page_title: First Battle of Bar-sur-Aube
section_title: Operations
hierarchical_section_title: First Battle of Bar-sur-Aube / Operations
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Jugendbildnis König Wilhelms von Württemberg (1781-1864)
context_page_description: The First Battle of Bar-sur-Aube was fought during the War of the Sixth Coalition when Marshal Édouard Mortier, duc de Trévise's corps of French Imperial Guards defended against an Austrians corps under Ignaz Gyulai and a Württemberger corps led by Crown Prince Frederick William of Württemberg. After holding his main defensive positions in stiff fighting, Mortier withdrew his elite troops during the night and retreated to Troyes. Bar-sur-Aube is located 53 kilometres east of Troyes.
  The 1814 Campaign opened with an invasion of eastern France by the main Coalition army led by Austrian Field Marshal Karl Philipp, Prince of Schwarzenberg and a second army led by Prussian Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher. The weak French defending forces were pushed back without too much trouble, except for Mortier's guardsmen near Langres. These crack troops made a fighting withdrawal to Bar-sur-Aube where they offered battle in a strong position. Two days after the clash, Emperor Napoleon joined his reeling forces and the major fighting began.
context_section_description: Langres was held by Marshal Édouard Mortier, duc de Trévise with units of the Imperial Guard. There were 2,900 troopers of the 1st Guard Cavalry Division under Louis-Marie Leferrière-Levêque and 4,800 men of the 1st Old Guard Division under Louis Friant. On the evening of 12 January 1814, at Chatenay-Vaudin, 300 guardsmen surprised a strong Austrian patrol from Gyulai's III Corps, capturing 27 soldiers and killing the rest. The next day, French probes captured 60 Austrians at Chaudenay and killed 44 Bavarians at Longeau-Percey while losing only 3 killed and 20 wounded. Intimidated by Mortier's aggressive patrolling, Gyulai stopped for several days and waited for reinforcements. On the night of 16/17 January, Mortier evacuated Langres and retreated north to Chaumont. Urged by the townspeople, the small Langres garrison surrendered to Gyulai's troops at 6:00 pm on 17 January.
  Schwarzenberg sent the Russian 3rd Cuirassier Division under Ilya Mikhailovich Duka down the west bank of the Marne toward Chaumont and the Crown Prince of Württemberg's IV Corps down the east bank. On 18 January, Duka's horsemen charged straight into an ambush at Marnay-sur-Marne. After a number of losses, the cavalry fell back and called on Gyulai for infantry support. That day near Chaumont, the Württemberg 9th Jäger Battalion tried to capture the bridge at Choignes in a downpour. The Germans rushed across and nearly captured the village but were routed by a Guard Foot Grenadier bayonet attack that inflicted numerous casualties and took 60 prisoners. The action ended in an inconclusive artillery duel. Mortier was in a strong position but anxious that the continual retreats of his fellow marshals would cause his forces to become trapped. He decided to withdraw north-west to Colombey-les-Deux-Églises on 19 January.
  Schwarzenberg had an opportunity to drive forward and crush the French forces before him. Instead he called a halt at Langres while diverting Hieronymus Karl Colloredo-Mansfeld's I Corps and Prince Frederick of Hesse-Homburg's Reserve Corps to seize Dijon to the south. Militarily this move made little sense but he was carrying out the instructions of Metternich to avoid major fighting. By nature a cautious general, Schwarzenberg was jittery about his lengthening supply lines stretching back to the Rhine, partly explaining the Army of Bohemia's slow 5 mi (8.0 km) per day advance.
caption: Prince Frederick William
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