Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- 1 The New Charlemagne
- 2 Barbarians at the Gate
- 3 The Frankfurt Proposals
- 4 Napoleon and the French
- 5 The Left Bank
- 6 The Right Bank
- 7 The Lower Rhine
- 8 The Upper Rhine
- 9 The Middle Rhine
- 10 Alsace and Franche-Comté
- 11 The Vosges and the Saône
- 12 Lorraine
- 13 The Saar and the Moselle
- 14 Belgium
- 15 The Marne
- 16 Bourgogne, the Rhône, and the Aube
- 17 The Protocols of Langres
- Appendices
- Bibliography
- Notes
- Index
9 - The Middle Rhine
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2015
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- 1 The New Charlemagne
- 2 Barbarians at the Gate
- 3 The Frankfurt Proposals
- 4 Napoleon and the French
- 5 The Left Bank
- 6 The Right Bank
- 7 The Lower Rhine
- 8 The Upper Rhine
- 9 The Middle Rhine
- 10 Alsace and Franche-Comté
- 11 The Vosges and the Saône
- 12 Lorraine
- 13 The Saar and the Moselle
- 14 Belgium
- 15 The Marne
- 16 Bourgogne, the Rhône, and the Aube
- 17 The Protocols of Langres
- Appendices
- Bibliography
- Notes
- Index
Summary
In mid-November, the Silesian Army moved into positions along the right bank of the Rhine that formerly had been occupied by Gyulay's III Corps. Yorck relieved the Austrian right wing at Kastel, Mainz's fortified suburb on the right bank of the Rhine. Sacken's corps assumed the left wing of the siege, and Langeron's troops billeted between Königsstein, Höchst, and Frankfurt. St. Priest's infantry corps marched from Kassel to the Lahn River. Gyulay already had complained over the shortage of provisions in the region. After the Austrians moved up the Rhine, the men of the Silesian Army found partially abandoned villages totally bare of food and fodder. This made Blücher all the more resentful that Allied Headquarters rejected his plan to invade the Low Countries. “In Brabant and Holland there would have been time to recover; everything is in abundance there,” groans Blücher to a relative on 29 November. “All we need could have been requisitioned, and we could have provided our brave people with warm clothing before winter. Here the shortages are so great that my own horse has had no fodder for two days. With this death increases.” To Tsar Alexander he wrote, “I thus found myself in the dreadful necessity of having the army live by plundering for eight days. Sacken informed me that these horrible means demoralize the soldiers, disgrace the army, and earns the hatred of the inhabitants.
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- Information
- The Fall of Napoleon , pp. 223 - 268Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007