CHAPTER LXVIII.

CHAPTER LXVIII.Amount and distribution of the French Army at the resumption of Hostilities—of the Armies of the Allies—Plan of the Campaign on both sides—Return of Moreau from America, to join the Allies—Attack on Dresden by the Allies on 26th August—Napoleon arrives to its succour—Battle continued on the 27th—Death of General Moreau—Defeat and Retreat of the Allies, with great loss—Napoleon returns from the pursuit to Dresden, indisposed—Vandamme attacks the Allies at Culm—is driven back towards Peterswald—Conflict on the heights of Peterswald—Vandamme is Defeated and made prisoner—Effects of the victory of Culm, on the Allies—and on Napoleon.At no period during the armistice had the hopes of peace been so probable, as to suspend for a moment the most active preparations for war.Napoleon, determined, as we have already seen, to render Dresden the centre of his operations, had exerted the utmost industry in converting that beautiful capital into a species of citadel. All the trees in the neighbourhood, including those which so much adorned the public gardens and walks, had been cut down, and employed in the construction of a chain of redoubts and field-works, secured by fosses and palisades, which were calculated to render the city very defensible. But, besides Dresden itself, with the neighbouring mountain-fortresses, the French Emperor possessed as strongly fortified places, Torgau, Wittenberg, Magdeburg, and others on the Elbe, which secured him the possession of the rich and beautiful valley of that river. He had established an intrenched camp at the celebrated position of Pirna, and thrown a bridge of boats over the Elbe, near Kœnigstein, for the purpose of maintaining a communication betwixt that mountain-fortress and the fort of Stolpen. This showed Napoleon's apprehension of an attack from the mountains of Bohemia,behind which the Austrians had been assembling their army. In this destined battle-ground, Napoleon assembled the young conscripts, who continued to pour from the French frontier; and who, by a singularly ingenious species of combination, were learning the duties of their new condition, even while, with arms in their hands for the first time, they were marching to the field of action.[273]DISTRIBUTION OF THE ARMY.In the beginning of August, Napoleon had assembled about 250,000 men in Saxony and Silesia. This great force was stationed so as best to confront the enemy on the points where they had assembled their troops. At Leipsic, there were collected 60,000 men, under command of Oudinot. At Loewenberg, Goldberg, Bantzlau, and other towns on the borders of Silesia, were 100,000 men, commanded by Macdonald. Another army of 50,000 were quartered in Lusatia, near Zittau. St. Cyr, with 20,000, was stationed near Pirna, to observe the mountains of Bohemia, and the passes through which the Elbe discharges its waters upon Saxony. In Dresden the Emperor himself lay with his guard, amounting to 25,000 men, the flower of his army. Besides these hosts, Buonaparte had a considerable army in Italy under the Viceroy Eugene; and 25,000 Bavarians were assembled as an army of reserve, under General Wrede. Almost all his old lieutenants, who had fought, and won so often in his cause, were summoned to attend this important war; and even Murat, who had been on indifferent terms with his relative, came anew from his beautiful capital of Naples, to enjoy the pleasure of wielding his sabre against his old friends the Cossacks.The preparations of the allies were upon a scale equally ample. The accession of the Austrians had placed at disposal in Bohemia 120,000 men, to whom the allies joined 80,000 Russians and Prussians, which brought the whole force to 200,000 men. Schwartzenberg had been selected to command this, which was called the grand army of the allies—a judicious choice, not only as a fitting compliment to the Emperor of Austria, who had joined the confederacy at so critical a moment, but on account of Schwartzenberg's military talents, his excellent sound sense, penetration, good-humour, and placidity of temper; qualities essential in every general, but especially in him upon whom reposes the delicate duty of commanding an army composed of different nations. This large host lay in and about Prague, and, concealed by the chain of hills called the Erzgebirge, was readyto rush into Saxony as soon as an opportunity should offer of surprising Dresden.The other moiety of the original invading army amounting to 80,000, consisting of Russians and Prussians, called the army of Silesia, and commanded by Blucher, defended the frontier of that country, and the road to Breslau. Nearer the gates of Berlin was the Crown Prince of Sweden, with an army consisting of 30,000 Swedes, and about 60,000 Prussians and Russians; the former being the corps of Bulow and Tauenzein, the latter those of Winzengerode and Woronzoff. Besides these armies, Walmoden, with a force consisting of 30,000 Russians, Prussians, and insurgent Germans, was at Schwerin, in the duchy of Mecklenberg; Hiller, with 40,000 Austrians, watched the Italian army of the Viceroy; and the Prince of Reuss confronted the Bavarian troops with an army equal in strength to Wrede's own.The allies had agreed upon a plan of operations equally cautious and effective. It is believed to have been originally sketched by the Crown Prince of Sweden, and afterwards revised and approved by the celebrated Moreau. That renowned French general had been induced, by the complexion of matters in Europe, and the invitation of Russia, to leave America, join the camp of the allies, and bring all the knowledge of the art of war, for which he was so famous, to enlighten their military councils. His conduct in thus passing over to the camp of France's enemies, has been ably defended by some as the act of a patriot who desired to destroy the despotism which had been established in his country, while others have censured him for arming against his native land, in revenge for unworthy usage which he had received from its ruler. Much of the justice of the case must rest upon what we cannot know—the purpose, namely, of Moreau, in case of ultimate success. He certainly had not, as Bernadotte might plead, acquired such rights in, and such obligations to another country, as to supersede the natural claims of his birth-place. Yet he might be justified in the eye of patriotism, if his ultimate object really was to restore France to a rational degree of liberty, under a regulated government; and such it is stated to have been. Any purpose short of this must leave him guilty of the charge of having sacrificed his duty to his country to his private revenge. He was, however, highly honoured by the Emperor of Russia in particular; and his presence was justly considered as a great accession to the council of war of the allies.So many men of talent, and two of them masters of the French tactics, had no difficulty in divining the mode in which Buonaparte meant to conduct the present campaign. They easily saw that he intended to join his strong and effective reserve of the Guard to any of the armies placed on the frontier of Saxony, where a point of attack presented itself; and thus advance upon, overpower, and destroy the enemy whom he should find in front, as the hunted tiger springs upon the victim which he has selectedout of the circle of hunters, who surround him with protended spears. To meet this mode of attack, which might otherwise have been the means of the allied armies being defeated successively and in detail, it was resolved that the general against whom Buonaparte's first effort should be directed, should on no account accept of the proffered battle, but, withdrawing his troops before the Emperor, should decoy him as far as possible in pursuit, while at the same time the other armies of the allies should advance upon his rear, destroy his communications, and finally effect their purpose of closing round him in every direction.DRESDEN.The grand army, commanded by Schwartzenberg, was particularly directed to this latter task, because, while it would have been dangerous in Napoleon on that point to have sought them out by storming the mountain-passes of Bohemia, nothing could be more easy for Schwartzenberg than to rush down upon Dresden when Buonaparte should leave that city uncovered, for however short an interval.Blucher was the first who, advancing from Silesia, and menacing the armies of Macdonald and Ney, induced Buonaparte to march to join them with his Guard, and with a great body of cavalry commanded by Latour Maubourg. He left Dresden on the 15th August; he threw bridges over the Bober, and advanced with rapidity, bringing forward Macdonald's division in aid of his own force. But the Prussian general was faithful to the plan laid down. He made an admirable retreat across the Katzbach, admitting the French to nothing but skirmishes, in which the allies had some advantage. Finally, he established himself in a position on the river Niesse, near Jauer, so as to cover Silesia and its capital.On the 21st August, Napoleon learned the interesting news, that while he was pressing forward on the retreating Prussians, Dresden was in the utmost danger of being taken. His guards had instant orders to return to Saxony. He himself set out early on the 23d. It was full time; for Schwartzenberg, with whom came the Sovereigns of Russia and Prussia, as well as General Moreau, had descended from Bohemia, and, concentrating their grand army on the left bank of the Elbe, were already approaching the walls of Dresden, Napoleon's point of support, and the pivot of his operations. Leaving, therefore, to Macdonald the task of controlling Blucher, the Emperor set out with the élite of his army; yet, with all the speed he could exert, very nearly came too late to save the object of his solicitude.General St. Cyr, who had been left with about 20,000 men to observe the Bohemian passes, was in no condition to make a stand, when they poured out upon him six or seven times his own number. He threw himself with his troops into Dresden, in hopes, by means of its recent fortifications, to defend it until the arrival of Napoleon. The allies having found little resistance on their march, displayed their huge army before the city, divided intofour columns, about four o'clock on the 25th August, and instantly commenced the assault. If they should be able to take Dresden before it could be relieved by Buonaparte, the war might be considered as nearly ended, since they would in that case obtain complete command of his line of communication with France, and had at their mercy his recruits and supplies of every kind.The scheme of attack was excellently laid, but the allied generals did not pursue it with the necessary activity. The signal for onset should have been given instantly, yet they paused for the arrival of Klenau, with an additional corps d'armée, and the assault was postponed until next morning.On the 26th, at break of day, the allies advanced in six columns, under a tremendous fire. They carried a great redoubt near the city-gate of Dippoldiswalde, and soon after another; they closed on the French on every point; the bombs and balls began to fall thick on the streets and houses of the terrified city; and in engaging all his reserves, St. Cyr, whose conduct was heroical, felt he had yet too few men to defend works of such extent. It was at this crisis, while all thought a surrender was inevitable, that columns, rushing forward with the rapidity of a torrent, were seen advancing on Dresden from the right side of the Elbe, sweeping over its magnificent bridges, and pressing through the streets, to engage in the defence of the almost overpowered city. The Child of Destiny himself was beheld amidst his soldiers, who, far from exhibiting fatigue, notwithstanding a severe forced march from the frontiers of Silesia, demanded, with loud cries, to be led into immediate battle. Napoleon halted to reassure the King of Saxony, who was apprehensive of the destruction of his capital, while his troops, marching through the city, halted on the western side, at those avenues, from which it was designed they should debouche upon the enemy.Two sallies were then made under Napoleon's eye, by Ney and Mortier. The one column, pouring from the gate of Plauen, attacked the allies on the left flank; the others, issuing from that of Pirna, assailed their right. The Prussians were dislodged from an open space, called the Great Garden, which covered their advance upon the ramparts; and the war began already to change its face, the allies drawing off from the points they had attacked so fiercely, where they found them secured by these unexpected defenders. They remained, however, in front of each other, the sentinels on each side being in close vicinity, until next morning.On the 27th of August, the battle was renewed under torrents of rain, and amid a tempest of wind. Napoleon, manœuvring with excellence altogether his own, caused his troops, now increased by concentration to nearly 200,000 men, to file out from the city upon different points, the several columns diverging from each other like the sticks of a fan when it is expanded; and thus directed them upon such points as seemed most assailable along the allies' whole position, which occupied the heights from Plauento Strehlen. In this manner, his plan assisted by the stormy weather, which served to conceal his movements, he commenced an attack upon both flanks of the enemy. On the left he obtained an advantage, from a large interval left in the allied line, to receive the division of Klenau, who were in the act of coming up, but exhausted with fatigue and bad weather, and their muskets rendered almost unserviceable. In the meanwhile, as a heavy cannonade was continued on both sides, Napoleon observed one of the batteries of the Young Guard slacken its fire. General Gourgaud, sent to inquire the cause, brought information that the guns were placed too low to reply with advantage to the enemy's fire from the high ground, and that the balls from the French battery were most of them lost in the earth. "Fire on, nevertheless," was the Emperor's reply; "we must occupy the attention of the enemy on that point."The fire was resumed, and from an extraordinary movement amongst the troops on the hill, the French became aware that some person of high rank had been struck down. Napoleon supposed that the sufferer must be Schwartzenberg. He paid him a tribute of regret, and added, with the sort of superstition peculiar to his mind, "He, then, was the victim whom the fatal fire at the ball indicated?[274]I always regarded it as a presage—it is now plain whom it concerned."DEATH OF MOREAU.Next morning, however, a peasant brought to Napoleon more precise accounts. The officer of distinction had both legs shattered by the fatal bullet—he was transported from the field on a bier composed of lances—the Emperor of Russia and King of Prussia had expressed the greatest sorrow and solicitude. The man ended this account by bringing the fallen officer's dog, a greyhound, whose collar bore the name of Moreau. This great general died a few days afterwards, having suffered amputation of the wounded limbs, which he bore with great fortitude. His talents and personal worth were undisputed, and those who, more bold than we are, shall decide that his conduct in one instance too much resembled that of Coriolanus and the Constable of Bourbon, must yet allow that the fault, like that of those great men, was atoned for by an early and a violent death.Moreau is said to have formed the plan on which the attack on Dresden was conducted. His death must therefore have disconcerted it. But besides this, the allies had calculated upon Buonaparte's absence, and upon the place being slightly defended. They were disappointed in both respects; and his sudden arrival at the head of a choice, if not a numerous army, had entirely changed the nature of the combat. They had become defenders at the very time when they reckoned on being assailants; and their troops, particularly the Austrians, who had in former wars received such dreadful cause to recollect the name of Napoleon,were discouraged. Even if they repelled the French into Dresden, they had provided no magazines of support in front of it, should the allied army be designed to remain there. Jomini, the celebrated Swiss engineer, who had exchanged, some short time before, the service of Napoleon for that of the Emperor Alexander, proposed the daring plan of changing the front of the army during the action, and attacking in force the left of the French, which might have turned the fortune of the day. But the experiment was thought, with some justice, too perilous to be attempted, with a discouraged and disordered army. A retreat was, therefore, resolved upon, and, owing to the weather, the state of the roads, and the close pursuit of the French, it was a disastrous one. The successful operations of the French had established the King of Naples on the western road to Bohemia, by Freyberg; and Vandamme, with a strong division, blocked up that which led directly southward up the Elbe, by Pirna.The two principal roads being thus closed against Schwartzenberg and his army, nothing remained for them but to retreat through the interval between these highways by such country paths as they could find, which, bad in themselves, had been rendered almost impassable by the weather. They were pursued by the French in every direction, and lost, what had of late been unusual, a great number of prisoners. Seven or eight thousand of the French were killed and wounded; but the loss of the allies was as great, while their prisoners, almost all Austrians, amounted to from 13,000 to 15,000. This is admitted by Boutourlin. The French carry the loss to 50,000, which is an obvious exaggeration; but half the number does not probably exceed the real extent of the loss. It is singular, however, that in such roads as have been described, the allies, out of more than one hundred guns which they brought into position, should have lost only twenty-six. It was, notwithstanding, a battle with important consequences, such as had not of late resulted from any of Napoleon's great victories.[275]It proved, indeed, the last favour of an unmixed character which Fortune reserved for her ancient favourite, and it had all the dazzling rapidity and resistless strength of an unexpected thunderbolt.Having seen this brilliant day to a close, Napoleon returned to Dresden on horseback, his grey capote and slouched hat streaming with water, while the indifferent appearance of his horse and furniture, his awkward seat and carriage, made a singular contrast with those of Murat, whose bearing as a horseman was inimitable, and whose battle-dress was always distinguished by its theatrical finery.[276]The venerable King of Saxony received his deliverer with rapture, for to him, personally, Buonaparte certainly was such, thoughconsidered by many of his subjects in a very different light. Napoleon behaved generously after the action, distributing money among the citizens of Dresden, who had suffered from the cannonade, and causing the greatest care to be taken of the wounded and prisoners belonging to the allies.The next morning this ever-vigilant spirit was again on horseback, directing his victorious troops in pursuit of the enemy. They were despatched in different columns, to pursue the allies on the broken roads by which they were compelled to retreat, and to allow them no rest nor refuge. No frame, even of iron, could have supported the fatigues of both mind and body to which Napoleon had subjected himself within the last three or four days. He was perpetually exposed to the storm, and had rarely taken rest or refreshment. He is also stated to have suffered from having eaten hastily some food of a coarse and indigestible quality.[277]Through one or other, or the whole of these causes combined, Napoleon became very much indisposed, and was prevailed upon to return in his carriage to Dresden, instead of remaining at Pirna, more close in the rear of his pursuing battalions, to direct their motions. The French officers, at least some of them, ascribe to this circumstance, as the primary cause, a great, critical, and most unexpected misfortune, which befell his arms at this time.VANDAMME.On the 29th of August, the French still continued to push their advantages. The King of Naples, Marmont, and St. Cyr, were each pressing upon the pursuit of the columns of the allies, to which they had been severally attached. A corps d'armée, of about 30,000 men, had been intrusted to the conduct of Vandamme, whose character as a general, for skill, determined bravery, and activity, was respected, while he was detested by the Germans on account of his rudeness and rapacity, and disliked by his comrades because of the ferocious obstinacy of his disposition.[278]With this man, who, not without some of the good qualities which distinguished Buonaparte's officers, presented even a caricature of the vices ascribed to them, the misfortunes of his master in this campaign were destined to commence.Vandamme had advanced as far as Peterswald, a small town in the Erzgebirge, or Bohemian mountains, forcing before him a column of Russians, feeble in number, but excellent in point ofcharacter and discipline, commanded by Count Ostermann, who were retreating upon Toplitz. This town was the point on which all the retiring, some of which might be almost termed the fugitive, divisions of the allies were directing their course. If Vandamme could have defeated Ostermann, and carried this place, he might have established himself, with his corps of 30,000 men, on the only road practicable for artillery, by which the allies could march to Prague; so that they must either have remained enclosed between his corps d'armée, and those of the other French generals who pressed on their rear, or else they must have abandoned their guns and baggage, and endeavoured to cross the mountains by such wild tracks as were used only by shepherds and peasants.It was on the 29th, in the morning, that, acting under so strong a temptation as we have mentioned, Vandamme had the temerity to descend the hill from Peterswald to the village of Culm, which is situated in a very deep valley betwixt that town and Toplitz. As he advanced towards Toplitz, it appeared that his plan was about to be crowned with success. The persons of the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia, the members of their Cabinet, and the whole depôt of the headquarters of the allies, seemed now within his clutch, and, already alarmed, his expected prey were beginning to attempt their escape in different directions. Vandamme seemed within a hand's grasp of the prize, for his operation, if complete, must have totally disorganised the allied army, and the French might perhaps have pursued them to the very gates of Prague, nay, of Vienna. The French advanced-guard was within half a league of Toplitz, when of a sudden Count Ostermann, who had hitherto retreated slowly, halted, like a wild-boar brought to bay, and commenced the most obstinate and inflexible resistance. His troops were few, but, as already said, of excellent quality, being a part of the Imperial Russian Guard, whom their commander gave to understand, that the safety of their father (as the Russians affectionately term the Emperor) depended upon their maintaining their ground. Never was the saying of Frederick II., that the Russians might be slain but not routed, more completely verified. They stood firm as a grove of pines opposed to the tempest, while Vandamme led down corps after corps, to support his furious and repeated attacks, until at length he had brought his very last reserves from the commanding ground of Peterswald, and accumulated them in the deep valley between Culm and Toplitz. The brave Ostermann had lost an arm in the action, and his grenadiers had suffered severely; but they had gained the time necessary. Barclay de Tolly, who now approached the scene of action, brought up the first columns of the Russians to their support; Schwartzenberg sent other succours; and Vandamme, in his turn, overpowered by numbers, retreated to Culm as night closed.Prudence would have recommended to the French to have continuedtheir retreat during the night to the heights of Peterswald; but, expecting probably the appearance of some of the French columns of pursuit, morning found Vandamme in the valley of Culm, where night had set upon him. In the meantime, still greater numbers of the allied corps, which were wandering through these mountain regions, repaired to the banners of Schwartzenberg and Barclay, and the attack was renewed upon the French column at break of day on the 30th, with a superiority of force with which it was fruitless to contend. Vandamme therefore disposed himself to retreat towards the heights of Peterswald, from which he had descended. But at this moment took place one of the most singular accidents which distinguished this eventful war.Among other corps d'armée of the allies, which were making their way through the mountains, to rally to the main body as they best could, was that of the Prussian General Kleist, who had evaded the pursuit of St. Cyr, by throwing himself into the wood of Schoenwald, out of which he debouched on the position of Peterswald, towards which Vandamme was making his retreat. While, therefore, Vandamme's retreating columns were ascending the heights, the ridge which they proposed to gain was seen suddenly occupied by the troops of Kleist, in such a state of disorder as announced they were escaped from some pressing scene of danger, or hurrying on to some hasty attack.When the Prussians came in sight of the French, they conceived that the latter were there for the purpose of cutting them off; and, instead of taking a position on the heights to intercept Vandamme, they determined, it would seem, to precipitate themselves down, break their way through his troops, and force themselves on to Toplitz. On the other hand, the French, seeing their way interrupted, formed the same conclusion with regard to Kleist's corps, which the Prussians had done concerning them; and each army being bent on making its way through that opposed to them, the Prussians rushed down the hill, while the French ascended it with a bravery of despair, that supplied the advantage of ground.SURRENDER OF VANDAMME.The two armies were thus hurled on each other like two conflicting mobs, enclosed in a deep and narrow road, forming the descent along the side of a mountain. The onset of the French horse, under Corbineau, was so desperate, that many or most of them broke through, although the acclivity against which they advanced would not, in other circumstances, have permitted them to ascend at a trot; and the guns of the Prussians were for a moment in the hands of the French, who slew many of the artillerymen. The Prussians, however, soon rallied, and the two struggling bodies again mixing together, fought less for the purpose of victory or slaughter, than to force their way through each other's ranks, and escape in opposite directions. All became for a time a mass of confusion, the Prussian generals finding themselvesin the middle of the French—the French officers in the centre of the Prussians. But the army of the Russians, who were in pursuit of Vandamme, appearing in his rear, put an end to this singular conflict. Generals Vandamme, Haxo, and Guyot, were made prisoners, with two eagles and 7000 prisoners, besides a great loss in killed and wounded, and the total dispersion of the army, many of whom, however, afterwards rejoined their eagles.[279]The victory of Culm, an event so unexpected and important in a military view, was beyond appreciation in the consequences which it produced upon the moral feelings of the allied troops. Before this most propitious event, they were retiring as a routed army, the officers and soldiers complaining of their generals, and their generals of each other. But now their note was entirely altered, and they could sing songs of triumph, and appeal to the train of guns and long columns of prisoners, in support of the victory which they claimed. The spirits of all were reconciled to the eager prosecution of the war, and the hopes of liberation spread wider and wider through Germany. The other French corps d'armée, on the contrary, fearful of committing themselves as Vandamme had done, paused on arriving at the verge of the Bohemian mountains, and followed no farther the advantages of the battle of Dresden. The King of Naples halted at Sayda, Marmont at Zinnwalde, and St. Cyr at Liebenau. The headquarters of the Emperor Alexander remained at Toplitz.Napoleon received the news of this calamity, however unexpected, with the imperturbable calmness which was one of his distinguishing qualities. General Corbineau, who commanded in the singular charge of the cavalry up the hill of Peterswald, presented himself before the Emperor in the condition in which he escaped from the field, covered with his own blood and that of the enemy, and holding in his hand a Prussian sabre, which, in the thick of the mêlée, he had exchanged for his own. Napoleon listened composedly to the details he had to give. "One should make a bridge of gold for a flying enemy," he said, "where it is impossible, as in Vandamme's case, to oppose to him a bulwark of steel." He then anxiously examined the instructions to Vandamme, to discover if any thing had inadvertently slipped in to them, to encourage the false step which that general had taken. But nothing was found which could justify or authorise his advancing beyond Peterswald, although the chance of possessing himself of Toplitz must have been acknowledged as a strong temptation."This is the fate of war," said Buonaparte, turning to Murat. "Exalted in the morning, low enough before night. There is but one step between triumph and ruin." He then fixed his eyes onthe map which lay before him, took his compass, and repeated in a reverie, the following verses:—"J'ai servi, commandé, vaincu quarante années;Du monde, entre mes mains, j'ai vu les destinées,Et j'ai toujours connu qu'en chaque événementLe destin des états dependait d'un moment."

Amount and distribution of the French Army at the resumption of Hostilities—of the Armies of the Allies—Plan of the Campaign on both sides—Return of Moreau from America, to join the Allies—Attack on Dresden by the Allies on 26th August—Napoleon arrives to its succour—Battle continued on the 27th—Death of General Moreau—Defeat and Retreat of the Allies, with great loss—Napoleon returns from the pursuit to Dresden, indisposed—Vandamme attacks the Allies at Culm—is driven back towards Peterswald—Conflict on the heights of Peterswald—Vandamme is Defeated and made prisoner—Effects of the victory of Culm, on the Allies—and on Napoleon.

Amount and distribution of the French Army at the resumption of Hostilities—of the Armies of the Allies—Plan of the Campaign on both sides—Return of Moreau from America, to join the Allies—Attack on Dresden by the Allies on 26th August—Napoleon arrives to its succour—Battle continued on the 27th—Death of General Moreau—Defeat and Retreat of the Allies, with great loss—Napoleon returns from the pursuit to Dresden, indisposed—Vandamme attacks the Allies at Culm—is driven back towards Peterswald—Conflict on the heights of Peterswald—Vandamme is Defeated and made prisoner—Effects of the victory of Culm, on the Allies—and on Napoleon.

At no period during the armistice had the hopes of peace been so probable, as to suspend for a moment the most active preparations for war.

Napoleon, determined, as we have already seen, to render Dresden the centre of his operations, had exerted the utmost industry in converting that beautiful capital into a species of citadel. All the trees in the neighbourhood, including those which so much adorned the public gardens and walks, had been cut down, and employed in the construction of a chain of redoubts and field-works, secured by fosses and palisades, which were calculated to render the city very defensible. But, besides Dresden itself, with the neighbouring mountain-fortresses, the French Emperor possessed as strongly fortified places, Torgau, Wittenberg, Magdeburg, and others on the Elbe, which secured him the possession of the rich and beautiful valley of that river. He had established an intrenched camp at the celebrated position of Pirna, and thrown a bridge of boats over the Elbe, near Kœnigstein, for the purpose of maintaining a communication betwixt that mountain-fortress and the fort of Stolpen. This showed Napoleon's apprehension of an attack from the mountains of Bohemia,behind which the Austrians had been assembling their army. In this destined battle-ground, Napoleon assembled the young conscripts, who continued to pour from the French frontier; and who, by a singularly ingenious species of combination, were learning the duties of their new condition, even while, with arms in their hands for the first time, they were marching to the field of action.[273]

DISTRIBUTION OF THE ARMY.

In the beginning of August, Napoleon had assembled about 250,000 men in Saxony and Silesia. This great force was stationed so as best to confront the enemy on the points where they had assembled their troops. At Leipsic, there were collected 60,000 men, under command of Oudinot. At Loewenberg, Goldberg, Bantzlau, and other towns on the borders of Silesia, were 100,000 men, commanded by Macdonald. Another army of 50,000 were quartered in Lusatia, near Zittau. St. Cyr, with 20,000, was stationed near Pirna, to observe the mountains of Bohemia, and the passes through which the Elbe discharges its waters upon Saxony. In Dresden the Emperor himself lay with his guard, amounting to 25,000 men, the flower of his army. Besides these hosts, Buonaparte had a considerable army in Italy under the Viceroy Eugene; and 25,000 Bavarians were assembled as an army of reserve, under General Wrede. Almost all his old lieutenants, who had fought, and won so often in his cause, were summoned to attend this important war; and even Murat, who had been on indifferent terms with his relative, came anew from his beautiful capital of Naples, to enjoy the pleasure of wielding his sabre against his old friends the Cossacks.

The preparations of the allies were upon a scale equally ample. The accession of the Austrians had placed at disposal in Bohemia 120,000 men, to whom the allies joined 80,000 Russians and Prussians, which brought the whole force to 200,000 men. Schwartzenberg had been selected to command this, which was called the grand army of the allies—a judicious choice, not only as a fitting compliment to the Emperor of Austria, who had joined the confederacy at so critical a moment, but on account of Schwartzenberg's military talents, his excellent sound sense, penetration, good-humour, and placidity of temper; qualities essential in every general, but especially in him upon whom reposes the delicate duty of commanding an army composed of different nations. This large host lay in and about Prague, and, concealed by the chain of hills called the Erzgebirge, was readyto rush into Saxony as soon as an opportunity should offer of surprising Dresden.

The other moiety of the original invading army amounting to 80,000, consisting of Russians and Prussians, called the army of Silesia, and commanded by Blucher, defended the frontier of that country, and the road to Breslau. Nearer the gates of Berlin was the Crown Prince of Sweden, with an army consisting of 30,000 Swedes, and about 60,000 Prussians and Russians; the former being the corps of Bulow and Tauenzein, the latter those of Winzengerode and Woronzoff. Besides these armies, Walmoden, with a force consisting of 30,000 Russians, Prussians, and insurgent Germans, was at Schwerin, in the duchy of Mecklenberg; Hiller, with 40,000 Austrians, watched the Italian army of the Viceroy; and the Prince of Reuss confronted the Bavarian troops with an army equal in strength to Wrede's own.

The allies had agreed upon a plan of operations equally cautious and effective. It is believed to have been originally sketched by the Crown Prince of Sweden, and afterwards revised and approved by the celebrated Moreau. That renowned French general had been induced, by the complexion of matters in Europe, and the invitation of Russia, to leave America, join the camp of the allies, and bring all the knowledge of the art of war, for which he was so famous, to enlighten their military councils. His conduct in thus passing over to the camp of France's enemies, has been ably defended by some as the act of a patriot who desired to destroy the despotism which had been established in his country, while others have censured him for arming against his native land, in revenge for unworthy usage which he had received from its ruler. Much of the justice of the case must rest upon what we cannot know—the purpose, namely, of Moreau, in case of ultimate success. He certainly had not, as Bernadotte might plead, acquired such rights in, and such obligations to another country, as to supersede the natural claims of his birth-place. Yet he might be justified in the eye of patriotism, if his ultimate object really was to restore France to a rational degree of liberty, under a regulated government; and such it is stated to have been. Any purpose short of this must leave him guilty of the charge of having sacrificed his duty to his country to his private revenge. He was, however, highly honoured by the Emperor of Russia in particular; and his presence was justly considered as a great accession to the council of war of the allies.

So many men of talent, and two of them masters of the French tactics, had no difficulty in divining the mode in which Buonaparte meant to conduct the present campaign. They easily saw that he intended to join his strong and effective reserve of the Guard to any of the armies placed on the frontier of Saxony, where a point of attack presented itself; and thus advance upon, overpower, and destroy the enemy whom he should find in front, as the hunted tiger springs upon the victim which he has selectedout of the circle of hunters, who surround him with protended spears. To meet this mode of attack, which might otherwise have been the means of the allied armies being defeated successively and in detail, it was resolved that the general against whom Buonaparte's first effort should be directed, should on no account accept of the proffered battle, but, withdrawing his troops before the Emperor, should decoy him as far as possible in pursuit, while at the same time the other armies of the allies should advance upon his rear, destroy his communications, and finally effect their purpose of closing round him in every direction.

DRESDEN.

The grand army, commanded by Schwartzenberg, was particularly directed to this latter task, because, while it would have been dangerous in Napoleon on that point to have sought them out by storming the mountain-passes of Bohemia, nothing could be more easy for Schwartzenberg than to rush down upon Dresden when Buonaparte should leave that city uncovered, for however short an interval.

Blucher was the first who, advancing from Silesia, and menacing the armies of Macdonald and Ney, induced Buonaparte to march to join them with his Guard, and with a great body of cavalry commanded by Latour Maubourg. He left Dresden on the 15th August; he threw bridges over the Bober, and advanced with rapidity, bringing forward Macdonald's division in aid of his own force. But the Prussian general was faithful to the plan laid down. He made an admirable retreat across the Katzbach, admitting the French to nothing but skirmishes, in which the allies had some advantage. Finally, he established himself in a position on the river Niesse, near Jauer, so as to cover Silesia and its capital.

On the 21st August, Napoleon learned the interesting news, that while he was pressing forward on the retreating Prussians, Dresden was in the utmost danger of being taken. His guards had instant orders to return to Saxony. He himself set out early on the 23d. It was full time; for Schwartzenberg, with whom came the Sovereigns of Russia and Prussia, as well as General Moreau, had descended from Bohemia, and, concentrating their grand army on the left bank of the Elbe, were already approaching the walls of Dresden, Napoleon's point of support, and the pivot of his operations. Leaving, therefore, to Macdonald the task of controlling Blucher, the Emperor set out with the élite of his army; yet, with all the speed he could exert, very nearly came too late to save the object of his solicitude.

General St. Cyr, who had been left with about 20,000 men to observe the Bohemian passes, was in no condition to make a stand, when they poured out upon him six or seven times his own number. He threw himself with his troops into Dresden, in hopes, by means of its recent fortifications, to defend it until the arrival of Napoleon. The allies having found little resistance on their march, displayed their huge army before the city, divided intofour columns, about four o'clock on the 25th August, and instantly commenced the assault. If they should be able to take Dresden before it could be relieved by Buonaparte, the war might be considered as nearly ended, since they would in that case obtain complete command of his line of communication with France, and had at their mercy his recruits and supplies of every kind.

The scheme of attack was excellently laid, but the allied generals did not pursue it with the necessary activity. The signal for onset should have been given instantly, yet they paused for the arrival of Klenau, with an additional corps d'armée, and the assault was postponed until next morning.

On the 26th, at break of day, the allies advanced in six columns, under a tremendous fire. They carried a great redoubt near the city-gate of Dippoldiswalde, and soon after another; they closed on the French on every point; the bombs and balls began to fall thick on the streets and houses of the terrified city; and in engaging all his reserves, St. Cyr, whose conduct was heroical, felt he had yet too few men to defend works of such extent. It was at this crisis, while all thought a surrender was inevitable, that columns, rushing forward with the rapidity of a torrent, were seen advancing on Dresden from the right side of the Elbe, sweeping over its magnificent bridges, and pressing through the streets, to engage in the defence of the almost overpowered city. The Child of Destiny himself was beheld amidst his soldiers, who, far from exhibiting fatigue, notwithstanding a severe forced march from the frontiers of Silesia, demanded, with loud cries, to be led into immediate battle. Napoleon halted to reassure the King of Saxony, who was apprehensive of the destruction of his capital, while his troops, marching through the city, halted on the western side, at those avenues, from which it was designed they should debouche upon the enemy.

Two sallies were then made under Napoleon's eye, by Ney and Mortier. The one column, pouring from the gate of Plauen, attacked the allies on the left flank; the others, issuing from that of Pirna, assailed their right. The Prussians were dislodged from an open space, called the Great Garden, which covered their advance upon the ramparts; and the war began already to change its face, the allies drawing off from the points they had attacked so fiercely, where they found them secured by these unexpected defenders. They remained, however, in front of each other, the sentinels on each side being in close vicinity, until next morning.

On the 27th of August, the battle was renewed under torrents of rain, and amid a tempest of wind. Napoleon, manœuvring with excellence altogether his own, caused his troops, now increased by concentration to nearly 200,000 men, to file out from the city upon different points, the several columns diverging from each other like the sticks of a fan when it is expanded; and thus directed them upon such points as seemed most assailable along the allies' whole position, which occupied the heights from Plauento Strehlen. In this manner, his plan assisted by the stormy weather, which served to conceal his movements, he commenced an attack upon both flanks of the enemy. On the left he obtained an advantage, from a large interval left in the allied line, to receive the division of Klenau, who were in the act of coming up, but exhausted with fatigue and bad weather, and their muskets rendered almost unserviceable. In the meanwhile, as a heavy cannonade was continued on both sides, Napoleon observed one of the batteries of the Young Guard slacken its fire. General Gourgaud, sent to inquire the cause, brought information that the guns were placed too low to reply with advantage to the enemy's fire from the high ground, and that the balls from the French battery were most of them lost in the earth. "Fire on, nevertheless," was the Emperor's reply; "we must occupy the attention of the enemy on that point."

The fire was resumed, and from an extraordinary movement amongst the troops on the hill, the French became aware that some person of high rank had been struck down. Napoleon supposed that the sufferer must be Schwartzenberg. He paid him a tribute of regret, and added, with the sort of superstition peculiar to his mind, "He, then, was the victim whom the fatal fire at the ball indicated?[274]I always regarded it as a presage—it is now plain whom it concerned."

DEATH OF MOREAU.

Next morning, however, a peasant brought to Napoleon more precise accounts. The officer of distinction had both legs shattered by the fatal bullet—he was transported from the field on a bier composed of lances—the Emperor of Russia and King of Prussia had expressed the greatest sorrow and solicitude. The man ended this account by bringing the fallen officer's dog, a greyhound, whose collar bore the name of Moreau. This great general died a few days afterwards, having suffered amputation of the wounded limbs, which he bore with great fortitude. His talents and personal worth were undisputed, and those who, more bold than we are, shall decide that his conduct in one instance too much resembled that of Coriolanus and the Constable of Bourbon, must yet allow that the fault, like that of those great men, was atoned for by an early and a violent death.

Moreau is said to have formed the plan on which the attack on Dresden was conducted. His death must therefore have disconcerted it. But besides this, the allies had calculated upon Buonaparte's absence, and upon the place being slightly defended. They were disappointed in both respects; and his sudden arrival at the head of a choice, if not a numerous army, had entirely changed the nature of the combat. They had become defenders at the very time when they reckoned on being assailants; and their troops, particularly the Austrians, who had in former wars received such dreadful cause to recollect the name of Napoleon,were discouraged. Even if they repelled the French into Dresden, they had provided no magazines of support in front of it, should the allied army be designed to remain there. Jomini, the celebrated Swiss engineer, who had exchanged, some short time before, the service of Napoleon for that of the Emperor Alexander, proposed the daring plan of changing the front of the army during the action, and attacking in force the left of the French, which might have turned the fortune of the day. But the experiment was thought, with some justice, too perilous to be attempted, with a discouraged and disordered army. A retreat was, therefore, resolved upon, and, owing to the weather, the state of the roads, and the close pursuit of the French, it was a disastrous one. The successful operations of the French had established the King of Naples on the western road to Bohemia, by Freyberg; and Vandamme, with a strong division, blocked up that which led directly southward up the Elbe, by Pirna.

The two principal roads being thus closed against Schwartzenberg and his army, nothing remained for them but to retreat through the interval between these highways by such country paths as they could find, which, bad in themselves, had been rendered almost impassable by the weather. They were pursued by the French in every direction, and lost, what had of late been unusual, a great number of prisoners. Seven or eight thousand of the French were killed and wounded; but the loss of the allies was as great, while their prisoners, almost all Austrians, amounted to from 13,000 to 15,000. This is admitted by Boutourlin. The French carry the loss to 50,000, which is an obvious exaggeration; but half the number does not probably exceed the real extent of the loss. It is singular, however, that in such roads as have been described, the allies, out of more than one hundred guns which they brought into position, should have lost only twenty-six. It was, notwithstanding, a battle with important consequences, such as had not of late resulted from any of Napoleon's great victories.[275]It proved, indeed, the last favour of an unmixed character which Fortune reserved for her ancient favourite, and it had all the dazzling rapidity and resistless strength of an unexpected thunderbolt.

Having seen this brilliant day to a close, Napoleon returned to Dresden on horseback, his grey capote and slouched hat streaming with water, while the indifferent appearance of his horse and furniture, his awkward seat and carriage, made a singular contrast with those of Murat, whose bearing as a horseman was inimitable, and whose battle-dress was always distinguished by its theatrical finery.[276]

The venerable King of Saxony received his deliverer with rapture, for to him, personally, Buonaparte certainly was such, thoughconsidered by many of his subjects in a very different light. Napoleon behaved generously after the action, distributing money among the citizens of Dresden, who had suffered from the cannonade, and causing the greatest care to be taken of the wounded and prisoners belonging to the allies.

The next morning this ever-vigilant spirit was again on horseback, directing his victorious troops in pursuit of the enemy. They were despatched in different columns, to pursue the allies on the broken roads by which they were compelled to retreat, and to allow them no rest nor refuge. No frame, even of iron, could have supported the fatigues of both mind and body to which Napoleon had subjected himself within the last three or four days. He was perpetually exposed to the storm, and had rarely taken rest or refreshment. He is also stated to have suffered from having eaten hastily some food of a coarse and indigestible quality.[277]Through one or other, or the whole of these causes combined, Napoleon became very much indisposed, and was prevailed upon to return in his carriage to Dresden, instead of remaining at Pirna, more close in the rear of his pursuing battalions, to direct their motions. The French officers, at least some of them, ascribe to this circumstance, as the primary cause, a great, critical, and most unexpected misfortune, which befell his arms at this time.

VANDAMME.

On the 29th of August, the French still continued to push their advantages. The King of Naples, Marmont, and St. Cyr, were each pressing upon the pursuit of the columns of the allies, to which they had been severally attached. A corps d'armée, of about 30,000 men, had been intrusted to the conduct of Vandamme, whose character as a general, for skill, determined bravery, and activity, was respected, while he was detested by the Germans on account of his rudeness and rapacity, and disliked by his comrades because of the ferocious obstinacy of his disposition.[278]With this man, who, not without some of the good qualities which distinguished Buonaparte's officers, presented even a caricature of the vices ascribed to them, the misfortunes of his master in this campaign were destined to commence.

Vandamme had advanced as far as Peterswald, a small town in the Erzgebirge, or Bohemian mountains, forcing before him a column of Russians, feeble in number, but excellent in point ofcharacter and discipline, commanded by Count Ostermann, who were retreating upon Toplitz. This town was the point on which all the retiring, some of which might be almost termed the fugitive, divisions of the allies were directing their course. If Vandamme could have defeated Ostermann, and carried this place, he might have established himself, with his corps of 30,000 men, on the only road practicable for artillery, by which the allies could march to Prague; so that they must either have remained enclosed between his corps d'armée, and those of the other French generals who pressed on their rear, or else they must have abandoned their guns and baggage, and endeavoured to cross the mountains by such wild tracks as were used only by shepherds and peasants.

It was on the 29th, in the morning, that, acting under so strong a temptation as we have mentioned, Vandamme had the temerity to descend the hill from Peterswald to the village of Culm, which is situated in a very deep valley betwixt that town and Toplitz. As he advanced towards Toplitz, it appeared that his plan was about to be crowned with success. The persons of the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia, the members of their Cabinet, and the whole depôt of the headquarters of the allies, seemed now within his clutch, and, already alarmed, his expected prey were beginning to attempt their escape in different directions. Vandamme seemed within a hand's grasp of the prize, for his operation, if complete, must have totally disorganised the allied army, and the French might perhaps have pursued them to the very gates of Prague, nay, of Vienna. The French advanced-guard was within half a league of Toplitz, when of a sudden Count Ostermann, who had hitherto retreated slowly, halted, like a wild-boar brought to bay, and commenced the most obstinate and inflexible resistance. His troops were few, but, as already said, of excellent quality, being a part of the Imperial Russian Guard, whom their commander gave to understand, that the safety of their father (as the Russians affectionately term the Emperor) depended upon their maintaining their ground. Never was the saying of Frederick II., that the Russians might be slain but not routed, more completely verified. They stood firm as a grove of pines opposed to the tempest, while Vandamme led down corps after corps, to support his furious and repeated attacks, until at length he had brought his very last reserves from the commanding ground of Peterswald, and accumulated them in the deep valley between Culm and Toplitz. The brave Ostermann had lost an arm in the action, and his grenadiers had suffered severely; but they had gained the time necessary. Barclay de Tolly, who now approached the scene of action, brought up the first columns of the Russians to their support; Schwartzenberg sent other succours; and Vandamme, in his turn, overpowered by numbers, retreated to Culm as night closed.

Prudence would have recommended to the French to have continuedtheir retreat during the night to the heights of Peterswald; but, expecting probably the appearance of some of the French columns of pursuit, morning found Vandamme in the valley of Culm, where night had set upon him. In the meantime, still greater numbers of the allied corps, which were wandering through these mountain regions, repaired to the banners of Schwartzenberg and Barclay, and the attack was renewed upon the French column at break of day on the 30th, with a superiority of force with which it was fruitless to contend. Vandamme therefore disposed himself to retreat towards the heights of Peterswald, from which he had descended. But at this moment took place one of the most singular accidents which distinguished this eventful war.

Among other corps d'armée of the allies, which were making their way through the mountains, to rally to the main body as they best could, was that of the Prussian General Kleist, who had evaded the pursuit of St. Cyr, by throwing himself into the wood of Schoenwald, out of which he debouched on the position of Peterswald, towards which Vandamme was making his retreat. While, therefore, Vandamme's retreating columns were ascending the heights, the ridge which they proposed to gain was seen suddenly occupied by the troops of Kleist, in such a state of disorder as announced they were escaped from some pressing scene of danger, or hurrying on to some hasty attack.

When the Prussians came in sight of the French, they conceived that the latter were there for the purpose of cutting them off; and, instead of taking a position on the heights to intercept Vandamme, they determined, it would seem, to precipitate themselves down, break their way through his troops, and force themselves on to Toplitz. On the other hand, the French, seeing their way interrupted, formed the same conclusion with regard to Kleist's corps, which the Prussians had done concerning them; and each army being bent on making its way through that opposed to them, the Prussians rushed down the hill, while the French ascended it with a bravery of despair, that supplied the advantage of ground.

SURRENDER OF VANDAMME.

The two armies were thus hurled on each other like two conflicting mobs, enclosed in a deep and narrow road, forming the descent along the side of a mountain. The onset of the French horse, under Corbineau, was so desperate, that many or most of them broke through, although the acclivity against which they advanced would not, in other circumstances, have permitted them to ascend at a trot; and the guns of the Prussians were for a moment in the hands of the French, who slew many of the artillerymen. The Prussians, however, soon rallied, and the two struggling bodies again mixing together, fought less for the purpose of victory or slaughter, than to force their way through each other's ranks, and escape in opposite directions. All became for a time a mass of confusion, the Prussian generals finding themselvesin the middle of the French—the French officers in the centre of the Prussians. But the army of the Russians, who were in pursuit of Vandamme, appearing in his rear, put an end to this singular conflict. Generals Vandamme, Haxo, and Guyot, were made prisoners, with two eagles and 7000 prisoners, besides a great loss in killed and wounded, and the total dispersion of the army, many of whom, however, afterwards rejoined their eagles.[279]

The victory of Culm, an event so unexpected and important in a military view, was beyond appreciation in the consequences which it produced upon the moral feelings of the allied troops. Before this most propitious event, they were retiring as a routed army, the officers and soldiers complaining of their generals, and their generals of each other. But now their note was entirely altered, and they could sing songs of triumph, and appeal to the train of guns and long columns of prisoners, in support of the victory which they claimed. The spirits of all were reconciled to the eager prosecution of the war, and the hopes of liberation spread wider and wider through Germany. The other French corps d'armée, on the contrary, fearful of committing themselves as Vandamme had done, paused on arriving at the verge of the Bohemian mountains, and followed no farther the advantages of the battle of Dresden. The King of Naples halted at Sayda, Marmont at Zinnwalde, and St. Cyr at Liebenau. The headquarters of the Emperor Alexander remained at Toplitz.

Napoleon received the news of this calamity, however unexpected, with the imperturbable calmness which was one of his distinguishing qualities. General Corbineau, who commanded in the singular charge of the cavalry up the hill of Peterswald, presented himself before the Emperor in the condition in which he escaped from the field, covered with his own blood and that of the enemy, and holding in his hand a Prussian sabre, which, in the thick of the mêlée, he had exchanged for his own. Napoleon listened composedly to the details he had to give. "One should make a bridge of gold for a flying enemy," he said, "where it is impossible, as in Vandamme's case, to oppose to him a bulwark of steel." He then anxiously examined the instructions to Vandamme, to discover if any thing had inadvertently slipped in to them, to encourage the false step which that general had taken. But nothing was found which could justify or authorise his advancing beyond Peterswald, although the chance of possessing himself of Toplitz must have been acknowledged as a strong temptation.

"This is the fate of war," said Buonaparte, turning to Murat. "Exalted in the morning, low enough before night. There is but one step between triumph and ruin." He then fixed his eyes onthe map which lay before him, took his compass, and repeated in a reverie, the following verses:—

"J'ai servi, commandé, vaincu quarante années;Du monde, entre mes mains, j'ai vu les destinées,Et j'ai toujours connu qu'en chaque événementLe destin des états dependait d'un moment."

"J'ai servi, commandé, vaincu quarante années;Du monde, entre mes mains, j'ai vu les destinées,Et j'ai toujours connu qu'en chaque événementLe destin des états dependait d'un moment."

CHAPTER LXIX.Military Proceedings in the north of Germany—Luckau submits to the Crown Prince of Sweden—Battles of Gross-Beeren and Katzbach—Operations of Ney upon Berlin—He is defeated at Dennewitz on the 6th September—Difficult and embarrassing situation of Napoleon—He abandons all the right side of the Elbe to the Allies—Operations of the Allies in order to effect a junction—Counter-exertions of Napoleon—The French Generals averse to continuing the War in Germany—Dissensions betwixt them and the Emperor—Napoleon at length resolves to retreat upon Leipsic.The advices which arrived at Dresden from the north of Germany, were no balm to the bad tidings from Bohemia. We must necessarily treat with brevity the high deeds of arms performed at a considerable distance from Napoleon's person, great as was their influence upon his fortunes.BERLIN.Maréchal Blucher, it will be remembered, retreated across the river Katzbach, to avoid the engagement which the Emperor of France endeavoured to press upon him. The Crown Prince of Sweden, on the other hand, had his headquarters at Potsdam. Napoleon, when departing to succour Dresden, on the 21st of August, left orders for Oudinot to advance on Berlin, and for Macdonald to march upon Breslau, trusting that the former had force enough to conquer the Crown Prince, the latter to defeat Blucher.Oudinot began to move on Berlin by the road of Wittenberg, on the very day when he received the orders. On the other hand, the Crown Prince of Sweden, concentrating his troops, opposed to the French general a total force of more than 80,000 men, drawn up for the protection of Berlin. The sight of that fair city, with its towers and steeples, determined Oudinot to try his fortune with his ancient comrade in arms. After a good deal of skirmishing, the two armies came to a more serious battle on the 23d August, in which General Regnier distinguished himself. He commanded a corps which formed the centre of Oudinot's army, at the head of which he made himself master of the village of Gross-Beeren, which was within a short distance of the centre of the allies. The Prussian general, Bulow, advanced to recover this important post, and with the assistance of Borstal, who attacked the flank of the enemy, he succeeded in pushing his columns intothe village. A heavy rain having prevented the muskets from being serviceable, Gross-Beeren was disputed with the bayonet. Yet, towards nightfall, the two French divisions of Fournier and Guilleminot again attacked the village, took it, and remained in it till the morning. But this did not re-establish the battle, for Regnier having lost 1500 men and eight guns, Oudinot determined on a general retreat, which he conducted in the face of the enemy with great deliberation. The Crown Prince obtained other trophies; Luckau, with a garrison of a thousand French, submitted to his arms on 28th August.[280]Besides these severe checks on the Prussian frontier, General Girard, in another quarter, had sustained a defeat of some consequence. He had sallied from the garrison of Magdeburg, after the battle of Gross-Beeren, with five or six thousand men. He was encouraged to this movement by the removal of the blockading brigade of Herschberg, who, in obedience to orders, had joined the Crown Prince to oppose the advance of Oudinot. But, after the battle of Gross-Beeren, as the Prussian brigade was returning to renew the blockade of Magdeburg, they encountered Girard and his division near Leitzkau, on 27th August. The French were at first successful, but Czernicheff having thrown himself on them with a large body of Cossacks, Girard's troops gave way, losing six cannons, fifteen hundred prisoners, and all their baggage.During this active period, war had been no less busy on the frontiers of Silesia than on those of Bohemia and Brandenburg. Maréchal Macdonald, as already mentioned, had received orders from Napoleon to attack Blucher and his Prussians, who had retired beyond the Katzbach, and occupied a position near a town called Jauer. In obedience to this order, the maréchal had sent General Lauriston, who commanded his right wing, to occupy a position in front of Goldberg, with orders to despatch a part of his division under General Puthod, to march upon Jauer, by the circuitous route of Schonau. The eleventh corps, which formed the centre of Macdonald's force, crossed the Katzbach at break of day, under his own command, and advanced towards Jauer, up the side of a torrent called the Wuthende (i. e.raging) Niesse. The third corps, under Souham, destined to form the left wing, was to pass the Katzbach near Liegnitz, and then moving southward, were to come upon the maréchal's left. With this left wing marched the cavalry, under Sebastiani.[281]KATZBACH—SUCCESSES OF THE ALLIES.It chanced that, on this very 26th of August, Blucher, aware that Buonaparte was engaged at Dresden by the descent of the allies from Bohemia, thought it a good time to seek out his opponent and fight him. For this purpose, he was in the act of descending the river in order to encounter Macdonald, when themaréchal, on his part, was ascending it, expecting to find him in his position near Jauer.The stormy weather, so often referred to, with mist and heavy rain, concealed from each other the movements of the two armies, until they met in the fields. They encountered in the plains which extend between Wahlstadt and the Katzbach, but under circumstances highly unfavourable to the French maréchal. His right wing was divided from his centre; Lauriston being at Goldberg, and fiercely engaged with the Russian General Langeron, with whom he had come into contact in the front of that town; and Puthod at a much greater distance from the field of battle. Macdonald's left wing, with the cavalry, was also far in the rear. Blucher allowed no leisure for the junction of these forces. His own cavalry being all in front, and ready for action, charged the French without permitting them leisure to get into position; and when they did, their right wing indeed rested on the Wuthende-Niesse, but the left, which should have been covered by Sebastiani's cavalry, was altogether unsupported.Message on message was sent to hasten up the left wing; but a singular fatality prevented both the cavalry and infantry from arriving in time. Different lines of advance had been pointed out to Souham and Sebastiani; but Souham, hearing the firing, and impatient to place himself on the road which he thought likely to lead him most speedily into action, unluckily adopted that which was appointed for the cavalry. Thus 5000 horse, and five times the number of infantry, being thrown at once on the same line of march, soon confused and embarrassed each other's motions, especially in passing the streets of a village called Kroitsch, a long and narrow defile, which the troops presently crowded to such a degree with foot and horse, baggage and guns, that there was a total impossibility of effecting a passage.Macdonald, in the meanwhile, supported his high reputation by the gallantry of his resistance, though charged on the left flank, which these mistakes had left uncovered, by four regiments of cavalry, and by General Karpoff, with a whole cloud of Cossacks. But at length the day was decidedly lost. The French line gave way, and falling back on the Wuthende-Niesse, now doubly raging from torrents of rain, and upon the Katzbach, they lost a great number of men. As a last resource, Macdonald put himself at the head of the troops, who were at length debouching from the defile of Kroitsch; but they were driven back with great slaughter, and the skirmish in that quarter concluded the battle, with much loss to the French.The evil did not rest here. Lauriston being also under the necessity of retreating across the Katzbach, while Puthod, who had been detached towards Schonau, was left on the right-hand side of that river, this corps was speedily attacked by the enemy, and all who were not killed or taken remained prisoners. The army which Buonaparte destined to act in Silesia, and take Breslau,was, therefore, for the present, completely disabled. The French are admitted to have lost 15,000 men, and more than a hundred guns.Though the battles of Gross-Beeren and Katzbach were severe blows to Buonaparte's plan of maintaining himself on the Elbe, he continued obstinate in his determination to keep his ground, with Dresden as his central point of support, and attempted to turn the bad fortune which seemed to haunt his lieutenants (but which in fact arose from their being obliged to attempt great achievements with inadequate means,) by appointing Ney to the command of the Northern army, with strict injunctions to plant his eagles on the walls of Berlin. Accordingly, on the 6th September, Ney took charge of the army which Oudinot had formerly commanded, and which was lying under the walls of Wittenberg, and, in obedience to the Emperor's orders, determined to advance on the Prussian capital. The enemy (being the army commanded by the Crown Prince) lay rather dispersed upon the grounds more to the east, occupying Juterbock, Belzig, and other villages. Ney was desirous to avoid approaching the quarters of any of them, or to give the least alarm. That maréchal's object was to leave them on the left, and, evading any encounter with the Crown Prince, to throw his force on the road from Torgua to Berlin, and enter into communication with any troops which Buonaparte might despatch from Dresden upon the same point.On examining the plan more closely, it was found to comprehend the danger of rousing the Prince of Sweden and his army upon one point, and that was at Dennewitz, the most southern village held by the allies. It was occupied by Tauentzein with a large force, and could not be passed without the alarm being given. Dennewitz might, however, be masked by a sufficient body of troops, under screen of which the maréchal and his main body might push forward to Dahme, without risking an engagement. It was concluded, that the rapidity of their motions would be so great as to leave no time for the Crown Prince to concentrate his forces for interrupting them.DENNEWITZ.On the 5th, Ney marched from Wittenberg. On the 6th, the division of Bertrand, destined to mask Dennewitz, formed the left flank of the army. When they approached the village, Tauentzein, who commanded there, took the alarm, and drew up between Dennewitz and the French division. If Bertrand had only had to maintain himself for a short interval in that dangerous position, it would have been well, and he might have made head against Tauentzein, till the last file of Ney's army had passed by; but by some miscalculation (which began to be more common now than formerly among the French officers of the staff,) the corps of Bertrand was appointed to march at seven in the morning, while the corps which were to be protected by him did not move till three hours later. Bertrand was thus detained so long in face of the enemy, that his demonstration was converted into an action,his false attack into a real skirmish. Presently after the battle became sharp and serious, and the corps on both sides advancing to sustain them were engaged. Bulow came to support Tauentzein—Regnier advanced to repel Bulow—Guilleminot hastened up on the French side—and Borstel came to support the Russians. However unpremeditated, the battle became general, as if by common consent.The Prussians suffered heavily from the French artillery, but without giving way. The Swedes and Russians at length came up, and the line of Ney began to yield ground. That general, who had hardly, though all his forces were engaged, made his post good against the Russians alone, despaired of success when he saw these new enemies appear. He began to retreat; and his first movement in that direction was a signal of flight to the 7th corps, composed chiefly of Saxons not over well inclined to the cause of Napoleon, and who therefore made it no point of honour to fight to the death in his cause. A huge blank was created in the French line by their flight; and the cavalry of the allies rushing in at the gap, the army of Ney was cut into two parts; one of which pushed forwards to Dahme with the maréchal himself; the other, with Oudinot, retreated upon Scharnitz. Ney afterwards accomplished his retreat on Torgau. But the battle of Dennewitz had cost him 10,000 men, forty-three pieces of cannon, and abundance of warlike trophies, relinquished to the adversary, besides the total disappointment of his object in marching towards Berlin.[282]These repeated defeats, of Gross-Beeren, Katzbach, and Dennewitz, seemed to intimate that the French were no longer the invincibles they had once been esteemed; or at least, that when they yet worked miracles, it was only when Buonaparte was at their head. Others saw the matter in a different point of view. They said that formerly, when means were plenty with Buonaparte, he took care that his lieutenants were supplied with forces adequate to the purposes on which they were to be employed. But it was surmised that now he kept the guard and theéliteof his forces under his own immediate command, and expected his lieutenants to be as successful with few and raw troops as they had formerly been with numbers, and veterans. It cannot, however, be said that he saved his own exertions; for during the month of September, while he persisted in maintaining the war in Saxony, although no affair of consequence took place, yet a series of active measures showed how anxious he was to bring the war to a decision under his own eye.[283]In perusing the brief abstract of movements which follows, the reader will remember, that it was the purpose of Buonaparte to bring the allies to a battle on some point, where, by superior numbers or superior skill, he might obtain a distinguished victory;while, on the other hand, it was the policy of the allies, dreading at once his talents and his despair, to avoid a general action; to lay waste the ground around the points he occupied; restrict his communications; raise Germany in arms around him; and finally, to encompass and hem him in when his ranks were grown thin, and the spirit of his soldiers diminished. Keeping these objects in his eye, the reader, with a single glance at the map, will conceive the meaning of the following movements on either side.Having deputed to Ney, as we have just seen, the task of checking the progress of the Crown Prince, and taking Berlin if possible, Buonaparte started in person from Dresden on the 3d September, in hopes of fetching a blow at Blucher, whose Cossacks, since the battle of the Katzbach, had advanced eastward, and intercepted a convoy even near Bautzen. But agreeably to the plan adopted at the general headquarters of the allies, the Prussian veteran fell back and avoided a battle. Meanwhile, Napoleon was recalled towards Dresden by the news of the defeat of Ney at Dennewitz, and the yet more pressing intelligence that the allies were on the point of descending into Saxony, and again arraying themselves under the walls of Dresden. The advanced guard of Witgenstein had shown itself, it was said, at Pirna, and the city was a prey to new alarms. The French Emperor posted back towards the Elbe, and on the 9th came in sight of Witgenstein. But the allied generals, afraid of one of those sudden strokes of inspiration, when Napoleon seemed almost to dictate terms to fate, had enjoined Witgenstein to retreat in his turn. The passes of the Erzgebirge received him, and Buonaparte, following him as far as Peterswald, gazed on the spot where Vandamme met his unaccountable defeat, and looked across the valley of Culm to Toplitz, where his rival Alexander still held his headquarters. With the glance of an eye, the most expert in military affairs, he saw the danger of involving himself in such impracticable defiles as the valley of Culm, and the roads which communicated with it, and resolved to proceed no farther.Napoleon, therefore, returned towards Dresden, where he arrived on the 12th September. In his retreat, a trifling skirmish occurred, in which the son of Blucher was wounded, and made prisoner. A victory was claimed on account of this affair, in the bulletin. About the same period, Blucher advanced upon the French troops opposed to him, endangered their communications with Dresden, and compelled them to retreat from Bautzen, and Neustadt, towards Bischoffswerder and Stolpen. While Buonaparte thought of directing himself eastward towards this indefatigable enemy, his attention was of new summoned southward to the Bohemian mountains. Count Lobau, who was placed in observation near Gieshubel, was attacked by a detachment from Schwartzenberg's army. Napoleon hastened to his relief, and made a second attempt to penetrate into these mountain recesses,from which the eagles of the allies made such repeated descents. He penetrated, upon this second occasion, beyond Culm, and as far as Nollendorf, and had a skirmish with the allies, which was rather unfavourable to him. The action was broken off by one of the tremendous storms which distinguished the season, and Buonaparte again retreated towards Gieshubel. On his return to Dresden, he met the unpleasant news, that the Prince-Royal was preparing to cross the Elbe, and that Bulow had opened trenches before Wittenberg; while Blucher, on his side, approached the right bank of the river, and neither Ney nor Macdonald had sufficient force to check their progress.On the 21st September, Napoleon once again came in person against his veteran enemy, whom he met not far from Hartha; but it was once more in vain. The Prussian field-maréchal was like the phantom knight of the poet. Napoleon, when he advanced to attack him, found no substantial body against which to direct his blows.The Emperor spent some hours at the miserable thrice-sacked village of Hartha, deliberating, probably, whether he should press on the Crown Prince or Blucher, and disable at least one of these adversaries by a single blow; but was deterred by reflecting, that the time necessary for bringing either of them to action would be employed by Schwartzenberg in accomplishing that purpose of seizing Dresden, which his movements had so frequently indicated.RETREATS TOWARDS DRESDEN.Thus Napoleon could neither remain at Dresden, without suffering the Crown Prince and Blucher to enter Saxony, and make themselves masters of the valley of the Elbe, nor make any distant movement against those generals, without endangering the safety of Dresden, and, with it, of his lines of communication with France. The last, as the more irreparable evil, he resolved to guard against, by retreating to Dresden, which he reached on the 24th. His maréchals had orders to approach closer to the central point, where he himself had his headquarters; and all the right side of the Elbe was abandoned to the allies. It is said by Baron Odeleben,[284]that the severest orders were issued for destroying houses, driving off cattle, burning woods, and rooting up fruit-trees, reducing the country in short to a desert (an evil reward for the confidence and fidelity of the old King of Saxony,) but that they were left unexecuted, partly owing to the humanity of Napoleon's lieutenants, and partly to the rapid advance of the allies. There was little occasion for this additional cruelty; for so dreadfully had these provinces been harassed and pillaged by the repeated passing and repassing of troops on both sides, that grain, cattle, and forage of every kind, were exhausted, and they contained scarce any other sustenance for man or beast, except the potato crop, then in the ground.After his return to Dresden, on the 24th September, Napoleon did not leave it till the period of his final departure; and the tenacity with which he held the place, has been compared by some critics to the wilful obstinacy which led to his tarrying so long at Moscow. But the cases were different. We have formerly endeavoured to show, that Napoleon's wisdom in the commencement of this campaign would have been to evacuate Germany, and, by consenting to its liberation, to have diminished the odium attached to his assumption of universal power. As, however, he had chosen to maintain his lofty pretensions at the expense of these bloody campaigns, it was surely prudent to hold Dresden to the last moment. His retreat from it, after so many losses and disappointments, would have decided the defection of the whole Confederation of the Rhine, which already was much to be dreaded. It would have given the allied armies, at present separated from each other, an opportunity to form a junction on the left side of the Elbe, the consequences of which could hardly fail to be decisive of his fate. On the other hand, while he remained at Dresden, Napoleon was in a condition to operate by short marches upon the communications of the allies, and might hope to the last that an opportunity would be afforded him of achieving some signal success against one or other of them, or perhaps of beating them successively, and in detail. The allied sovereigns and their generals were aware of this, and, therefore, as we have seen, acted upon a plan of extreme caution, for which they have been scoffed at by some French writers, as if it were the result of fear rather than of wisdom. But it was plain that the time for more decisive operations was approaching, and, with a view to such, each party drew towards them such reinforcements as they could command.Buonaparte's soldiers had suffered much by fatigue and skirmishes, though no important battle had been fought; and he found himself obliged to order Augereau, who commanded about 16,000 men in the neighbourhood of Wurtzberg, to join him at Dresden. He might, however, be said to lose more than he gained by this supply; for the Bavarians, upon whose inclinations to desert the French cause Augereau's army had been a check, no sooner saw it depart, than an open and friendly intercourse took place betwixt their army and that of Austria, which lay opposed to them; negotiations were opened between their courts, without much affectation of concealment; and it was generally believed, that only some question about the Tyrol prevented their coming to an immediate agreement.The allies received, on their side, the reinforcement of no less than 60,000 Russians, under the command of Bennigsen. The most of them came from the provinces eastward of Moscow; and there were to be seen attending them tribes of the wandering Baskirs and Tartars, figures unknown in European war, wearing sheep-skins, and armed with bows and arrows. But themain body consisted of regular troops, though some bore rather an Asiatic appearance. This was the last reinforcement which the allies were to expect; being the arriere-ban of the almost boundless empire of Russia. Some of the men had travelled from the wall of China to this universal military rendezvous.OPERATIONS OF THE ALLIES.Their utmost force being now collected, in numbers greatly superior to that of their adversary, the allies proceeded to execute a joint movement by means of which they hoped to concentrate their forces on the left bank of the Elbe; so that if Napoleon should persist in remaining at Dresden, he might be cut off from communication with France. With this view Blucher, on the 3d October, crossed the Elbe near the junction of that river with the Schwarze Elster, defeated Bertrand, who lay in an entrenched camp to dispute the passage, and fixed his headquarters at Duben. At the same time, the Crown Prince of Sweden in like manner transferred his army to the left bank of the Elbe, by crossing at Roslau, and entered into communication with the Silesian army. Thus these two great armies were both transferred to the left bank, excepting the division of Tauentzein, which was left to maintain the siege of Wittenberg. Ney, who was in front of these movements, having no means to resist such a preponderating force, retreated to Leipsic.Simultaneously with the entrance of the Crown Prince and Blucher into the eastern division of Saxony from the north-west, the grand army of the allies was put in motion towards the same district, advancing from the south by Sebastians-Berg and Chemnitz. On the 5th October, the headquarters of Prince Schwartzenberg were at Marienberg.These movements instantly showed Buonaparte the measures about to be taken by the allies, and the necessity of preventing their junction. This he proposed to accomplish by leaving Dresden with all his disposable force, attacking Blucher at Duben, and, if possible, annihilating that restless enemy, or, at least, driving him back across the Elbe. At the same time, far from thinking he was about to leave Dresden for ever, which he had been employed to the last in fortifying yet more strongly, he placed a garrison of upwards of 15,000 men in that city under St. Cyr. This force was to defend the city against any corps of the allies, which, left in the Bohemian mountains for that purpose, might otherwise have descended and occupied Dresden, so soon as Napoleon removed from it. The King of Saxony, his Queen and family, preferred accompanying Napoleon on his adventurous journey, to remaining in Dresden, where a siege was to be expected, and where subsistence was already become difficult.The same alertness of movement, which secured Blucher on other occasions, saved him in the present case from the meditated attack on Duben. On the 9th of October, hearing of Napoleon's approach, he crossed the Mulda, and formed a junction with the army of the Crown Prince, near Zoerbig, on the leftbank of that river. Napoleon, once more baffled, took up his headquarters at Duben on the 10th. Here he soon learned that the Crown Prince and Blucher, apprehensive that he might interpose betwixt them and the grand army of Schwartzenberg, had retreated upon the line of the Saale during the night preceding the 11th. They were thus still placed on his communications, but beyond his reach, and in a situation to communicate with their own grand army.But this movement to the westward, on the part of the allies, had this great inconvenience, that it left Berlin exposed, or inadequately protected by the single division of Tauentzein at Dessau. This did not escape the falcon eye of Napoleon. He laid before his maréchals a more daring plan of tactics than even his own gigantic imagination had (excepting in the Moscow campaign) ever before conceived. He proposed to recross the Elbe to the right bank, and then resting his right wing on Dresden, and his left on Hamburgh, there to maintain himself, with the purpose of recrossing the Elbe on the first appearance of obtaining a success over the enemy, dashing down on Silesia, and raising the blockade of the fortresses upon the Oder. With this purpose he had already sent Regnier and Bertrand across the Elbe, though their ostensible mission had nothing more important than to raise the siege of Wittenberg.The counsellors of the Emperor were to a man dissatisfied with this plan. It seemed to them that remaining in Germany was only clinging to the defence of what could no longer be defended. They appealed to the universal disaffection of all the Germans on the Rhine, and to the destruction of the kingdom of Westphalia, recently effected by no greater force than Czernicheff, with a pulk of Cossacks. They noticed the almost declared defection of all their former friends, alluded to their own diminished numbers, and remonstrated against a plan which was to detain the army in a wasted country inhabited by a population gradually becoming hostile, and surrounded with enemies whom they could not defeat, because they would never fight but at advantage, and who possessed the means of distressing them, whiletheyhad no means of retorting the injuries they received. This, they said, was the history of the last three months, only varied by the decisive defeats of Gross-Beeren, Katzbach, and Dennewitz.Napoleon remained from the 11th to the 14th of October at Duben, concentrating his own forces, waiting for news of the allies' motions, and remaining in a state of uncertainty and inactivity, very different from his usual frame of mind and natural habits. "I have seen him at that time," says an eyewitness,[285]"seated on a sofa beside a table, on which lay his charts, totally unemployed, unless in scribbling mechanically large letters on asheet of white paper." Consultations with his best generals, which ended without adopting any fixed determination, varied those unpleasing reveries. The councils were often seasons of dispute, almost of dissension. The want of success had made those dissatisfied with each other, whose friendship had been cemented by uniform and uninterrupted prosperity. Great misfortunes might have bound them together, and compelled them to regard each other as common sufferers. But a succession of failures exasperated their temper, as a constant drizzling shower is worse to endure than a thunder-storm.DISSENSIONS AMONG THE GENERALS.Napoleon, while the maréchals were dissatisfied with each other and with him, complained, on his part, that fatigue and discouragement had overpowered most of his principal officers; that they had become indifferent, lukewarm, awkward, and therefore unfortunate. "The general officers," he said, "desired nothing but repose, and that at all rates."On the other hand, the maréchals asserted that Napoleon no longer calculated his means to the ends which he proposed to attain—that he suffered himself to be deceived by phrases about the predominance of his star and his destiny—and ridiculed his declaration that the word Impossible was not good French. They said that such phrases were well enough to encourage soldiers; but that military councils ought to be founded on more logical arguments. They pleaded guilty of desiring repose; but asked which was to blame, the horse or the rider, when the over-ridden animal broke down with fatigue?At length Napoleon either changed his own opinion, or deferred to that of his military advisers; the orders to Regnier and Bertrand to advance upon Berlin were annulled, and the retreat upon Leipsic was resolved upon. The loss of three days had rendered the utmost despatch necessary, and Buonaparte saw himself obliged to leave behind him in garrison, Davoust at Hamburgh, Lemarrois at Magdeburg, Lapoype at Wittenberg, and Count Narbonne at Torgau. Still he seems to have anticipated some favourable chance, which might again bring him back to the line of the Elbe. "A thunderbolt," as he himself expressed it, "alone could save him; but all was not lost while battle was in his power, and a single victory might restore Germany to his obedience."

Military Proceedings in the north of Germany—Luckau submits to the Crown Prince of Sweden—Battles of Gross-Beeren and Katzbach—Operations of Ney upon Berlin—He is defeated at Dennewitz on the 6th September—Difficult and embarrassing situation of Napoleon—He abandons all the right side of the Elbe to the Allies—Operations of the Allies in order to effect a junction—Counter-exertions of Napoleon—The French Generals averse to continuing the War in Germany—Dissensions betwixt them and the Emperor—Napoleon at length resolves to retreat upon Leipsic.

Military Proceedings in the north of Germany—Luckau submits to the Crown Prince of Sweden—Battles of Gross-Beeren and Katzbach—Operations of Ney upon Berlin—He is defeated at Dennewitz on the 6th September—Difficult and embarrassing situation of Napoleon—He abandons all the right side of the Elbe to the Allies—Operations of the Allies in order to effect a junction—Counter-exertions of Napoleon—The French Generals averse to continuing the War in Germany—Dissensions betwixt them and the Emperor—Napoleon at length resolves to retreat upon Leipsic.

The advices which arrived at Dresden from the north of Germany, were no balm to the bad tidings from Bohemia. We must necessarily treat with brevity the high deeds of arms performed at a considerable distance from Napoleon's person, great as was their influence upon his fortunes.

BERLIN.

Maréchal Blucher, it will be remembered, retreated across the river Katzbach, to avoid the engagement which the Emperor of France endeavoured to press upon him. The Crown Prince of Sweden, on the other hand, had his headquarters at Potsdam. Napoleon, when departing to succour Dresden, on the 21st of August, left orders for Oudinot to advance on Berlin, and for Macdonald to march upon Breslau, trusting that the former had force enough to conquer the Crown Prince, the latter to defeat Blucher.

Oudinot began to move on Berlin by the road of Wittenberg, on the very day when he received the orders. On the other hand, the Crown Prince of Sweden, concentrating his troops, opposed to the French general a total force of more than 80,000 men, drawn up for the protection of Berlin. The sight of that fair city, with its towers and steeples, determined Oudinot to try his fortune with his ancient comrade in arms. After a good deal of skirmishing, the two armies came to a more serious battle on the 23d August, in which General Regnier distinguished himself. He commanded a corps which formed the centre of Oudinot's army, at the head of which he made himself master of the village of Gross-Beeren, which was within a short distance of the centre of the allies. The Prussian general, Bulow, advanced to recover this important post, and with the assistance of Borstal, who attacked the flank of the enemy, he succeeded in pushing his columns intothe village. A heavy rain having prevented the muskets from being serviceable, Gross-Beeren was disputed with the bayonet. Yet, towards nightfall, the two French divisions of Fournier and Guilleminot again attacked the village, took it, and remained in it till the morning. But this did not re-establish the battle, for Regnier having lost 1500 men and eight guns, Oudinot determined on a general retreat, which he conducted in the face of the enemy with great deliberation. The Crown Prince obtained other trophies; Luckau, with a garrison of a thousand French, submitted to his arms on 28th August.[280]

Besides these severe checks on the Prussian frontier, General Girard, in another quarter, had sustained a defeat of some consequence. He had sallied from the garrison of Magdeburg, after the battle of Gross-Beeren, with five or six thousand men. He was encouraged to this movement by the removal of the blockading brigade of Herschberg, who, in obedience to orders, had joined the Crown Prince to oppose the advance of Oudinot. But, after the battle of Gross-Beeren, as the Prussian brigade was returning to renew the blockade of Magdeburg, they encountered Girard and his division near Leitzkau, on 27th August. The French were at first successful, but Czernicheff having thrown himself on them with a large body of Cossacks, Girard's troops gave way, losing six cannons, fifteen hundred prisoners, and all their baggage.

During this active period, war had been no less busy on the frontiers of Silesia than on those of Bohemia and Brandenburg. Maréchal Macdonald, as already mentioned, had received orders from Napoleon to attack Blucher and his Prussians, who had retired beyond the Katzbach, and occupied a position near a town called Jauer. In obedience to this order, the maréchal had sent General Lauriston, who commanded his right wing, to occupy a position in front of Goldberg, with orders to despatch a part of his division under General Puthod, to march upon Jauer, by the circuitous route of Schonau. The eleventh corps, which formed the centre of Macdonald's force, crossed the Katzbach at break of day, under his own command, and advanced towards Jauer, up the side of a torrent called the Wuthende (i. e.raging) Niesse. The third corps, under Souham, destined to form the left wing, was to pass the Katzbach near Liegnitz, and then moving southward, were to come upon the maréchal's left. With this left wing marched the cavalry, under Sebastiani.[281]

KATZBACH—SUCCESSES OF THE ALLIES.

It chanced that, on this very 26th of August, Blucher, aware that Buonaparte was engaged at Dresden by the descent of the allies from Bohemia, thought it a good time to seek out his opponent and fight him. For this purpose, he was in the act of descending the river in order to encounter Macdonald, when themaréchal, on his part, was ascending it, expecting to find him in his position near Jauer.

The stormy weather, so often referred to, with mist and heavy rain, concealed from each other the movements of the two armies, until they met in the fields. They encountered in the plains which extend between Wahlstadt and the Katzbach, but under circumstances highly unfavourable to the French maréchal. His right wing was divided from his centre; Lauriston being at Goldberg, and fiercely engaged with the Russian General Langeron, with whom he had come into contact in the front of that town; and Puthod at a much greater distance from the field of battle. Macdonald's left wing, with the cavalry, was also far in the rear. Blucher allowed no leisure for the junction of these forces. His own cavalry being all in front, and ready for action, charged the French without permitting them leisure to get into position; and when they did, their right wing indeed rested on the Wuthende-Niesse, but the left, which should have been covered by Sebastiani's cavalry, was altogether unsupported.

Message on message was sent to hasten up the left wing; but a singular fatality prevented both the cavalry and infantry from arriving in time. Different lines of advance had been pointed out to Souham and Sebastiani; but Souham, hearing the firing, and impatient to place himself on the road which he thought likely to lead him most speedily into action, unluckily adopted that which was appointed for the cavalry. Thus 5000 horse, and five times the number of infantry, being thrown at once on the same line of march, soon confused and embarrassed each other's motions, especially in passing the streets of a village called Kroitsch, a long and narrow defile, which the troops presently crowded to such a degree with foot and horse, baggage and guns, that there was a total impossibility of effecting a passage.

Macdonald, in the meanwhile, supported his high reputation by the gallantry of his resistance, though charged on the left flank, which these mistakes had left uncovered, by four regiments of cavalry, and by General Karpoff, with a whole cloud of Cossacks. But at length the day was decidedly lost. The French line gave way, and falling back on the Wuthende-Niesse, now doubly raging from torrents of rain, and upon the Katzbach, they lost a great number of men. As a last resource, Macdonald put himself at the head of the troops, who were at length debouching from the defile of Kroitsch; but they were driven back with great slaughter, and the skirmish in that quarter concluded the battle, with much loss to the French.

The evil did not rest here. Lauriston being also under the necessity of retreating across the Katzbach, while Puthod, who had been detached towards Schonau, was left on the right-hand side of that river, this corps was speedily attacked by the enemy, and all who were not killed or taken remained prisoners. The army which Buonaparte destined to act in Silesia, and take Breslau,was, therefore, for the present, completely disabled. The French are admitted to have lost 15,000 men, and more than a hundred guns.

Though the battles of Gross-Beeren and Katzbach were severe blows to Buonaparte's plan of maintaining himself on the Elbe, he continued obstinate in his determination to keep his ground, with Dresden as his central point of support, and attempted to turn the bad fortune which seemed to haunt his lieutenants (but which in fact arose from their being obliged to attempt great achievements with inadequate means,) by appointing Ney to the command of the Northern army, with strict injunctions to plant his eagles on the walls of Berlin. Accordingly, on the 6th September, Ney took charge of the army which Oudinot had formerly commanded, and which was lying under the walls of Wittenberg, and, in obedience to the Emperor's orders, determined to advance on the Prussian capital. The enemy (being the army commanded by the Crown Prince) lay rather dispersed upon the grounds more to the east, occupying Juterbock, Belzig, and other villages. Ney was desirous to avoid approaching the quarters of any of them, or to give the least alarm. That maréchal's object was to leave them on the left, and, evading any encounter with the Crown Prince, to throw his force on the road from Torgua to Berlin, and enter into communication with any troops which Buonaparte might despatch from Dresden upon the same point.

On examining the plan more closely, it was found to comprehend the danger of rousing the Prince of Sweden and his army upon one point, and that was at Dennewitz, the most southern village held by the allies. It was occupied by Tauentzein with a large force, and could not be passed without the alarm being given. Dennewitz might, however, be masked by a sufficient body of troops, under screen of which the maréchal and his main body might push forward to Dahme, without risking an engagement. It was concluded, that the rapidity of their motions would be so great as to leave no time for the Crown Prince to concentrate his forces for interrupting them.

DENNEWITZ.

On the 5th, Ney marched from Wittenberg. On the 6th, the division of Bertrand, destined to mask Dennewitz, formed the left flank of the army. When they approached the village, Tauentzein, who commanded there, took the alarm, and drew up between Dennewitz and the French division. If Bertrand had only had to maintain himself for a short interval in that dangerous position, it would have been well, and he might have made head against Tauentzein, till the last file of Ney's army had passed by; but by some miscalculation (which began to be more common now than formerly among the French officers of the staff,) the corps of Bertrand was appointed to march at seven in the morning, while the corps which were to be protected by him did not move till three hours later. Bertrand was thus detained so long in face of the enemy, that his demonstration was converted into an action,his false attack into a real skirmish. Presently after the battle became sharp and serious, and the corps on both sides advancing to sustain them were engaged. Bulow came to support Tauentzein—Regnier advanced to repel Bulow—Guilleminot hastened up on the French side—and Borstel came to support the Russians. However unpremeditated, the battle became general, as if by common consent.

The Prussians suffered heavily from the French artillery, but without giving way. The Swedes and Russians at length came up, and the line of Ney began to yield ground. That general, who had hardly, though all his forces were engaged, made his post good against the Russians alone, despaired of success when he saw these new enemies appear. He began to retreat; and his first movement in that direction was a signal of flight to the 7th corps, composed chiefly of Saxons not over well inclined to the cause of Napoleon, and who therefore made it no point of honour to fight to the death in his cause. A huge blank was created in the French line by their flight; and the cavalry of the allies rushing in at the gap, the army of Ney was cut into two parts; one of which pushed forwards to Dahme with the maréchal himself; the other, with Oudinot, retreated upon Scharnitz. Ney afterwards accomplished his retreat on Torgau. But the battle of Dennewitz had cost him 10,000 men, forty-three pieces of cannon, and abundance of warlike trophies, relinquished to the adversary, besides the total disappointment of his object in marching towards Berlin.[282]

These repeated defeats, of Gross-Beeren, Katzbach, and Dennewitz, seemed to intimate that the French were no longer the invincibles they had once been esteemed; or at least, that when they yet worked miracles, it was only when Buonaparte was at their head. Others saw the matter in a different point of view. They said that formerly, when means were plenty with Buonaparte, he took care that his lieutenants were supplied with forces adequate to the purposes on which they were to be employed. But it was surmised that now he kept the guard and theéliteof his forces under his own immediate command, and expected his lieutenants to be as successful with few and raw troops as they had formerly been with numbers, and veterans. It cannot, however, be said that he saved his own exertions; for during the month of September, while he persisted in maintaining the war in Saxony, although no affair of consequence took place, yet a series of active measures showed how anxious he was to bring the war to a decision under his own eye.[283]

In perusing the brief abstract of movements which follows, the reader will remember, that it was the purpose of Buonaparte to bring the allies to a battle on some point, where, by superior numbers or superior skill, he might obtain a distinguished victory;while, on the other hand, it was the policy of the allies, dreading at once his talents and his despair, to avoid a general action; to lay waste the ground around the points he occupied; restrict his communications; raise Germany in arms around him; and finally, to encompass and hem him in when his ranks were grown thin, and the spirit of his soldiers diminished. Keeping these objects in his eye, the reader, with a single glance at the map, will conceive the meaning of the following movements on either side.

Having deputed to Ney, as we have just seen, the task of checking the progress of the Crown Prince, and taking Berlin if possible, Buonaparte started in person from Dresden on the 3d September, in hopes of fetching a blow at Blucher, whose Cossacks, since the battle of the Katzbach, had advanced eastward, and intercepted a convoy even near Bautzen. But agreeably to the plan adopted at the general headquarters of the allies, the Prussian veteran fell back and avoided a battle. Meanwhile, Napoleon was recalled towards Dresden by the news of the defeat of Ney at Dennewitz, and the yet more pressing intelligence that the allies were on the point of descending into Saxony, and again arraying themselves under the walls of Dresden. The advanced guard of Witgenstein had shown itself, it was said, at Pirna, and the city was a prey to new alarms. The French Emperor posted back towards the Elbe, and on the 9th came in sight of Witgenstein. But the allied generals, afraid of one of those sudden strokes of inspiration, when Napoleon seemed almost to dictate terms to fate, had enjoined Witgenstein to retreat in his turn. The passes of the Erzgebirge received him, and Buonaparte, following him as far as Peterswald, gazed on the spot where Vandamme met his unaccountable defeat, and looked across the valley of Culm to Toplitz, where his rival Alexander still held his headquarters. With the glance of an eye, the most expert in military affairs, he saw the danger of involving himself in such impracticable defiles as the valley of Culm, and the roads which communicated with it, and resolved to proceed no farther.

Napoleon, therefore, returned towards Dresden, where he arrived on the 12th September. In his retreat, a trifling skirmish occurred, in which the son of Blucher was wounded, and made prisoner. A victory was claimed on account of this affair, in the bulletin. About the same period, Blucher advanced upon the French troops opposed to him, endangered their communications with Dresden, and compelled them to retreat from Bautzen, and Neustadt, towards Bischoffswerder and Stolpen. While Buonaparte thought of directing himself eastward towards this indefatigable enemy, his attention was of new summoned southward to the Bohemian mountains. Count Lobau, who was placed in observation near Gieshubel, was attacked by a detachment from Schwartzenberg's army. Napoleon hastened to his relief, and made a second attempt to penetrate into these mountain recesses,from which the eagles of the allies made such repeated descents. He penetrated, upon this second occasion, beyond Culm, and as far as Nollendorf, and had a skirmish with the allies, which was rather unfavourable to him. The action was broken off by one of the tremendous storms which distinguished the season, and Buonaparte again retreated towards Gieshubel. On his return to Dresden, he met the unpleasant news, that the Prince-Royal was preparing to cross the Elbe, and that Bulow had opened trenches before Wittenberg; while Blucher, on his side, approached the right bank of the river, and neither Ney nor Macdonald had sufficient force to check their progress.

On the 21st September, Napoleon once again came in person against his veteran enemy, whom he met not far from Hartha; but it was once more in vain. The Prussian field-maréchal was like the phantom knight of the poet. Napoleon, when he advanced to attack him, found no substantial body against which to direct his blows.

The Emperor spent some hours at the miserable thrice-sacked village of Hartha, deliberating, probably, whether he should press on the Crown Prince or Blucher, and disable at least one of these adversaries by a single blow; but was deterred by reflecting, that the time necessary for bringing either of them to action would be employed by Schwartzenberg in accomplishing that purpose of seizing Dresden, which his movements had so frequently indicated.

RETREATS TOWARDS DRESDEN.

Thus Napoleon could neither remain at Dresden, without suffering the Crown Prince and Blucher to enter Saxony, and make themselves masters of the valley of the Elbe, nor make any distant movement against those generals, without endangering the safety of Dresden, and, with it, of his lines of communication with France. The last, as the more irreparable evil, he resolved to guard against, by retreating to Dresden, which he reached on the 24th. His maréchals had orders to approach closer to the central point, where he himself had his headquarters; and all the right side of the Elbe was abandoned to the allies. It is said by Baron Odeleben,[284]that the severest orders were issued for destroying houses, driving off cattle, burning woods, and rooting up fruit-trees, reducing the country in short to a desert (an evil reward for the confidence and fidelity of the old King of Saxony,) but that they were left unexecuted, partly owing to the humanity of Napoleon's lieutenants, and partly to the rapid advance of the allies. There was little occasion for this additional cruelty; for so dreadfully had these provinces been harassed and pillaged by the repeated passing and repassing of troops on both sides, that grain, cattle, and forage of every kind, were exhausted, and they contained scarce any other sustenance for man or beast, except the potato crop, then in the ground.

After his return to Dresden, on the 24th September, Napoleon did not leave it till the period of his final departure; and the tenacity with which he held the place, has been compared by some critics to the wilful obstinacy which led to his tarrying so long at Moscow. But the cases were different. We have formerly endeavoured to show, that Napoleon's wisdom in the commencement of this campaign would have been to evacuate Germany, and, by consenting to its liberation, to have diminished the odium attached to his assumption of universal power. As, however, he had chosen to maintain his lofty pretensions at the expense of these bloody campaigns, it was surely prudent to hold Dresden to the last moment. His retreat from it, after so many losses and disappointments, would have decided the defection of the whole Confederation of the Rhine, which already was much to be dreaded. It would have given the allied armies, at present separated from each other, an opportunity to form a junction on the left side of the Elbe, the consequences of which could hardly fail to be decisive of his fate. On the other hand, while he remained at Dresden, Napoleon was in a condition to operate by short marches upon the communications of the allies, and might hope to the last that an opportunity would be afforded him of achieving some signal success against one or other of them, or perhaps of beating them successively, and in detail. The allied sovereigns and their generals were aware of this, and, therefore, as we have seen, acted upon a plan of extreme caution, for which they have been scoffed at by some French writers, as if it were the result of fear rather than of wisdom. But it was plain that the time for more decisive operations was approaching, and, with a view to such, each party drew towards them such reinforcements as they could command.

Buonaparte's soldiers had suffered much by fatigue and skirmishes, though no important battle had been fought; and he found himself obliged to order Augereau, who commanded about 16,000 men in the neighbourhood of Wurtzberg, to join him at Dresden. He might, however, be said to lose more than he gained by this supply; for the Bavarians, upon whose inclinations to desert the French cause Augereau's army had been a check, no sooner saw it depart, than an open and friendly intercourse took place betwixt their army and that of Austria, which lay opposed to them; negotiations were opened between their courts, without much affectation of concealment; and it was generally believed, that only some question about the Tyrol prevented their coming to an immediate agreement.

The allies received, on their side, the reinforcement of no less than 60,000 Russians, under the command of Bennigsen. The most of them came from the provinces eastward of Moscow; and there were to be seen attending them tribes of the wandering Baskirs and Tartars, figures unknown in European war, wearing sheep-skins, and armed with bows and arrows. But themain body consisted of regular troops, though some bore rather an Asiatic appearance. This was the last reinforcement which the allies were to expect; being the arriere-ban of the almost boundless empire of Russia. Some of the men had travelled from the wall of China to this universal military rendezvous.

OPERATIONS OF THE ALLIES.

Their utmost force being now collected, in numbers greatly superior to that of their adversary, the allies proceeded to execute a joint movement by means of which they hoped to concentrate their forces on the left bank of the Elbe; so that if Napoleon should persist in remaining at Dresden, he might be cut off from communication with France. With this view Blucher, on the 3d October, crossed the Elbe near the junction of that river with the Schwarze Elster, defeated Bertrand, who lay in an entrenched camp to dispute the passage, and fixed his headquarters at Duben. At the same time, the Crown Prince of Sweden in like manner transferred his army to the left bank of the Elbe, by crossing at Roslau, and entered into communication with the Silesian army. Thus these two great armies were both transferred to the left bank, excepting the division of Tauentzein, which was left to maintain the siege of Wittenberg. Ney, who was in front of these movements, having no means to resist such a preponderating force, retreated to Leipsic.

Simultaneously with the entrance of the Crown Prince and Blucher into the eastern division of Saxony from the north-west, the grand army of the allies was put in motion towards the same district, advancing from the south by Sebastians-Berg and Chemnitz. On the 5th October, the headquarters of Prince Schwartzenberg were at Marienberg.

These movements instantly showed Buonaparte the measures about to be taken by the allies, and the necessity of preventing their junction. This he proposed to accomplish by leaving Dresden with all his disposable force, attacking Blucher at Duben, and, if possible, annihilating that restless enemy, or, at least, driving him back across the Elbe. At the same time, far from thinking he was about to leave Dresden for ever, which he had been employed to the last in fortifying yet more strongly, he placed a garrison of upwards of 15,000 men in that city under St. Cyr. This force was to defend the city against any corps of the allies, which, left in the Bohemian mountains for that purpose, might otherwise have descended and occupied Dresden, so soon as Napoleon removed from it. The King of Saxony, his Queen and family, preferred accompanying Napoleon on his adventurous journey, to remaining in Dresden, where a siege was to be expected, and where subsistence was already become difficult.

The same alertness of movement, which secured Blucher on other occasions, saved him in the present case from the meditated attack on Duben. On the 9th of October, hearing of Napoleon's approach, he crossed the Mulda, and formed a junction with the army of the Crown Prince, near Zoerbig, on the leftbank of that river. Napoleon, once more baffled, took up his headquarters at Duben on the 10th. Here he soon learned that the Crown Prince and Blucher, apprehensive that he might interpose betwixt them and the grand army of Schwartzenberg, had retreated upon the line of the Saale during the night preceding the 11th. They were thus still placed on his communications, but beyond his reach, and in a situation to communicate with their own grand army.

But this movement to the westward, on the part of the allies, had this great inconvenience, that it left Berlin exposed, or inadequately protected by the single division of Tauentzein at Dessau. This did not escape the falcon eye of Napoleon. He laid before his maréchals a more daring plan of tactics than even his own gigantic imagination had (excepting in the Moscow campaign) ever before conceived. He proposed to recross the Elbe to the right bank, and then resting his right wing on Dresden, and his left on Hamburgh, there to maintain himself, with the purpose of recrossing the Elbe on the first appearance of obtaining a success over the enemy, dashing down on Silesia, and raising the blockade of the fortresses upon the Oder. With this purpose he had already sent Regnier and Bertrand across the Elbe, though their ostensible mission had nothing more important than to raise the siege of Wittenberg.

The counsellors of the Emperor were to a man dissatisfied with this plan. It seemed to them that remaining in Germany was only clinging to the defence of what could no longer be defended. They appealed to the universal disaffection of all the Germans on the Rhine, and to the destruction of the kingdom of Westphalia, recently effected by no greater force than Czernicheff, with a pulk of Cossacks. They noticed the almost declared defection of all their former friends, alluded to their own diminished numbers, and remonstrated against a plan which was to detain the army in a wasted country inhabited by a population gradually becoming hostile, and surrounded with enemies whom they could not defeat, because they would never fight but at advantage, and who possessed the means of distressing them, whiletheyhad no means of retorting the injuries they received. This, they said, was the history of the last three months, only varied by the decisive defeats of Gross-Beeren, Katzbach, and Dennewitz.

Napoleon remained from the 11th to the 14th of October at Duben, concentrating his own forces, waiting for news of the allies' motions, and remaining in a state of uncertainty and inactivity, very different from his usual frame of mind and natural habits. "I have seen him at that time," says an eyewitness,[285]"seated on a sofa beside a table, on which lay his charts, totally unemployed, unless in scribbling mechanically large letters on asheet of white paper." Consultations with his best generals, which ended without adopting any fixed determination, varied those unpleasing reveries. The councils were often seasons of dispute, almost of dissension. The want of success had made those dissatisfied with each other, whose friendship had been cemented by uniform and uninterrupted prosperity. Great misfortunes might have bound them together, and compelled them to regard each other as common sufferers. But a succession of failures exasperated their temper, as a constant drizzling shower is worse to endure than a thunder-storm.

DISSENSIONS AMONG THE GENERALS.

Napoleon, while the maréchals were dissatisfied with each other and with him, complained, on his part, that fatigue and discouragement had overpowered most of his principal officers; that they had become indifferent, lukewarm, awkward, and therefore unfortunate. "The general officers," he said, "desired nothing but repose, and that at all rates."

On the other hand, the maréchals asserted that Napoleon no longer calculated his means to the ends which he proposed to attain—that he suffered himself to be deceived by phrases about the predominance of his star and his destiny—and ridiculed his declaration that the word Impossible was not good French. They said that such phrases were well enough to encourage soldiers; but that military councils ought to be founded on more logical arguments. They pleaded guilty of desiring repose; but asked which was to blame, the horse or the rider, when the over-ridden animal broke down with fatigue?

At length Napoleon either changed his own opinion, or deferred to that of his military advisers; the orders to Regnier and Bertrand to advance upon Berlin were annulled, and the retreat upon Leipsic was resolved upon. The loss of three days had rendered the utmost despatch necessary, and Buonaparte saw himself obliged to leave behind him in garrison, Davoust at Hamburgh, Lemarrois at Magdeburg, Lapoype at Wittenberg, and Count Narbonne at Torgau. Still he seems to have anticipated some favourable chance, which might again bring him back to the line of the Elbe. "A thunderbolt," as he himself expressed it, "alone could save him; but all was not lost while battle was in his power, and a single victory might restore Germany to his obedience."

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