Qualla: Battle of Großbeeren

Battle of Großbeeren: Introduction

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Richard Knötel, Public domain. It rained so hard on 23 August 1813 that the guns stopped working. Flintlocks need dry powder and a dry pan, and by the afternoon neither side south of Berlin had either, which turned a Napoleonic battle into something closer to a brawl. One East Prussian reserve regiment had never been trained with the bayonet, so its men swung their muskets by the barrel and used the butts, shouting as they came on. They were nicknamed the Hacketäuer for it, and streets in the Rhineland still carry the name. Napoleon had sent 70,000 men to take the Prussian capital. What stopped them was a marsh, a downpour, and a general who refused an order to retreat.

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Image: Richard Knötel | Public domain

Battle of Großbeeren: The Emperor Wants Berlin

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Doris Antony, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0. After the Battle of Bautzen in May 1813, both sides in the War of the Sixth Coalition agreed to a seven-week truce to rebuild. When fighting resumed in August, Napoleon kept his main army in the south, watching the large Austrian force gathering in southeastern Germany, and detac...

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Image: Doris Antony, Berlin | CC BY-SA 3.0

Battle of Großbeeren: A Plan to Avoid Napoleon

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Berlin-George, Public domain. The Allies had already decided how to beat him, and the method was almost insultingly simple. The Trachenberg Plan, drawn up during the truce and shaped largely by Bernadotte - the former French marshal now Crown Prince Charles John of Sweden - held that no Allied army should eng...

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Image: Berlin-George | Public domain

Battle of Großbeeren: Roads Turned to Soup

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bundeswehr-Fotos Wir.Dienen.Deutschland., CC BY 2.0. The French advance began on 19 August, and the storms broke the same day. Roads dissolved. Artillery could barely be moved. The country south of Berlin was already laced with small lakes and swamps, offering only a couple of usable approaches in good weather, and the rain convert...

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Image: Bundeswehr-Fotos Wir.Dienen.Deutschland. | CC BY 2.0

Battle of Großbeeren: Bones Before Berlin

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lichterfelder, CC BY-SA 3.0. Reynier's corps walked into the bulk of the Army of the North drawn up at Großbeeren. He attacked anyway, without orders and without support, and struck Friedrich von Bülow's corps, freshly reinforced by the Swedes to 38,000. Bülow had already refused an order to fall back to Ber...

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Image: Lichterfelder | CC BY-SA 3.0

Battle of Großbeeren: The Pursuit That Never Came

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Adolph von Menzel, Public domain. Bülow and Tauentzien wanted to chase the wrecked French south and finish them, and complained to Blücher and to the King of Prussia when Charles John refused. His reasons were strategic rather than timid - moving away from Berlin risked isolating his army, left Davout's 35,000 me...

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Image: Adolph von Menzel | Public domain