August 21st.—Opening of the campaign in Italy. Eugène, with 50,000 men, commands the Franco-Italian army.
August 23rd.—Combats of Gross-Beeren and Ahrensdorf, near Berlin. Bernadotte defeats Oudinot with loss of 1500 men and 20 guns. Berlin is preserved to the Allies. Oudinot replaced by Ney. Lauriston defeats Army of Silesia at Goldberg with heavy loss.
August 26th-27th.—Battle of Dresden.—Napoleon marches a hundred miles in seventy hours to the rescue. With less than 100,000 men he defeats the Allied Army of 180,000 under Schwartzenberg, Wittgenstein, and Kleist. Austrians lose 20,000 prisoners and 60 guns. Moreau is mortally wounded (dies September 1st). Combat of the Katzbach, in Silesia. Blucher defeats Macdonald with heavy loss, who loses 10,000 to 12,000 men in his retreat.
August 30th.—Combat of Kulm. Vandamme enveloped in Bohemia, and surrenders with 12,000 men.
August 31st.—Combat of Irun. Soult attacks Wellington to save San Sebastian, but is repulsed. Graham storms San Sebastian.
September 6th.—Combat of Dennewitz (near Berlin). Ney routed by Bulow and Bernadotte; loses his artillery, baggage, and 12,000 men.
September 10th—Americans capture the English flotilla on Lake Erie.
September 12th.—Combat of Villafranca (near Barcelona). Suchet defeats English General Bentinck.
October 7th.—Wellington crosses the Bidassoa into France. "It is on the frontier of France itself that ends the enterprise of Napoleon on Spain. The Spaniards have given the first conception of a people's war versus a war of professionals. For it would be a mistake to think that the battles of Salamanca (July 22nd, 1812) and Vittoria (June 21st, 1813) forced the French to abandon the Peninsula.... It was the daily losses, the destruction of man by man, the drops of French blood falling one by one, which in five years aggregated a death-roll of 150,000 men. As to the English, they appeared in this war only as they do in every world-crisis, to gather, in the midst of general desolation, the fruits of their policy, and to consolidate their plans of maritime despotism, of exclusive commerce" (Montgaillard).
October 15th.—Bavarian army secedes and joins the Austrians.