Kulm

now Chlumec, a settlement in Bohemia, on the Dresden-Teplice-Prague highway.

On Aug. 17-18 (29-30), 1813, a battle was fought near Kulm between the allied Bohemian Army (Russian, Prussian, and Austrian troops) and the French corps of General D. Vandamme (37,000 men). After the defeat at the battle of Dresden in 1813, the allied troops retreated southward through the Erzgebirge, covered from the east by the Russian detachment of General A. I. Osterman-Tolstoi (17,500 men). Vandamme’s corps, which was on the offensive toward Teplice into the allies’ rear, attacked Osterman-Tolstoi’s detachment near Kulm on August 17 (29). (After Osterman-Tolstoi was seriously wounded, General A. P. Ermolov commanded the detachment.)

Putting up a stubborn defense, the Russian detachment stopped the enemy, who threatened to trap the retreating allied army in a mountain gorge. On August 18 (30) part of the allied army’s main forces, commanded by General M. B. Barclay de Tolly, was moved up to Kulm (bringing the total allied strength to 44,000 men), while the Prussian corps of General F. Kleist (up to 35,000 men) was sent toward Vandamme’s rear. The engagement of August 18 (30) ended in a rout of Vandamme’s corps, with the death of 5,000 men and the capture of 12,000 men, including Vandamme himself. The allies lost about 10,000 men. After the battle of Kulm, Napoleon’s army began a retreat to-ward Leipzig.