Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/232

220 NAPOLEON [1813- tlie Revolution. Metternich can hardly have imagined the famous dramatic trait where Napoleon, on being told that his troops were "not soldiers, but children," answered, turning pale "You are no soldier; you do not know what passes in a soldier s mind ; I grew up in the field, and a man like me troubles himself little about the life of a million of men " (the actual expression he used, adds Metternich, cannot be reported), and then flung his hat into a corner of the room. That this was a true description of his way of thinking had become visible to most since the Russian catastrophe, and the audacious frankness with which he blurts it out is quite in his characteristic manner. When this interview took place, a treaty had just been signed at Reichenbach by which Austria had engaged, as mediating power, formally to offer conditions of peace to Napoleon and to declare war on him in case of refusal. She proceeded to offer the conditions above mentioned with the exception of that which refers to the Confederation of the Rhine. A congress met at Prague in the course of July, but Napoleon did not allow its deliberations to make serious progress. He paid no attention to an ultimatum presented on August 8th. On midnight of August 10-11 the armistice was declared to be at an end, and the doom of Napoleon was sealed. It was a strange decision on his part, but perhaps he judged rightly that he had no choice but between ruin and absolute, impossible victory! War Europe now plunges again into a struggle as desperate with and as destructive as that of 1812. More evidently even Russia, t k an } n 1812 is Napoleon responsible for this ruin of all and SSia civilization. He cannot any longer speak even of the Austria, liberty of the seas, for he is forced himself to admit that the Continental system is dead, and yet refuses to surrender that ascendency for which the Continental system had all along been the pretext. Infatuated France, however, has by this time furnished more than 400,000 men to perish in a contest where there might be chances, but could be no probabilities, of victory. His headquarters are now at Dresden, and his armies are arranged along the whole course of the Elbe from Bohemia to its mouth. This position has been somewhat weakened by the adhesion of Austria to the Coalition, for Austria masses her troops on the north-west of Bohemia, threatening Dresden and Napoleon s communications from the left side of the Elbe. The force of the allies (approaching 500,000 men) consists of three great armies, of which the first, principally Austrian, and commanded by Prince Schwarzenberg, is stationed on the Eger in Bohemia ; the sovereigns are here. The old Prusso-Russian army, which had made the convention of Poischwitz, is still in Silesia. It contains more Russians than Prussians, but a Prussian officer is now put at the head of it. This is Bliicher, the dashing general of hussars, now an old man of seventy years ; on his staff are some of the leading theorists and enthusiasts of the new Prussian army, such as Gneisenau. But the bulk of the Prussian force is stationed in the mark of Brandenburg. In this final muster of the armies of Europe we see that the moral forces have passed over from France to the allies. In the French camp there reigns weariness and desire for peace, among the Prussians and Russians heroic ardour and devo tion. But the old mismanagement reappears on the side of the allies. In the Bohemian camp Schwarzenberg s authority was almost annulled by the presence of the sovereigns ; in Silesia the heroic Prussian general is in command of an army mainly Russian. But in the mark perhaps the greatest blunder was made, for here the main Prussian force was put under the orders of the crown prince of Sweden, the Frenchman Bernadotte, wholly alien to the German cause, and bent upon propitiating French public opinion with a view to the succession of Napoleon. Bernadotte is not the only member of the old republican opposition who is seen in the allied camp now that Napoleon s fall begins to be thought of as possible. Moreau, the man who helped in 1799 to found the con sulate, desiring probably to see France ruled by a series of Washingtons each holding office for a short term, appears in the Austrian camp. If Napoleon was to be dethroned, who had a better right to succeed him ? The campaign opens with a blow aimed at Berlin, where perhaps Napoleon wished to extinguish the popular insur rection at its source. Oudinot marches on it from Baruth, and is supported by a force from Magdeburg ; Davoust sends another corps from Hamburg. Bernadotte proposes to retire and sacrifice Berlin, but in spite of him Biilow fights on August 23d the battle of Grossbeeren, within a few miles of the capital. Here first the landwehr dis tinguished itself, and Berlin was saved. The attack from Magdeburg was defeated by Hirschfeld at Hagelberg on the 27th. Meanwhile Napoleon himself, at the head of 150,000 men, had marched against Bliicher on the Katzbach. Bliicher retired before him, and he was com pelled to return to the defence of Dresden, but he left Macdonald with perhaps 50,000 or 60,000 men to hold Bliicher in check. Almost immediately after his departure (August 26th) Macdonald was defeated by Bliicher in the battle of the Katzbach. Thus the campaign began with two Prussian victories. But when the great army of Bohemia moved upon Dresden Napoleon showed his old superiority. On August 27th he inflicted on it a terrible defeat. In this battle Moreau, the hero of Hohenlinden, was mortally wounded by a cannon-ball. It seemed for a moment likely that this battle, followed up with Napoleon s overwhelming rapidity, would decide the cam paign. He prepared to cut off his enemy s retreat into Bohemia. But the news of Grossbeeren and Katzbach arrived ; Napoleon is also said to have been attacked by illness ; he altered his plan in the moment of execution. The grand stroke of the campaign failed, and, instead of cutting off the retreat of the grand army, Vandamme was taken prisoner at Kulm with 10,000 men after a battle in which he had lost half that number (August 30th). It was evident that the times of Marengo and Austerlitz were over. Napoleon s ability and authority were as great as ever ; he controlled larger armies ; he opposed a Coalition which was as unwieldy as former Coalitions ; and yet he had suffered four defeats in a single week and had won but one victory. Within another week he suffered another blow. A new advance was made on Berlin by Ney, who was defeated with great loss at Dennewitz by the Prussians under Biilow (September 6th). Here then ends Napoleon s ascendency ; henceforth he fights in self-defence or in despair. Yet the massacre was to continue with unabated fury for two months longer. He spent the greater part of September in restless marches from Dresden, now into Silesia, now into Bohemia, by which he wore out his strength without winning any sub stantial advantage. Towards the end of the month a new phase of the war begins. From the beginning the allies had given each otlrer rendezvous in the plain of Leipsic. Hitherto Napoleon had held the line of the Elbe, and had presented a single mass to the three separate armies of the Coalition. Now that his collapse begins to be visible, begins the converging advance on Leipsic. The Silesian army crossed the Elbe at Wartenburg on October 3d, and on the next days the northern army also crossed at several points. At the same moment the Confederation of the Rhine began rapidly to dissolve. A troop of Cossacks under Czernicheff upset the kingdom of Westphalia (October 1st). Bavaria abandoned Napoleon, and concluded the treaty of Ried with Austria (October 8th). But for