Prince Poniatowski and Comte Caulaincourt 1806
It was apparent that in order to get the Poles to help that night she would have to render the Saxon Guards helpless. With the help of Monsieur D’Artagnan and a few of the troop valets they loaded up a cart and they set out on her mission of mercy. It was only by chance that Monsieur Jean noticed the sewing in his shirt if it was not for the pin that pricked his finger he would not had seen the message. With what little strength he had he called to his keepers to let him have a little water, knowing that they had beat him on a continual basics these sons of Satan brought him some water! They underestimated our Duelist, who with the last amount of energy foiled these imps of Satan and killed both of his keepers with the same bucket that they brought him water. By turning their backs on him he rendered them helpless at the same time then he beat them till they were both dead. With that done all he had to do is hope that the Comtesse would keep her word. After what seem forever to our poor hero he heard commotion coming from the fortress front then he heard what seem like a explosion then small arms firing then there was silence. He walked out into the long damp and God forsaking corridor to check and see was this his hour of liberation.
Madame Lorrie Comtess de Touquet , was on her way to meet him, behind her were a troop of homme. "Hurry, she said we have no time to lose". "The Saxons will be on us if we delay." meanwhile the Poles were liberating there fellow country men shut up in that death tomb also. The commandant of that hell hole was brought to the Polish leader who shot him on the spot for crimes against them, which were too great and too gross to report here. After they did what they had to do with the other sons of Satan, they made their way to the waiting carts and freedom, not before they hear the alarm go off in the Saxon army barracks.
The Saxon were very near,they were there also installing the cannons for the fortifications . As they hurried out of town some on horse back and many more on foot plus the cannons that they liberated from their Prussian masters. Monsieur Jean took over command not before he got the objection of some of the Poles; dismissing them he took command of the situation. Still weak too weak to ride they had to put him in a cart. He told them that there was a shorter way out of this hell hole to the northeast of town that meant that they would be going back to were they just came from, but he made his command strong and to the point and quieted the battalion down.
He ordered the Capitaine of this Polish Battalion to send out skirmishers to the front and rear and the mounted homme were to move south drawing the Saxons to them. While the ones on foot and the carts traveled northeast to a junction that would take them around the town and bring them to the southwest then to a bridge that might be heavily guarded because of the alarm.
He told Capitaine Casimir to be ready to fight his way out of the city. Once they got to this junction and after meeting their mounted comrades, they began as he said to move southwest towards the river Saale, with his homme to the rear and in front marching not running. They looked to the townsfolk like Saxon troops moving to deployment. Once they neared the bridge Lieutenant Jean recalled the homme in front and to the rear, speaking in perfect Prussian he ordered the guards on the bridge to stand fast for a Royal Guard was approaching them. He told Capitaine Casimir to order his homme to goose step and to be noisy about it being very dark and so much going on the sentries above them ordered the gates to open. Never looking to see that it was a Battalion of a non uniform homme (men) marching by.
As Lieutenant Gerard, and his new command of Polish volontaire, (this was his first combat mission and his first combat Battalion), he knew that he had to get this full Battalion of Polish soldat’s one hundred miles though hostile enemy country and without proper supplies he had only what the Comtesse though was good for fifty homme for a few days of supplies. He had more then six hundred homme and one hundred mounted. There were other officers among the Polish also that was truly luck and good fortune, plus they were all former Russian soldat’s train and ready for battle. Called to our side with Revolutionary ideas of freedom for their homeland!
Monsieur Gerard had mapped the area to and from Leipsic to Erfurt to Murlhausen to Gottingen to Cassel. He also knew the way and he knew what the Prussians had between here and there and he also knew that these homme could only travel ten to fifteen miles a day in their present condition that meant to him a month of marching, and ducking Prussian patrols and no food but what they could forage for. That would mean that they would be traveling all winter in a cold climate.
Not only food but, he needed clothing and supplies, he would have to attack a Prussian or Saxon, supply depot or a small fort maybe a town to get his needed supplies for seven hundred men. That would surely bring out the Army after them that would add a month on to their march. It was now time for our Lieutenant, to organize his command into a working Battalion, of both Cheval and pied plus cannons. His first order was for them to organize into companies, but his companies would to different then French the smallest homme would all be in the skirmish company and the larger homme will be in the Grenadier Company but he would have two line companies. The Grenadiers would be in the rear of the march as a rear guard, the mounted and the smaller homme would be out in front foraging and scouting the forward area of their advance the other two companies would follow the forward companies, when food was found the companies would stop and bivouac. Each company would have a route of march, which would mean that he split his command each company consisted of one hundred plus pied and twenty Cheval. With four companies he needed four company commanders they were chosen by each of the companies’ homme. Instead of having to feed one large group he had these four smaller groups feeding themselves.They were a day away from each other the slower ones were maybe two to three days away but in this way he had fewer stragglers and the slowest company would often come up on the stragglers. And then while on the move the Grenadiers would pick up many also this took off days from his march.
With winter weather it was still very slow, and the weather slowed them down even more, but also their pursuers from the south. He said that he decided to move north on to Nordhausen. The new officers were 1st company Monsieur Boguslaw, 2nd Monsieur Walerian, 3rd Ludoslaw and 4th Adolf. Also each mounted detail had a commander Monsieur Rufin 1st, Elek 2nd, Gerwazy 3rd Czeslaw 4th. Monsieur Casimir was deputy Commander of the Polish and Jean was full commander.
Since our main purpose was to avoid any all out fights with a larger unit his orders to all company commanders was to avoid and flee to the nearest company for support if they could. He had them spread out over a five mile front with Cheval in front over this distance and the Grenadiers in the rear under their commanders also, I guess you would say company leaders or sergeants, He said that they were still moving as fast as they could considering the weather and the lack of clothing till their 4th company that was to the east came up on a small hamlet that they easily took over and sent runners to the other companies. The runners brought back news that they had food that they had food and clothing this was their first real break after two weeks out, their first forty- five miles. No real contact with their pursuers yet that made Monsieur Jean worry, that's what Monsieur Jean wrote me.
He also continued to write me that if they were behind us at this slow rate of march our rear guard should have had made contacted with them by now. His only conclusion was that they plan to ambush us some where to his front. So he sent runners to each company to change the march to east away from Hess, to Quedlinburg that meant that we would put another twenty-five to fifty miles to our march to avoid our pursuers. It was indeed good that we had this clothing that the villagers were reluctant to give up but it clothed nearly half our men, the rest of them had to go with out till we hit another village by this time our rear guards were in constant fighting with small bands of civilians and local militia. He said that he could not believe the suffering one goes though as some of the homme went though we were only one hundred miles from friendly territory. That hundred miles might had been a thousand for some of these men if it wasn't for their fellow comrades sharing their coats and blankets many would have frozen to death at night which once again slowed us down to a mere crawl, at lest we had food the woods were full of small animals. We were loosing many of our rear guards to the civilian ambushes. I had to now bring the rear guard closer to the main companies for protection the militiaman were on the other hand easier to deal with one volley from my lines and they ran off, it was this constant ambushes that were slowing us down. He wrote me that he had to combine all his Cheval. He joined them to wipe out a small village to warn the rest of these folks that we would not stand for these random killings. We not only burned the village down but took all their clothing, we now had more then enough for all of the homme to wear. This did make the ambushes stop but it also altered the Prussian mounted patrols that were closing in on my forward movement, I now had to bring in my skirmishers and close the gap between all companies we were now making less then ten miles a day. The Saxon pursuers were seen by one of the companies to our southwest they told me that it looked as big as our unit that meant that they would be on us if I don’t pick up speed. What I decided was to lay an ambush myself using my Cheval and Grenadiers as a rear guard so that the remainder of this command could get an hour ahead of them by changing my destination again north to Hanover this time. We have traveled now more then a hundred miles, but we still were far from friendly territory. Knowing that the Saxons would be looking for a small rear guard I felt that I had the advantage over them, what I did was to take all of my Cheval to the rear and hid them in the nearest woods. Monsieur Jean said that he then place, the usual rear guard so as that the Saxon scouts would report that all they saw was a small company. Once they attack the rear guard I pulled them back exposing their weakness and when the Saxons advance I waited till all of the Saxons had arrived, that most have been their advance guard because there were not more then a hundred of them. I would have advance on them but I decided to wait for their main force to show up. After all of their advance guard was gone after my garcons. Their main force showed up although they would out number us ten to one they had sent mostly all their Cheval forward in pursuit. I hit them in the flank and they had no time to we saber many and disorganized their support unit that was two battalions of Prussian Infantry. Loosing very few to this charge, I returned to their Cheval that were pursuing my Grenadiers, once again hitting them this time in the rear as our Grenadiers held the front we had them bottled up. The leader raised the flag of truce although they still outnumbered us three to one but being in their front with pied(foot) and in their rear with Cheval they were oblige to surrender. I gave them parole although none of my homme had a uniform on but the Saxon knew that they were Polish because they spoke to us first in Polish.
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