The Decline and Fall of Napoleon's Empire.
[=The Causes of the Rise and Decline of Napoleon's Power=]
Ambition, unrestrained by caution, uncontrolled by moderation, has
its inevitable end. An empire built upon victory, trusting solely to
military genius, prepares for itself the elements of its overthrow.
This fact Napoleon was to learn. In the outset of his career he opposed
a new art of war to the obsolete one of his enemies, and his path to
empire was over the corpses of slaughtered armies and the ruins of
fallen kingdoms. But year by year they learned his art, in war after
war their resistance grew more stringent, each successive victory was
won with more difficulty and at greater cost, and finally, at the
crossing of the Danube, the energy and genius of Napoleon met their
equal, and the standards of France went back in defeat. It was the
tocsin of fate. His career of victory had culminated. From that day its
decline began.
[=Aims and Intrigues in Portugal and Spain=]
It is interesting to find that the first effective check to Napoleon's
victorious progress came from one of the weaker nations of Europe, a
power which the conqueror contemned and thought to move as one of the
minor pieces in his game of empire. Spain at that time had reached
almost the lowest stage of its decline. Its king was an imbecile;
the heir to the throne a weakling; Godoy, the "Prince of the Peace,"
the monarch's favorite, an ambitious intriguer. Napoleon's armies
had invaded Portugal and forced its monarch to embark for Brazil,
his American domain. A similar movement was attempted in Spain. This
country the base Godoy betrayed to Napoleon, and then, frightened by
the consequences of his dishonorable intrigues, sought to escape with
the king and court to the Spanish dominions in America. His scheme
was prevented by an outbreak of the people of Madrid, and Napoleon,
ambitiously designing to add the peninsula to his empire, induced
both Charles IV. and his son Ferdinand to resign from the throne. He
replaced them by his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, who, on June 6, 1808,
was named King of Spain.
[=The Bold Defiance of the People of Spain=]
Hitherto Napoleon had dealt with emperors and kings, whose overthrow
carried with it that of their people. In Spain he had a new element,
the people itself, to deal with. The very weakness of Spain proved
its strength. Deprived of their native monarchs, and given a king not
of their own choice, the whole people rose in rebellion and defied
Napoleon and his armies. An insurrection broke out in Madrid in which
1,200 French soldiers were slain. Juntas were formed in different
cities, which assumed the control of affairs and refused obedience to
the new king. From end to end of Spain the people sprang to arms and
began a guerilla warfare which the troops of Napoleon sought in vain
to quell. The bayonets of the French were able to sustain King Joseph
and his court in Madrid, but proved powerless to put down the people.
Each city, each district, became a separate centre of war, each had to
be conquered separately, and the strength of the troops was consumed
in petty contests with a people who avoided open warfare and dealt in
surprises and scattered fights, in which victory counted for little and
needed to be repeated a thousand times.
[=Spain's Brilliant Victory and King Joseph's Flight=]
The Spanish did more than this. They put an army in the field which was
defeated by the French, but they revenged themselves brilliantly at
Baylen, in Andalusia, where General Dupont, with a corps 20,000 strong,
was surrounded in a position from which there was no escape, and forced
to surrender himself and his men as prisoners of war.
This undisciplined people had gained a victory over France which none
of the great powers of Europe could match. The Spaniards were filled
with enthusiasm; King Joseph hastily abandoned Madrid; the French
armies retreated across the Ebro. Soon encouraging news came from
Portugal. The English, hitherto mainly confining themselves to naval
warfare and to aiding the enemies of Napoleon with money, had landed
an army in that country under Sir Arthur Wellesley (afterwards Lord
Wellington) and other generals, which would have captured the entire
French army had it not capitulated on the terms of a free passage to
France. For the time being the peninsula of Spain and Portugal was free
from Napoleon's power.
[=The Heroic Defence of Saragossa=]
The humiliating reverse to his arms called Napoleon himself into the
field. He marched at the head of an army into Spain, defeated the
insurgents wherever met, and reinstated his brother on the throne. The
city of Saragossa, which made one of the most heroic defences known in
history, was taken, and the advance of the British armies was checked.
And yet, though Spain was widely overrun, the people did not yield. The
junta at Cadiz defied the French, the guerillas continued in the field,
and the invaders found themselves baffled by an enemy who was felt
oftener than seen.
The Austrian war called away the emperor and the bulk of his troops,
but after it was over he filled Spain with his veterans, increasing
the strength of the army there to 300,000 men, under his ablest
generals, Soult, Massena, Ney, Marmont, Macdonald and others. They
marched through Spain from end to end, yet, though they held all the
salient points, the people refused to submit, but from their mountain
fastnesses kept up a petty and annoying war.
[=Wellington's Career in Portugal and Spain=]
Massena, in 1811, invaded Portugal, where Wellington with an English
army awaited him behind the strong lines of Torres Vedras, which the
ever-victorious French sought in vain to carry by assault. Massena was
compelled to retreat, and Soult, by whom the emperor replaced him,
was no more successful against the shrewd English general. At length
Spain won the reward of her patriotic defence. The Russian campaign
of 1812 compelled the emperor to deplete his army in that country,
and Wellington came to the aid of the patriots, defeated Marmont at
Salamanca, entered Madrid, and forced King Joseph once more to flee
from his unquiet throne.
[=The Reward of Patriotic Valor=]
For a brief interval he was restored by the French army under Soult and
Suchet, but the disasters of the Russian campaign brought the reign of
King Joseph to a final end, and forced him to give up the pretence of
reigning over a people who were unflinchingly determined to have no
king but one of their own choice. The story of the Spanish war ends in
1813, when Wellington defeated the French at Vittoria, pursued them
across the Pyrenees, and set foot upon the soil of France.
[=A Record of Disaster=]
While these events were taking place in Spain the power of Napoleon was
being shattered to fragments in the north. On the banks of the Niemen,
a river that flows between Prussia and Poland, there gathered near the
end of June, 1812, an immense army of more than 600,000 men, attended
by an enormous multitude of non-combatants, their purpose being the
invasion of the empire of Russia. Of this great army, made up of troops
from half the nations of Europe, there reappeared six months later on
that broad stream about 16,000 armed men, almost all that were left of
that stupendous host. The remainder had perished on the desert soil or
in the frozen rivers of Russia, few of them surviving as prisoners in
Russian hands. Such was the character of the dread catastrophe that
broke the power of the mighty conqueror and delivered Europe from his
autocratic grasp.
[=Napoleon and the Czar at Enmity=]
The breach of relations between Napoleon and Alexander was largely due
to the arbitrary and high-handed proceedings of the French emperor,
who was accustomed to deal with the map of Europe as if it represented
his private domain. He offended Alexander by enlarging the duchy of
Warsaw--one of his own creations--and deeply incensed him by extending
the French empire to the shores of the Baltic, thus robbing of his
dominion the Duke of Oldenburg, a near relative of Alexander. On the
other hand the Czar declined to submit the commercial interests of his
country to the rigor of Napoleon's "continental blockade," and made a
new tariff, which interfered with the importation of French and favored
that of English goods. These and other acts in which Alexander chose
to place his own interests in advance of those of Napoleon were as
wormwood to the haughty soul of the latter, and he determined to punish
the Russian autocrat as he had done the other monarchs of Europe who
refused to submit to his dictation.
For a year or two before war was declared Napoleon had been preparing
for the greatest struggle of his life, adding to his army by the most
rigorous methods of conscription and collecting great magazines of
war material, though still professing friendship for Alexander. The
latter, however, was not deceived. He prepared, on his part, for the
threatened struggle, made peace with the Turks, and formed an alliance
with Bernadotte, the crown prince of Sweden, who had good reason to
be offended with his former lord and master. Napoleon, on his side,
allied himself with Prussia and Austria, and added to his army large
contingents of troops from the German states. At length the great
conflict was ready to begin between the two autocrats, the Emperors of
the East and the West, and Europe resounded with the tread of marching
feet.
[=The Invasion of Russia by the Grand Army=]
In the closing days of June the grand army crossed the Niemen, its last
regiments reaching Russian soil by the opening of July. Napoleon, with
the advance, pressed on to Wilna, the capital of Lithuania. On all
sides the Poles rose in enthusiastic hope, and joined the ranks of the
man whom they looked upon as their deliverer. Onward went the great
army, marching with Napoleon's accustomed rapidity, seeking to prevent
the concentration of the divided Russian forces, and advancing daily
deeper into the dominions of the czar.
[=The French Baffled by the Russian Policy=]
The French emperor had his plans well laid. He proposed to meet the
Russians in force on some interior field, win from them one of his
accustomed brilliant victories, crush them with his enormous columns,
and force the dismayed czar to sue for peace on his own terms. But
plans need two sides for their consummation, and the Russian leaders
did not propose to lose the advantage given them by nature. On and on
went Napoleon, deeper and deeper into that desolate land, but the great
army he was to crush failed to loom up before him, the broad plains
still spread onward empty of soldiers, and disquiet began to assail
his imperious soul as he found the Russian hosts keeping constantly
beyond his reach, luring him ever deeper into their vast territory.
In truth Barclay de Tolly, the czar's chief in command, had adopted a
policy which was sure to prove fatal to Napoleon's purpose, that of
persistently avoiding battle and keeping the French in pursuit of a
fleeting will-of-the-wisp, while their army wasted away from natural
disintegration in that inhospitable clime.
He was correct in his views. Desertion, illness, the death of young
recruits who could not endure the hardships of a rapid march in the
severe heat of midsummer, began their fatal work. Napoleon's plan of
campaign proved a total failure. The Russians would not wait to be
defeated, and each day's march opened a wider circle of operations
before the advancing host, whom the interminable plain filled with a
sense of hopelessness. The heat was overpowering, and men dropped from
the ranks as rapidly as though on a field of battle. At Vitebsk the
army was inspected, and the emperor was alarmed at the rapid decrease
in his forces. Some of the divisions had lost more than a fourth of
their men, in every corps the ranks were depleted, and reinforcements
already had to be set on the march.
Onward they went, here and there bringing the Russians to bay in a
minor engagement, but nowhere meeting them in numbers. Europe waited
in vain for tidings of a great battle, and Napoleon began to look upon
his proud army with a feeling akin to despair. He was not alone in
his eagerness for battle. Some of the high-spirited Russians, among
them Prince Bagration, were as eager, but as yet the prudent policy of
Barclay de Tolly prevailed.
[=Smolensk Captured and in Flames=]
On the 14th of August, the army crossed the Dnieper, and marched, now
175,000 strong, upon Smolensk, which was reached on the 16th. This
ancient and venerable town was dear to the Russians, and they made
their first determined stand in its defence, fighting behind its walls
all day of the 17th. Finding that the assault was likely to succeed,
they set fire to the town at night and withdrew, leaving to the French
a city in flames. The bridge was cut, the Russian army was beyond
pursuit on the road to Moscow, nothing had been gained by the struggle
but the ruins of a town.
The situation was growing desperate. For two months the army had
advanced without a battle of importance, and was soon in the heart
of Russia, reduced to half its numbers, while the hoped-for victory
seemed as far off as ever. And the short summer of the north was
nearing its end. The severe winter of that climate would soon begin.
Discouragement everywhere prevailed. Efforts were made by Napoleon's
marshals to induce him to give up the losing game and retreat, but
he was not to be moved from his purpose. A march on Moscow, the old
capital of the empire, he felt sure would bring the Russians to bay.
Once within its walls he hoped to dictate terms of peace.
Napoleon was soon to have the battle for which his soul craved.
Barclay's prudent and successful policy was not to the taste of many of
the Russian leaders, and the czar was at length induced to replace him
by fiery old Kutusoff, who had commanded the Russians at Austerlitz.
A change in the situation was soon apparent. On the 5th of September
the French army debouched upon the plain of Borodino, on the road to
Moscow, and the emperor saw with joy the Russian army drawn up to
dispute the way to the "Holy City" of the Muscovites. The dark columns
of troops were strongly intrenched behind a small stream, frowning
rows of guns threatened the advancing foe, and hope returned to the
emperor's heart.
[=The Battle of Borodino=]
Battle began early on the 7th, and continued all day long, the Russians
defending their ground with unyielding stubbornness, the French
attacking their positions with all their old impetuous dash and energy.
Murat and Ney were the heroes of the day. Again and again the emperor
was implored to send the imperial guard and overwhelm the foe, but he
persistently refused. "If there is a second battle to-morrow," he said,
"what troops shall I fight it with? It is not when one is eight hundred
leagues from home that he risks his last resource."
The guard was not needed. On the following day Kutusoff was obliged to
withdraw, leaving no less than 40,000 dead or wounded on the field.
Among the killed was the brave Prince Bagration. The retreat was an
orderly one. Napoleon found it expedient not to pursue. His own losses
aggregated over 30,000, among them an unusual number of generals, of
whom ten were killed and thirty-nine wounded. Three days proved a brief
time to attend to the burial of the dead and the needs of the wounded.
Napoleon named the engagement the Battle of the Moskwa, from the river
that crossed the plain, and honored Ney, as the hero of the day, with
the title of Prince of Moskwa.
[Illustration: MARSHAL NEY RETREATING FROM RUSSIA
Marshal Ney, who commanded the rear-guard of
Napoleon's army during the retreat from Russia, won
imperishable fame by his brilliant and daring deeds.
Had it not been for his courage and military skill it
is doubtful if a man of that great army would have
escaped from the frozen soil of the north.]
[Illustration: GENERAL BLÜCHER'S FALL AT LIGNY
General Blucher, "Marshal Forward" as he was called,
from his intrepid boldness, was a veteran of over
seventy years of age at the date of the battle of
Waterloo. He was defeated at Ligny, and during the
battle was unhorsed and charged over by the French and
Prussian cavalry. He reached with his troops the field
of Waterloo in time to decide that battle against the
French.]
[=The First Sight of the Holy City of Russia=]
On the 15th the Holy City was reached. A shout of "Moscow! Moscow!"
went up from the whole army as they gazed on the gilded cupolas and
magnificent buildings of that famous city, brilliantly lit up by the
afternoon sun. Twenty miles in circumference, dazzling with the green
of its copper domes and its minarets of yellow stone, the towers
and walls of the famous Kremlin rising above its palaces and gardens,
it seemed like some fabled city of the Arabian Nights. With renewed
enthusiasm the troops rushed towards it, while whole regiments of Poles
fell on their knees, thanking God for delivering this stronghold of
their oppressors into their hands.
[=The Grand Army in the Old Russian Capital=]
It was an empty city into which the French marched; its streets
deserted, its dwellings silent. Its busy life had vanished like a
morning mist. Kutusoff had marched his army through it and left it
to his foes. The inhabitants were gone, with what they could carry
of their treasures. The city, like the empire, seemed likely to be a
barren conquest, for here, as elsewhere, the policy of retreat, so
fatal to Napoleon's hopes, was put into effect. The emperor took up his
abode in the Kremlin, within whose ample precincts he found quarters
for the whole imperial guard. The remainder of the army was stationed
at chosen points about the city. Provisions were abundant, the houses
and stores of the city being amply supplied. The army enjoyed a luxury
of which it had been long deprived, while Napoleon confidently awaited
a triumphant result from his victorious progress.
[=The Burning of the Great City of Moscow.=]
A terrible disenchantment awaited the invader. Early on the following
morning word was brought him that Moscow was on fire. Flames arose
from houses that had not been opened. It was evidently a premeditated
conflagration. The fire burst out at once in a dozen quarters, and
a high wind carried the flames from street to street, from house to
house, from church to church. Russians were captured who boasted that
they had fired the town under orders and who met death unflinchingly.
The governor had left them behind for this fell purpose. The poorer
people, many of whom had remained hidden in their huts, now fled in
terror, taking with them what cherished possessions they could carry.
Soon the city was a seething mass of flames.
The Kremlin did not escape. A tower burst into flames. In vain the
imperial guard sought to check the fire. No fire-engines were to be
found in the town. Napoleon hastily left the palace and sought shelter
outside the city, where for three days the flames ran riot, feeding on
ancient palaces and destroying untold treasures. Then the wind sank and
rain poured upon the smouldering embers. The great city had become a
desolate heap of smoking ruins, into which the soldiers daringly stole
back in search of valuables that might have escaped the flames.
This frightful conflagration was not due to the czar, but to Count
Rostopchin, the governor of Moscow, who was subsequently driven from
Russia by the execrations of those he had ruined. But it served as a
proclamation to Europe of the implacable resolution of the Muscovites
and their determination to resist to the bitter end.
Napoleon, sadly troubled in soul, sent letters to Alexander, suggesting
the advisability of peace. Alexander left his letters unanswered. Until
October 18th the emperor waited, hoping against hope, willing to grant
almost any terms for an opportunity to escape from the fatal trap into
which his overweening ambition had led him. No answer came from the
czar. He was inflexible in his determination not to treat with these
invaders of his country. In deep dejection Napoleon at length gave the
order to retreat--too late, as it was to prove, since the terrible
Russian winter was ready to descend upon them in all its frightful
strength.
[=The Grand Army Begins Its Retreat=]
The army that left that ruined city was a sadly depleted one. It had
been reduced to 103,000 men. The army followers had also become greatly
decreased in numbers, but still formed a host, among them delicate
ladies, thinly clad, who gazed with terrified eyes from their traveling
carriages upon the dejected troops. Articles of plunder of all kinds
were carried by the soldiers, even the wounded in the wagons lying amid
the spoil they had gathered. The Kremlin was destroyed by the rear
guard, under Napoleon's orders, and over the drear Russian plains the
retreat began.
It was no sooner under way than the Russian policy changed. From
retreating, they everywhere advanced, seeking to annoy and cut off the
enemy, and utterly to destroy the fugitive army if possible. A stand
was made at the town of Maloi-Yaroslavitz, where a sanguinary combat
took place. The French captured the town, but ten thousand men lay
dead or wounded on the field, while Napoleon was forced to abandon his
projected line of march, and to return by the route he had followed in
his advance on Moscow. From the bloody scene of contest the retreat
continued, the battlefield of Borodino being crossed, and, by the
middle of November, the ruins of Smolensk reached.
[=The Sad Remnant of the Army of Invasion=]
Winter was now upon the French in all its fury. The food brought from
Moscow had been exhausted. Famine, frost, and fatigue had proved more
fatal than the bullets of the enemy. In fourteen days after reaching
Moscow the army lost 43,000 men, leaving it only 60,000 strong. On
reaching Smolensk it numbered but 42,000, having lost 18,000 more
within eight days. The unarmed followers are said to have still
numbered 60,000. Worse still, the supply of arms and provisions ordered
to be ready at Smolensk was in great part lacking, only rye-flour and
rice being found. Starvation threatened to aid the winter cold in the
destruction of the feeble remnant of the "Grand Army."
Onward went the despairing host, at every step harassed by the
Russians, who followed like wolves on their path. Ney, in command of
the rear-guard, was the hero of the retreat. Cut off by the Russians
from the main column, and apparently lost beyond hope, he made a
wonderful escape by crossing the Dnieper on the ice during the night
and rejoining his companions, who had given up the hope of ever seeing
him again.
[=The Dreadful Crossing of the Beresina=]
On the 26th the ice-cold river Beresina was reached, destined to be
the most terrible point on the whole dreadful march. Two bridges were
thrown in all haste across the stream, and most of the men under arms
crossed, but 18,000 stragglers fell into the hands of the enemy. How
many were trodden to death in the press or were crowded from the bridge
into the icy river cannot be told. It is said that when spring thawed
the ice 30,000 bodies were found and burned on the banks of the stream.
A mere fragment of the great army remained alive. Ney was the last man
to cross that frightful stream.
On the 3d of December Napoleon issued a bulletin which has become
famous, telling the anxious nations of Europe that the grand army
was annihilated, but the emperor was safe. Two days afterwards he
surrendered the command of the army to Murat and set out at all speed
for Paris, where his presence was indispensably necessary. On the 13th
of December some 16,000 haggard and staggering men, almost too weak to
hold the arms to which they still despairingly clung, recrossed the
Niemen, which the grand army had passed in such magnificent strength
and with such abounding resources less than six months before. It was
the greatest and most astounding disaster in the military history of
the world.
This tale of terror may be fitly closed by a dramatic story told by
General Mathieu Dumas, who, while sitting at breakfast in Gumbinnen,
saw enter a haggard man, with long beard, blackened face, and red and
glaring eyes.
"I am here at last," he exclaimed. "Don't you know me?"
"No," said the general. "Who are you?"
"I am the rear-guard of the Grand Army. I have fired the last
musket-shot on the bridge of Kowno. I have thrown the last of our arms
into the Niemen, and came hither through the woods. I am Marshal Ney."
"This is the beginning of the end," said the shrewd Talleyrand, when
Napoleon set out on his Russian campaign. The remark proved true,
the disaster in Russia had loosened the grasp of the Corsican on the
throat of Europe, and the nations, which hated as much as they feared
their ruthless enemy, made active preparations for his overthrow.
While he was in France, actively gathering men and materials for a
renewed struggle, signs of an implacable hostility began to manifest
themselves on all sides in the surrounding states. Belief in the
invincibility of Napoleon had vanished, and little fear was entertained
of the raw conscripts whom he was forcing into the ranks to replace his
slaughtered veterans.
[=Europe in Arms Against Napoleon=]
Prussia was the first to break the bonds of alliance with France, to
ally itself with Russia, and to call its people to arms against their
oppressor. They responded with the utmost enthusiasm, men of all ranks
and all professions hastened to their country's defence, and the noble
and the peasant stood side by side as privates in the same regiment. In
March, 1813, the French left Berlin, which was immediately occupied by
the Russian and Prussian allies. The king of Saxony, however, refused
to desert Napoleon, to whom he owed many favors and whose anger he
feared; and his State, in consequence, became the theatre of the war.
[=The Opening of the Final Struggle=]
Across the opposite borders of this kingdom poured the hostile hosts,
meeting in battle at Lützen and Buntzen. Here the French held the
field, driving their adversaries across the Oder, but not in the wild
dismay seen at Jena. A new spirit had been aroused in the Prussian
heart, and they left thousands of their enemies dead upon the field,
among whom Napoleon saw with grief his especial friend and favorite
Duroc.
A truce followed, which the French emperor utilized in gathering fresh
levies. Prince Metternich, the able chancellor of the Austrian empire,
sought to make peace, but his demands upon Napoleon were much greater
than the proud conqueror was prepared to grant, and he decisively
refused to cede the territory held by him as the spoils of war. His
refusal brought upon him another powerful foe, Austria allied itself
with his enemies, formally declaring war on August 12, 1813, and an
active and terrible struggle began.
[=The Battle of Dresden, Napoleon's Last Great Victory=]
Napoleon's army was rapidly concentrated at Dresden, upon whose works
of defence the allied army precipitated itself in a vigorous assault
on August 26th. Its strength was wasted against the vigorously held
fortifications of the city, and in the end the gates were flung open
and the serried battalions of the Old Guard appeared in battle array.
From every gate of the city these tried soldiers poured, and rushed
upon the unprepared wings of the hostile host. Before this resistless
charge the enemy recoiled, retreating with heavy loss to the heights
beyond the city, and leaving Napoleon master of the field.
[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF DRESDEN, AUGUST 26 AND 27, 1813
At Dresden, August 26 and 27, 1813, Napoleon gained
the last of his many great victories, against a large
army of Austrian, Prussian and Russian allies. In
this hard-fought battle Murat, the dashing cavalry
leader, was the hero of the day. Never had he led more
effectively his "whirlwinds of cavalry," and most of
the honors of the day fell to his daring cuirassiers.]
[Illustration: WILLIAM M. THACKERAY
ANTHONY TROLLOPE
SIR WALTER SCOTT
CHARLES DICKENS
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
Famous English Novelists.]
On the next morning the battle was resumed. The allies, strongly
posted, still outnumbered the French, and had abundant reason to
expect victory. But Napoleon's eagle eye quickly saw that their left
wing lacked the strength of the remainder of the line, and upon this
he poured the bulk of his forces, while keeping their centre and right
actively engaged. The result justified the instinct of his genius, the
enemy was driven back in disastrous defeat, and once again a glorious
victory was inscribed upon the banners of France--the final one in
Napoleon's career of fame.
[=A Series of French Disasters=]
Yet the fruits of this victory were largely lost in the events of
the remainder of the month. On the 26th Blücher brilliantly defeated
Marshal Macdonald on the Katzbach, in Silesia; on the 30th General
Vandamme, with 10,000 French soldiers, was surrounded and captured
at Culm, in Bohemia; and on the 27th Hirschfeld, at Hagelsberg, with
a corps of volunteers, defeated Girard. The Prussian-Swedish army
similarly won victories on August 25th and September 6th, and a few
weeks afterward the Prussian general, Count York, supported by the
troops of General Horn, crossed the Elbe in the face of the enemy, and
gained a brilliant victory at Wartenburg. Where Napoleon was present
victory inclined to his banner. Where he was absent his lieutenants
suffered defeat. The struggle was everywhere fierce and desperate, but
the end was at hand.
[=The Fatal Meeting of the Armies at Leipzig=]
The rulers of the Rhine Confederation now began to desert Napoleon
and all Germany to join against him. The first to secede was Bavaria,
which allied itself with Austria and joined its forces to those of the
allies. During October the hostile armies concentrated in front of
Leipzig, where was to be fought the decisive battle of the war. The
struggle promised was the most gigantic one in which Napoleon had ever
been engaged. Against his 100,000 men was gathered a host of 300,000
Austrians, Prussians, Russians, and Swedes.
We have not space to describe the multitudinous details of this mighty
struggle, which continued with unabated fury for three days, October
16th, 17th, and 18th. It need scarcely be said that the generalship
shown by Napoleon in this famous contest lacked nothing of his usual
brilliancy, and that he was ably seconded by Ney, Murat, Augereau,
and others of his famous generals, yet the overwhelming numbers of
the enemy enabled them to defy all the valor of the French and the
resources of their great leader, and at evening of the 18th the armies
still faced each other in battle array, the fate of the field yet
undecided.
Napoleon was in no condition to renew the combat. During the long
affray the French had expended no less than 250,000 cannon balls.
They had but 16,000 left, which two hours' firing would exhaust.
Reluctantly he gave the order to retreat, and all that night the
wearied and disheartened troops filed through the gates of Leipzig,
leaving a rear-guard in the city, who defended it bravely against the
swarming multitude of the foe. A disastrous blunder terminated their
stubborn defence. Orders had been left to blow up the bridge across the
Elster, but the mine was, by mistake, set off too soon, and the gallant
garrison, 12,000 in number, with a multitude of sick and wounded, was
forced to surrender as prisoners of war.
The end was drawing near. Vigorously pursued, the French reached
the Rhine by forced marches, defeating with heavy loss the army of
Austrians and Bavarians which sought to block their way. The stream was
crossed and the French were once more upon their own soil. After years
of contest, Germany was finally freed from Napoleon's long-victorious
hosts.
[=The Break-up of Napoleon's European Empire=]
Marked results followed. The carefully organized work of Napoleon's
policy quickly fell to pieces. The kingdom of Westphalia was dissolved.
The elector of Hesse and the dukes of Brunswick and Oldenburg returned
to the thrones from which they had been driven. The Confederation
of the Rhine ceased to exist, and its states allied themselves with
Austria. Denmark, long faithful to France, renounced its alliance
in January, 1814. Austria regained possession of Lombardy, the duke
of Tuscany returned to his capital, and the Pope, Pius VII., long
held captive by Napoleon, came back in triumph to Rome. A few months
sufficed to break down the edifice of empire slowly reared through so
many years, and almost all Europe outside of France united itself in
hostility to its hated foe.
Napoleon was offered peace if he would accept the Rhine as the French
frontier, but his old infatuation and trust in his genius prevailed
over the dictates of prudence, he treated the offer in his usual
double-dealing way, and the allies, convinced that there could be no
stable peace while he remained on the throne, decided to cross the
Rhine and invade France.
[=The War in France and the Abdication of the Emperor=]
Blücher led his columns across the stream on the first day of 1814,
Schwarzenberg marched through Switzerland into France, and Wellington
crossed the Pyrenees. Napoleon, like a wolf brought to bay, sought to
dispose of his scattered foes before they would unite, and began with
Blücher, whom he defeated five times within as many days. The allies,
still in dread of their great opponent, once more offered him peace,
but his success robbed him of wisdom, he demanded more than they were
willing to give, and his enemies, encouraged by a success gained by
Blücher, broke off the negotiations and marched on Paris, now bent on
the dethronement of their dreaded antagonist.
A few words will bring the story of this contest to an end. France
was exhausted, its army was incapable of coping with the serried
battalions marshalled against it, Paris surrendered before Napoleon
could come to its defence, and in the end the emperor, vacillating and
in despair, was obliged, on April 7, 1814, to sign an unconditional
act of abdication. The powers of Europe awarded him as a kingdom the
diminutive island of Elba, in the Mediterranean, with an annual income
of 2,000,000 francs and an army composed of 400 of his famous guard.
The next heir to the throne returned as Louis XVIII. France was given
back its old frontier of 1492, the foreign armies withdrew from her
soil, and the career of the great Corsican seemed at an end.
In spite of their long experience with Napoleon, the event proved that
the powers of Europe knew not all the audacity and mental resources
of the man with whom they had to deal. They had made what might have
proved a fatal error in giving him an asylum so near the coast of
France, whose people, intoxicated with the dream of glory through which
he had so long led them, would be sure to respond enthusiastically to
an appeal to rally to his support.
[=Napoleon Returns from Elba=]
The powers were soon to learn their error. While the Congress of
Vienna, convened to restore the old constitution of Europe, was
deliberating and disputing, its members were startled by the news that
the dethroned emperor was again upon the soil of France, and that Louis
XVIII. was in full flight for the frontier. Napoleon had landed on
March 1, 1815, and set out on his return to Paris, the army and the
people rapidly gathering to his support. On the 30th he entered the
Tuileries in a blaze of triumph, the citizens, thoroughly dissatisfied
with their brief experience of Bourbon rule, going mad with enthusiasm
in his welcome.
Thus began the famous period of the "Hundred Days." The powers declared
Napoleon to be the "enemy of nations," and armed a half million of men
for his final overthrow. The fate of his desperate attempt was soon
decided. For the first time he was to meet the British in battle, and
in Wellington to encounter the only man who had definitely made head
against his legions. A British army was dispatched in all haste to
Belgium, Blücher with his Prussians hastened to the same region, and
the mighty final struggle was at hand. The persistent and unrelenting
enemies of the Corsican conqueror, the British islanders, were destined
to be the agents of his overthrow.
[=The Gathering of the Armies in Belgium=]
The little kingdom of Belgium was the scene of the momentous contest
that brought Napoleon's marvelous career to an end. Thither he led
his army, largely made up of new conscripts; and thither the English
and the Prussians hastened to meet him. On June 16, 1815, the prelude
to the great battle took place. Napoleon met Blücher at Ligny and
defeated him; then, leaving Grouchy to pursue the Prussians, he turned
against his island foes. On the same day Ney encountered the forces of
Wellington at Quatre Bras, but failed to drive them back. On the 17th
Wellington took a new position at Waterloo, and awaited there his great
antagonist.
[=The Terrible Defeat at Waterloo=]
June 18th was the crucial day in Napoleon's career, the one in which
his power was to fall, never to rise again. Here we shall but sketch
in outline this famous battle, reserving a fuller account of it for
our next chapter, under the story of Wellington, the victor in the
fray. The stupendous struggle, as Wellington himself described it, was
"a battle of giants." Long the result wavered in the balance. All day
long the British sustained the desperate assaults of their antagonists.
Terrible was the contest, frightful the loss of life. Hour after hour
passed, charge after charge was hurled by Napoleon against the British
lines, which still closed up over the dead and stood firm; and it
seemed as if night would fall with the two armies unflinchingly face to
face, neither of them victor in the terrible fray.
The arrival of Blücher with his Prussians turned the scale. To
Napoleon's bitter disappointment Grouchy, who should have been close
on the heels of the Prussians, failed to appear, and the weary and
dejected French were left to face these fresh troops without support.
Napoleon's Old Guard in vain flung itself into the gap, and the French
nation long repeated in pride the saying attributed to the commander of
this famous corps: "The guard dies, but it never surrenders."
[=Napoleon Meets His Fate=]
In the end the French army broke and fled in disastrous rout,
three-fourths of the whole force being left dead, wounded, or
prisoners, while all its artillery became the prize of the victors.
Napoleon, pale and confused, was led by Soult from the battlefield. It
was his last fight. His abdication was demanded, and he resigned the
crown in favor of his son. A hopeless and unnerved fugitive, he fled
from Paris to Rochefort, hoping to escape to America. But the British
fleet held that port, and in despair he went on board a vessel of the
fleet, trusting himself to the honor of the British nation. But the
statesmen of England had no sympathy with the vanquished adventurer,
from whose ambition Europe had suffered so terribly. He was sent as a
state prisoner to the island of St. Helena, there to end his days. His
final hour of glory came in 1842, when his ashes were brought in pomp
and display to Paris.
[Illustration: THE EVE OF WATERLOO
No more impressive scene could be imagined than this
peaceful slumber of an army on the eve of what was to
prove one of the most famous battles of history. On
the succeeding night many of these slumberers slept
the sleep of death, but their hands had brought to an
end the career of Napoleon.]
[Illustration: WELLINGTON AT WATERLOO GIVING THE WORD TO ADVANCE
This spirited illustration figures the final event
in the mighty struggle at Waterloo when the French,
after hurling themselves a dozen times against the
unyielding British ranks, like storm waves upon a
rock-bound shore, staggered back in despair, and
Wellington gave the magic word of command: "Let all
the line advance!" Those words signified the final
downfall of Napoleon.]