Battle of Hanau - Preliminaries

Preliminaries

On 29 October, having correctly reckoned that his force was strong enough to block the retreat of a disorganised enemy army, Wrede decided to give battle. He had plenty of time to prepare his dispositions and deployed his army in a relatively narrow and deep order, which was quite sensible, given that his intention was to remain on the grand defensive. Wrede's left covered the road to Frankfurt and Mainz, the main retreat route that the French wanted to take. The bulk of his force was positioned along the Kinzig river, on the opposite bank from the city of Hanau, while his right (divisions Elbracht and Trautenberg) were positioned on the southern bank of the Kinzig. Beckers's Bavarian division constituted the far right and was deployed on either side of the Kinzig. One regiment, the Austrian Szekler, two battalions strong, as well as great many skirmishers detached from their parent units were positioned in an advanced position in the Lamboi forest. Most of the cavalry was placed in second line, in the centre, with the artillery quite evenly dispersed throughout the battlefield.

Meanwhile, Napoleon spent the night of 29/30 October at the Isemburg castle, near Gelnhausen and received detailed intelligence about the Austro-Bavarian preparations, which confirmed that the enemy was intending to make a stand. Napoleon thus directed the army's luggage and supply train northwards, away from the Coalition forces, under the protection of Jean-Toussaint Arrighi de Casanova's Cavalry Corps, while taking his remaining forces in a frontal manoeuvre against Wrede's force. He ordered Victor to form the left wing with his Army Corps and march along the Kinzig, while MacDonald's Corps and the Guard were to penetrate into the Lamboi forest. A part of the Guard cavalry under General Charles Lefebvre-Desnouettes was detached further north to cover the flank of the army. Napoleon studied Wrede's position and spotted its main weakness, namely that he had most of his army deployed with the river behind it, which would act as a natural barrier should retreat have been necessary. Upon seeing Wrede's dispositions, Napoleon sarcastically noted: "I have made Wrede a Count but it was beyond my power to make him a General." However, in order to be able to exploit this potentially fatal weakness in Wrede's deployment, Napoleon first had to beat him and had to do so with largely inferior infantry numbers, less cavalry and fewer cannons and against an enemy who had all the time it needed to deploy its forces for defense.