In hard fighting that lasted until evening, French troops including the Imperial Guard defeated Sacken's Russian soldiers and compelled them to retreat to the north.

After Napoleon crushed Zakhar Dmitrievich Olsufiev's small isolated corps in the Battle of Champaubert on 10 February, he found himself in the midst of Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher's widely-spread Army of Silesia.

Leaving a small force in the east to watch Blücher, Napoleon turned the bulk of his army to the west in an attempt to destroy Sacken.

Yorck's troops belatedly arrived only to be repulsed, but the Prussians distracted the French long enough to allow Sacken's Russians to join them in a withdrawal to the north.

On the 1st of February 1814, Prussian Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher commanding 80,000 Allied soldiers from his own Army of Silesia and Austrian field marshal Karl Philipp, Prince of Schwarzenberg's Army of Bohemia defeated Napoleon with 45,000 French troops in the Battle of La Rothière.

[2] Elated by their triumph, the Allied commanders devised a new plan whereby Schwarzenberg advanced from Troyes toward Paris while Blücher operated on a more northerly axis from Châlons-sur-Marne toward Meaux.

Believing the war was almost over, Blücher pressed rapidly west after a smaller French force under Marshal Jacques MacDonald.

When, on the morning of 9 February, Napoleon received news from Marmont that Fabian Wilhelm von Osten-Sacken was near Montmirail with about 15,000 troops, the French army lurched into action.

[5] Marshal Claude Perrin Victor with 14,000 men, consisting of his own corps, a force under Etienne Maurice Gérard and cavalry, would hold Nogent-sur-Seine.

[6] In fact, the Army of Silesia had 57,000 soldiers, including 18,000 under Yorck at Château-Thierry, 20,000 under Sacken near La Ferté-sous-Jouarre and 19,000 under Zakhar Dmitrievich Olsufiev, Peter Mikhailovich Kaptzevich and Friedrich von Kleist at Champaubert, Vertus and Bergères-lès-Vertus.

[10] Fearing that Napoleon would offer battle near Nogent, Schwarzenberg asked his colleague Blücher to send Kleist's corps south to help.

Riding with Kleist and Kaptzevich, Blücher led them south from Vertus toward Fère-Champenoise, planning to turn west from there to Sézanne.

After days of rain, the roads were swamped, but the French country people assisted the army in dragging Napoleon's cannons through the mud.

With only 5,000 men and 24 guns, the Russian general unwisely held his ground; Olsufiev ended the day as a French prisoner and his corps was nearly destroyed.

[11] Blücher was near Fère-Champenoise when heard that Olsufiev's corps had been wrecked; he immediately ordered Kleist and Kaptzevich to undertake a night march back to Vertus.

The Prussian field marshal ordered Yorck to march to Montmirail while holding the important bridge over the Marne River at Château-Thierry in case a retreat was necessary.

Blücher recalled Sacken, instructing him to march east to Montmirail to rendezvous with Yorck, then clear the highway between there and Vertus.

[13] Yorck sent a dispatch to Blücher expressing doubt whether he could join Sacken at Montmirail because his soldiers were too worn out to march on the night of 10–11 February.

[14] With the La Ferté-sous-Jouarre bridge broken to the west and unknown forces looming to the east, Sacken was in serious danger of becoming trapped.

Against the advice of his own staff who urged him to move closer to Yorck,[16] the Russian commander deployed his army corps with its main weight to the south.

Because of the bad condition of the roads and the exhaustion of the soldiers, it was not clear whether French reinforcements or Yorck's Prussians would first arrive on the field.

[21] To keep Sacken and Yorck from linking up, the French emperor deployed Friant's division where the Château-Thierry road met the main east-west highway, with Defrance's cavalry on his right.

Four of Friant's Old Guard battalions marched west along the highway toward Haute-Épine dairy farm, supported on their right by seven squadrons of Gardes d'Honneur.

[24] To break the connection with Yorck, Napoleon ordered a new attack straight down the highway by Nansouty with all three of his divisions, Colbert, Desnouettes and Laferrière.

[24] Fearing the appearance of MacDonald's forces in his right rear, Yorck also sent his remaining infantry brigade back to hold Château-Thierry.

Though the French achieved local artillery superiority, the Russians in Marchais continued to resist until 5:00 pm when they were forced to relinquish control of the village and pull back.

When they reached the west side of the ravine, Defrance's cavalry charged into them, inflicting heavy losses on the brigades of Dietrich and Blagovenzenko.

Realizing that without control of Marchais, the battle was lost, Sacken began pulling back his artillery from the right wing toward the center.

[27] According to Petre, the French sustained 2,000 casualties while inflicting losses of 2,000 killed and wounded on the Russians while capturing 800 soldiers, six colors and 13 guns.

Though the emperor began getting calls for help from Victor, he calculated that the unaggressive Schwarzenberg would move slowly while he dealt with Blücher's army.