Thread by @2econd_crossing

#OTD 29 March, 1813, Wittgenstein moved his headquarter from Berlin to Potsdam, followed by the Crown Prince of Prussia.
As the Russians completed building a stone bridge in Dresden, Blücher reached the Elbe, the maximum line of advance according to Kutuzov's grand strategy.

Eugene could not believe that "the corps of Wittgenstein and Yorck, although strong together of 40 to 45,000 men, will venture to pass the Elbe before the enemy, operating on the upper Elbe."
Were they making a feint attack on the Lower Elbe, as he had suspected earlier on?

As indicated by the reports from Wittenberg and Torgau on the 28th, the Russians were finishing up the bridgeworks. But no enemy has been seen in Leipzig, which confounded Eugene. Why advance ahead of his main army, wondered he, and risk running into the Austrian army?

The situation was more complicated than Eugene's naive assumption about the Austrians. Certainly, the army of Wintzingerode was on its way to Meissen and Leipzig, and Blücher just about to enter Dresden with 26,000 men. In addition, Wittgenstein was impatient to join them.

But they could do no more, for Kutuzov, recalling the Proposed Plan of Action Beyond the Elbe announced on the 20th, wrote to Wittgenstein:
"I believe that one should not exceed the Elster; there is the most extreme term; but this order does not apply to the partisans.

...Is this advantage worth the danger that we will face by weakening ourselves through the extent of our separation, which only serves to reinforce the enemy? ...I thus hold it as absolutely necessary that we go no further than the Elster, which is the extreme line.”

Although the French line of defense between Leipzig and Erfurt looked tenuous enough, the Field Marshal worried that such actions will cause the army to scatter dangerously. It is worth noting that even this judgment was based on overestimation of the Russian manpower.

Thus, he wrote to Wittgenstein in a firm tone:
“But one must consider...that the forces of the French do not consist merely of these troops; instead, they consist also of those that are already en route from the Rhine or those that soon will be…

By greatly distancing yourself from the Elbe, you may encounter a superior enemy; thus, your movement beyond this river would have the sole purpose of inflaming the spirit in all of Germany and paralyzing the enemy with uncertainty and inaction.

No doubt you will see that this manner of war must change in time, and this change will occur with the approach of our reserves.”
(Natzmer; Forster; Droysen; Eugene to Napoleon, 29 March 1813; Du Casse; Kutuzov to Wittgenstein, 29 March 1813; Leggiere, Struggle for Germany)

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