Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II

by G. R. Gleig

The battle of Dresden was, along the centre of the line, little else than a furious cannonade. The French had nothing to gain by rendering it more close, and the Allies seemed indisposed to assume the offensive. It was a ball from one of the batteries, which replied at a disadvantage to those of the Allies above Recknitz, which mortally wounded Moreau. His fate has been recorded by so many pens, that I need not employ mine to swell the list, and himself either lauded or censured, according as the prejudices of the writers leaned to the side of Napoleon or the Allies. Let his merits have been what they might, in a moral point of view, nobody can refuse to him the renown of an able officer; and to the esteem in which the Emperor of Russia held him, the stone which marks the spot where he fell, bears witness. It is a simple block of freestone, and bears this inscription, "Moreau, the warrior, fell here, beside his friend Alexander." But on both flanks more important operations went forward. The French carried every thing before them. From Cotta, which he had won, Murat turned upon the advanced guard of Klenau's corps, and destroyed it. He then pressed forward, bearing down all opposition, and making prisoners of whole battalions, whose muskets had become so saturated, that they could not be discharged. In like manner, St. Cyr pushed back the Prussians on Gruna, while Marmont and Nansouty drove the Russians from position to position, and cleared the plain. Both flanks, in short, were turned; and the troops composing them driven in upon the centre, and cut off from their proper lines of retreat. But the French were too much enfeebled to pursue the advantages which they had gained with their accustomed spirit. About three in the afternoon the cannonade grew slack; the Allies showed only a strong rear-guard, and Napoleon returned to the city, saying to those around him, "I am greatly deceived if we shall not hear news of Vandamme. It is his movement which has constrained the enemy to retreat thus abruptly."

The 28th was a day of continued and broken retreat on the part of the Allies; of movements more tardy than, perhaps, they ought to have been, on the part of the French. A great deal of baggage, almost all the wounded, and many prisoners, were abandoned by the fugitives; yet, in most cases, they won the defiles in tolerable order, and were safe. Colloredo, covered by a strong rear-guard, threaded the pass of Dippoldiswald, and had Töplitz, the point of reunion, in view. The rest made their escape likewise, though with more of confusion; and, in one striking instance, they would not have succeeded at all, had not Vandamme been enticed into the grievous error of leaving the heights of Peterswald unguarded. It was this blunder of his, which caused the disaster at Kulm; and in order to make clear the brief account which I am going to give of that battle, it will be necessary to revert to my own movements, so that the ground may be described as by an eye-witness.

The village of Peterswald lies at the northern base of a range of heights, which, circling round, place Töplitz in the centre of a huge amphitheatre. On this side the ascent is gradual, and the face of the hill open and cultivated. In a military point of view, therefore, the position is admirable; it forms a perfect glacis. As you wind your way upwards, moreover, the view becomes, at every step, more and more interesting, till having gained the ridge,—where a windmill is built,—it is glorious in the extreme. You look down upon a valley, of which it is scarcely too much to say, that the eye of man has never beheld anything more perfect. Deep, deep, it lies, enclosed on every side by mountains, which, sloping away one from another, resemble so many prodigious cones, and open out to you the gorges of countless glens; each, as it would appear, more exquisitely beautiful than another. The vale of Töplitz itself may measure, perhaps, where it is widest, some six or eight English miles across; where it is least wide, the interval between the mountains is scarcely one mile. But it is in all directions fertile and luxuriant in the extreme. Waving woods, rich cornfields, vineyards, meadows, and groves, are there; with towns, and villages, and castles, and hamlets, scattered through them, even as the hand of the painter would desire to arrange them. Nor is the running stream, that most indispensable of all features in a landscape of perfect beauty, wanting. The Pala rolls his waters through the valley; and if he be inconsiderable in point of size, yet is he limpid and clear; with width enough to catch the sun's rays, from time to time, as they fall, and throw them back almost brighter in the reflection than in the reality. Altogether it is as striking a panorama as any which, even in Bohemia, one will easily find.

Vandamme had received orders to pass the Elbe between Lilienstein and Königstein; and pushing back whatever corps the Allies might have left at Pirna, to establish himself on the summit of this ridge. He obeyed these instructions so well, that, in spite of the gallant resistance of Prince Eugene of Wurtemberg, he carried his point. The heights of Peterswald were in his possession on the 28th; it would have been well for his master had he attempted nothing further. Vandamme, however, was ambitious of earning the marshal's baton by something more than mere obedience to an order received. He saw that Töplitz was uncovered, and knowing that the possession of that place would render him master of all the passes that diverge from it, he resolved, on the 29th, to make the essay. He descended from his mountain throne, and penetrated as far as Kulm.

The hill, which, with a portion only of his force, Vandamme had abandoned, is, on that side which looks down into the vale of Töplitz, steep, well nigh to perpendicular. Huge forests clothe its rugged face; out of which bold rocks protrude; indeed, such is the nature of the country, that the road is carried backwards and forwards almost in a zig-zag, in order to render it accessible. This mountain, in a military point of view, all but impassable, Vandamme placed behind him; leaving, however, a strong division to guard it, and nothing doubting of his own success. But he had miscalculated the time which was at his disposal. Six and twenty hours would have sufficed,—six were quite inadequate, and he found them so. He pushed on, however, to Kulm. It is a neat village, with a modern schloss beside it; and a church, which crowns a low green hill, in its centre. There are some extensive plantations near; the Pala flows among them; and between it and the mountains on the right, there is a space of less than two miles. He gained it almost without firing a shot, for the force in Töplitz was quite inconsiderable, and his arrival occasioned such panic in that, the head-quarters of the confederation, that kings, and emperors, and princesses, dispersed in all directions. One half league, indeed, was all that divided his patrols from their prize, when a serious resistance began. General Ostermann, with six thousand of the Russian Imperial Guard, received orders to stop the French at all hazards. He threw himself across the road, drove back their advanced guard, and held his ground so tenaciously, that nothing could move him. Ostermann himself lost an arm; the élite of the Russian guard died where they fought; but Töplitz was saved, and the certain ruin which its capture would have brought upon the Allied cause was averted.

When a fierce battle once begins, there is no calculating in what results it may terminate. Vandamme became irritated by the resistance which was made to him; and, still hoping to bear it down, sent continually for reinforcements. The heights of Peterswald were, in consequence, gradually denuded of guards, and at last not so much as a picquet remained to observe what might approach them. The fresh columns were numerous and brave, but they arrived too late at the scene of action. Already were the leading battalions of Barclay de Tolly's corps in the field, and brigade after brigade followed them. Then, indeed, Vandamme began to perceive that he would have acted more judiciously had he adhered strictly to Napoleon's orders. But not being aware of all the difficulties of his position, he did not like to abandon it; and merely changed his ground so as to embrace Kulm in his line, and there awaited on the morrow a renewal of the contest.

Vandamme committed a very grievous error in this. The night was at his own disposal, and he ought to have availed himself of it to recover the heights of Peterswald. His pride took the alarm; and, trusting that the Allies, defeated before Dresden, would be utterly disorganised, and that their pursuers would arrive close upon their heels, let them appear in what quarter they might, he made up his mind to give battle again on the 30th. The dawn of that day showed him that his enemies had been more prudent than he. Not his front only, but both flanks were threatened; that is to say, the Allies, gathering additional strength from hour to hour, had completely overlapped his right; while his left, closed in by the mountains, was at once supported, and rendered, for any movement in retreat, completely useless. The Allies came on with great courage, somewhere about eighty thousand men being in their line; and till two o'clock the battle raged with indescribable fury. But the odds were irresistable. Vandamme began, in the presence of the victor, a retrogressive movement, which ought to have been accomplished under shadow of the darkness. It was made to no purpose. To the horror and amazement of the French, to the surprise and joy of the Allies, Kleist's corps of Prussians showed themselves on the heights; and, descending by the only road which Vandamme had counted upon as open, placed him entirely in a cul de sac. The French were utterly confounded. They lost all order, all confidence, both in themselves and their leaders; and, rushing furiously up the ascent, endeavoured to break through. Moreover, so completely unlooked-for, on the side of the Prussians, was the situation in which they found themselves, that at first they did not well know how to act. Five hundred French cavalry broke in upon a division of the landwehr; sabred many of the infantry, and, for a moment, gained possession of the guns. But it was only for a moment. The Prussians recovered from their surprise; and never was defeat more absolute than that which Vandamme's luckless corps sustained. Many prisoners were taken, including the general-in-chief. All the artillery, ammunition cars, and standards, fell into the hands of the Allies, and the remnant of the men that did escape made their way, one by one, and destitute even of their arms, through the forest, where tract there was none.

Such is a true detail of the leading events in the battle of Kulm; a victory of which the Austrians, with great justice, make much; which they, the Russians, and Prussians, have equally commemorated by monuments erected on the spot, but for which the imprudence of the French commander is at least as much to be thanked as the sagacity of Colloredo, or the daring of Kleist. It was, with one exception,—the noble resistance of the Russian Guard under Ostermann,—a gross blunder on both sides; it might in its results have been fatal to either, though it ended in the discomfiture of the French. For the Allies, who had been on the very eve of falling out among themselves, were, in consequence of the success at Kulm, reunited; and the tide of victory, which had flowed so fiercely against them a few days previously, turned once more in their favour. Of its course, however, I have, in this place, no business to speak. Let me, therefore, return to myself and my own proceedings.

I had stood before this upon the ridge of the hill, and looked forth over the battle field below. I had quitted my own carriage, and walked down; as I quitted now the diligence for the same purpose, and held converse with a stone-breaker by the wayside, whose cross, marked with the titles of many battles, told that, among others, he had borne his part in the fight of Kulm. He described to me the confusion, both of the French and Prussian corps, as something of which I could form no conception. Both sides lost even the semblance of order, and through the deep forest, and over the slope of the defile, there was one ceaseless combat of man to man. The quantity of dead, likewise, that covered the hill-side, was prodigious; indeed, it took the country people, who were pressed for the occasion, two whole days to bury them. How changed was the scene now! The outward forms of nature, doubtless, retained their identity; but wood, and ravine, and defile, and sweeping level, all lay under me, as quiet and as peaceful as if the sounds of war had never been heard among them. I was enchanted with my walk down the steep.

The village of Kulm suffered, of course, terribly during the melée. The church had been burned to the ground, as well as the schloss; and of the cottages and vineyards almost all had been beaten to pieces. There were now church, schloss, cottages, and vineyards all blooming and fresh, as if no such calamity had ever overtaken them. The inhabitants, too, unmindful as men ever are of evils that have befallen to others, and even to themselves, long ago, delight in nothing so much as in replying to the questions which curious travellers, like myself, may chance to put to them. But the cicerone ex officio, to whom references are invariably made, is a fine old Austrian invalid, to whose care the charge of the monuments is intrusted. The old fellow is not, I must confess, very intelligent; but he displays his orders with manifest and most commendable pride, and assures you that General Colloredo, who that day received his mortal wound, was the best soldier in the emperor's service. Of the monuments themselves I need say no more than that they occupy a space where the roads from Tetschen and Dresden meet; in which, as it appears, the fighting was very desperate, and where Colloredo fell. That erected by the Austrians is much more massive than its rival; and professes to commemorate rather the merits of the commander than the valour of the troops. The Prussian is a small, but singularly neat obelisk, and bears this inscription, "A grateful king and country honour the heroes who fell." There is a third in progress, of which the Emperor of Russia is the founder; but it is not yet completed. It ought to be the most magnificent of the whole; for assuredly the success of the day was owing more to the stubborn hardihood of the Russian Guards, than to any efforts either of Austrians or Prussians.