addition, there were 4,500 men from Étienne Maurice Gérard's Reserve of Paris. Farther east near Melun were Henri François Marie Charpentier's Young Guard division (3,500), Michel-Marie Pacthod's National Guards division (5,000) and Pierre Claude Pajol's cavalry division (1,400). On the march to Guignes were Jean François Leval's division (4,500), Joseph Boyer de Rébeval's Young Guard division (3,300) and Antoine-Louis Decrest de Saint-Germain's division (1,300). Étienne Tardif de Pommeroux de Bordesoulle was also on hand with 581 newly recruited horsemen.
caption: Map shows French (black) and Allied (white) positions on evening 16 February 1814.
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