One hundred years ago today, the German High Seas Fleet, which was interned at Scapa Flow, scuttled itself, sending 52 of the 74 ships to the bottom. Peace talks to formally end WWI (which technically was still in progress, since the armistice of November 11, 1918, was a cease-fire rather than a surrender) were dragging on, and the interned German sailors were worried that their ships were going to be seized outright, so it was ultimately decided to sink them in a final gesture of defiance to keep them out of enemy hands.
29th January: anniversary battle of Brienne(France)
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Battle of Brienne was fought today, 29th January, in 1814.
(I had never heard of this one.)
The town is in North East France and the battle here took place because the 6th coalition invaded France in the hope of overthrowing Napoleon.
As the roads were bad because of the weather, Napoleon was able to catch his old enemy, Blucher, with only one wing of his army: the Russian contingent under Lt Gen Baron Osten-Sachen, about 17000 men. Napoleon had 30000 on hand, but after his earlier reverses most were straight out of training camps.
Napoleon pinned down Blucher’s forces with Grouchy’s Cavalry and Horse Artillery, while Marshal Ney took the Young Guard into the town and captured the Chateau with the aid of Victor’s 2nd Corps. That night Blucher was forced to withdraw, after nearly being captured withGeneral Gneisenau. (Napoleon also narrowly missed capture.)
Blucher’s losses were 4000 casualties to Napoleon’s 3000.
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