Part 12 (1/2)

[Footnote 8: Blucher exclaimed on this occasion: ”He's a rascally fellow that dares to say we fly.” Even Fain, the Frenchman, confesses in his ma.n.u.script of 1813, in which he certainly does not favor the Germans: ”The best Marshals, as it were, killed by spent b.a.l.l.s. Great victories without trophies. All the villages on our route in flames which obstructed our advance. 'What a war! We shall all fall victims to it!' are the disgraceful expressions uttered by many, for the iron hearts of the warriors of France are rust-grown.” Napoleon exclaimed after the battle, ”How! no result after such a ma.s.sacre? No prisoners?

They leave me not even a nail!” Duroc's death added to the catastrophe. Napoleon was so struck that for the first time in his life he could give no orders, but deferred everything until the morrow.]

[Footnote 9: But they merely encamped in the streets, showed themselves more anxious than threatening, and were seized with a terrible panic on a sudden conflagration breaking out during the night, which they mistook for a signal to bring the _Landsturm_ upon them. And yet there were thirty thousand French in the city. How different to their spirit in 1807!]

[Footnote 10: Brother to the unfortunate Henry von Bulow.]

[Footnote 11: Crome was afterward barefaced enough to boast of this work in his Autobiography, published in 1833. Napoleon dictated the fundamental ideas of this work to him from his headquarters. His object was to pacify the Germans. He promised them henceforward to desist from enforcing his continental system, to restore liberty to commerce, no longer to force the laws and language of France upon Germany. L'empereur se fera aimer des Allemands. The Germans were, on the other hand, warned that the allies had no intention to render Germany free and independent, they being much more interested in retaining Germany in a state of division and subjection. The unity of Germany, it was also declared, was alone possible under Napoleon, etc.]

[Footnote 12: This arose from hatred to the party that dared to uphold the German cause instead of a Prussian, Saxon, etc., one, and by no means by chance, but, as Manso remarks, intentionally, ”through low cunning and injustice.”]

[Footnote 13: The king of Saxony was, in return, insulted by Napoleon, in an address to the ministers was termed _une veille hete_, and compelled to countenance immoral theatrical performances by his presence, a sin for which he each evening received absolution from his confessor. Vide Stein's Letter to Munster in the Sketches of the War of Liberation.]

[Footnote 14: He also said, like his master, ”I know of no Germans, I only know of Bavarians, Wurtembergers, Westphalians,” etc.]

[Footnote 15: His written defence, in which he so lyingly, so humbly and mournfully exculpates himself that one really ”compa.s.sionates the devil,” is a sort of satisfaction for the Germans.]

[Footnote 16: Poniatowsky's dismissal with the Polish army from Poland was apparently a service rendered to Napoleon, but was in reality done with a view of disarming Poland. Poniatowsky might have organized an insurrection to the rear of the allies, and would in that case have been far more dangerous to them than when ranged beneath the standard of Napoleon.]

[Footnote 17: The people in Austria fully sympathized with pa.s.sing events. How could those be apathetic who had such a burden of disgrace to redeem, such deep revenge to satisfy? An extremely popular song contained the following lines:

”Awake, Franciscus! Hark! thy people call!

Awake! acknowledge the avenger's hand!

Still groans beneath the foreign courser's hoof The soil of Germany, our fatherland.

”To arms! so long as sacred Germany Feels but a finger of Napoleon.

Franciscus! up! Cast off each private tie!

The patriot has no kindred, has no son.”

All the able-bodied men, as in Prussia, crowded beneath the imperial standard and the whole empire made the most patriotic sacrifices.

Hungary summoned the whole of her male population, the insurrection, as it was termed, to the field.]

[Footnote 18: Russia was to receive the whole of Poland, the grandduchy of Warsaw was to be annihilated. Such was Napoleon's grat.i.tude toward the Poles!--Illyria was to be restored to Austria.

Prussia, however, was not only to be excluded from all partic.i.p.ation in the spoil, but the Rhenish confederation was to be extended as far as the Oder. Prussia would have been compelled to pay the expenses of the alliance between France, Russia, and Austria.]

[Footnote 19: ”Everywhere,” said this manifesto, ”do the impatient wishes of the people antic.i.p.ate the regular proceedings of the government. On all sides, the desire for independence under separate laws, the feeling of insulted nationality, rage against the heavy abuses inflicted by a foreign tyrant, burst simultaneously forth. His Majesty the emperor, too clear-sighted not to view this turn in affairs as the natural and necessary result of a preceding and violent state of exaggeration, and too just to view it with displeasure, had rendered it his princ.i.p.al object to turn it to the general advantage, and, by well-weighed and well-combined measures, to promote the true and lasting interests of the whole commonwealth of Europe.”]

CCLXI. The Battle of Leipzig

Immediately after this--for all had been previously arranged--the monarchs of Russia and Prussia pa.s.sed the Riesengebirge with a division of their forces into Bohemia, and joined the emperor Francis and the great Austrian army at Prague. The celebrated general, Moreau, who had returned from America, where he had hitherto dwelt incognito, in order to take up arms against Napoleon, was in the train of the czar. His example, it was hoped, would induce many of his countrymen to abandon Napoleon. The plan of the allies was to advance, with their main body under Schwarzenberg, consisting of one hundred and twenty thousand Austrians and seventy thousand Russians and Prussians, through the Erzgebirge to Napoleon's rear. A lesser Prussian force, princ.i.p.ally Silesian _Landwehr_, under Blucher, eighty thousand strong, besides a small Russian corps, was, meanwhile, to cover Silesia, or, in case of an attack by Napoleon's main body, to retire before it and draw it further eastward. A third division, under the crown prince of Sweden, princ.i.p.ally Swedes, with some Prussian troops, mostly Pomeranian and Brandenburg _Landwehr_ under Bulow, and some Russians, in all ninety thousand men, was destined to cover Berlin, and in case of a victory to form a junction to Napoleon's rear with the main body of the allied army. A still lesser and equally mixed division under Wallmoden, thirty thousand strong, was destined to watch Davoust in Hamburg, while an Austrian corps of twenty-five thousand men under Prince Reuss watched the movements of the Bavarians, and another Austrian force of forty thousand, under Hiller, those of the viceroy Eugene in Italy.

Napoleon had concentrated his main body, that still consisted of two hundred and fifty thousand men, in and around Dresden. Davoust received orders to advance with thirty thousand men from Hamburg upon Berlin; in Bavaria, there were thirty thousand men under Wrede; in Italy, forty thousand under Eugene. The German fortresses were, moreover, strongly garrisoned with French troops. Napoleon had it in his power to throw himself with his main body, which neither Blucher nor the Swedes could have withstood, into Poland, to levy the people _en ma.s.se_ and render that country the theatre of war, but the dread of the defection of the Rhenish confederation and of a part of the French themselves, were the country to his rear to be left open to the allies and to Moreau, coupled with his disinclination to declare the independence of Poland, owing to a lingering hope of being still able to bring about a reconciliation with Russia and Austria by the sacrifice of that country and of Prussia, caused that idea to be renounced, and he accordingly took up a defensive position with his main body at Dresden, whence he could watch the proceedings and take advantage of any indiscretion on the part of his opponents. A body of ninety thousand men under Oudinot meantime acted on the offensive, being directed to advance, simultaneously with Davoust from Hamburg and with Girard from Magdeburg, upon Berlin, and to take possession of that metropolis. Napoleon hoped, when master of the ancient Prussian provinces, to be able to suppress German enthusiasm at its source and to induce Russia and Austria to conclude a separate peace at the expense of Prussia.

In August, 1813, the tempest of war broke loose on every side, and all Europe prepared for a decisive struggle. About this time, the whole of Northern Germany was visited for some weeks, as was the case on the defeat of Varus in the Teutoburg forest, with heavy rains and violent storms. The elements seemed to combine, as in Russia, their efforts with those of man against Napoleon. There his soldiers fell victims to frost and snow, here they sank into the boggy soil and were carried away by the swollen rivers. In the midst of the uproar of the elements, b.l.o.o.d.y engagements continually took place, in which the bayonet and the b.u.t.t-end of the firelock were almost alone used, the muskets being rendered unserviceable by the wet. The first engagement of importance was that of the 21st of August between Wallmoden and Davoust at Vellahn. A few days afterward, Theodore Korner, the youthful poet and hero, fell in a skirmish between the French and Wallmoden's outpost at Gadebusch.--Oudinot advanced close upon Berlin, which was protected by the crown prince of Sweden. A murderous conflict took place, on the 23d of August, at Gross-Beeren between the Prussian division under General von Bulow and the French. The Swedes, a troop of horse artillery alone excepted, were not brought into action, and the Prussians, unaided, repulsed the greatly superior forces of the French. The almost untrained peasantry comprising the _Landwehr_ of the Mark and of Pomerania rushed upon the enemy, and, unhabituated to the use of the bayonet and firelock, beat down entire battalions of the French with the b.u.t.t-end of their muskets. After a frightful ma.s.sacre, the French were utterly routed and fled in wild disorder, but the gallant Prussians vainly expected the Swedes to aid in the pursuit. The crown prince, partly from a desire to spare his troops and partly from a feeling of shame--he was also a Frenchman--remained motionless. Oudinot, nevertheless, lost two thousand four hundred prisoners. Davoust, from this disaster, returned once more to Hamburg. Girard, who had advanced with eight thousand men from Magdeburg, was, on the 27th, put to flight by the Prussian _Landwehr_ under General Hirschfeld.

Napoleon's plan of attack against Prussia had completely failed, and his sole alternative was to act on the defensive. But on perceiving that the main body of the allied forces under Schwarzenberg was advancing to his rear, while Blucher was stationed with merely a weak division in Silesia, he took the field with immensely superior forces against the latter, under an idea of being able easily to vanquish his weak antagonist and to fall back again in time upon Dresden. Blucher cautiously retired, but, unable to restrain the martial spirit of the soldiery, who obstinately defended every position whence they were driven, lost two thousand of his men on the 21st of August. The news of Napoleon's advance upon Silesia and of the numerical weakness of the garrison left at Dresden reached Schwarzenberg just as he had crossed the Erzgebirge, and induced him and the allied sovereigns a.s.sembled within his camp to change their plan of operations and to march straight upon the Saxon capital. Napoleon, who had pursued Blucher as far as the Katzbach near Goldberg, instantly returned and boldly resolved to cross the Elbe above Dresden, to seize the pa.s.ses of the Bohemian mountains, and to fall upon the rear of the main body of the allied army. Vandamme's _corps d'armee_ had already set forward with this design, when Napoleon learned that Dresden could no longer hold out unless he returned thither with a division of his army, and, in order to preserve that city and the centre of his position, he hastily returned thither in the hope of defeating the allied army and of bringing it between two fires, as Vandamme must meanwhile have occupied the narrow outlets of the Erzgebirge with thirty thousand men and by that means have cut off the retreat of the allied army. The plan was on a grand scale, and, as far as related to Napoleon in person, was executed, to the extreme discomfiture of the allies, with his usual success. Schwarzenberg had, with true Austrian procrastination, allowed the 25th of August, when, as the French themselves confess, Dresden, in her then ill-defended state, might have been taken almost without a stroke, to pa.s.s in inaction, and, when he attempted to storm the city on the 26th, Napoleon, who had meanwhile arrived, calmly awaited the onset of the thick ma.s.ses of the enemy in order to open a murderous discharge of grape upon them on every side. They were repulsed after suffering a frightful loss. On the following day, destined to end in still more terrible bloodshed, Napoleon a.s.sumed the offensive, separated the retiring allied army by well-combined sallies, cut off its left wing, and made an immense number of prisoners, chiefly Austrians. The unfortunate Moreau had both his legs shot off in the very first encounter. His death was an act of justice, for he had taken up arms against his fellow- countrymen, and was moreover a gain for the Germans, the Russians merely making use of him in order to obscure the fame of the German leaders, and, it may be, with a view of placing the future destinies of France in his hands. The main body of the allied army retreated on every side; part of the troops disbanded, the rest were exposed to extreme hards.h.i.+p owing to the torrents of rain that fell without intermission and the scarcity of provisions. Their annihilation must have inevitably followed had Vandamme executed Napoleon's commands and blocked up the mountain pa.s.ses, in which he was unsuccessful, owing to the gallantry with which he was held in check at Culm by eight thousand Russian guards, headed by Ostermann,[1] who, although merely amounting in number to a fourth of his army, fought during a whole day without receding a step, though almost the whole of them were cut to pieces and Ostermann was deprived of an arm, until the first corps of the main body, in full retreat, reached the mountains. Vandamme was now in turn overwhelmed by superior numbers. One way of escape, a still unoccupied height, on which he hastened to post himself, alone remained, but Kleist's corps, also in full retreat, unexpectedly but opportunely appeared above his head and took him and the whole of his corps prisoners, the 29th of August, 1813.[2]

At the same time, the 26th of August, a most glorious victory was gained by Blucher in Silesia. After having drawn Macdonald across the Katzbach and the foaming Neisse, he drove him, after a desperate and b.l.o.o.d.y engagement, into those rivers, which were greatly swollen by the incessant rains. The muskets of the soldiery had been rendered unserviceable by the wet, and Blucher, drawing his sabre from beneath his cloak, dashed forward exclaiming, ”Forward!” Several thousand of the French were drowned or fell by the bayonet, or beneath the heavy blows dealt by the _Landwehr_ with the b.u.t.t-end of their firelocks. It was on this battlefield that the Silesians had formerly opposed the Tartars, and the monastery of Wahlstatt, erected in memory of that heroic day,[3] was still standing. Blucher was rewarded with the t.i.tle of Prince von der Wahlstatt, but his soldiers surnamed him Marshal Vorwarts. On the decline of the floods, the banks of the rivers were strewn with corpses sticking in horrid distortion out of the mud. A part of the French fled for a couple of days in terrible disorder along the right bank and were then taken prisoner together with their general, Puthod.[4] The French lost one hundred and three guns, eighteen thousand prisoners, and a still greater number in killed; the loss on the side of the Prussians merely amounted to one thousand men.

Macdonald returned almost totally unattended to Dresden and brought the melancholy intelligence to Napoleon, ”Votre arme du Bobre n'existe plus.”