Read Ebook: The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Vol. 4 (of 4) by Sloane William Milligan

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Historical Sources.................................... 303

General Bibliography.................................. 307

Index................................................. 355

Facing Page

Napoleon in 1813................................................. 50

Napoleon, Fran?ois Charles Joseph, Prince Imperial; King of Rome; Duke of Reichstadt............................... 98

Map of the Field of Operations in 1814.......................... 104

The King of Rome................................................ 148

Map of the Campaign of 1815..................................... 194

Napoleon, Fran?ois Charles Joseph, Duke of Reichstadt, etc., etc., son of Napoleon Bonaparte......................... 200

Napoleon at St. Helena.......................................... 230

LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

THE LAST IMPERIAL VICTORY

Napoleon's Prospects -- The Preparations and Plans of the Coalition -- Cross-purposes of the Combatants -- Condition of Napoleon's Mind -- Strength and Weakness of the Allies -- Renewal of Hostilities -- The Feint in Silesia -- Napoleon at Dresden -- First Day's Fighting -- The Victory Won on the Second Day.

In later years Napoleon confessed that during the interval between the first and second Saxon campaigns he had been outwitted. His antagonists had, in his own language, "changed for the better"; at least they secured the war they so earnestly desired under conditions vastly more favorable to themselves than to their opponent. Both parties had been arming with might and main during the prolonged truce, but each member of the dynastic coalition now had the backing of a growing national enthusiasm, while Napoleon had to deal with waning zeal and an exhausted people. Thus, then, at the opening of the second campaign in Saxony, the allies had four hundred and thirty-five thousand men, and Napoleon but three hundred and fifty thousand. With this inferiority, it behooved the Emperor to use all his strategic powers, and he did so with a brilliancy never surpassed by him. Choosing the Elbe as his natural defensive line, Hamburg stood almost impregnable at one end, flanked to the southward by Magdeburg, Wittenberg, and Torgau, three mighty fortresses. Dresden, which was necessarily the focal point, was intrenched and palisaded for the protection of the army which was to be its main bulwark. Davout and Oudinot, with seventy thousand men, were to threaten Berlin, and, thereby drawing off as many as possible of the enemy, liberate the garrisons of Stettin and K?strin; they were then to beleaguer Spandau, push the foe across the Oder, and stand ready to fall on the flank of the coalition army. Napoleon himself, with the remaining two hundred and eighty thousand, was to await the onset of the combined Russian, Prussian, and Austrian forces.

The allies now had in their camp two mighty strategists--Jomini, the well-known Swiss adventurer and military historian, and Moreau, who had returned from the United States. The former, pleading that he had lost a merited promotion by Berthier's ill-will, and that as a foreigner he had the right of choice, had gone over to the enemies of his employer; the latter, yielding to the specious pleas of his silly and ambitious wife that he might fight Napoleon without fighting France, had taken service with the Czar. The arrow which penetrated Napoleon's vitals was indeed feathered from his own pinions, since these two, with another of Napoleon's pupils--Bernadotte, the Crown Prince of Sweden--were virtually the council of war. Two of them, the latter and Moreau, saw the specter of French sovereignty beckoning them on. They dreamed of the chief magistracy in some shape, imperial, monarchical, consular, or presidential, and were more devoted to their personal interests than to those of the coalition. In the service of their ambition was formed the plan by which not only was Napoleon overwhelmed, but the fields of France were drenched with blood. Under their advice, three great armies were arrayed: that of the North, in Brandenburg, was composed of Prussians, Swedes, and a few Russians, its generals being B?low, Bernadotte, and Tchernicheff; that of the East was the Prusso-Russian army in Silesia, now under Bl?cher, that astounding young cavalryman of seventy, and Wittgenstein; finally, that of the South was the new Austrian force under Schwarzenberg, with an adjunct force of Russian troops under Barclay, and the Russian guard under the Grand Duke Constantine. B?low was in and near Berlin with about a hundred and fifty-six thousand men; Bl?cher had ninety-five thousand, and, having violated the armistice, was on August fourteenth already within the neutral zone at Striegau, before Breslau; the Austro-Russian force of almost two hundred and fifty thousand was in northern Bohemia, near Melnik; Bennigsen was in Poland building up a strong reserve. Schwarzenberg, though commander of the main army, was reduced to virtual impotence by the presence at his headquarters of all the sovereigns and of Moreau. Divided counsels spring from diverse interests; there was at the outset a pitiful caution and inefficiency on the part of the allies, while at Napoleon's headquarters there was unity of design at least.

Both contestants were apparently under serious misapprehensions. The allies certainly were, because Francis believed that, as so often before, Napoleon's goal would be Vienna. The plan adopted by them was therefore very simple: each division of the allied army was to stand expectant; if assailed it was to yield, draw on the French columns, and expose their flank or rear to the attacks of the other two allied armies; then by superior force the invaders were to be surrounded. The allies divined, or believed they divined, that Napoleon would hold his guard in reserve, throw it behind any portion of his line opposite which they were vulnerable, break through, and defeat them in detachments. Their idea was keen, and displayed a thorough grasp both of the principles on which their opponent had hitherto acted and of his normal character. But nevertheless they were deceived. Napoleon discarded all his old principles, and behaved most abnormally. In his conduct there are evidences of a curious self-deception, and his decisions contradicted his language. Perpetually minimizing in conversation the disparity between the two forces, and sometimes even asserting his own superiority, he nevertheless almost for the first time assumed the defensive. This unheard-of course may have been due to misapprehension and exaggeration, but it produced for the moment a powerful moral effect on his generals, who, without exception, had hitherto been clamorous for peace, and likewise upon his new boy recruits; both classes began to have a realizing sense that they were now fighting, not for aggression, but for life. If the Emperor had any such confidence as he expressed, it must have been due to the fact that boys had fought like veterans at L?tzen and Bautzen, and that at last there were cavalry and artillery in fair proportion. Possibly, likewise, he may have been desperate; fully aware that he was about to cast the dice for a last stake, he may have been at once braggart and timid. If he should win in a common defensive battle, he believed, as his subsequent conduct goes to show, that he was safe indefinitely; and if he lost--the vision must have been too dreadful, enough to distract the sanest mind: an exhausted treasury, an exhausted nation, an empty throne, vanished hopes, ruin!

Yet at the time no one remarked any trace of nervousness in Napoleon. Long afterward the traitorous Marmont, whose name, like that of Moreau, was to be execrated by succeeding generations of honorable Frenchmen, recalled that the Emperor had contemptuously designated the enemy as a rabble, and that he had likewise overestimated the strategic value of Berlin. The malignant annalist asserted, too, that Napoleon's motive was personal spite against Prussia. It has also been studiously emphasized by others that the "children" of Napoleon's army were perishing like flowers under an untimely frost, forty thousand French and German boys being in the hospitals; that corruption was rife in every department of administration; and that the soldiers' pay was shamefully in arrears. An eye-witness saw Peyrusse, the paymaster, to whom Napoleon had just handed four thousand francs for a monument to Duroc, coolly pocket a quarter of the sum, with the remark that such was the custom. He would be rash indeed who dared to assert that there was no basis for this criticism. It is true that the instructions to Davout and Oudinot made light of B?low's army, and that Berlin had vastly less strategic value than those instructions seemed to indicate. But, on the other hand, both generals and men were sadly in need of self-reliance, and to see their capitals occupied or endangered had still a tremendous moral effect upon dynastic sovereigns. As to the defects in his army, Napoleon could not have been blind; but in all these directions matters had been nearly, if not quite, as bad in 1809, and a victory had set them all in order.

What nervousness there was existed rather among the allies. Never before in her history, not even under the great Frederick, had Prussia possessed such an army; the Austrians were well drilled and well equipped; the Russians were of fair quality, numerous, and with the reserves from Poland would be a powerful army in themselves. Yet in spite of their strength, the allies were not really able. Austria was the head, but her commander, Schwarzenberg, was not even mediocre, and among her generals there was only one who was first-rate, namely, Radetzky. Frederick William and Alexander were of incongruous natures; their alliance was artificial, and in such plans as they evolved there was an indefiniteness which left to the generals in their respective forces a large margin for independence. The latter were quick to take advantage of the chance, and this fact accounts for the generally lame and feeble beginning of hostilities.

For example, it was through Bl?cher's wilfulness that the moral advantage lay with Napoleon in the opening of the struggle. On July ninth Bernadotte, Frederick William, and the Czar had met at Trachenberg to lay out a plan of campaign. In this conference, which first opened Napoleon's eyes to the determination of the allies, Bl?cher had secured for himself an independent command. The accession of Austria rendered the agreement of Trachenberg null, but Bl?cher did not abandon his ambition. Impatient of orders or good faith, he broke into the neutral zone at Striegau on August fourteenth, apparently without any very definite plan. Napoleon, hearing that forty thousand Russians from this army were marching toward Bohemia, advanced from Dresden on August fifteenth, to be within reach of the passes of the Iser Mountains on the Upper Elbe, and halted at Zittau as a central point, where he could easily collect about a hundred and eighty thousand men, and whence, according to circumstances, he could either strike Bl?cher, cut off the Russians, or return to Dresden in case of need. That city was to be held by Saint-Cyr. On August twentieth Bl?cher reached the banks of the Bober at Bunzlau; owing to Napoleon's nice calculation, Ney, Marmont, Lauriston, and Macdonald were assembled on the other side to check the advance, he himself being at Lauban with the guard. Had Bl?cher stood, the Russo-Prussians would have been annihilated, for their inferiority was as two to one. But the headstrong general did not stand; on the contrary, retreating by preconcerted arrangement behind the Deichsel, he led his antagonist to the false conclusion that he lacked confidence in his army.

Napoleon was not generally over-credulous, but this mistake was probably engendered in his mind by the steady stream of uneasy reports he was receiving from his own generals. On the twenty-third he wrote to Maret that his division commanders seemed to have no self-reliance except in his presence; "the enemy's strength seems great to them wherever I am not." Marmont was the chief offender, having severely criticized a plan of operations which would require one or more of the marshals to act independently in Brandenburg or Silesia or both, expressing the fear that on the day when the Emperor believed himself to have won a decisive battle he would discover that he had lost two. Seventeen years of campaigning had apparently turned the great generals of Napoleon's army into puppets, capable of acting only on their leader's impulse. Whatever the cause, Napoleon was set in his idea, and pressed on in pursuit. On the twenty-second Bl?cher was beyond the Katzbach, with the French van close behind, when word arrived at Napoleon's headquarters that the Austro-Russians had entered Saxony and were menacing Dresden. How alert and sane the Emperor was, how thoroughly he foresaw every contingency, appears from the minute directions he wrote for Macdonald, who was left to block the road for Bl?cher into Saxony, while Lauriston was to outflank and shut off the perfervid veteran from both Berlin and Zittau.

These instructions having been written, Napoleon at first contemplated crossing the Elbe above Dresden to take Schwarzenberg on the flank and rear in the passes of the Ore Mountains. This would not only cut off the Austrian general from the Saxon capital, but prevent his swerving to the left for an advance on Leipsic. But finding that his enemy was moving swiftly, the Emperor resolved to meet him before Dresden. It would never do to lose his ally's capital at the outset, or to suffer defeat at the very head of his defensive line. Giving orders, therefore, for the corps of Marmont, Vandamme, and Victor, together with Latour-Maubourg's cavalry and the guard, to wheel, he hastened back to reinforce Saint-Cyr at Dresden. On the twenty-fifth, as he passed Bautzen, he learned that Oudinot had been defeated at Luckau; but he gave no heed to the report, and next day reached Dresden at nine in the morning. An hour later the guard came up, having performed the almost incredible feat of marching seventy-six miles in three days. Vandamme, with forty thousand men, had arrived at Pirna, a few miles above, and Saint-Cyr was drawing in behind the temporary fortifications of the city itself.

The enemy, too, was at hand, but he had no plan. In a council of war held by him the same morning there was protracted debate, and finally Moreau's advice to advance in six columns was taken. He refused "to fight against his country," but explained that the French could never be conquered in mass, and that if one assailing column were crushed, the rest could still push on. This long deliberation cost the allies their opportunity; for at four in the afternoon, when they attacked, the mass of the French army had crossed the Elbe and had thus completed the garrison of the city. For two hours the fighting was fierce and stubborn; from three different sides Russians, Austrians, and Prussians each made substantial gains; at six Napoleon determined to make a general sally and throw in his guard. With fine promptness. Mortier, at the head of two divisions of the young guard, attacked the Russians, and, fighting until midnight, drove them beyond the hamlet of Striefen. Saint-Cyr dislodged the Prussians, and pushed them to Strehla; while Ney, with two divisions of the young guard, threw a portion of the Austrians into Plauen, and Murat, with two divisions of infantry and Latour-Maubourg's cavalry, cleared the suburb Friedrichstadt of the rest. Napoleon, alert and ubiquitous, then made his usual round, and knew when he retired to rest in the royal palace that with seventy thousand men, or rather boys, he had repulsed a hundred and fifty thousand of his foe. His inspiriting personal work might be calculated as worth eighty thousand of his opponents' best men. That night both Marmont and Victor, with their corps, entered the city; and Vandamme in the early dawn began to bombard Pirna, thus threatening the allies' connection with Bohemia and drawing away forces from them to hold that outpost.

POLITICS AND STRATEGY

Napoleon's Conduct after Dresden -- Military Considerations Overruled by Political Schemes -- Probable Explanation of Napoleon's Failure -- Prussian Victories at Grossbeeren and on the Katzbach -- Vandamme Overwhelmed at Kulm -- Napoleon's Responsibility -- Political Considerations again Ascendant -- The System of "Hither and Thither" -- The Battle of Dennewitz -- Its Disastrous Consequences -- Napoleon's Vacillation -- Strategy Thwarted by Diplomacy.

Throughout the night after the victory at Dresden, Napoleon believed that the enemy would return again to battle on the morrow. This is conclusively shown by the notes which he made for Berthier during the evening. These were based on the stated hypothesis that the enemy was not really in retreat, but would on the morrow by a great battle strive to retrieve his failure. But the Emperor was altogether mistaken. To be sure, the council of the disheartened allies debated far into the small hours whether an advantageous stand could not still be made on the heights of Dippoldiswalde, but the decision was adverse because the coalition army was sadly shattered, having lost a third of its numbers. Crippled on its left and threatened on its rear, it began next morning to retreat in fair order toward the Ore Mountains, and so continued until it became known that Vandamme was directly in the path, when a large proportion of the troops literally took to the hills, and retreat became flight. Then first, at four in the afternoon, Napoleon began to realize what had actually occurred. And what did he do? Having ridden almost to Pirna before taking measures of any kind to reap the fruits of victory, he there issued orders for the single corps of Vandamme, slightly reinforced, to begin the pursuit! Thereupon, leaving directions for Mortier to hold Pirna, he entered a carriage and drove quietly back to Dresden!

Had Oudinot and Macdonald succeeded in their offensive operations against Berlin, and had Napoleon himself done nothing more than hold Dresden, a place which we must remember he considered from the outset as a defensive point, it would have sufficed, in order to obtain the most favorable terms of peace, to throw back the main army of the coalition, humiliated and dispirited, through Bohemia to Prague. But, as we have repeatedly seen, long service under the Empire had destroyed all initiative in the French marshals: in Spain one mighty general after another had been brought low; those who were serving in Germany seemed stricken with the same palsy. It is true that in the days of their greatness they had commanded choice troops, and that now the flower of the army was reserved for the Emperor; but it is likewise true that then they had fought for wealth, advancement, and power. Now they yearned to enjoy their gains, and were embittered because Napoleon had not accepted Austria's terms of mediation until it was too late. Moreover, Bernadotte, one of their opponents, had been trained in their own school, and was fighting for a crown. To Bl?cher, untamed and untrustworthy in temper, had been given in the person of Gneisenau an efficient check on all headlong impulses, and B?low was a commander far above mediocrity. Such considerations go far to account for three disasters--those, namely, of Grossbeeren, Katzbach, and Kulm--which made it insufficient for Napoleon to hold Dresden and throw back the main army of the allies, and which thwarted all his strategy, military and political.

The first of these affairs was scarcely a defeat. Oudinot, advancing with seventy thousand men by way of Wittenberg to seize Berlin, found himself confronted by Bernadotte with eighty thousand. The latter, with his eye on the crown of France, naturally feared to defeat a French army; at first he thought of retreating across the Spree and abandoning the Prussian capital. But the Prussians were outraged at the possibility of such conduct, and the schemer was convinced that a show of resistance was imperative. On August twenty-second a few skirmishes occurred, and the next day B?low, disobeying his orders, brought on a pitched battle at Grossbeeren, which was waged, with varying success, until nightfall left the village in French hands. Oudinot, however, discouraged alike by the superior force of the enemy, by the obstinate courage of the Prussians, and by the dismal weather, lost heart, and retreated to Wittenberg. The heavy rains prevented an effective pursuit, but the Prussians followed as far as Treuenbrietzen. On August twenty-first, Bl?cher, aware of the circumstances which kept Napoleon at Dresden, had finally determined to attack Macdonald. The French marshal, by a strange coincidence, almost simultaneously abandoned the defensive position he had been ordered to hold, and advanced to give battle. It was therefore a mere chance when on the twenty-fifth the two armies came together, amid rain and fog, at the Katzbach. After a bitter struggle the French were routed with frightful loss. A terrific rain-storm set in, and the whole country was turned into a marsh. For five days Bl?cher continued the pursuit, until he reached Naumburg, on the right bank of the Queiss, where he halted, having captured eighteen thousand prisoners and a hundred and three guns.

To these misfortunes the affair at Kulm was a fitting climax. No worse leader for a delicate independent movement could have been selected than the reckless Vandamme. He was so rash, conceited, and brutish that Napoleon once exclaimed in sheer desperation: "If there were two Vandammes in my army, nothing could be done until one had killed the other." As might have been expected, the headlong general far outstripped the columns of Marmont, Saint-Cyr, and Murat, which had been tardily sent to support him. Descending without circumspection into the plain of Kulm, he found himself, on the twenty-ninth, confronted by the Russian guard; and next morning, when attacked by them in superior force, he was compelled to retreat through a mountain defile toward Peterswald, whence he had come. At the mouth of the gorge he was unexpectedly met by the Prussian corps of Kleist. Each side thought the other moving to cut it off. They therefore rushed one upon the other in despair, with no other hope than that of breaking through to rejoin their respective armies. The shock was terrible, and for a time the confusion seemed inextricable. But the Russians soon came up, and Vandamme, with seven thousand men, was captured, the loss in slain and wounded being about five thousand. Saint-Cyr, Marmont, and Murat halted and held the mountain passes.

This was the climax of disaster in Napoleon's great strategic plan. In no way responsible for Grossbeeren, nor for Macdonald's defeat on the Katzbach, he was culpable both for the selection of Vandamme and for failure to support him in the pursuit of Schwarzenberg. At St. Helena the Emperor strove in three ways to account for the crash under which he was buried after Dresden: by the sickness which made him unable to give attention to the situation, by the inundation which rendered Macdonald helpless at the crossing of the Bober, and by the arrival of a notification from the King of Bavaria that, after a certain date, he too would join the coalition. This was not history, but an appeal to public sentiment, carefully calculated for untrained readers.

The fact was that at Dresden the gradual transformation of the strategist into the politician, which had long been going on, was complete. The latter misapprehended the moment for diplomatic negotiations, conceiving the former's victory to have been determinative, when in reality it was rendered partial and contingent by failure to follow it up. Great as Napoleon was in other respects, he was supremely great as a strategist; it is therefore his psychological development and decline in this respect which are essential to the determination of the moment in which he became bankrupt in ability. This instant was that of course in which his strategic failures became no longer intermittent, but regular; and after Dresden such was the case. As to conception and tactics there never was a failure--the year 1814 is the wonder-year of his theoretical genius; but after Dresden there is continuous failure in the practical combination of concept and means, in other words, of strategic mastery. This contention as to the clouding of Napoleon's vision by the interference of political and military considerations is proved by his next step. Hitherto his basal principle had been to mass all his force for a determinative blow, his combinations all turning about hostile armies and their annihilation, or at least about producing situations which would make annihilation possible. Now he was concerned, not with armies, but with capital cities. Claiming that to extend his line toward Prague would weaken it, in order to resume a strong defensive he chose the old plan of an advance to Berlin, and Ney was sent to supersede Oudinot, Schwarzenberg being left to recuperate unmolested. The inchoate idea of political victory which turned him back from Pirna was fully developed; by a blow at Berlin and a general northward movement he could not merely punish Prussia, but alarm Russia, separate the latter's army from that of the other allies, and then plead with Austria his consideration in not invading her territories. In spite of all that has been written to the contrary, there was some strength in this idea, unworthy as it was of the author's strategic ability. Ney was to advance immediately, while he himself pressed on to Hoyerswerda, where he hoped to establish connections for a common advance.

This was virtually the situation of a month previous to the battle. Schwarzenberg might feel that he had prevented the invasion of Austria; Napoleon, that he had regained his strong defensive. While the victory of Dresden had gone for nothing, yet this situation was nevertheless a double triumph for Napoleon. Ney, in obedience to orders, had advanced on the fifth. Bernadotte lay at J?terbog, his right being westerly at Dennewitz, under Tauenzien. Bertrand was to make a demonstration on the sixth against the latter, so that behind this movement the rest of the army should pass by unnoticed. But Ney started three hours late, so that the skirmish between Tauenzien and Bertrand lasted long enough to give the alarm to B?low, who hurried in, attacked Reynier's division, and turned the affair into a general engagement. At first the advantage was with the Prussians; then Ney, at an opportune moment, began to throw in Oudinot's corps--a move which seemed likely to decide the struggle in favor of the French. But Borstell, who had been B?low's lieutenant at Grossbeeren, brought up his men in disobedience to Bernadotte's orders, and threw them into the thickest of the conflict. Hitherto the Saxons had been fighting gallantly on the French side; soon they began to waver, and now, falling back, they took up many of Oudinot's men in their flight. The Prussians poured into the gap left by the Saxons, and when Bernadotte came up with his Swedes and Russians the battle was over. Ney was driven into Torgau, with a loss of fifteen thousand men, besides eighty guns and four hundred train-wagons. The Prussians lost about nine thousand killed and wounded.

This affair concentrated into one movement the moral effects of all the minor defeats, an influence which far outweighed the importance of Dresden. The French still fought superbly in Napoleon's presence, but only then, for they were heartily sick of the war. Nor was this all: the Bavarians and Saxons were coming to feel that their obligations to France had been fully discharged. They were infected with the same national spirit which made heroes of the Prussians. These, to be sure, were defending their homes and firesides; but seeing the great French generals successively defeated, and that largely by their own efforts, they were animated to fresh exertions by their victories; even the reserves and the home guard displayed the heroism of veterans. On September seventh Ney wrote to Napoleon: "Your left flank is exhausted--take heed; I think it is time to leave the Elbe and withdraw to the Saale"; and his opinion was that of all the division commanders. Throughout the country-side partizans were seizing the supply-trains; Davout had found his Dutch and Flemings to be mediocre soldiers, unfit at crucial moments to take the offensive; the army had shrunk to about two hundred and fifty thousand men all told; straggling was increasing, and the country was virtually devastated. To this last fact the plain people, sufferers as they were, remained in their larger patriotism amazingly indifferent: the "hither-and-thither" system tickled their fancy, and they dubbed Napoleon the "Bautzen Messenger-boy." Uneasiness pervaded every French encampment; on the other side timidity was replaced by courage, dissension by unity.

This transformation of German society seemed further to entangle the political threads which had already debased the quality of Napoleon's strategy. Technically no fault can be found with his prompt changes of plan to meet emergencies, or with the details of movements which led to his prolonged inaction. Yet, largely considered, the result was disastrous. The great medical specialist refrains from the immediate treatment of a sickly organ until the general health is sufficiently recuperated to assure success; the medicaster makes a direct attack on evident disease. Napoleon conceived a great general plan for concentrating about Dresden to recuperate his forces; but when Bl?cher prepared to advance he grew impatient, saw only his immediate trouble, and ordered Macdonald to make a grand dash. Driving in the hostile outposts to F?rstgen, he then spent a whole day hesitating whether to go on or to turn westward and disperse another detachment of his ubiquitous foe, which, as he heard from Ney, had bridged the Elbe at the mouth of the Black Elster. It was the twenty-third before he turned back to do neither, but to secure needed rest on the left bank of the Elbe. But if Napoleon's own definition of a truly great man be accurate,--namely, one who can command the situations he creates,--he was himself no longer great. The enemy not only had bridges over the Elbe at the mouth of the Elster, but at Acken and Rosslau. The left bank was as untenable for the French as the right, and it was of stern necessity that the various detachments of the army were called in to hold a line far westward, to the north of Leipsic. Oudinot, restored to partial favor, was left to keep the rear at Dresden with part of the young guard. On October first it was learned that Schwarzenberg was manoeuvering on the left to surround the invaders if possible by the south, and that Bl?cher, with like aim, was moving to the north. It was evident that the allies had formed a great resolution, and Napoleon confessed to Marmont that his "game of chess was becoming confused."

The fact was, the Emperor's diplomacy had far outstripped the general's strategy. It was blazoned abroad that on September twenty-seventh a hundred and sixty thousand new conscripts from the class of 1815, with a hundred and twenty thousand from the arrears of the seven previous classes, would be assembled at the military depots in France. Boys like these had won L?tzen, Bautzen, and Dresden, and a large minority would be able-bodied men, late in maturing, perhaps, but strong. With this preliminary blare of trumpets, a letter for the Emperor Francis was sent to General Bubna. The bearer was instructed to say that Napoleon would make great sacrifices both for Austria and Prussia if only he could get a hearing. It was too late: already, on September ninth, the three powers had concluded an offensive and defensive alliance for the purpose of liberating the Rhenish princes, of making sovereign and independent the states of southern and western Germany, and of restoring both Prussia and Austria to their limits of 1805. This was the treaty which beguiled Bavaria from the French alliance, and made the German contingents in the French armies, the Saxons among the rest, wild for emancipation from a hated service. It explained the notification previously received from the King of Bavaria, who, in return for the recognition of his complete autonomy, formally joined the coalition on October eighth, with an army of thirty-six thousand men. How much of all this the French spies and emissaries made known to Napoleon does not appear. One thing only is certain, that Napoleon's flag of truce was sent back with his message undelivered. This ominous fact had to be considered in connection with the movements of the enemy. They had learned one of Napoleon's own secrets. In a bulletin of 1805 are the words: "It rains hard, but that does not stop the march of the grand army." In 1806 he boasted concerning Prussia: "While people are deliberating, the French army is marching." In 1813, while he himself was vacillating, his foes were stirring. On October third, Bl?cher, having accomplished a superb strategic march, drove Bertrand to Bitterfeld, and stood before Kemberg, west of the Elbe, with sixty-four thousand men; Bernadotte, with eighty thousand, was crossing at Acken and Rosslau; and Schwarzenberg, with a hundred and seventy thousand, was already south of Leipsic; Bennigsen, with fifty thousand reserves, had reached Teplitz. The enemy would clearly concentrate at Leipsic and cut off Napoleon's base unless he retreated. But it was October fifth before the bitter resolution to do so was taken, and then the movement began under compulsion. Murat was sent, with three infantry corps and one of cavalry, to hold Schwarzenberg until the necessary manoeuvers could be completed.

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