Battle of Hanau - Background

Background

The Battle of Leipzig, the largest and bloodiest of the entire Napoleonic Wars, began 16 October 1813, raged for three days and ended with a decisive victory for the Sixth Coalition. Napoleon was forced to abandon central Germany to the Coalition and operate a hasty retreat westwards. Napoleon's strategy was to regroup all his available forces on the Rhine, where his lines of communication would be shorter and his rear less likely to be threatened. The Emperor's concern was that his already battered army might be forced to give battle again against superior forces, so he ordered that the retreat be operated at great speed. Had the Coalition managed to push through with more vigour in the days following the Battle of Leipzig, the already disorganised French army would have probably been destroyed, but Coalition armies had themselves suffered such high losses at Leipzig that they were in no position to launch an effective pursuit. With military action confined to secondary rearguard actions, Napoleon was able to install his headquarters at Erfurt on 23 October and begin to reorganise his army. On 26 October, he sent orders to the various Corps, directing them towards Frankfurt through Eisenach and Fulda. Their assigned destination was the city of Mainz, on the river Rhine.

The Coalition was buoyed by the news that Bavaria, a former French ally, agreed to join the Sixth Coalition according to the Treaty of Ried concluded just before the Battle of Leipzig. This allowed the Coalition to threaten the overall military position of the French by moving a 45,000 - 50,000 Austro-Bavarian army, under the command of Karl Philipp von Wrede, into Napoleon's rear, occupying Würzburg in Franconia. The small French garrison of Würzburg, under General Jean Victor Tharreau, did not try to resist and instead barricaded themselves into the local citadel, allowing the enemy to occupy the town without a fight. From Würzburg, Wrede moved towards the strategic city of Hanau, along one of Napoleon's main retreat routes. Wrede’s advance guard reached Hanau on 28 October and took possession of the city, blocking Napoleon’s route to Frankfurt. Although Wrede was probably thinking that the main French army was retreating along a more northerly road to Coblenz, thus expecting to face a force of only 20,000 men, he did entertain hopes that he would be able to play a major role in the defeat of Napoleon. He also believed that the French army was completely disorganised, which was not totally true, and closely followed the main Coalition army, the "Army of Bohemia", which was in reality much further away and not really in close contact with Napoleon's forces.