For the Germans, Gneisenau (1760-1831) represents the fight against the French invader and it is no coincidence that the Minister of Propaganda of the Third Reich, Goebbels, chose to present him as a hero and a model in Veit Harlan's film Kolberg (1943). Beyond this image, he is also one of the reformers of Prussian tools of war and one of the main architects of the fall of Napoleon.
In the fall of 1760, the Seven Years' War ravaged Saxony. At the end of October, while the imperial army controlled almost the entire duchy, General Daun regrouped his 52,000 men around Torgau. Among them, a twenty-six-year-old artillery lieutenant, August Wilhelm Neithardt (1), is looking for a house in the small town of Schildau where his wife can give birth.
A turbulent youth
On October 27, Marie, née Müller, gave birth to a boy named August Wilhelm Antonius but, weakened by the hardship of traveling following the army and the episode of the loss of her son (see box), she died. some months later. Considering military life incompatible with the care of a young child, the father entrusted him to the inhabitants of Schildau, for a small sum. Young August thus spent the first years of his life in this modest adopted family, dividing his time between looking after the geese and studying with the village Lutheran pastor. He said of this time of great frugality: “I always had a piece of black bread, but not always the soles of my shoes. »
1767 marked a radical change in his life. His maternal grandfather, an artillery colonel, came to pick him up to take him home to Würzburg. There, in a family of soldiers and pastors, young August received a solid education, both in the sciences and in languages but, like Blücher, he refused to speak French until 1815. , even if, unlike Marshal Vorwaerts, he masters it perfectly. On the other hand, his stay with the Jesuits hardly leaves him with good memories and will never call into question his attachment to Protestantism.
In the fall of 1777, six years after his grandfather's war, August enrolled at the University of Erfurt, the city where he found his father, who had become a lieutenant colonel. There he perfected his military education by studying mathematics and architecture, all subjects necessary to serve in learned arms. Temptations are numerous for a young man of his age and his grandfather's inheritance is quickly squandered. Faced with financial difficulties, he was forced to enlist in the army, probably sooner than he had imagined. After signing an enlistment in the Wurmser Austrian hussar regiment, he joined the hunter regiment of the Margrave of Ansbach-Bayreuth. The latter having committed his troops alongside the English against the American insurgents, the young lieutenant Gneisenau embarked in 1782, too late to participate in the fighting.
Returning to Germany the following year, he entered the service of Prussia, where he was first assigned to the staff of Frederick II, then to the Löwenberg regiment in Silesia. In 1794, he participated in military operations in Poland which led to the third and final partition of the country the following year. His conduct earned him an appointment to the rank of captain. Back in Silesia, he met Baroness Juliane Karoline von Kottwitz and married her on October 17, 1796. From this union, three sons and four daughters were born. Among them, Agnès will marry the son of Scharnhorst and Emilie will be the great-grandmother of Count von Stauffenberg, author of the failed attack against Hitler in 1944.
A complex situation
In the summer of 1806, pushed by his entourage to declare war on France, the King of Prussia ordered the mobilization of his army. The Rabenau rifle battalion, to which Gneisenau belonged, reached the Saale valley, where it was placed under the orders of Prince Louis-Ferdinand of Prussia, commanding the vanguard of the Hohenlohe corps. On October 10, the battalion faced Lannes' men at Saalfeld, but the fighting turned to the advantage of the French and Gneisenau was wounded in the leg during the retreat. Despite everything, he managed to join the bulk of the forces in Jena. On the 14th, his injury forced him to remain on horseback, he was entrusted with a mission as a messenger and witnessed the battle whose outcome settled the fate of Prussia. Carried away by the flood of remains of the army, he reached Magdeburg, where luck smiled on him. Hohenlohe, now commanding the entire army, entrusted him with the task of scouting ahead to prepare the stages of the main body. This decision allowed him to escape the French trap, cross the Oder, and join the king at Graudenz. Appointed major, Gneisenau did not obtain his assignment in the Prussian corps of Lestoq, the last Prussian unit fighting alongside the Russians, as he had requested. He will therefore not be in Eylau but glory awaits him in another theater of operations.
The imperial army (in this case the Italians of General Teulié), determined to seize all the strongholds still in the hands of the Prussians between the Oder and the Vistula, arrives under the walls of the coastal city of Kolberg, in Pomerania, at the end of February 1807. Lacking the necessary means in men and equipment, any assault was impossible. Also, when General Loison took charge of operations, he decided to blockade the place, tightening his grip by seizing the advanced defensive works. The commander of the Prussian garrison, Colonel Lucadou, offered little resistance, his choice being to regroup his forces on the city walls. This passivity provokes the anger of Lieutenant Schill, whose Free Corps has come to swell the ranks of the defenders and the rumor of these tensions quickly reaches the ears of the king, who decides to relieve Lucadou of his command to replace him with Gneisenau: “My dear Major von Gneisenau, […], I have therefore decided to entrust command to a man who, through his insight and knowledge, possesses the activity required to defend a fortress in the present situation. I believe that you bring together all these qualities for this objective and, consequently, appoint you commander of the place of Kolberg as long as your zeal and your patriotism apply to defend this fortress. »(2)
Upon his arrival on April 29, 1807, Gneisenau inspected the city's defenses and, taking advantage of his military training acquired in his youth, multiplied the works thanks to the contribution of the inhabitants through the intermediary of old Joachim Nettlbeck, representative of the bourgeois of the city. Their collaboration will enter Prussian legend. Beyond the new fortifications built, it was the spirit of resistance instilled by the new commander that kept the French in check until the beginning of July 1807. The signing of the Treaty of Tilsit came at the right time to save Kolberg, whose capture is only a matter of days, even hours, to the great dismay of General Loison. This success does not, however, erase the humiliation of the campaign. As early as November 28, 1806, Gneisenau wrote a memoir on the reasons for the defeat, in which the causes were identified: Brunswick's inability to develop a plan, discord within the general staff, tactics, and organization of another time, obsolete weaponry and vanity of the Prussian elites. The time for reconstruction has come and Gneisenau will become one of its main architects. On July 25, 1807, he joined the military commission for the reorganization of the army, headed by Scharnhorst: “By personal conviction, Gneisenau very quickly adhered to the vast conceptions of Scharnhorst, while highly recognizing the superiority of the latter […] and contribute ardently to the development of martial law.” (3)
Gneisenau is particularly keen to regulate corporal punishment in the army, considered counterproductive, as well as to the creation of the future Landwehr. Lieutenant-colonel in 1807, appointed head of the corps of engineers and inspector of fortifications in 1808, then colonel the following year, he turned to an unofficial diplomatic career in the years 1809-1811, making trips in England, Sweden, Austria, and Russia, to assess the support of these powers for Prussia in the event of a conflict with France. In 1812, when Napoleon required Frederick William III to provide him with a contingent for the Russian campaign, Gneisenau resumed his European journey in search of allies for a future reversal of alliance, thus avoiding any debate on his participation in military operations alongside its “former” adversary. After the French disaster in Russia, he returned to Prussia, landed in Kolberg, where the inhabitants gave him a triumphant welcome, and then rushed to Breslau to urge the king to join the Russians to fight Napoleon. The time has come for the war of liberation, during which the new Prussian army will undergo the test of fire.
The time of victories
It was with the rank of major-general and as quartermaster general of the Silesian army that Gneisenau entered the campaign in the spring of 1813, but the first major battle led him to play a primordial role in the rest of the operations. On May 2, in Lützen, Scharnhorst, Blücher's chief of staff, received a foot wound whose consequences would prove fatal. Gneisenau succeeded him alongside the old general, forming a formidable pair until the fall of Napoleon in 1815. The question of the influence of the chief of staff on his superior is essential. Unlike the relations between Napoleon and Berthier, Gneisenau's role goes well beyond the missions of a chief of staff, mainly due to Blücher's shortcomings exposed by Langeron: "[Blücher] had little strategic knowledge, did not know how to find his way on a map and was not capable of making a campaign plan or a layout. » (4)
Gneisenau possessed all these qualities, which led him to design the plans for the Silesian army in 1813-1814, without reducing Blücher to the role of a puppet commander. He will also define his relationship with his superior. “He (Blücher) wanted to listen to the advice and opinions of his staff officers, and in the end give his opinion for and against, with his energy and his particular sense of decision […] and once he had made a choice, he executed it, at the head of his vanguard, fighting, saber in hand. »
Although of different temperaments, the two men share many points in common, starting with the love of Prussia, the deep hatred of the French, an exacerbated feeling of revenge, and a constant demand towards their subordinates. If the risky decision to give battle on the Katzbach on August 26, without having the slightest idea of the enemy's movements, was undoubtedly Blücher's choice, Gneisenau would temper his ardor in the following weeks, demonstrating to him the need to apply the Allies' plan, namely to avoid any major engagement with the French to exhaust them. After playing cat and mouse with Napoleon during the month of September 1813, Gneisenau considered his adversary sufficiently weakened to maneuver to fight the long-awaited decisive battle. He thus designed his true masterpiece: the Wartenburg maneuver.
Schwarzenberg remaining motionless behind the Ore mountains and Bernadotte hesitating to cross the Elbe towards Wittenberg, Blücher's chief of staff conceived a daring plan. The army of Silesia must leave its positions around Bautzen in the greatest secrecy, to carry out a march of 140 km towards the north, exposing its left flank to the enemy, then cross the Elbe at Wartenburg, before joining the crown prince of Sweden. Once the connection was made, Gneisenau counted on the persuasion skills of Blücher and Bülow to shake Bernadotte out of his torpor and make him walk towards Leipzig. The plan is being implemented to the letter. Without being spotted, the Silesian army reached Wartenburg on October 2, where Yorck pushed aside General Bertrand's forces. This success decided the two other armies to join together. Two weeks later, the Allies completed their success in Leipzig. This triumph earned Gneisenau the rank of lieutenant-general.
The defeats suffered by the Silesian army during the French campaign of 1814 (Champaubert, Montmirail, and Vauchamps) will, however, weaken Gneisenau's position. On March 9, on the evening of the first day of the Battle of Laon, Blücher, feverish and weakened, took to his bed. Immediately, his chief of staff understands that he is no longer able to command the army for several days, but being lower in rank than Generals Yorck and Bülow, he can't give them orders, especially since the latter is hardly stingy with criticism towards him, mainly out of pure jealousy. Langeron then proposed to officially keep Blücher at the head of the army, "by transporting this corpse" in his own words, to allow the chief of staff to give orders in the name of the commander in chief. Gneisenau accepts, drives Bülow away by sending him to besiege Soissons, then orders a march on Paris, a maneuver that will decide the fate of the campaign. The king rewarded him by granting him the title of count and giving him Sommerschenburg Castle, in what is now Saxony-Anhalt.
Napoleon's return from the island of Elba led to the reunion of the Blücher-Gneisenau duo for the Belgian campaign of 1815. Once again, the chief of staff found himself in the situation of having to make a decision alone capital, this time during the battle of Ligny, on June 16. In the evening, Blücher was knocked from his horse by a charge of French cuirassiers. Half knocked out, he was led to the rear, unable to ensure command of the army. However, the fighting having turned to Napoleon's advantage, the time to choose the direction of retreat had come: Namur, for move closer to the Rhine, or Wavre, to maintain contact with Wellington? Judging the Namur route too exposed and knowing Blücher's preference for the second solution, Gneisenau gave his orders accordingly. On the evening of June 18, 1815, he was able to savor the consequences of his choice in the face of the rout of the French army during the Battle of the Belle-Alliance, as the Prussians called the confrontation at Waterloo.
Showered with honors on his return to Prussia – he was decorated with the Order of the Black Eagle and named general of infantry – Gneisenau took command of the Army of the Rhine, with chief of staff, Carl von Clausewitz, but strong enmities and the desire to devote time to his family led him to abandon public life in 1816, to retire to his castle in Erdmannsdorf, in Silesia. Short-lived retirement because, in 1817, he entered the Council of State then was appointed governor of Berlin in 1818. Marshal in 1825, he was entrusted with command of the Eastern Army during the Polish insurrection in 1830-1831. Five months after he arrived in Posen, he died on August 23, 1831, the victim of a cholera epidemic. Quickly buried due to contagion, his body was transported ten years later to the Sommerschenburg mausoleum, where he rests today.
(1) In the 1780s, he claimed that his family was of Austrian origin, where they once owned Gneisenau Castle. He now calls himself Neithardt von Gneisenau.
(2) G.H. Pertz, Das Leben des Felfmarschalls Grafen Neithardt von Gneisenau, Berlin, 1864.
(3) Hermann von Boyen, Memoirs, volume I, Éditions historique Teissèdre, 2003.
(4) Andrault, Count of Langeron, Memoirs of Langeron, infantry general in the Russian army, campaigns of 1812, 1813, and 1814, Paris, 1902.
Saved by a grenadier
A few days after giving birth to her son, Marie asked a peasant to take her and her baby to Torgau to join her husband there. Unfortunately for her, Frederick II of Prussia decided to regain the initiative and, on November 3, 1760, he attacked General Daun under the walls of Torgau. After long and bloody battles, he finally achieved victory, forcing the imperial army to retreat. Holding her newborn in her arms, Marie has no choice but to turn back, in the middle of the columns of fugitives. Arriving near Schildau, her cart is violently jostled, forcing her to let go of her baby who rolls to the side of the road. In the night and confusion, despite all her efforts, she is unable to find him and, exhausted, returns to Schildau. Worried to death, she is about to resume her search when she sees a grenadier coming to meet her, holding the baby wrapped in a blanket in his arms. Gneisenau later wrote: “If that grenadier had not dug me up, I would have seen myself die in the darkness. But that wasn’t to be! My mother never recovered from the pain of the journey and the fear of losing me and she died shortly afterward” (G.H. Pertz, Das Leben des Felfmarschalls Grafen Neithardt von Gneisenau, Berlin, 1864).
Seen by Langeron and Müffling
“Gneisenau […] was an educated soldier, a brave soldier, and a distinguished general; his studies and the experience of the French Revolutionary Wars (in which he did not participate) had taught him to reject the old ideas of narrow and pusillanimous tactics […]. He felt that, to defeat Napoleon, it was necessary to adopt his system of war […]. But in doing justice to the talents of General Gneisenau, I cannot give the same praise to his character; his pride and self-esteem did not allow him to suffer the slightest contradiction; selfish, harsh, hotheaded, cruder and more brutal than even a German should be, he spared no one; he was generally hated, and must have been. » This portrait drawn up by General Langeron, clear-cut but generally accurate, is nuanced by that left by General Müffling. “Gneisenau fell into the error of always overestimating his powers and minimizing those of his adversary. […] Where an object could be reached in two different ways, he always inclined towards the more daring one. Chivalrous, noble-minded, and strictly just, he was incapable of blaming others for a fault he had committed; he was always ready to recognize the merit of others, even if “it was difficult for him to abandon preconceived ideas, a difficulty with which men of character have always been confronted. »
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