“You persist then,” the Emperor concluded after a fierce war of words, “in bidding me defiance; you will give the law to me? Be it so! Let it be war, and the field of combat Vienna.”
As a result of the armistice Austria threw in her lot with Russia, Prussia, and Sweden, whose combined forces consequently outnumbered those marching with the French colours. Now began a long series of engagements in quick succession, the most important being the battle of Dresden between the troops under Napoleon and Schwarzenberg on the 27th August, which ended in the retreat of the Allies, and the defeat of the French at Kulm, where 10,000 prisoners were taken. After Dresden the Emperor ordered the pursuit of the dejected Russo-Prussian columns, but it was not carried out with sufficient energy to achieve decisive results.
Napoleon suddenly decided to return to Dresden, for what reason is unknown; some authorities aver that he was taken ill. It seemed as though the French had lost their prowess; Macdonald met with disaster, Ney failed at Dennewitz when victory seemed in his grasp, Reynier was forced to retreat, Bertrand to abandon Wartenburg. Everything was going from bad to worse, but it was not Napoleon himself who met these rebuffs it must be remembered. The Allies were still afraid of him.
The Emperor now concentrated some 190,000 troops on Leipzig, the enemy having at their command a possible 300,000, all of whom, however, were not available at the beginning of the now famous “Battle of the Nations.” This lasted from the 16th October till the 19th, and ended in the defeat of Napoleon. During the four days no fewer than 120,000 men were killed or wounded, eloquent proof of the awful nature of the desperate conflict. Deserted by the Saxons, Würtembergers and Bavarians, Napoleon fought his way to the Rhine, crossed the river, and leaving his army, now reduced to about 70,000 men, arrived in Paris on the 9th November. “The close of the campaign,” said Mignet, “was as disastrous as that of the preceding one. France was threatened in its own limits, as it had been in 1799; but the enthusiasm of independence no longer existed, and the man who deprived it of its rights found it, at this great crisis, incapable of sustaining him or defending itself. The servitude of nations is, sooner or later, ever avenged.” The concluding sentence sums up the whole philosophy of history.
CHAPTER XXXII
The Conquest of the Conqueror (1814–1821)
The Allies now had the upper hand beyond the shadow of a doubt. Napoleon the Conqueror—for he has surely as much right to that title as William of Normandy—who had used the greater part of Europe as a parade ground for his matchless legions, who had overturned thrones and founded a dynasty in the modern nineteenth century, had been defeated in two great campaigns. It is difficult to realise that he was now only forty-four years of age, in the prime of life, but “One grows old quickly on battlefields,” as he once remarked. His astounding energy, physically if not mentally, was wearing out. Superactivity is a consuming fire.
1814