Battle of Großbeeren In the Battles of Großbeeren and neighboring Blankenfelde and Sputendorf ( 23 August 1813 ) an allied Prussia n - Swedish army under Crown Prince Charles John - formerly Marshal of France Jean - Baptiste Bernadotte - defeated the French under Marshal Oudinot . Napoleon had hoped to drive the Prussians out of the Sixth Coalition by capturing their capital , but the swamps south of Berlin combined with rain and the Marshal ' s ill health to bog them down . Prelude . Following the Battle of Bautzen , in May 1813 , during the War of the Sixth Coalition , both sides agreed to a seven - week truce to plan and better prepare . When the campaign resumed , in August , Napoleon ordered an offensive drive to take the Prussia n Capital of Berlin . With its capture , he hoped to knock the Prussians out of the war . Meanwhile he kept the bulk of his army on the strategic defensive , to deal with any potential moves by the large Austrian army , which had now gathered in southeastern Germany . For this task , he chose one of his bravest and best commanders , Marshal Nicolas Oudinot , to lead the offensive . Oudinot tried to turn down this honor due to his poor health . He had been wounded on several occasions during the previous year ' s disastrous campaign in Russia , and had not yet fully recovered . But the emperor insisted , so Oudinot with three corps of about 60 , 000 men advanced on Berlin . Unknown to both Napoleon and Oudinot at the time , this strategy played right into the Coalition ' s hands . In accordance with their Trachenburg Plan ( formulated during the truce ) they would avoid any large , main engagement with Napoleon himself until after they had gathered overwhelming strength and weakened the emperor by defeating his marshals in separate , smaller battles . Battle . From its start the offensive was plagued by misfortune . On the same day as the advance began , 19 August , heavy rain storms broke out turning the roads into muddy quagmires and making it nearly impossible to move the artillery . Further hindering the advance , the area south of Berlin was crisscrossed with small lakes and swamps . In the best of weather there were only a couple of roads by which to approach the city from the south . But rain turned many of the Prussian defensive positions into fortified islands . Oudinot was forced to advance his Corps along three separate roads , with little communication between them . General Bertrand ' s 4th Corps of 13 , 000 men and 32 cannons to the right , on the left General Guilleminot ' s 12th Corps of 20 , 000 mainly inexperienced recent recruits ( nicknamed " Marie - Louises " ) . In the center was the main column of General Jean Reynier ' s 7th Corps of 27 , 000 largely French allied Saxon troops . Oudinot did not expect any serious opposition and a lack of cavalry kept him unaware of the position of the enemy . Berlin was defended by the Army of the North , commanded by Crown Prince Charles John of Sweden , formerly French Marshal Bernadotte . When Reynier ' s corps reached Großbeeren , he encountered the bulk of Prince Charles ' army drawn up for battle . Acting without orders or support , he attacked Friedrich von Bülow ' s corps , which had just been reinforced by the Swedes to 38 , 000 , and was repulsed with heavy casualties . Oudinot , unable to concentrate his army , arrived late in the day just as Reynier ' s Saxons had begun to waver after that general failed to rally them for another assault . Realizing the advance had been checked , and believing his army was in an exposed position , Oudinot ordered the retreat to Jüterbog after sustaining heavy losses . Reynier alone lost over 3 , 000 dead and wounded , 1 , 500 made prisoner and 13 artillery pieces . Aftermath . The defeat at Großbeeren , combined with continued ill health , had shaken Oudinot ' s confidence , and he continued the general retreat to Wittenberg . Napoleon was furious with Oudinot , not so much for his defeat , but for his withdrawal to Wittenberg instead of back to Luckau . He fumed , " It is truly difficult to have fewer brains than the duke of Reggio ! " . Napoleon then appointed Marshal Michel Ney to lead a second drive on Berlin with the same three , now reduced and demoralized , corps and the ailing Oudinot as Ney ' s subordinate . The result would be the Battle of Dennewitz . Literary Reference . In 1833 Theodor Fontane - then a fourteen - year old boy - visited the site of the Battle of Großbeeren and was deeply impressed , later writing a school essay about this battle - the first work known to have been penned by a man who would become a major German writer . Fontane recounted this reminiscence in a much later essay , written in his old age ( 1894 ) . He mentioned also that his mother - at the time a young Berlin woman - had in the aftermath of the battle tended wounded soldiers , both German and French . Being of a Huguenot family who still spoke French among themselves , she was able to speak to dying French soldiers in their own language .