THE GREAT CAPTAIN AT BAY[8]
[Footnote 8: References: Houssaye: 1814. Jensen: Napoleons
Feldzug, 1814. Weil: La campagne de 1814, d'apres les
documents des archives imperiales et royales de la guerre a
Vienne. La cavalerie des armees alliees pendant la campagne
de 1814.]
Victor's Failure at Montereau -- Schwarzenberg's Ruse -- The
French Advance and the Austrian Retreat -- Napoleon's Effort to
Divide the Coalition -- Vain Negotiations -- The Treaty of
Chaumont -- Bluecher's Narrow Escape -- The Prussians Defeated at
Craonne -- Napoleon's Determination to Fight -- His Misfortunes
at Laon -- Dissensions at Bluecher's Headquarters -- Napoleon at
Soissons -- Rheims Recaptured -- Another Phase in Napoleon's
Eclipse.
The eagerness of the Prussians and the Austrians to grant an armistice
was at first due to the belief that Caulaincourt's request was a
confession of exhaustion; the Czar's assent to reopening the congress
on the eighteenth was wrung from him by the military operations
between the fourteenth and that date. Convinced that Paris was
menaced, Napoleon left Marmont to hold Bluecher, and starting for La
Ferte-sous-Jouarre on the fifteenth, covered fifty miles with his army
in a marvelous march of thirty-six hours, arriving on the evening of
the sixteenth with his men comparatively fresh. Next morning the
French began to advance, and the Austrians to withdraw toward the
Seine. Victor was to seize Montereau that same day and hold the
bridge. Compelled to drive an Austrian corps out of Valjouan, the
marshal did not reach his goal until six or seven in the evening, and
finding it beset by the Crown Prince of Wuertemberg with fourteen
thousand Germans, he merely drove in the outposts and then halted for
the night. His ardor was far from intense, and though, like Macdonald
at Chateau-Thierry, he might feel that he had done all that could be
demanded, yet he lost the opportunity of annihilating a considerable
portion of the enemy's force. Simultaneously Macdonald had now
advanced until he stood before Bray, while Oudinot on the left was
before Provins. Thus far Napoleon's advance had been a front movement
to cover Paris, but that same day, the seventeenth, he drove
Wittgenstein from Nangis, and then expected by a rush over the bridge
at Montereau to prevent Schwarzenberg from extending his flank to
Fontainebleau, a move which would surround the French right. As a
matter of fact, strange riders speaking curious outlandish tongues,
Cossack scouts in other words, had appeared for the first time that
very day in Nemours and Fontainebleau, terrifying the inhabitants. It
seems highly probable that if Napoleon's force could have made a quick
push from Montereau early on the eighteenth, it would have cut off a
considerable portion of Schwarzenberg's left. In any case the Emperor
was deeply incensed by what he considered Victor's slackness, and
degraded him. The humbled marshal confessed his fault, displaying
profound contrition, and was speedily restored to partial favor, being
intrusted with the command, under Ney, of a portion of the young
guard.
This was the third of the marshals--Augereau, Macdonald, Victor, each
in turn--who since the opening of the campaign had shown a physical
and moral exhaustion disabling them from rising to the heights of
Napoleon's expectation. "We must pull on the boots and the resolution
of '93," wrote the Emperor to Augereau; he was quite right: nothing
short of the unsapped revolutionary vigor of France could have saved
his cause. On the eighteenth, after a six hours' struggle, the French
under Gerard and Pajol seized Montereau. Napoleon had halted at
Nangis, and there Berthier received by a flag of truce a letter from
Schwarzenberg, declaring that he had ceased his offensive march in
consequence of news that preliminaries of peace had been signed the
day previous at Chatillon. This was probably as base a ruse as any
ever practised by Napoleon's generals. It is likely that all the
Austrian marches and countermarches for ten days past had been but a
bustling semblance calculated for diplomatic effect. Be that as it
may, before Napoleon's advance the Austrian commander had quailed,
and, with the French at Montereau, his columns were already moving
back to Troyes, where they were drawn up in battle array. Napoleon
wrote indignantly to Joseph that the ruse was probably preliminary to
a request for an armistice, and that he would now accept nothing short
of the Frankfort proposals. "At the first check the wretched creatures
fall on their knees." Meanwhile he led his army over the river to
Nogent, and prepared to attack Schwarzenberg.
But Bluecher had not been idle; by superhuman exertions he had
collected and strengthened his army at Chalons, and on the
twenty-first he appeared at Mery on the Seine, threatening Napoleon's
left flank in case of an advance toward Troyes. By this time the
flames of French patriotism were rekindled in town and country, and,
the soldiers being flushed with victory, it was clearly the hour to
strike at any hazard. Oudinot was despatched with ten thousand men to
hold Bluecher, and this task he actually accomplished, capturing that
portion of Mery which lay on the left bank of the river, and
fortifying the bridge-head against all comers. Marmont being at
Sezanne with eight thousand men to cover Paris, and Mortier at
Soissons with ten thousand to prevent the advance of York and Sacken,
Napoleon marched on Troyes. It was late in the evening when his main
army was drawn up, and in order to leave time for his rear to come in,
he postponed operations until the morning. Schwarzenberg had seventy
thousand in line, but at four in the early dawn of the twenty-second,
leaving in place a front formation sufficient to mask his movements,
he decamped with his main force and withdrew behind the Aube.
Arrived at Bar, the Austrian commander wrote on the twenty-sixth an
admirable letter of justification for the course he had taken. Defeat
would have meant a retreat, not behind the Aube, but the Rhine. "To
offer a decisive battle to an army fighting with all the confidence
gained in small affairs, manoeuvering on its own territory, with
provisions and munitions within reach, and with the aid of a peasantry
in arms, would be an undertaking to which nothing but extreme
necessity could drive me." This retreat put a new aspect on the
diplomacy of Chatillon. On the nineteenth Caulaincourt received a
despatch from Napoleon revoking the carte blanche entirely; the same
day Napoleon received an ultimatum from the congress, written several
days before, to the effect that he was to renounce all the
acquisitions of France since 1792, and take no share in the
arrangements subsequent to the peace. This last clause being a covert
suggestion of abdication, the recipient flew into a passion; when
finally he was soothed by the pleadings of Berthier and Maret, he gave
such a meaningless reply as would enable negotiations to proceed, but
his counter-project he addressed directly to the Emperor Francis. It
was a refusal to give up Antwerp and Belgium, and an emphatic
recurrence to the Frankfort proposals. "If we are not to lay down our
arms except on the offensive conditions proposed at the congress, the
genius of France and Providence will be on our side."
Napoleon's missive suggested to his father-in-law, as was its
intention, that a continental peace on the Frankfort basis would leave
France free to recuperate her sea power and continue the war with
England alone. This was the wedge which for some time past the writer
had been proposing to drive into the coalition so as to separate
Austria from Russia. Castlereagh was very uneasy as to the possible
effect of the message, and there was much anxiety among all the
diplomats. Their first step was to send a pacific reply and renew
their request for an armistice. Napoleon consented, but stipulated
that hostilities should proceed during the preliminary pourparlers,
and that in the protocol a clause should be inserted declaring that
the plenipotentiaries were reassembled at Chatillon to discuss a peace
on the basis proposed at Frankfort. A commission to arrange the terms
of the armistice met on the twenty-fourth. That they were not in
earnest is shown by Frederick William's despatch of the twenty-sixth
to Bluecher, saying, "The suspension of arms will not take place." That
very day, also, in a council of war held by the allied generals, it
was determined to form an invading army of the south. Bluecher was
authorized to make a diversion in favor of the main army--a move which
he had really begun the day before by a march to the right. Napoleon,
leaving Macdonald and Oudinot, with forty thousand men, to follow
Schwarzenberg, hurried after Bluecher with his remaining force. On the
twenty-eighth the commission adjourned its sessions with a formal
reiteration of the ultimatum already made by the allied powers.
The reason was that by that time its members believed Napoleon to be
elsewhere engaged. Schwarzenberg's army had checked Oudinot, and as
his troops recuperated their strength the leader recovered partial
confidence. Bluecher being off for Paris, with Napoleon on his heels,
the main army of the allies had then turned on the forces of Macdonald
and Oudinot, and had driven them westward until in the pursuit it
reached Troyes, where it halted, ready, in case of Bluecher's defeat,
to recross the Rhine. The congress of Chatillon was formally reopened
on March first, and continued its useless sessions until the
nineteenth, when it closed. During this second period none of the
important dignitaries, except Schwarzenberg and the King of Prussia,
attended; the rest withdrew to Chaumont, where, on March ninth, the
three powers signed a treaty with England, dated back to March first,
binding themselves, in return for an annual subsidy of five million
pounds sterling equally divided, that each would keep a hundred and
fifty thousand men in the field, for twenty years if necessary,
provided Napoleon would not accept the boundaries of royal France--a
futile stipulation. This treaty was the precursor of that iniquitous
triple alliance between Russia, Austria, and Prussia which was
destined not merely to hamper England herself so seriously in the
subsequent period of history, but to stop for some time the progress
of liberal ideas throughout Europe.
Bluecher crossed the Marne on February twenty-seventh with half his
force, and then attempted to cross the Ourcq in order to attack Meaux
from the north. But he was checked by Marmont and Mortier, with the
sixteen thousand men they already had, and then, after six thousand
new recruits came in from Paris, he was forced to retreat. Should
Napoleon arrive in time he would be annihilated. Accordingly he
hastened up the valley of the Ourcq with his entire force. Napoleon
arrived on the Marne too late to attack Bluecher's rear, and after
some hesitation as to whether he should not return to complete his
work with Schwarzenberg, he finally determined that, inasmuch as the
fortress of Soissons was secure, and Bluecher must therefore retreat to
the eastward, he could himself deliver an easy but staggering blow on
the Prussian flank when they should cross the Aisne at Fismes.
Accordingly, on March third the worn-out columns of the French passed
over the Marne. Unfortunately, Soissons had been left by Marmont in
charge of an inexperienced commander, who had surrendered almost
without resistance when, on March second, Buelow and Wintzengerode,
having come in from the Netherlands, suddenly appeared before the
place. This stroke of good fortune enabled Bluecher not merely to find
a city of refuge for his exhausted and disorganized force, but to
recruit it by the two victorious and elated corps which thenceforth
served him as an invaluable rear-guard. Napoleon, thwarted again, gave
no outward sign of the despair he must have felt, but crossed the
Aisne on March fifth, and occupied Rheims, in order at least to cut
Bluecher off from any connection with Schwarzenberg. He then turned to
join Marmont and Mortier in order to drive Bluecher still farther
north, so that, as he wrote to Joseph, he might gain time sufficient
to return by Chalons and attack Schwarzenberg.
In spite of all his discouragements, Bluecher had no intention of
retreating without a blow. There was constant friction between the
Prussian commander and his subordinates, so that dissension prevented
prompt action. Nevertheless, after much delay the army was got in
motion to resume the offensive, the general plan being to move
eastward instead of withdrawing due north, to cross the plateau of
Craonne, and, descending into the plain north of Berry, to attack the
French in force as they advanced to Laon. Napoleon had expected to
meet his foe under the walls of that city; his quick advance was as
much of a surprise to Bluecher as Bluecher's was to him. The first shock
of battle, therefore, occurred at Craonne on the sixth, when neither
army was in readiness. But Bluecher secured the advantage of position.
Though he had only a portion of his force, the troops he did have were
on a commanding plateau above the enemy when the action began. The
skirmishes of the first day, however, were indecisive. Napoleon's
knowledge of the district being defective, he sought to secure the
best possible information from the inhabitants. Some one mentioning
incidentally that the mayor of a neighboring town was named de Bussy,
Napoleon recalled, with his astounding memory, that in the regiment of
La Fere he had had a comrade so named. The mayor turned out to be the
sometime lieutenant, and, with superserviceable zeal, the former
friend poured out worthless information which led the Emperor to
believe that on the morrow there would be only Bluecher's rear-guard to
disperse. But it was not so. Bluecher struggled with his utmost might
to gather in his cavalry and artillery, while Sacken, with the
Russians, stood like a wall, repelling the successive surges of Ney
and Victor the whole day through. At nightfall the Prussian commander,
finding it impossible to assemble guns or horsemen over the icy
fields, gave orders for retreat, and his army passed on to Laon.
Though Craonne was a victory, the losses of the French were
proportionately greater than those of the enemy, and the pursuit,
though spirited, gained no advantage. "The young guard melts like
snow; the old guard stands; my mounted guards likewise are much
reduced," were the words of Napoleon's private letter. Yet he pressed
on. The night of the seventh he spent in a roadside inn under the sign
of "The Guardian Angel." There Caulaincourt's last messenger from
Chatillon found him. The congress was still sitting, but the warrior
knew the fact meant and could mean nothing to him; though the allies
had increased their demands in proportion to their victories, they had
not lessened them in proportion to their defeats. Whatever terms he
might accept, and whatever Metternich might say, this war he felt sure
was one for his extermination. As he said then and there, it was a
bottomless chasm, and he added, "I am determined to be the last it
shall swallow up." So he made no answer, and spent the night
completing his plans for battle at Laon.
That place stands on a terraced hill rising somewhat abruptly from the
plain, and throughout the eighth Bluecher arrayed his army in and on
both sides of the city, which itself was of course the key. Napoleon,
being a firm believer in such movements when on friendly soil, made a
long night march. He reached the enemy's fore-posts early on the
ninth, and drove them in. At seven Ney and Mortier began the battle
under cover of a mist, and captured two hamlets at the foot of the
hill. Marmont was on the right, and had already been cut off from the
center by a body of Cossacks; but he attacked the village of Athies.
After a long day's hard fighting, he succeeded in capturing a portion
of it. Further exertion being impossible, his men bivouacked, while he
himself withdrew to the comforts of Eppes, a chateau three miles
distant. It was noon when Napoleon learned that Marmont had been
severed from the line; at once he renewed his attack on Laon, but
though he gained Clacy on his left, he lost Ardon, and was thus more
completely cut off from Marmont. That night York fell upon Marmont's
men unawares, and routed them utterly.
Napoleon heard of this disaster shortly after midnight. He was, of
course, deeply agitated--did he dare risk being infolded on both
sides, or should he brave his fate in order to mislead the enemy? He
chose the desperate course, and when day broke stood apparently
undismayed. Even when two fugitive dragoons arrived and confirmed in
all its details the terrible news from Athies, he issued orders as
bold as if his army were still entire. This was a desperate ruse, but
it succeeded, for the pursuit of Marmont's men was stayed. At four the
main French army began its retreat, and the next morning saw it at
Soissons; six thousand had been killed and wounded. Again Napoleon's
name had stiffened the allies into inactive horror, for they did not
pursue. York was so disgusted with the dissensions at Bluecher's
headquarters that he threw up his command and left for Brussels.
Bluecher was literally at the end of his powers. "For heaven's sake,"
said Langeron, a French refugee in the Russian service, on whom the
command would have devolved, "whatever happens, let us take the corpse
along." "The corpse," with dimmed eyes and trembling hands, traced in
great rude letters an epistle beseeching York to return, and this,
indorsed by another from the Prince Royal of Prussia, brought back the
able but testy refugee.
Meantime Rheims, intrusted to a feeble garrison, had been taken by
Langeron's rear-guard under St. Priest, another French emigrant in the
service of the allies. By this disaster communication between
Schwarzenberg and Bluecher had been reestablished. In the short day
Napoleon could spend at Soissons, he took up twenty-five hundred new
cavalrymen, a new line regiment of infantry, a veteran regiment of the
same, and some artillery detachments. It is not easy to conceive of
recuperative power more remarkable than that which was thus exhibited
both by France and her Emperor. These men had been sent forward from
Paris in spite of the profound gloom now prevalent there. The truth
was at last known in the capital; Joseph was hopeless; the Empress and
her court were preparing for extremities. News had come that in the
south Soult had been thrown back on Toulouse; that in the southwest
royalist plots were thickening; that in the southeast Augereau had
been forced back to Lyons; Macdonald was ready to abandon Provins at
the first sign of advance by Schwarzenberg; and the sorry tale of Laon
was early unfolded. Yet the administrative machinery was still
running, and soldiers were being manufactured from the available
materials. Those who had been sent to Soissons had been hastily
gathered, equipped, and drilled almost without hope, but they were
precious since they enabled Napoleon to refit his shattered
battalions.
Marmont had unwisely abandoned Berry-au-Bac, and that in disregard of
orders. But otherwise he had done his best to make good a temporary
lapse, and had got together about eight thousand men at Fismes. His
narratives give a graphic picture of the situation--of disorder,
confusion, chaos among his troops, of artillery served by
inexperienced sailors, of undrilled companies whose members had
neither hats, clothes, nor shoes. There were plenty of captured
uniforms and head-coverings, but they were so infested with vermin
that the French, sorry as was their plight, refused to wear them, and
clung to their old tatters. Marmont's men were heroes, he himself was
not yet a traitor. Though overborne by a sense of Napoleon's
recklessness, and therefore unfit for the desperate self-sacrifice
which would have made him a fit coadjutor for his chief, he was
prepared to atone for his disgrace at Athies. Early in the morning of
the thirteenth the main French army moved from Soissons; at four in
the afternoon Marmont opened the attack on Rheims. Napoleon himself
had arrived, but his troops were slow in coming up, and there was no
heavy artillery wherewith to batter in the gates. The struggle went on
with desperate courage and gallantry on both sides. St. Priest was
killed by the same gunner whose aim had been fatal to Moreau. "We may
well say, O Providence! O Providence!" wrote Napoleon to his brother.
At ten the beleaguered garrison began to sally and flee. Napoleon rose
from the bearskin on which he had been resting before a bivouac fire,
and storming with rage lest his prey should escape, hurried in the
guns, which were finally within reach. Amid awful tumult and carnage
the place fell; three thousand of the enemy were slain, and about the
same number were captured. The burghers were frenzied with delight as
the Emperor marched in, and the whole city burst into an illumination.
Next morning Napoleon and Marmont met. The culprit was loaded with
reproaches for the affair at Athies, and treated as a stern father
might treat a careless child. No better evidence of the Emperor's low
state is needed. Marmont was now the hero of the hour; his peccadillos
might well have been forgotten for the sake of securing his continued
faithfulness. With Napoleon at his best, this would surely have been
the case; but aware that at most the war could be a matter of only a
few weeks, the desperate man overdid his role of self-confidence,
being too rash, too severe, too haughty. Not that he was without some
hope. Although for two years the shadow had been declining on the dial
of Napoleon's fortunes, and although under adverse conditions one
brilliant combination after another had crumbled, yet his ideas were
as great as ever, the adjustment of plans to changing conditions was
never more admirable. The trouble was that effort and result did not
correspond, and this being so, what would have been trifling
misdemeanors in prosperity seemed to him in adversity to be dangerous
faults. The great officers of state and army, imitating their master's
ambitions, had acquired his weaknesses, but had failed in securing
either his strength or his adroitness. With him they had lost that
fire of youth which had carried them and him always just over the line
of human expectation, and so his nice adjustments failed in
exasperating ways at the very turn of necessity. Hard words and
stinging reproofs are soon forgotten in generous youth; they rankle in
middle life; and even the invigorating address or inspiring word, when
heard too often for twenty years, fails of effect. The beginning of
the end was the loss of Soissons at the critical instant. Napoleon was
uncertain and touchy; his marshals were honeycombed with disaffection;
the populations, though flashing like powder at his touch, had nowhere
risen _en masse_. Thereafter the great captain was no longer waging a
well-ordered warfare. Like an exhausted swordsman, he lunged here and
there in the grand style; but his brain was troubled, his blade
broken. Some untapped reservoirs of strength were yet to be opened,
some untried expedients were to be essayed, but the end was
inevitable. The movement on Rheims was the spasmodic stroke of the
dying gladiator.