NAPOLEON--(_continued_).
Napoleon--he had travelled in disguise through Poland and
Germany--returned to Paris as 1812 was closing. On his arrival he had
proofs, not to be mistaken, of the increase of the adverse opinion
of France, and of the real instability of the Imperial throne. An
obscure Republican officer had conspired against him; and though the
conspiracy had been nipped in the bud, the capital had heard of the
crime with indifference; and, most significantly, no one seemed to
think that the infant King of Rome--his ill-fated son, the Astyanax of
the fallen House of Bonaparte as he was called by the captive of St.
Helena--would succeed to the heritage of the French Empire. Napoleon,
after reproving his still servile ministers, and the silent and docile
Bodies of the State, addressed himself to redeem the pledge he had
given his lieutenants when he left Smorgoni; he exerted himself with
even more than characteristic energy--“I am now General, not Emperor,”
is a phrase in his letters--to repair the tremendous disaster which
had befallen his arms; and he was seconded with real zeal by a nation
which, though the Revolutionary fervour had ceased, and it feared and
disliked the Imperial rule, has often done wonders in an effort to
retain the military supremacy which is its great ambition. The Emperor,
who had called out the Conscription of 1813, ventured to anticipate
and call out the Conscription of 1814; immense bodies of National
Guards were enrolled, and invited to serve; the depôts of the Empire
were emptied, to furnish every trained soldier who could bear arms;
_matériel_ of war was found in abundance in the arsenals of France
to replace what had been lost; and veterans of the past and officers
from Spain were forthcoming in hundreds to prepare the new levies. The
genius of Napoleon and the ardour of France were successful, to an
extent that appears astonishing; half a million of armed men were on
foot by the early spring of 1813; gifts of horses, and purchases on
an immense scale, had in some measure replaced the destruction of the
cavalry which had disappeared in the retreat; and though these masses
could scarcely be called an army, they were being skilfully drilled
and organized, and they had the national aptitude to become quickly
soldiers. Napoleon had calculated that, by the coming summer, he would
be able to take the field at the head of 250,000 men, with armies of
reserve on the Rhine and the Elbe; and he had boasted that with these
forces, and the troops that had come back from Russia, he would conquer
the Czar and keep Germany down. Events, however, had completely changed
since he had abandoned the wreck of the Grand Army. When he set off
from Smorgoni, Macdonald on the left and the Prussian contingent were
almost intact; Schwartzenburg, on the far right, had a considerable
force; though the army from Moscow was almost destroyed, a great part
of the second line of the Grand Army, assembled in 1812, was cantoned
between the Elbe and the Vistula; and Napoleon’s previsions, therefore,
were not illusory. But since his return to France, the Prussian corps,
and its chief, had ostentatiously revolted and joined the enemy;
Macdonald, hard pressed and deserted, had escaped with difficulty,
through a host of enemies, and attained the Vistula; Schwartzenburg,
with his Austrians, had marched into Galicia, and evidently was waiting
on the policy of his Court; the army that had left the Beresina had,
we have seen, perished; and down-trodden Prussia had suddenly flamed
out in a tremendous explosion of national passion, which was rapidly
making itself felt through Germany, prepared for years for a patriotic
outbreak. Murat, left in command of the French army, proved utterly
unable to confront misfortune; he fled to his treasured kingdom of
Naples; and the conduct of operations was given to Eugene Beauharnais,
devoted to the Emperor, but not a great chief. Eugene, collecting the
fragments of Macdonald’s corps and the survivors of the troops who had
entered Russia, had endeavoured to make a stand on the Vistula; but
the approach of the Russians and Prussians, and the rising of Prussia,
compelled him ere long to fall back; and he ultimately retreated to
the line of the Elbe, bringing along with him the greater part of what
had been the second line of the army of 1812. He was in positions on
the Elbe, in the first days of March, at the head of perhaps 45,000
men; about 40,000 were in march from the Oder; and these, apart from
a few thousands more sent to strengthen the garrisons in the Prussian
fortresses, were the whole forces that could be brought together out
of the enormous mass of 600,000 soldiers arrayed, the year before, to
invade Russia! Yet Eugene had conducted the retreat ably; and this was
admitted, at the time, by the sternest of censors.
These disasters frustrated Napoleon’s projects, and accelerated his
appearance in the field. He endeavoured to arrange the dispute with
Rome, acquiring influence again in Imperial France; issued a paper
money to sustain the finances, too like the assignats of 1791–3; the
Treasury was in a critical state; and he was at Mayence in the middle
of April, having summoned the Princes of the Confederation of the
Rhine to arm and put down the great Teutonic rising, described by him
as a mere “Jacobin movement.” His troops had been for some time in
motion, and were probably 120,000 strong on the Rhine; and he hoped
that with these and the army of Eugene he would surprise and overpower
his enemies, who had incautiously exposed themselves to his terrible
strokes. I shall say a word hereafter on the reorganization of the
Prussian army, after the ruin of Jena, and of the great consequences
which flowed from it; but the suddenness of events had taken the nation
by surprise; it had not had time to put forth its strength; and, for
the present, the Prussian forces in the field were not more than 50,000
or 60,000 soldiers. The Russians had a much larger army, but their
chiefs were obliged to leave detachments behind; and when they joined
hands with their new allies, in march from the Vistula to the Oder,
the collected forces were probably not more than 130,000 or 140,000
strong.
[Illustration: Theatre, of the
CAMPAIGN
of 1813.]
In this position of affairs, against the advice of Kutusoff--the
warrior died a few weeks afterwards--the Czar, dazzled by an
immense triumph, and yielding to the prayers of the Prussian
commanders--Blücher was the most pressing and bold of these--was
persuaded to advance into the heart of Germany, in order to turn to
account the national rising, and to sweep into it the Confederation
of the Rhine; and the allied armies had approached the Elbe, about
100,000 men in the first line, disseminated, too, in divided masses.
This was the repetition of the faulty strategy which had led to Jena
and all that followed; and though times had changed, and Napoleon had
suffered disasters beyond example in war, the movement was wrong from
a military point of view, for it placed the Allies, thrown much too
forward, and comparatively weak, in a situation of peril. Soon after
the Emperor had reached Mayence, his enemy had mastered the line of the
Elbe: York, the Prussian chief, who had been the first to revolt, and
Wittgenstein threatening the great place of Magdeburg, at the head of
about 35,000 men, Wintzingerode, a Russian, and fiery Blücher holding
the river round Dresden with perhaps 50,000, and Milaradovitch, with
about 15,000, advancing along the edge of Bohemia, to encourage Austria
in a policy hostile to France. This disposition of the allied forces
gave Napoleon an opportunity to strike; he drew Eugene towards him with
admirable skill from the Elbe, behind the Saale, as a screen; he broke
up from Mayence with about 100,000 men, and made for the Saale, through
the scenes of Jena; his purpose being to join Eugene, and at the head
of their united forces, 140,000 strong at least, to surprise and assail
the divided enemy, to cut him off from the Elbe and Dresden, and to
force him against the Bohemian ranges, where it would be difficult to
avoid destruction. The Emperor and the Prince effected their junction,
between Merseburg and Naumburg, on the 30th of April; the young levies
of France and the war-worn troops of 1812 met with sympathetic pride;
and the Grand Army, given the name again, marched across the Elster
into the great plains of Leipsic, in order to carry out a strategic
project as brilliant as any of its renowned author’s. The troops of
Jena and Austerlitz were, however, gone; the movement of the army was
extremely slow; the want of sufficient cavalry was severely felt; and
Napoleon was compelled to advance cautiously, for the enemy was known
to be at hand, and reconnoitring was difficult. A skirmish, in which
Bessières perished, gave the Emperor a warning he did not despise; and
he moved into the open tract between Lützen and Leipsic, combining
his corps with such skill that each could easily and quickly support
the other. Meanwhile, however, the main part of the allied forces had
drawn together, and at the suggestion of Diebitch, a real future chief,
and at the entreaty of Blücher, passionate to fight, it was resolved
to assail the Emperor in the vast and unprotected plain, where the
Russian and Prussian cavalry would have an immense advantage, though
Milaradovitch was many leagues distant.
On the 2nd of May Eugene had attained Leipsic, and was attacking the
town with an advanced guard, when the hostile army, about 70,000
strong, fell furiously on the French centre, holding, under the command
of Ney, a cluster of villages, but otherwise exposed in the great
tract around them. The young French soldiers, fired by the heroism of
their chief, made a gallant resistance for some time; but strength and
practised valour gradually prevailed; there was nothing to oppose to
the allied squadrons, and the centre of Napoleon was all but broken,
when the precautions he had so carefully taken enabled him to restore
the uncertain battle. The corps of Marmont, of Oudinot, of Bertrand,
so placed as to come into line quickly, reinforced by degrees the
divisions of Ney; the Emperor was soon on the scene with the Guard;
and a converging line of fire began to envelop the enemy, greatly
over-matched in numbers, and carried destruction into his diminishing
ranks. A desperate effort, however, made by Blücher, nearly pierced
through the French centre once more; and it required the discipline
and power of the invincible Guard--still largely composed of trained
soldiers--to win for Napoleon a doubtful victory. The Allies left the
field in unbroken array; few prisoners or guns were taken by the
French; and owing to the feebleness of their levies, and the want of
horsemen, anything like effective pursuit was impossible.
Lützen, like Eylau, was a fruitless battle, and must have suggested
painful thoughts to Napoleon. His strategy had been after his wonted
fashion; the Allies had made a distinct mistake in fighting without
Milaradovitch; the French army had been largely superior in numbers,
and yet it had narrowly escaped defeat. The young soldiers, no doubt,
had shown brilliant courage, but they had recoiled before their veteran
foes; the Emperor had been saved only by his wise caution, the enemy
had successfully effected his retreat, and from their weakness in horse
the French had accomplished little. The great object Napoleon had
had in view, forcing the Allies into the Bohemian hills in complete
ruin, had not been attained; and operations which, with the Old Grand
Army, would probably have led to a second Jena, had proved to a great
extent abortive. He had, however, restored the glory of his arms, and
he entered Dresden in a few days in triumph. He soon compelled the
old King of Saxony, wavering in his faith, like all the Allies, to
furnish him with a large contingent; and his other vassals among the
German princes sent troops at his imperious command, ready to abandon
him at the first change of fortune. He set off from Dresden in the
middle of May, confident that the enemy had at last fallen into his
hands. The Russians and Prussians, after Lützen, had recrossed the
Elbe and marched into Saxony, and they had been directed to the verge
of Bohemia, in the hope of winning Austria to their cause. That Power,
always tenacious, but always wary, was still an ostensible ally of
France, and was bound to Napoleon through the young Empress, but it had
long been playing a double game; it had dealt with the Czar in 1812;
it had winked at Schwartzenburg’s evident neglect to cover the Grand
Army during the retreat; it was not heedless of German opinion; and,
under the direction of the sagacious Metternich, it was seeking to turn
the situation to its own advantage. It had offered council to all the
belligerents, had gradually taken the attitude of a powerful arbiter,
and had quietly begun to prepare armaments; but though sympathy and
instinct drew it towards the Allies, it feared the Emperor’s power,
and it was still neutral. The Allies, however, thought they could gain
Austria, especially as Napoleon had charged her with bad faith, and,
sacrificing military ends to politics, they had placed their armies
in positions round Bautzen, at a short distance from the Bohemian
frontier. The operations that followed were on a theatre made memorable
in the Seven Years’ War, not far from the famous field of Hochkirch,
where Daun had surprised and and defeated Frederick.
Fancy may picture the shade of the old Austrian chief directing the
conduct of the Allies; they had entrenched themselves within two
defensive lines, covered by the Spree, and a stream behind; and in
these positions, with little power of movement, they had resolved to
await the shock of Napoleon. That great warrior, on the other hand, had
imitated Frederick to this extent; he would attack the enemy in front,
and reach his flank, but the turning was to be a strategic movement,
carried out far off, and perfectly safe, not a tactical stroke on the
field and hazardous. The battles that followed are full of interest,
and should be carefully studied by a thinker on war. The Emperor
attacked on the 20th of May; he perceived with his wonted insight that
the force of the enemies was too large on their left; so, neglecting
the Tronsberg heights, which they held with this wing, he directed his
main effort against their centre and right, placed along the marshy
ground that surrounded the Spree. The resistance was prolonged and
vigorous; but passive defence had often failed before, and was certain
to fail under the strokes of Napoleon, and the first position was at
last forced, the French being greatly superior in numbers, perhaps
150,000 to 110,000 men. The Emperor renewed the attack next day, but
meanwhile he had taken care to mature an operation promising decisive
success. Ney had been ordered to march on Würchen and Hochkirch at the
head of about 50,000 men, making a long circuit far to the left, and
when the enemy had yielded to the attack in front, he was to close in
on his line of retreat, and to place him in the position of Mélas. The
second line of defence was also carried, and when the Emperor beheld
his foes falling back, he looked eagerly in the direction where his
trusted lieutenant was to be on the spot, to make his triumph complete.
Ney, however, whether it was because his young troops had been slow in
their movement, or, more probably, because he had lost something of the
perfect confidence of unbroken success, had hesitated when far from
the main army, and never attained the points of Würchen and Hochkirch;
Blücher confronted him with heroic energy, the defeated army found an
avenue of escape, and it effected its retreat, though with heavy loss.
The indignation of Napoleon may be conceived; he had a right to find a
Marengo at Bautzen, and yet, master as he was, he had once more been
baffled. “What a butchery for nothing!” was his angry remark when he
found that the enemy had escaped from the toils.
Napoleon was all himself at Bautzen; his strategy and tactics were
alike perfect; and the manœuvres which ought to have destroyed his
enemies, prove his immense superiority to Frederick in the field, when
following, partly, Frederick’s methods. The Allies were completely
defeated, and fell back; the Grand Army advanced to the Oder; and
once more the Emperor beheld the vision of the Continent prostrate
under his eagles. Yet the Prussians and Russians had not been crushed;
Napoleon had learned, by hard experience how inefficient his army
was, especially in the essential force of cavalry; and, confident in
himself and the magic of his sword, he accepted the famous armistice of
Pleistwitz, with the object, as he avowed afterwards, of organizing and
training his immature levies, of increasing them, above all, in horses,
and of making them capable of great offensive movements. This truce
has been called the greatest mistake of his life; and history fully
confirms the judgment. The Allies, though baffled, had not been broken;
the Czar, eager to become a second lord of the Continent, had engaged
the strength of his realms in the war; and Prussia, placing herself at
the head of Germany, was proving what her armed might had become, and
gave reliance and weight to the great rising now in full force from the
Rhine to the Oder.
The military power of that martial State had become transformed since
the day of Jena, and was now capable of immense development. The army
had been reorganized in all its parts; the officers, no longer a mere
noble caste, comprised men of all classes fit to do their duty; and
the soldiery, fired with intense patriotism, were burning to avenge
and restore the nation. The most remarkable change which had taken
place, however, was in the effective force and the character of this
fierce array of warriors. Napoleon had restricted the numbers of the
Prussian army; but his craft and oppression had not attained his ends;
the contingent under arms was not large; but the conscription had been
applied to Prussia; thousands of youths had yearly passed through the
ranks, and had learned the elementary work of soldiers; and the army
was now capable of being enlarged to 200,000 or 250,000 men, especially
under a strong popular impulse. Scharnhorst had, in fact, outwitted
the Emperor; the foundations had been laid of the great system of
which we have witnessed the results in war in this age; and in the
summer of 1813 Prussia was able to place fully 200,000 men in line for
the approaching contest. Meanwhile, immense bodies of troops had been
marched from the Niemen to take part in the struggle in Germany; and it
was calculated that, should Austria join the Allies, 900,000 men would
appear in the field to engage with Napoleon in a mortal struggle. The
forces available for the imperilled Emperor were hopelessly inferior
to these enormous masses. France could yield no further supplies of
troops; and even reckoning the contingents of the Confederation of
the Rhine, notoriously disaffected and eager to desert, 600,000 men
formed the extreme limit of the soldiers capable of joining the Grand
Army, and 200,000 of these, at least, were of scarcely any use. The
armistice, therefore, was a capital error; yet Napoleon maintained his
attitude of pride; he employed the breathing time he had chosen for
this end, in drilling and improving his young levies, in purchasing
horses in vast quantities, in making, in a word, the Grand Army an
instrument fitting to answer his purpose; and considering its state and
its imperfect structure, it is astonishing what was accomplished by
his untiring energy, by the practised skill of high and subordinate
officers, and by the willingness and intelligence of the French
soldiery. His capacity and genius shone out splendidly, though his
health showed occasional signs of weakness; and he gradually matured a
gigantic design of contending for Empire in the plains of Saxony, to
which he trusted for ultimate success.
The theatre of war bore a kind of resemblance to that in which he had
triumphed in 1796–7; the Bohemian hills were like those of the Tyrol;
the Elbe, like the Adige, was a great river barrier; and the Emperor,
in his own words, “took again to the trade” of the warrior who had
struck down the Hapsburgs, with a relatively small force, on the verge
of Italy. Napoleon took possession of the whole course of the Elbe
from the Erzgebirge to its mouths at Hamburg; he secured the passages
at every point in order to have full freedom of action; he placed the
bulk of his forces around Dresden, with detachments, however, along the
stream; he threw secondary armies out to the Oder, while he kept his
communications with the Rhine well guarded; and, at the head of from
300,000 to 350,000 men, he made ready to defy his enemies, whatever
their strength, on this vast field of manœuvre. His letters breathe
nothing but stern confidence; he felt convinced that he could defeat
the Allies; and his assurance was such that, playing for his old
domination, he left thousands of troops shut up in the fortresses of
the Oder and Vistula.
By this time it had become apparent that Austria would be of immense
weight should she place her sword into either scale; and the Allies and
Napoleon during the truce endeavoured to win her over and to obtain her
support. Her inclinations had been never doubtful; she had favoured
Russia and Prussia all through. Napoleon, too, had insulted her by
bribes and threats, and had almost outraged Metternich in a fit of
passion; but she refused for many weeks to make up her mind; and it was
only the success of Wellington in Spain, and especially the great day
of Vitoria, that at last determined her halting purpose. On the 10th
of August 1813 she declared war against France once more; 250,000 men,
who had been assembled in Bohemia, joined the allied standards; and
Napoleon, with ruin impending in Spain, with France even now on the
point of exhaustion, and with auxiliaries, for the most part, worse
than useless, was left to confront the power of Europe.
The forces on the theatre of war in Saxony were about 500,000 to
800,000 men--50,000 French were between the Rhine and the Lower
Elbe--and the disproportion of numbers against the Emperor was less
than it had been against the youthful Bonaparte. But the situation,
even in pure strategy, was less favourable to Napoleon than it had been
in 1796: and other circumstances increased the chances against him.
The long line of the Elbe was more difficult to hold than the short
and scarcely passable line of the Adige; the secondary armies that
reached the Oder were far more exposed, and less easy to call in, than
the detachments of Masséna and Vaubois; the retreat of the French army
was better assured in 1796 than in 1813, and all this gave the Allies
advantages, and subjected the Emperor to real dangers, which scarcely
existed in the earlier contest.
The allied armies, it should be added, were different troops from
those of Alvinzi and Würmser; the young levies of 1813 were not the
fierce Republicans of 1796; and here again the scale turned against
Napoleon. He maintained, however, his unbending attitude; and the plan
of operations formed by the Allies, if well designed, proves how he
was still dreaded. Their general purpose was to attack and weaken his
lieutenants, in their distant positions; to avoid a great battle with
their terrible foe, but to wear out his strength in repeated marches;
and then, and only then, to risk an encounter, when their superiority
of force would make success certain. This strategy, if timid, had real
merits; and it shows how, in most respects, the condition of affairs
was different from what it had been in the campaign of Italy. As was
his wont, Napoleon took the initiative; he set off from Dresden, in
the middle of August, to attack Blücher, already seen to be by far his
most resolute enemy, and he had soon driven him back to the Katzbach,
for the Prussian chief, as had been agreed on, retreated, when made
aware of his presence. Meanwhile, Schwartzenburg, with the chief part
of the Austrian army, had issued through the Bohemian passes, and,
gathering Russians and Prussians on the way, had advanced against
Dresden in the Emperor’s absence; and St. Cyr, who had been left to
defend the city, announced that he had no means to resist an enemy
apparently 200,000 strong. Napoleon returned, to make head against the
approaching foes; he hesitated whether he would attack Schwartzenburg,
and fall on his rear, as he had attacked Würmser in the defiles of
the Brenta; but time and distance made the attempt hazardous; and he
marched with 100,000 men to the relief of Dresden. A terrible battle
was fought on the 26th and 27th of August; the Allies were greatly
superior in numbers, perhaps 190,000 to 140,000 men; but Napoleon had
his genius, and the advantage of the ground; he rested his weakened
centre on the defences of the place, and assailed Schwartzenburg with
both his wings in great force; and he gained a complete and splendid
victory, remarkable for the death of Moreau in an Austrian camp. The
Emperor’s fortunes seemed restored, when a sudden disaster befell his
arms. Before he reached Dresden he had sent off a lieutenant, Vandamme,
to menace Schwartzenburg on his march, near Pirna; and as the allied
army had been utterly beaten, and was retreating in disorder through
the Bohemian hills, he ordered Vandamme to push forward boldly,
and to close in force on the enemy’s rear, intending to second the
movement himself. The events that followed are still obscure; Vandamme
seized Culm and the Austrian slope of the range; but Mortier and St.
Cyr perhaps did not support their colleague; Napoleon,[17] owing to
illness, or to some unknown cause, did not advance with the Imperial
Guard; and Vandamme was left almost wholly isolated. In this position
he was assailed by the defeated army; he was overwhelmed by superior
numbers; a Prussian detachment hemmed him in, and, instead of breaking
up a routed enemy, he was compelled to surrender and lay down his
arms. Thirty thousand men were thus lost to the Emperor; it had become
evident that, in the present war, the events of Auerstadt would not
happen again; the apparition of a hostile force on the rear of his foes
would no longer make them disperse and succumb.
Culm effaced Dresden, and disasters fell in quick succession on the
secondary parts of the Grand Army, far away from its centre. Macdonald
and Poniatowski were completely defeated, on the verge of Silesia, by
fierce old Blücher; and their shattered levies dissolved in multitudes.
A similar reverse befell Oudinot, who had approached Berlin, at the
hands of Bernadotte--the Marshal had given up his staff, had been
declared heir to the throne of Sweden, and was now an obsequious
vassal of the Czar--and this front of the Grand Army was also broken.
Napoleon, losing heavily already through long forced marches, hastened
from Dresden again to assail Blücher; but the veteran fell back into
the Silesian plains and the Emperor failed to bring his foe to bay.
Ney was now directed to march on Berlin with another division of
the secondary arrays; but he was routed, with crushing effect, at
Dennewitz; for Napoleon, who had intended to join hands with him, had
been recalled to the Elbe to oppose Schwartzenburg, threatening Dresden
from Bohemia again; and the Marshal had been, like Vandamme, isolated.
Through these successive defeats the Grand Army had lost nearly 100,000
men, whole regiments disbanding, disease falling with cruel severity on
the young soldiers, and many of the auxiliaries breaking out in mutiny;
and it had become evident that Napoleon’s plan for the campaign, as
a whole, could not be realised, that his forces on the Oder were far
too distant, that his strength was being destroyed by his fruitless
efforts to support them, and to strike with effect,[18] and that his
enemies had learned his game, and would not approach him to court
defeat. He drew in the remains of his shattered armies, and placed them
in collected strength on the Elbe, holding the bridges and passages at
all points; and, still hopeful, he awaited the attacks of the Allies
in a central position, analogous to that which he had held at Mantua,
but not, I have said, so favourable to the French. His enemies paused,
still afraid to assail the terrible adversary who had so often proved
what genius could achieve in a situation like this. A long series
of manœuvres followed, but at last Blücher and Bernadotte made for
the Elbe; Schwartzenburg finally issued from the hills, and the huge
converging masses, describing a great arc, were directed towards the
central point of Leipsic, in order to fall on the line of Napoleon’s
retreat, and to cut him off from his communications with the Rhine.
The Emperor thought his opportunity come; he was operating between
widely divided enemies, and he had accomplished wonders when so placed;
and, following exactly his strategy in 1796, he left St. Cyr and Lobau
to hold Dresden; detached Murat with about 50,000 men or more[19] to
restrain Schwartzenburg, and advanced in person against Blücher and
Bernadotte, with perhaps 140,000 of the main army. Operations, however,
on the long line of the Elbe were more uncertain and likely to fail
than on the short and difficult line of the Adige; and other causes
concurred to frustrate a project marked with the accustomed skill of
its author. Blücher crossed the Elbe in the second week of October,
and, eluding Napoleon, made for Schwartzenburg, though his colleague
Bernadotte was still far off; and it seems certain that this audacious
movement, not scientific but bold to rashness, and very characteristic
of the Prussian chief, was unknown to the Emperor for some days on
a vast and imperfectly observed theatre. Napoleon now resolved to
overwhelm Bernadotte, to advance and to occupy Berlin, the centre of
the great Teutonic movement--a “focus of insurrection,” in Imperial
language--and this grand stroke was, I believe, possible,[20] had the
conditions of the war been of the ordinary kind. But intelligence came
that the Bavarian troops were dangerous, and that Bavaria herself was
to make common cause with the Allies; and Schwartzenburg was moving
down the Elbe, on the left or western bank, to approach Blücher.
Napoleon was compelled to abandon his project; he directed Murat to
come to his aid, though he did not call in his divisions at Dresden;
and collecting all his other available forces, he marched towards
Leipsic with the view of assuring a retreat to the Rhine, should this
be necessary, but ready to fight a decisive battle. His attempt to
reach and strike his divided enemies, and to repeat the marvels of
1796, had failed; and he was now exposed, with a greatly weakened army,
to be surrounded, beaten, and cut off from France, by enemies immensely
superior in numbers, Germany, up to the Rhine, conspiring on his rear,
and his German auxiliaries eager to revolt. Strategically, his position
resembled that on the Beresina a few months before, though the peril
was not yet frightful or imminent.
Apart from general causes affecting the contest--a word must be said
on these afterwards--the student of war should note the reasons why
the strategy of 1813 had results opposite to those of the strategy of
1796. Napoleon was the same commander on both occasions; and his great
faculties had not diminished, though his bodily strength was not what
it had been, and his arrogant confidence had certainly increased. But
the barrier of the Elbe could not be defended as that of the Adige
had been, and Blücher mastered it easily with a large army, effecting
his junction with the Austrian forces; the French corps detached to
the Oder were far from the main army, and were not in hand, like the
small bodies which covered Mantua, so that instead of strengthening
they weakened Napoleon, by compelling him to make harassing marches;
the Emperor, when threatened by his foes at Leipsic, had no choice but
to concentrate his troops, for otherwise his retreat would be barred;
and the Grand Army, though improved since the spring, was an imperfect
and not trustworthy instrument. Yet the chief reason, perhaps, has
yet to be noticed: Würmser and Alvinzi in 1796–7 exposed themselves
to Napoleon’s strokes, and were struck right and left, and beaten in
detail; the Allies took a wholly opposite course; they kept steadily
aloof from the enemy they feared; they did not venture to approach him
until he was almost crippled, and they gave but few chances to his
grand offensive strategy.
History dwells on the famous days of Leipsic, for they set Germany free
from the Imperial yoke, and finally broke down the power of Napoleon;
but they have few features of interest for the student of war.
Schwartzenburg attacked Napoleon, on the 16th of October, in positions
a considerable way from Leipsic with probably 200,000 men; and Blücher,
though not yet in line with his colleague, simultaneously attacked with
about 70,000. The efforts of the assailants were still feeble; the
Emperor had perhaps 170,000 men, and stood between enemies still apart;
a magnificent charge of the French cavalry, reorganized and admirably
led by Murat, was nearly attended with marked success; and though
Blücher and his Prussians made some progress, the battle was drawn, and
had no result.
Retreat for Napoleon was now easy; the way to the Elster and the
Rhine was open, and might have been made completely secure; and
Schwartzenburg, at least, would have been too rejoiced to leave a
golden bridge for his still dreaded enemy. But Napoleon refused to
acknowledge defeat; he insisted on gambling with adverse fortune, and
scorning to fall back before foes he despised, he resolved to stand
and fight a decisive battle. The 17th was spent in preparations on
both sides; Bernadotte and Beningsen came up with their armies, and
the combined allied forces probably reached the enormous number of
300,000 men. The Emperor had no reinforcements to expect; the Grand
Army was not 150,000 strong, and the issue of the conflict could hardly
be doubtful. Yet the attacks of the Allies were partial and timid;
they have been compared to the peckings of crows round an expiring
eagle; the French fought admirably when brought to bay, and but for the
defection of the Saxon contingent, it is questionable if they would
have suffered defeat. A retreat, however, had become necessary; it
was precipitate, and it led to a frightful disaster. The Elster had
not been bridged by the French; the retiring columns were stopped or
retarded; an explosion destroyed the one bridge over the stream; a
large part of the Grand Army was cut off; Poniatowski perished with
thousands of his troops; and the allied commanders could now fairly
boast that they had won a great and decisive victory· The remains
of the defeated army, strewing its path with wounded, dying, and
straggling men, moved feebly across the Franconian lowlands; a ray of
light shone on its arms for a moment, for Napoleon crushed a Bavarian
force which had endeavoured to cut him off, but it was a mere mass of
fugitives when it attained the Rhine. By the flight from Saxony, the
corps left at Dresden and the distant garrisons on the Oder and Vistula
were completely and irrevocably lost.
Napoleon, it is scarcely necessary to say, ought not to have fought
the second battle of Leipsic; he should have retreated after the first
battle; and he ought to have bridged the Elster for his still large
army. Turenne and Marlborough would not have made such mistakes; but
those who have really studied this wonderful being will understand
how he made them, despite his genius. Independently of the military
causes which made the results of the campaign in Saxony so different
from those of the campaign of Italy, there was a general cause for
Napoleon’s overthrow; he contended for the prize of his whole Empire,
for domination over three-fourths of Europe; this is the true reason
why he threw forward secondary armies from the Elbe to the Oder, and
why he left thousands of men in the Prussian fortresses, operations
contrary to sound principle, and wholly opposed to his own wonted
strategy. Ambition, arrogance, and the lust of power, in fact,
“distorted”--as has been truly said--“the marvellous conceptions of the
matchless chief,” and he underrated the strength and the resolution of
his foes, and vainly trusted to the last to false auxiliaries, for whom
treachery to the flag meant faith to their country, rising to a man
against wrong and oppression.
On his return to Paris, in the middle of November, the Emperor had
soon abundant proofs of the ruin of his power, and of the collapse of
his Empire. The relics of the Grand Army, spread along the Rhine,
scarcely exceeded 100,000 men; until reorganized they were of no use;
they were dying in heaps by contagious disease; they required horses,
guns, and all kinds of _matériel_; and the demoralization of
the troops had become frightful. Yet even this was by no means the
worst: the huge fabric of conquest formed by the sword was evidently
doomed by the sword to perish. Soult had been driven by Wellington
beyond the Pyrenees, and was endeavouring to defend the Adour and
Gascony; Suchet had recoiled to the line of the Ebro; the mock throne
of Joseph had been abandoned; the Confederation of the Rhine had
vanished, annihilated by the rising of Germany; Eugene, beaten by
a secondary Austrian force, had been repelled to the Adige and the
Mincio; unfortunate Murat was plotting treason, and trafficking with
the enemy to save Naples; Holland, half beggared by the Continental
system, was striving to shake off Imperial bondage; and stirrings of
revolt were feared in Belgium, and in the German provinces west of the
Rhine. Even in old France the position of affairs, and the state of
the public mind, was portentous of ruin. The nation had lavished most
of its youth fit for war in the effort of the year before; the depots
were empty and the arsenals stripped; supplies of arms of all kinds
were short; and the _matériel_ of war which remained to the Empire
was now, for the most part, beyond France, stored in fortresses on the
Elbe, the Adige, and the Po. The destruction, too, of the material
resources of France, was less ominous than the national attitude. The
fervour of 1813 had completely disappeared; the mass of the people had
become indifferent to patriotism, and only thought of repose; and the
cries against the Empire heard in 1812, swelled into a vast murmur
from ruined cities, from half-starving seaports, from discontented
provinces. Even the machinery of government was breaking down; the
conscription was evaded in whole districts; there was an increasing
movement not to pay taxes; and the Treasury, buoyed up by paper for a
time, was scarcely able to avert bankruptcy. The very functionaries of
the Empire forgot their servility; the silent Bodies of the State dared
to make complaints; the military chiefs secretly condemned the war; and
a conspiracy against Napoleon, immature as yet, was slowly formed by
disgraced Ministers, by the remains of the Royalists and Republicans,
scarcely heard of since the 18th Brumaire, by the men of new ideas, who
aspired to give free institutions to a reformed France, and to save her
from despotism and ruin at hand.
The Emperor proudly confronted misfortune; and did not abandon his
still assured confidence, that he would emerge safe from this vast
sea of troubles. One circumstance fed his hopes at this crisis; the
Coalition had paused after Leipsic; its armies had halted as they
approached the Rhine; and it made overtures of peace to Napoleon,
partly because it feared a death struggle with him, and partly because
it had begun to be divided in interests, passions and feelings. The
Emperor sent an ambiguous reply, to proposals which would have left
him ruler of a France enlarged to the “natural boundaries”; but it is
questionable if he really wished to treat; and, like the armistice
of Pleistwitz, this was a capital error. He was convinced that he
would not be assailed for some months; he made preparations for a new
campaign; and it is evident his purpose, once more, was to contend
for a scarcely diminished Empire. He called out the Conscription of
1815; forced old soldiers into the ranks of the army; made another
appeal to the pride of Frenchmen; supplied the failing Treasury from
his Privy Purse; endeavoured to restore the _matériel_ of war;
and tried to arouse the passions of 1798 against “an invasion of the
sacred soil”, though, as he bitterly said, he had “crushed Revolution
and would not rely on his worst enemy.” These efforts, however, though
his administrative powers and genius for organization were as great as
ever, produced comparatively small results; France could not and would
not supply the means required to further his ambitious ends; and yet,
I have said, his intention was to play again for supreme dominion. If
Soult was required to oppose Wellington, Suchet was left in Spain, and
Eugene in Italy; the forces which still remained to France were not
concentrated within her borders, for Napoleon thought invasion remote,
and would not give up his ambitious projects; and this strategy,
essentially false, and unlike that of the best days of the Emperor,
largely detracts from the conspicuous merits of the grand campaign of
1814. The Allies did not give their foe the long breathing time on
which he had unwisely reckoned. Divided as they were, they had a common
enemy. They resented Napoleon’s still warlike attitude; and when signs
of his real position had become manifest, in the rising of Holland, the
defection of Murat, the victorious progress of the arms of Wellington,
the misery of France, and the growing hatred of the Imperial rule from
the Scheldt to the Po, they resolved to seize the occasion, and to
cross the Rhine. By the end of December and the first days of January,
the forces of the Coalition, spread on a vast front, were set in motion
to invade France; and this bold offensive effort beyond question
disconcerted Napoleon, who would not believe in such resolution and
well-sustained energy.
Schwartzenburg, at the head of about 160,000 men, marched from Basle,
across the plains of Franche Comté; Blücher, with an army perhaps
60,000 strong, advanced from Mayence and Mannheim, and traversed the
Vosges; and Bulow and Wintzingerode, far to the north, moved, with
probably 70,000 troops, from the upper Rhine towards the Aisne and the
Oise, the object of the chiefs of these converging masses being to
unite in Champagne and to press on to the capital. The invasion was so
sudden that the surprised Emperor had but small forces to oppose to it.
The remains of his armies, not half reorganized and only recruited to
a slight extent, fell back at all points, through Lorraine and Alsace,
not more, probably, than 80,000 strong; and the invaders for weeks met
no resistance. By the close of January Schwartzenburg had crossed the
range to the east of the great upland of Langres, and had arrived at
the heads of the Seine; Blücher had passed Nancy, the old capital of
Lorraine, and was in full march for the Upper Marne; and though the
Northern column was far in the rear, a speedy advance to Paris was
deemed imminent. The only enemies in the way were the shattered corps
of Mortier, Oudinot, and Gérard, round Troyes, of Macdonald, Marmont,
Victor and Ney around Châlons; and though these had been hastily
reinforced, they certainly could not oppose 90,000 men, largely
composed of beaten and despondent soldiers, to victorious enemies at
least twofold in numbers.
Having left Paris, and sternly rebuked one of the heretofore
servile Bodies of the State, which at this crisis found heart to
murmur, Napoleon reached Châlons in the last days of January. Some
reinforcements were upon the march; but, for the moment, he brought
nothing but his skill to assist his collected marshals, who with
shattered forces had begun to despair. Yet he retained his haughty
and serene confidence; he had formed a general plan of operations for
the campaign which once more revealed his unrivalled power of turning
the theatre of war to account, and his insight into passing events;
and it was to lead to some of his most splendid exploits. Blücher
and Schwartzenburg had advanced from divergent bases; their supports
in the rear were far distant; they had the old Prussian and Austrian
dislike of each other, and they had now reached the valley of the Marne
and the Seine, deep rivers traversed at many points by the main roads
converging on Paris, the object aimed at by the allied chiefs. They
would probably, therefore, march on two lines, Blücher along the Marne,
his colleague by the Seine, and would be separated by a wide distance;
and the obstacles which the rivers might be made to present would give
a great advantage to a really able enemy. Napoleon had fully perceived
this; he resolved to oppose one front of defence to a double front of
divided attack, and, interposing between his foes, to strike them in
succession and to beat them in detail; and for this purpose he had
given orders to fortify the passages on the Marne and the Seine, and
had formed his base in the intermediate districts. This was one of his
most brilliant conceptions, but the Emperor was very nearly crushed in
his first operations through his extreme confidence. In an effort to
attain Blücher, drawing near his colleague, he fought an indecisive
battle at Brienne--the place where he first studied war--and he was
defeated with heavy loss at La Rothière, an engagement he certainly
should have avoided, for his enemies were nearly threefold in numbers.
His situation appeared hopeless; he had not more 70,000 men to oppose
to fully 200,000, when his mastery of his art and the blunders of
his foes changed the position of affairs, and caused a last ray of
glory to irradiate the ruin of his falling Empire. As he had expected,
the allied generals, after La Rothière, fell respectively back to
the Marne and the Seine, and moved along the rivers; Schwartzenberg
marched slowly along the Seine, throwing out detachments to protect his
flanks--for hostile bodies were approaching from the south; Blücher,
passionate and impulsive, pushed along the Marne, spreading out his
army in disconnected fractions, and burning to run a winning race to
the capital.
[Illustration: Theatre, of the CAMPAIGN of 1814.]
Napoleon, like an eagle watching his quarry, sent Oudinot and Victor to
keep back Schwartzenburg, holding the passages of the Seine in force,
and with the rest of his army, perhaps 50,000 strong, he hastened to
the Marne to fall on Blücher, whose exposed and divided flank was laid
bare to him. The weather was dreadful, and the cross-roads bad; the
French army was filled with boyish conscripts, and was encumbered with
far too many guns, which retarded the heavy and cumbrous columns--these
evils had gone on increasing since Wagram--but Napoleon’s genius
overcame all hindrances; and the effects of the movement were well-nigh
magical. Bursting into the midst of his terrified foes, he overwhelmed
Olsuvieff at Champaubert, routed Sacken completely at Montmirail,
defeated York at Chateau-Thierry, and finally hurled Blücher back to
Châlons, having disabled for a time a whole host of enemies. He now
turned against Schwartzenburg, who, pressing Victor and Oudinot back,
had gradually advanced along the Seine; and no doubt can exist that,
had he been free to act, the Emperor would have descended on the
Austrian’s flank. But alarm and discontent prevailed in Paris, and in
order to produce an immediate effect, Napoleon was obliged to approach
the capital, and to attack Schwartzenburg, when reached, in front.
These operations could not have the results of the terrible strokes
against Blücher’s flank; nevertheless, the Austrian chief was beaten;
he retreated eastward as far as Troyes; a demonstration by Blücher in
his aid proved useless, and by the close of February 1814 the forces of
the Coalition, cruelly shattered, were again at the heads of the Marne
and the Seine. Genius had triumphed over ill-directed force; and the
allied commanders were so despondent that they actually sought and
obtained an armistice.
The events that followed strikingly illustrate the character of the
antagonist chiefs, and the peculiarities of the struggle for Empire.
Napoleon’s[21] arrogance exceeded all bounds; he exclaimed, “We shall
soon be again on the Vistula”; and his letters breathe intense scorn
of his foes, and absolute reliance on his own military strength. Full
of these illusions, he still refused to summon Eugene across the Alps
from Italy; and though he drew detachments from the armies of Soult
and Suchet, and organized a force under Augereau in the South, he
did not bring nearly all his available forces to the decisive point,
the theatre in Champagne. Had he conformed to his early and perfect
strategy, Schwartzenburg, menaced by Eugene, and with Augereau on his
flank--and Suchet might have joined--would have no doubt retreated;
Blücher could not have remained isolated; the campaign of 1814 would
have had a different close; and this, I repeat, must be borne in mind
in judging the Emperor’s conduct as a whole.
The operations of the Allies had no resemblance to those of their
renowned antagonist; they were timid for the most part, and confessed
weakness; but they were prudent, and marked by decision and firmness.
At a great council of war held near Troyes, the Czar, the Emperor of
Austria, the King of Prussia, and the representatives of the great
Powers were present;[22] the admission was made that Blücher and
Schwartzenburg could not hope for success against Napoleon, though
he had but about 80,000 men, and their armies, strongly reinforced,
were 200,000; the difficulty of operating along the Marne and the
Seine, with their enemy between them, was frankly recognized; it was
resolved to bring up the greater part of the army of the North, under
Wintzingerode and Bülow, to turn the scale decisively; and whatever
may be thought of these councils of fear, this was certainly wise and
true strategy. Hostilities, which had never really ceased, began again
in the first days of March: and Blücher, with perhaps 60,000 men--he
had reorganized his army with characteristic energy--moved along the
Marne again in the hope of destroying the isolated corps of Marmont
and Mortier, for the present covering the main roads to Paris. The
Marshals, however, retreated behind the Ourcq; and Blücher, rash to a
fault, and not taught by disaster, crossed the Marne, and endeavoured
to bring them to bay. This gave Napoleon his opportunity again.
Quitting his central position, he bore down on Blücher, now far from
his colleague, and crossed the Marne; and he was soon on the track of
the Prussian chief, who, in extreme peril, was making for the Aisne,
with but a feeble chance of getting over the river.
A fortunate accident saved Blücher, when perhaps on the verge of a
terrible overthrow. The commandant of Soissons, a weak man, opened his
gates to Bülow and Wintzingerode, advancing from the North, as had been
arranged; the only passage on the Aisne fell into their hands, and
Blücher joined with delight his new colleagues, their united forces
being about 100,000 men. Napoleon had not more than 60,000; but his
passionate ardour mastered his judgment, as had often happened in his
chequered career; he attacked the Allies at Craonne and Laon, and, as
at La Rothière he was completely beaten, though he destroyed a hostile
body in his retreat. His second effort against Blücher had, therefore,
had very different results from those of his first; he had suffered
greatly at Craonne and Laon, battles which he certainly should not have
risked; and he was now obliged to return to the Seine, with an army
weakened and beginning to lose hope. He had left Oudinot and Macdonald,
replacing Victor, to hold Schwartzenburg in check, as in the first
instance; but the Austrian chief, in the Emperor’s absence, had forced
the passage of the Seine, and approached Paris; his advanced guard
was not far from Melun; and the capital, seething with passion and
terror, had not only made no preparations to resist, but was beginning
to declare against the tottering Empire, especially since Wellington’s
victories in the South. Napoleon left Mortier and Marmont to observe
Blücher, and calling up his forces to come into line with him, he
endeavoured to operate on the rear of Schwartzenburg; he compelled the
cautious Austrian to fall back; but he was surprised on the Aube, near
the town of Arcis, was forced to fight a stern but a losing battle,
and was ultimately obliged to cross the river. He had failed against
Schwartzenburg as he had failed against Blücher. How different might
the result have been had he called Eugene and Suchet to his aid in
Champagne!
The Allies were now in overwhelming force; they thoroughly understood
Napoleon’s game, and he could no longer continue his late strategy.
He adopted a course almost the counterpart of his projected march on
Berlin in 1813--baffled, we have seen, by various accidents--which
has been differently judged by disputing critics, but which, as a
mere military move, may be pronounced admirable. His garrisons on the
Vistula and Oder were lost; but he had large garrisons in the French
fortresses, which, hitherto blockaded by the allied armies, had been
nearly set free by the immense demands of Blücher and Schwartzenburg
for reinforcements; and he resolved to make use of what he called those
“dead forces,” to collect a powerful army, to descend on the rear of
his foes, and to cut off their communications with the Rhine. He always
declared that this plan was possible, and when we consider the timid
weakness which usually marked the conduct of the Allies, it presented
many chances of success, had France been really true to the Empire.
He broke up from the Aube in the third week of March, and summoning
Mortier and Marmont to join him, made for Vitry upon the Upper Marne,
his object being to attain the Meuse and, rallying the forces released
from the fortresses, to attack Schwartzenburg and to seize the line of
his retreat at the head of about 120,000 men, the troops from Lyons and
the south supporting the movement.
The Emperor’s letters still breathe the perfect confidence which
distinguished them throughout the whole campaign; and he haughtily
spurned proposals for peace, which even now, at the eleventh hour,
would have left him the France of Louis XVI. Events, however, were soon
to show the vanity of the false dreams of ambition. The conspiracy
which had been hatching for months in the capital, against the Empire,
had become mature; it was joined by Talleyrand and other dismissed
Ministers, by Liberals, Bourbon and Jacobin partisans, and means were
found to inform the Allies that should they advance on Paris Napoleon
would fall. A second great council of war was held by the leaders of
the Coalition on the 24th of March; and it was unanimously decided to
march on the capital, leaving a detachment only to observe Napoleon.
The allied armies pushed rapidly on by the now abandoned and unguarded
lines which, hitherto, they had failed to master, driving before them
the feeble corps of Mortier and Marmont, who had been unable to join
the Emperor, and could not offer a show of resistance; and on the 29th
of March the armies of Continental Europe had come in view of the proud
city which, for twenty years, had been the ardent focus of revolution,
of war, of glory, of Empire. The marshals fought a battle honourable
to both, but it was impossible to withstand the great host of enemies.
A capitulation was signed the following day; and Russians, Austrians,
Prussians, Swedes, Bavarians, and soldiers from every part of Germany,
took possession of the fallen yet not mourning capital. A few hours
sufficed to complete the ruin of the despotism of force which had long
been supreme. The young Empress and the Imperial Court vanished; the
Bodies of the State, for years the instruments of a tyranny they had
cringed to but had learned to hate, declared the throne of Napoleon
forfeited, and Paris heard, not without rejoicings, that the Monarchy
of the Bourbons, which its frenzied citizens had shed oceans of blood
to destroy for ever, was to be restored at the will of the conquerors.
Meanwhile, Napoleon, informed of these events, had hastily abandoned
his march eastwards; he was at Fontainebleau on the 2nd of April, at
the head of nearly 70,000 men, and treating as nought all that had
been accomplished, he still resolved to strike a blow for Empire.
The military situation was not quite hopeless. The generals of the
Coalition had most unwisely distributed their armies around Paris,
divided by the streams of the Marne and the Seine; and everything was
to be dreaded, in a position of this kind, from the terrible enemy
placed in their rear. Napoleon made overtures to negotiate, but it is
tolerably certain his real object was to gain a few hours to make a
desperate effort, and to surprise his foes in their false security; and
he has left it on record that he must have won a decisive battle at the
very gates of Paris. His marshals, however, refused to follow their
chief in a course they believed desperate; Marmont went over, with his
corps, to the Allies, and the conqueror saw his invincible sword fall
from his grasp through the ill-will and the treachery of the companions
in arms he had long led to victory. He abdicated, after the Bodies of
the State had pronounced finally; and--a terrible lesson to those who
abuse power, and a terrible proof how faith and loyalty are blighted
in a revolutionary age--Fontainebleau became quickly a silent desert,
abandoned by the functionaries who had grovelled at his feet. His noble
words of farewell to the veterans of the Guard in some measure lessen
the ignominy of scenes on which the historian dwells with pain; but
one incident of shame has yet to be noticed. The fallen Emperor took
poison, to end a life of despair. The attempt at self-destruction,
perhaps happily, failed, but this is another proof that, when all
seemed lost, Napoleon had not the indomitable firmness of very inferior
warriors.
Napoleon’s operations in 1814, as regards the struggle in Champagne
at least, have always been classed with his finest efforts. It was a
prodigy of skill that, with a bad army, he should have baffled enemies
threefold in numbers, should have all but overwhelmed Blücher, and
should have kept the issue of events in suspense; the general of 1796
reappears, in full perfection, in this splendid strategy. Yet even
in these noble displays of the art, he fell into serious and plain
errors; he ought not to have fought at least four battles, unnecessary,
and with the chances against him; and he made two grave mistakes,
which proved fatal--the attempt to contend for his whole Empire,
and the omission to concentrate his forces during the armistice. His
generalship in 1814, considered as a whole, was not equal to that of
1796, and his campaigns of 1812, of 1813, and even of 1814, remind me
of Turner’s latest pictures; we see the hand of the master everywhere,
but there is a want of proportion and real harmony, and the result is
sad and general failure.
[Illustration]