Result
The battle was actually no more than a very long cavalry pursuit and was a very costly defeat for Blücher's "Army of Silesia", which lost as much as 10,000 men, during this day. French author Jean-Pierre Mir states that the Prussian Corps of Kleist had 3,500 men out of action (killed, wounded and missing), as well as 2,000 prisoners. According to this author, the Russian Corps had around 3,500 men, killed, wounded or missing and also lost 15 cannons and 10 flags. Historian Alain Pigeard places overall losses of the Army of Silesia throughout this day between 9,000 and 10,000 men but the detail of these losses seems to suggest lighter casualties. Pigeard speaks of only 1,250 men killed, wounded or missing and 2,000 prisoners for the Prussians, and of 2,000 men lost for the Russians. Since Pigeard asserts that these casualties occurred during the pursuit, it is possible that these figures do not take into account the casualties incurred during the initial actions of this battle (one battalion of Zieten's brigade captured, plus the 2,000 prisoners taken during Grouchy's and Nansouty's joint action against Zieten). According to Pigeard, the French registered very light casualties of around 600 men.
Military Historian Jacques Garnier, analysing the battle in Jean Tulard's Dictionnaire Napoléon, notes that only the muddy, sodden ground, hampering an efficient deployment of the French artillery and infantry, prevented a much more emphatic victory. He also notes that after Vauchamps, Napoleon was able to safely turn south and fall upon the "Army of Bohemia", commanded by Prince of Schwarzenberg.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Vauchamps
Famous quotes containing the word result:
“Nine-tenths of English poetic literature is the result either of vulgar careerism or of a poet trying to keep his hand in. Most poets are dead by their late twenties.”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)
“There is a difference between a book of two hundred pages from the very beginning, and a book of two hundred pages which is the result of an original eight hundred pages. The six hundred are there. Only you don’t see them.”
—Elie Wiesel (b. 1928)
“We shall make mistakes, but they must never be mistakes which result from faintness of heart or abandonment of moral principles. I remember that my old school master Dr. Peabody said in days that seemed to us then to be secure and untroubled, he said things in life will not always run smoothly, sometimes we will be rising toward the heights and all will seem to reverse itself and start downward. The great thing to remember is that the trend of civilization itself is forever upward.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)