On the second day, an overconfident Saint-Priest carelessly deployed his forces west of the city, not grasping that Napoleon was approaching with 20,000 troops.

[5] Early on the second day, Blücher was so ill with an eye infection that he temporarily handed over command to his chief of staff August Neidhardt von Gneisenau.

On 11–12 March Napoleon organized a defense at Soissons and issued orders for his eastern garrisons to break out and harass the Allied supply lines going back to the Rhine River.

[7] Not only did the French army suffer heavy casualties at Laon, it also lost between 5,400 and 8,000 men at the Battle of Craonne on 7 March.

[8] Napoleon assigned Marshal Édouard Mortier to command 8,000–9,000 infantry in the divisions of Joseph Boyer de Rébeval, Henri François Marie Charpentier, Charles-Joseph Christiani, Philibert Jean-Baptiste Curial, Claude Marie Meunier, Paul-Jean-Baptiste Poret de Morvan and 4,000 cavalry in the divisions of Nicolas-François Roussel d'Hurbal and Louis Michel Pac, and a march regiment.

A new cavalry unit called the Converged Squadrons Division was formed and assigned to Sigismond Frédéric de Berckheim.

[10] Napoleon disbanded the two Young Guard corps of Marshals Michel Ney and Claude Perrin Victor and Poret de Morvan's provisional division.

Napoleon was aware that Reims was in grave danger but he could only spare the Honor Guards cavalry division under Jean-Marie Defrance to watch the crossings of the Aisne River.

The city's garrison was commanded by Jean Corbineau and was made up of 4,000 National Guards, a handful of line infantry and eight artillery pieces.

Emmanuel's column consisted of the Kiev Dragoons, Riazan Infantry Regiment and 33rd Jägers plus two Prussian battalions, two cannons and two howitzers.

Though pursued by Allied horsemen, they escaped when Defrance's six squadrons of honor guards and hussars arrived in time to cover their withdrawal.

[19] A second source stated that 100 men of the 1,356-man garrison were killed and most of the remainder captured, including General Jean-Laurent Lacoste-Duvivier.

Saint-Priest's Russians camped inside Reims while Jagow's Prussians bivouacked in the villages on the west side of the city.

They would be followed by all the Guard Cavalry, Friant's division, Pierre François Xavier Boyer's brigade and the Legion of the Vistula battalion.

After obtaining local guides, the column left the main road at Jonchery-sur-Vesle and followed a route through Sapicourt to Rosnay.

[23] Saint-Priest deployed his Allied troops on the west side of Reims in a double line supported by 24 field guns.

Saint-Priest established an artillery battery on the Sainte-Geneviève plateau which was supported by the Riazan Infantry, the 1st and 33rd Jagers and the Kharkov and Kiev Dragoons.

Since the infantry under Ney and Friant had not yet arrived, the French emperor instructed Bordesoulle and Defrance to withdraw a little and ordered the cannons to cease fire.

The Guard cavalry divisions of Rémi Joseph Isidore Exelmans and Pierre David de Colbert-Chabanais, under the direction of Sebastiani, advanced on Ricard's flanks.

The French artillery took position at Croix-Saint-Pierre to the north of the Soissons road while Friant and Pierre Boyer were held in reserve.

The Russian commander directed his wagon train to go south to Châlons and asked Bistrom to cover the withdrawal.

When Saint-Priest and his staff rode to a place between the Soissons road and Tinqueux village, they drew fire from the French artillery on the Croix-Saint-Pierre heights.

[26] The Allied withdrawal soon degenerated into a scramble to safety as cannons were left behind and some foot soldiers jettisoned equipment in order to get away more rapidly.

Philippe Paul, comte de Ségur led the 3rd Gardes d'Honneur, some cuirassiers and the 14th Young Guard Battery in a charge that forced some Russian dragoons into the Vesle.

Caught between Russians manning the Reims defenses and the withdrawing Riazan Regiment, Ségur's horsemen were trapped and shot down by the score.

Though a number of gunners were shot down by the Russian defenders,[27] 16 cannons of the Guard artillery blew open the gate in a furious barrage.

Meanwhile, utilizing a bridging train, Exelmans' division and some Polish horsemen crossed the Vesle and headed for the road to Berry-au-Bac.

[29] He decided to leave Marmont and Mortier with 21,000 soldiers to watch Blücher and move south toward Arcis-sur-Aube to threaten Schwarzenberg's supply line.

[31] Napoleon had achieved a remarkable but ultimately hollow victory with troops whose morale had suffered due to the heavy casualties at Craonne and the defeat at Laon.

Maycock, success at Reims was, "surely one of the greatest triumphs of [Napoleon's] remarkable career, and speaks volumes for his powers as a leader of men".