Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, prince de Wahlstatt — Général prussien, maréchal sur les champs de la coalition

Cavalryman of the Seven Years’ War, subject of Frederick the Great, he became emblem of Prussian resistance after the humiliation of Jena-Auerstedt. Russian then British ally, he always pushed forward — sometimes rashly. His junction with Wellington at Waterloo finished the Napoleonic Empire.

Swede, Russian, Prussian — A Stormy Career

Born in 1742 in Mecklenburg, Blücher first served in the Swedish army — captured by Prussians, he changed sides and rose under Frederick II. Old age seemed to retire him; the French Revolution woke Europe. In 1806 at Jena and Auerstedt the Prussian army collapsed in a day. Blücher, furious, refused psychological defeat: he fought retreating, surrendered with honour after desperate charges. Napoleon treated him as a prisoner of rank; Blücher nursed a personal hatred of the French Emperor.

The following years saw him alternate disgrace and recall. In 1813, at the time of the Leipzig campaign, the old marshal became indispensable again: soldiers loved him for blunt speech, daring, ability to raise morale after Lützen or Bautzen. Alexander I and Frederick William III relied on him to hold the Prussian line when diplomats wavered.

Ligny, Wavre and the March to Waterloo

In June 1815 Blücher commanded the Prussians in Belgium. At Ligny on the 16th Napoleon beat him badly — the marshal narrowly avoided being trampled in a cuirassier charge, an anecdote feeding his legend of daring. Evacuated on a cart, he yelled at staffs to keep marching north. Grouchy, behind the French, failed to cut the junction; Blücher, despite bruising, imposed the manoeuvre that would save Wellington.

On the 18th, after hours of muddy road, Bülow’s corps and others reached Plancenoit’s flank then the French right. Blücher sought no elegant manoeuvre: he wanted crushing. His soldiers shouted « Vorwärts! » — hence « Marschall Vorwärts ». The Guard fell back; the French army came apart. Blücher entered Paris with feelings of vengeance diplomats had to check.

Last Years and Prussian Myth

Blücher received titles and estates; he died in 1819, almost eighty, idolised by a Prussia rebuilding on the myth of 1813-1815. Nineteenth-century German historians made him a crudely anti-French national hero; modern specialists nuance: imprudence, coordination errors, but a sense of offensive timing that mattered at Waterloo.

For Empire Napoléon Blücher embodies the ally who would not be awed by the Napoleonic legend: neither Tilsit nor Fontainebleau tamed him. His shadow completes Wellington’s — Britain of the sea, Prussia of the forced march — to close the trap of 1815.