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CHAP.

XI.

1813.

Oct. 21.

and Allied cavalry, almost without resistance, as the men had for the most part thrown away their arms whenever they came up with them, which, however, from the rapidity of the French retreat, was not very often. A thousand stragglers were in this manner captured by the Prussian hussars of Blucher, at the passage of the Unstrut at Freiburg; and the same day Bertrand's corps, at the defile of Kösen, sustained a severe action to prevent the advance of Giulay by it, upon the flank of the retreating army. Oct. 22 and Some degree of order was restored during a rest of two

23.

days at Erfurth, in which the Emperor dictated the bulletin giving the account of the battle; but when the march was resumed on the 24th, the disorder returned with more fury than ever. Two thousand men and twentyfour guns were taken at Gotha. At Eisenach, Blucher, who had hitherto alone followed the French army on the main 1 Sir Chas. road, turned off towards Coblentz; and the Grand Army, Lord Castle- Which had as yet been advancing along the lateral chaussée reagh, Oct. of Zeitz and Jena, took up the pursuit and continued it MS.; Bout. with its light troops through the Thuringian Forest. It ii. 252, 253; was hard to say in the last days of the retreat whether 366; Thiers, the army was not melting away as fast as it had done 645. in retiring from the Beresina from the severity of the Russian winter.1

Stewart to

31, 1813,

161; Vaud.

Cath. 365,

xvi. 629

66.

retreat of the French across the Rhine.

Oct. 31.

The Guards and cuirassiers, however, preserved some Battle of degree of consistency, and the artillery was, considering Hanau, and the hardship they had undergone, in a surprising state of strength and efficiency. The power of this arm, joined to the intrepidity of the Old Guard and the vigour of the cuirassiers, enabled the Emperor to force his way on the 30th October through the Austro-Bavarian army, which, advancing from the banks of the Inn to those of the Main, endeavoured at Hanau to bar his retreat, and cast one last and expiring ray of glory over a period of such disaster. A thousand additional men, however, were lost in that hard-fought battle, though the Allies lost 8000. The retreat continued without interruption to

the Rhine. On the 1st November the red domes and CHAP. steeples of Mayence appeared in view, and the army, sad

XI.

and dejected, defiled across the bridge, over which they 1813. had so often passed to carry desolation and oppression into Germany. Not more than 40,000 men, in military array, crossed the bridge, followed by a crowd, about half as much more, of stragglers and unarmed men. Twenty thousand men had joined them during the retreat, but as many had been lost by fatigue, desertion, and the sword of the enemy. This was all that remained of 400,000, who with Napoleon had commenced the campaign two months before. History presents no example of so terrible a discomfiture of so great a host, Thiers, xvi. under circumstances when no perversion of ingenuity Bout. 161, could ascribe it to accidental circumstances, or the se- ii. 412; verity of the weather, or any other cause but military 390, 391. defeat.1

1 Marm. v.

306, 307;

647-650;

162; Plotho,

Schoell, iii,

orders to the

Grand Park and garrisons in the

Stupendous as these events were, they were not the 67. only results which followed the battle of Leipsic. Its Napoleon's effects on the beleagured fortresses on the Elbe, the Oder, and the Vistula, were not less important. Napoleon, though at the eleventh hour, and when it was too late, had not been unmindful of these important strongholds and their powerful garrisons. In the night of the 18th October he dictated orders to the commanders of these garrisons to join together, and endeavour, in a united mass, to force their way to the Rhine. The Grand Park, from which, as already mentioned, Blucher's advance had separated the Grand Army, was ordered to make the best of its way back to Torgau. St Cyr, at Dresden, who was at the head of 35,000 men, of whom 20,000 might be efficient, was directed to issue from that place with his whole troops, force his way to Torgau, take up its garrison, and with it and the Grand Park proceed to Wittenberg, and thence to Magdeburg; and, with the accumulated force of all these garrisons and such of those on the Oder and the Vistula as could join them, move

CHAP.

XI.

1813.

towards Hamburg. Davoust had orders to meet them half way; and with this united host they were to re-enter France by the way of Wesel, at the head, it was hoped, of 120,000 men. This comprehensive plan, which would have more than doubled the efficient force at the disposal of the French Emperor, and rendered the frontier of the Rhine altogether impregnable, was of easy execution, and would unquestionably have succeeded if it had been attempted before the battle of Leipsic, when Napoleon was at hand to give it assistance; for the blockading forces of these fortresses were mostly landwehr, incapable of operations in the open field: but, attempted immediately after that event, and when any such combined operation of distant garrisons seemed hopeless, it entirely failed. St Cyr tried to commence it, and with half the garrison of Dresden broke through the first echelon of the blockading force and advanced half way to Torgau. But when he arrived there he did not meet either a force or any messenger regarding it, which he expected from the latter fortress. The enemy's troops around him were hourly increasing; and, fearful that, if he continued his 1 Thiers, xvi. advance farther, he would sacrifice his own men and lose Dresden without any advantage, he retraced his steps and re-entered the Saxon capital. This put an Die Grosse end to the whole project; and the garrisons in all the 1156-1160. fortresses, in silent despair, remained expecting the fate which awaited them.1*

Nov. 6.

667-668;

St Cyr, iv.

247-250;

Odel. ii. 227-234;

Chron. i.

Napoleon was in an especial manner exasperated against the King of Bavaria as instrumental in inducing these unparalleled disasters; and it is no wonder he was so, for he had loaded that monarch with benefits, and the only return he met with was his co-operation for the destruction of his benefactor. In the following spring he thus expressed himself to M. d'Argenteau at the Tuileries: "The King of Bavaria has been guilty of a double treachery. He wished to get possession of the keys of France for my enemies. What need had Bavaria of the keys of France? It is the kick of the ass's foot: but let him beware; the lion is not dead. I have just returned from killing Wrede and passing over the Bavarian army. The King of Bavaria shall see me again next year, and he will not soon forget my visit. He was a little prince whom I made great; he is a great prince whom I shall make little."-MEREY D'ARGENTEAU, Notice Historique, 48, 49; and BIGNON, Xii. 423.

XI.

1813.

68.

Deplorable

surrender

fortresses.

This fate to all was disastrous; to some, accompanied CHAP. by unexampled circumstances of horror. Both in Dresden and the other fortresses the pangs of want were soon felt with great severity; for immense as had been the amount of the store of provisions laid up in these strongholds at state and the commencement of the campaign, they had been nearly of the all exhausted by the consumption, during three months, of the enormous multitude of men and horses whom Napoleon had during that time made to depend upon them. In addition to this there was accumulated within their walls a mass of above 50,000 wounded men, for whom all the efforts of French organisation and German kindliness had proved inadequate to provide any proper accommodation. Still more terrible, there had broken out in these abodes of unexampled woe a typhus fever of the most malignant character, which soon carried off multitudes both of the garrison, the wounded men, and the inhabitants. In Torgau, in particular, the pestilence exceeded anything recorded in recent times. Out of nearly 25,000 who had taken refuge within its walls after the retreat of the French army from the Elbe, only 10,000 remained when the fortress capitulated on the 26th December, of whom more than half were in a dying Dec. 26. state in the hospitals. In that fortress was taken the grand park, consisting of 287 guns and 424 caissons, which had been the object of such solicitude to Napoleon during the latter part of the campaign. Dresden, after having exhausted all its means of subsistence, capitulated, on condition of the garrison being sent back to France, on the 11th November, with 35,000 men; which Nov. 11. convention was, with a breach of faith unworthy their high character, converted into a surrender at discretion by the Allied sovereigns. One by one the remaining fortresses on the Oder, the Elbe, and the Vistula, as their means of subsistence were exhausted, lowered their colours. Before the middle of January 1814 the work of conquest was complete. Dresden, Torgau, Witten

VOL. II.

M

XI.

1813.

CHAP. berg, Zamosc, Stettin, Custrin, and Glogau, Erfurth, Wurzburg, Dantzic, and Modlin, had surrendered, and their garrisons were prisoners of war. Magdeburg and Hamburg-the latter under the stern rule of Davoust, with a garrison 40,000 strong-alone still displayed the tricolour flag. Eleven strong places, many of them firstrate fortresses, with above 2000 guns and 130,000 soldiers, of whom 110,000 were capable of active service. in the field, had been made prisoners. The deliverance 1 Thiers, xvi. of Germany was complete, and has proved of lasting 658; Die duration. The work of twenty years' victories was undone in a campaign of three months; everywhere the French Plotho, ii. standards had retreated behind the Rhine, and they ter, ii. 411. have not been seen beyond that barrier since that time -a period now (1860) of six-and-forty years.1*

Grosse Chron. i. 1127-1141;

524; Rich

69. Immense force dis

played by Napoleon

on this

occasion.

It is impossible to conclude this brief and imperfect sketch of this ever-memorable campaign without a passing retrospect on the enormous force which the French Emperor displayed on this occasion, and the light which it throws on the magnitude of the strength which a long course of victories had centred in his hands. Such a retrospect will best explain and amply vindicate the policy subsequently pursued both by Lord Castlereagh and Sir Charles Stewart at the Congress of Chatillon, the negotiations at Paris, and the Congress of Vienna. Since the war began in Spain in 1808, Napoleon had lost at least 500,000 men in the Peninsula; in the Moscow campaign

* "Napoléon avait laissé à Modlin 3000 hommes, à Zamosc 3000, à Dantzig 28,000, à Glogau 8000, à Custrin 4000, à Stettin 12,000, à Dresde 30,000, à Torgau 26,000, à Wittenberg 3000, à Magdebourg 25,000, à Hamburg 40,000, à Erfurt 6000, à Wurzburg 2000, ce qui faisait une force totale de 190,000 hommes, presque tous valides (car nous n'avons admis dans cette évaluation ni les malades ni les blessés), tous aguerris ou instruits, commandés par des officiers excellents, et comprenant notamment des soldats d'artillerie et du génie incomparables. Jamais plus belle armée n'eût porté le drapeau de la France, si, par un miracle, on avait pu réunir ses débris épars, et leur rendre l'ensemble que leur isolement dans des postes éloignés leur avait fait perdre. . C'est ainsi que ces 190,000 hommes si précieux, suffisant au printemps pour former le fond d'une superbe armée de 400,000 hommes, avaient été sacrifiés." -THIERS, xvi. 657.

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