THE LAST TRY
CHAPTER XXVIII
AT THE STAMP OF THE EMPEROR'S FOOT
The wonderful genius of Napoleon, which had been so clearly manifested in so many ways during his varied career, was never exhibited to better advantage than in the three months after his return from Elba. During that period he reorganized the government, recreated and reëquipped an army. The veterans flocked to his standards, and within the time mentioned he had actually two hundred and fifty thousand men under arms.
With the better moiety of this force, the best armed, the best equipped, the best officered contingent, he took the field early in the month of June. The Emperor did not want war any more than France did. He began his new reign with the most pacific of proclamations, which probably reflected absolutely the whole desire of his heart. But the patience of Europe had been exhausted and the belief of rulers and peoples in the honesty of his professions, declarations or intentions, had been hopelessly shattered.
His arrival effected an immediate resurrection of the almost moribund Congress of Vienna. The squabbling, arguing, trifling plenipotentiaries of the powers had burst into gigantic laughter—literally, actual merriment, albeit of a somewhat grim character!—when they received the news of Napoleon's return. They were not laughing at Napoleon but at themselves. They had been dividing the lion's skin in high-flown phrases, which meant nothing, endeavoring to incorporate the Decalogue and the Sermon on the Mount in their protocols and treaties, when they suddenly discovered that the Emperor was still to be reckoned with.
Differences were instantly laid aside and forgotten. Russia, Prussia and Austria immediately agreed to put in the field two hundred and fifty thousand men each. The smaller powers, Sweden, Spain, the Low Countries, promised contingents. England once more assumed the familiar role of paymaster by immediately placing a vast subsidy at the disposal of the allies. She gave them also what was of more value than a subsidy, a soldier of the first rank to command the armies in the field.
The Duke of Wellington had never crossed swords with the greatest captain of his day and perhaps of all time. But he had measured himself with the ablest and most famous of Napoleon's Marshals. With greatly inferior forces, through four years of desperate fighting, he had defeated the Marshals and armies of France. The dashing and gallant Junot had been routed at Vimiero, Victor had been overwhelmed at Talavera. Wily old Massena with all his ability could look back to the disaster of the blood-stained hill of Busaco, Marmont, the dainty tactician, had been smashed at Salamanca, stubborn Jourdan had been at last decisively defeated at Victoria. Finally, the brilliant Soult had been hurled out of the Pyrenees and had met his master at Toulouse. Still, great as were these soldiers and highly trained as they had been in the best of schools, not one of them was a Napoleon; all of them together were not, for that matter. Would the luster of Wellington's fame, which extended from the Ganges to the Ebro, be tarnished when he met the Emperor? It was a foregone conclusion, of course, that Schwarzenberg would command the Austrians; Blücher, the "Hussar General," the hard-fighting, downright old "Marshal Vorwärts," the Prussians; and the Emperor Alexander, with his veteran captains, the vast horde of Russians.
To assemble, arm, equip and move two hundred and fifty thousand men was a great task in those days even for a rich and populous country flushed with victory and in the enjoyment of an abundance of time and unlimited means. The organizing, it almost might be said the creative, ability of Napoleon was not shared by his opponents. Try as they would, June found their preparations still woefully incomplete. The Austrians had scarcely moved at all. The slower Russians, who were farther away and were to constitute the reserve army, could be discounted from any present calculation of the enemies of the Empire. The English and their smaller allies from the Low Countries, and the Prussians, whose hatred of France and the Emperor was greater than that of any other nation, were quicker to move. Two hundred and fifteen thousand men, half of them Prussians, a third of the other moiety English, the remaining two-thirds Belgians, Hollanders, and other miscellaneous nationalities, had joined the colors on the northwestern frontier of France. One-half of this joint assembly was commanded by Blücher and the other half by Wellington.
Leaving the weaker half of his own great army to complete its equipment, and placing strong detachments in fortress and at strategetic points to oppose the Austrians should they advance, the Emperor, as has been said, with about one hundred and twenty-five thousand men took the field. Naturally, inevitably, Belgium, the immemorial battleground of the nations, and the great English-Prussian army were his objectives. He saw clearly the dangers that encompassed him, the demands he must meet and the conditions over which he must triumph.