The Allies were jubilant after beating Napoleon in the Battle of La Rothière on 1 February 1814. In particular, Blücher and his generals believed that the war would soon be over. Pleading the difficulty of supplying the combined armies along a single line of communication, Schwarzenberg agreed to allow Blücher's army to operate along a more northerly route. Schwarzenberg's Army of Bohemia would march west through Troyes along the Seine River, while Blücher would move north to Châlons-sur-Marne and then drive west along the Marne valley toward Meaux. The Russian corps of Peter Wittgenstein and a Cossack scouting force under Alexander Nikitich Seslavin would provide the link between the two armies. One historian estimated that the two Allied armies numbered 200,000 between them, against 70,000 French.