CAMPAIGN OF LORD WELLINGTON.
The last act of the drama was played during this year with great rapidity. At the commencement of this year the progress of Lord Wellington was retarded by the state of the weather, but as soon as it became favourable he broke up his cantonments, resolving to penetrate as far as possible into the interior of France. He first cleared the ground on his right wing by driving the enemy eastward, and by pushing forward his centre with a corresponding movement, after which he prepared with his left wing, under Sir John Hope, to invest Bayonne. Marshal Beresford was also detached with two divisions to occupy Bordeaux, the mayor and inhabitants of which, on his arrival, of their own accord, proclaimed Louis XVIII. Lord Wellington himself, with the main army, advanced to Vig Bigorre, while Soult retreated to some good positions at Tarbes, and then to Toulouse. Soult arrived at Toulouse on the 24th of March, and on the 27th Wellington was close to him in front of that city. Between them lay the deep and rapid river Garonne, and it was not till the 9th of April that Wellington was enabled to get the allied army to the right bank of that stream. On the 10th of April was fought the bloody battle of Toulouse, in which Wellington was again victorious. Soult was driven from his entrenched camp on the eastern side of the city of Toulouse with a terrible loss: the victors also suffered severely. Soult evacuated Toulouse on the 11th of April, retiring by Castlenaudry to Carcassonne. He left behind him in the town 1,600 wounded men, and three generals, besides artillery and ammunition, all of which were taken by the allies, Wellington entered the city on the 12th, when a deputation waited on him, requesting him to receive the key of the good and loyal city in the name of King Louis XVIII. The battle of Toulouse was the last real battle that Wellington had to fight during this campaign. Four days after Soult’s defeat, indeed, and when the allies were in possession of the city, and the French were flying from it, General Thouvenot, who commanded in Bayonne, chose to make a desperate sortie on the allies in their cantonments, while the troops were all buried in sleep, but though he succeeded in cutting off many, he was repulsed with an equal loss. In the meantime the English Colonel Cooke and the French Colonel St, Simon arrived from Paris with the news that the allies had entered the French capital; that a provisional government had been established in the name of Louis XVIII.; and that Napoleon had abdicated at Fontainbleau, on the 4th of April. These officers were despatched from Wellington’s head-quarters to those of Marshal Soult, and after some negociation a friendly convention was signed, and a line of demarcation drawn between the two armies. This convention was signed on the 18th of April, and on the 21st Lord Wellington, by general orders, congratulated his army on the near prospect of the termination of their toils and dangers, and thanked them for their valour in the field, and for their conciliating conduct towards the inhabitants of the country.
THE ALLIES ENTER PARIS; NAPOLEON DETHRONED, ETC.
At length the “world-tyrant” was humbled. Equitable terms of peace had been recently proposed to Napoleon by the confederated princes on the Rhine, where they were assembled in great force, but they were rejected by him with disdain. The confederated princes had collected their armies on the Rhine after Napoleon’s disastrous retreat from Moscow, resolved either to restrain his insatiate ambition, or to hurl him from his throne. There were three armies arrayed against him. Bernadotte, crown prince of Sweden, menaced him from the north; Blucher with a Prussian army from the east; and Schwartzenberg, with the grand army from the mountains of Bohemia, on the south. In the whole they numbered about 500,000 men, and Napoleon by fresh conscriptions was enabled to face them with an army of 300,000. He had recently gained victories over the Prussians at Lutzen, and the Russians at Bautzen, and these victories seem to have led him on to ruin. He calculated upon victory still, and therefore, when his generals advised him to retreat at once to the Rhine, he refused, and bade them obey his commands. He marched to Dresden, recently taken by Schwartzenberg, and victory again waited on his steps; his enemies were routed with the loss of their cannon and 20,000 prisoners. But this victory was counterbalanced by the capture of the whole force of Vandamme by the Russians and Prussians, and by the defeats of Oudinot by the Prince of Sweden at Buelow; and of Macdonald at Katzbach. Napoleon now retreated to Leipsic, whither he was followed by the Russians, Prussians, and Austrians. In the plains of Leipsic was fought the battle of nations, in which God gave the victory to the allies. This battle lasted from the 14th to the 19th of October, 1813, and it ended with the terrible loss of 80,000 men on the side of Napoleon, and 50,000 of the allies. The French fled towards Erfurt, and finding no refuge there, continued their flight to Mentz and the Rhine. As he hastened towards the Rhine his path was intercepted by an army of Bavarians, who had taken up their position at Hanau; but he routed them, and then established his troops on the Rhine, the allies encamping opposite, and occupying Frankfort as their head-quarters. After the battle of Leipsic, Europe gained her freedom, and seeing every nation taking up arms against him, Napoleon sued for peace. He was offered France, with the Rhine for its boundary, but he rejected this dominion as too limited for his sway. War continued; and in January, 1814, the allies crossed the Rhine, and invaded France. Thus menaced, the entire male population of France was summoned to arms, 30,000 of the national guard of Paris were put in motion, and the last resources of France called into action. Napoleon was defeated by the Austrian and Prussian forces at Brienne, in which battle he lost many cannon and prisoners. Peace on equitable terms was again offered him, but peace was again refused: he resolved to conquer or perish. Victory again waited on his arms at Champaubert, where the Prussians had arrived in their onward march to Paris, and he subsequently gained a victory over the Prussians at Montmirail, and also over the Austrians at Montereau. After the battle of Montmirail, a last effort was made to bring him to terms with the allies, but he refused to sheathe his sword. He gained a victory over the Russians at Craonne, but his loss was so great that it was tantamount to defeat. The Russians retreated to Laon, where they united with the Prussians, and where, three days after, they routed and destroyed the French division of forces under Marmont. Hope now fled, and Napoleon sought peace on any terms. But it was now too late: the allies had recently agreed to drive him from his throne as a ruler dangerous to the peace of the world. His own subjects moreover, were now conspiring against him. Paris, Bordeaux, and other cities, were sending upwards shouts for the return of the reign of the Bourbons. Rendered desperate, Napoleon now turned to combat with the Austrians under Schwartzenberg at Arcis; but after a faint struggle his troops retreated. In the meantime the Russians and Prussians were hastening onwards to Paris. It was on the 27th of March that the Parisians heard the sound of war approach their gates. Marmont, Mortier, and Joseph Buonaparte placed themselves with some forces in and around the city for its defence; but on the 30th they were driven from their positions, and then Paris was delivered into the hands of the Russians and Prussians. When Napoleon heard of the fall of Paris he was hastening to its relief, and astounded at the news he returned to Fontainbleau. He still clung to hope, and talked of vindicating his rights by the sword, but his marshals refused to support him, and some hinted that he was no longer emperor. Then his proud spirit was humbled, and he drew up a declaration, which stated that as he was the sole obstacle to the peace of France, he was willing to resign his crown, and leave her shores, if the succession of his son and the regency of the empress were ensured by the allied sovereigns. But this could not be: his unconditional abdication was demanded, and as there was no alternative, he signed a treaty on the 11th of April, which declared him and his descendants to have forfeited the throne of France for ever. By this treaty the island of Elba was assigned to him in full sovereignty, and on the 20th of April he departed with four hundred of his guard to lord it over this island instead of a world. Thus expired the dynasty of Napoleon: a dynasty founded in blood, and which, therefore, by the immutable law of the Ruler of the universe, was doomed to perish. Before Napoleon signed his abdication, the senate, hitherto obsequiously submissive to him, had decreed that he had forfeited the throne of France, and had created a provisional government, charged with the office of re-establishing the functions and administration of the state. The installation of this provisional government was signalized by an address to the French armies, in which they were told that they were no longer the soldiers of Napoleon, that the senate and all France had released them from their oath. Subsequently it was resolved by the senate that the Bourbon dynasty should be restored; and Louis XVIII. soon after arrived from England, whither he had been residing in rural retirement, and made his solemn entry into Paris. A definitive treaty of peace was signed at Paris between Louis and the allies on the 30th of May and peace was again restored to the distracted world.
TREATY OF PEACE.
The treaty of peace and amity signed at Paris, secured to France its boundaries as they existed in January, 1792. The contracting parties agreed that Holland should have an increase of territory; that the lesser German states should be independent, and united by a Germanic federal league; that Switzerland should enjoy its independence under the government of its own choice; and that Italy, beyond the limits of the Austrian dominions, which were to be restored, should be composed of sovereign independent states. France recovered her colonies from England, with the exception of Tobago, St. Lucie, and the Isle of France with its dependencies. Malta was to be retained by England, which country had recently obtained the Cape of Good Hope by a separate treaty with Holland. French Guiana was restored by Portugal, and the rights of France of fishery on the bank of Newfoundland were all to be restored as they were by the peace of 1783. As a proof of their sincerity in the repeated declarations they had made, that they meant no ill to France—that they waged war only against Napoleon, the allies agreed that their armies should evacuate France, and that all the French prisoners should be restored. This treaty was considered final as regards France; but there were other affairs of an extensive and complicated nature still to be settled, the greater part of Europe requiring reorganization, and her past misfortunes demanding some preconcerted defences for the future—and it was therefore agreed in a separate article that all the powers engaged in the late war should send plenipotentiaries to a congress to be held at Vienna, for the object of completing the pacific dispositions of the treaty of Paris, and of preventing the recurrence of such a war as that in which they had for so many years been engaged, and by which the countries of Europe had been desolated.