The plan promised much. The central intrenched[pg.332] camps of Dresden and Pirna, together with the fortresses of Königstein above, and of Torgau below, the Saxon capital, gave great strategic advantages. The corps of St. Cyr at Königstein and those of Vandamme, Poniatowski, and Victor further to the east, watched the defiles leading from Bohemia. The corps of Macdonald, Lauriston, Ney, and Marmont held in check Blücher's army of Silesia. On Napoleon's left, and resting on the fortresses of Wittenberg and Magdeburg, the corps of Oudinot, Bertrand, and Reynier threatened Berlin and Bernadotte's army of the north cantonned in its neighbourhood; while Davoust at Hamburg faced Bernadotte's northern detachments and menaced his communications with Stralsund. Davoust certainly was far away, and the loss of this ablest of Napoleon's lieutenants was severely to be felt in the subsequent complicated moves; with this exception, however, Napoleon's troops were well in hand and had the advantage of the central position, while the allies were, as yet, spread out on an extended arc.
But Napoleon once more made the mistake of underrating both the numbers and the abilities of his foes. By great exertions they now had close on half a million of men under arms, near the banks of the Oder and the Elbe, or advancing from Poland and Hungary. True, many of these were reserves or raw recruits, and Colonel Cathcart doubted whether the Austrian reserves were then in existence.[[344]] But the best authorities place the total at 496,000 men and 1,443 cannon. Moreover, as was agreed on at Trachenberg, 77,000 Russians and 49,000 Prussians now marched from Glatz and Schweidnitz into Bohemia, and speedily came into touch with the 110,000 Austrians now ranged behind the River Eger. The formation of this allied Grand Army was a masterly step. Napoleon did not hear of it before August 16th, and it was not until a week later that he realized how vast were the forces that would threaten his rear. For the present his plan was to hold the Bohemian[pg.333] passes south of Bautzen and Pirna, so as to hinder any invasion of Saxony, while he threw himself in great force on the Army of Silesia, now 95,000 strong, though he believed it to number only 50,000.[[345]] While he was crushing Blücher, his lieutenants, Oudinot, Reynier, and Bertrand, were charged to drive Bernadotte's scattered corps from Berlin; whereupon Davoust was to cut him off from the sea and relieve the French garrisons at Stettin and Küstrin. Thus Napoleon proposed to act on the offensive in the open country towards Berlin and in Silesia, remaining at first on the defensive at Dresden and in the Lusatian mountains. This was against the advice of Marmont, who urged him to strike first at Prague, and not to intrust his lieutenants with great undertakings far away from Dresden. The advice proved to be sound; but it seems certain that Napoleon intended to open the campaign by a mighty blow dealt at Blücher, and then to lead a great force through the Lusatian defiles into Bohemia and drive the allies before him towards Vienna.
But what did he presume that the allied forces in Bohemia would be doing while he overwhelmed Blücher in Silesia? Would not Dresden and his communications with France be left open to their blows? He decided to run this risk. He had 100,000 men among the Lusatian hills between Bautzen and Zittau. St. Cyr's corps was strongly posted at Pirna and the small fortress of Königstein, while his light troops watched the passes north of Teplitz and Karlsbad. If the allies sought to invade Saxony, they would, so Napoleon thought, try to force the Zittau road, which presented few natural difficulties. If they threatened Dresden by the passages further west, Vandamme would march from near Zittau to reinforce St. Cyr, or, if need be, the Emperor himself would hurry back from Silesia with his Guards. If the enemy invaded Bavaria, [pg.334] Napoleon wished them bon voyage: they would soon come back faster than they went; for, in that case, he would pour his columns down from Zittau towards Prague and Vienna. The thought that he might for a time be cut off from France troubled him not: "400,000 men," he said, "resting on a system of strongholds, on a river like the Elbe, are not to be turned." In truth, he thought little about the Bohemian army. If 40,000 Russians had entered Bohemia, they would not reach Prague till the 25th; so he wrote to St. Cyr On the 17th, the day when hostilities could first begin; and he evidently believed that Dresden would be safe till September. Its defence seemed assured by the skill of that master of defensive warfare, St. Cyr, by the barrier of the Erz Mountains, and still more by Austrian slowness.
Of this characteristic of theirs he cherished great hopes. Their finances were in dire disorder; and Fouché, who had just returned from a tour in the Hapsburg States, reported that the best way of striking at that Power would be "to affect its paper currency, on which all its armaments depend."[[346]] And truly if the transport of a great army over a mountain range had depended solely on the almost bankrupt exchequer at Vienna, Dresden would have been safe until Michaelmas; but, beside the material aid brought by the Russians and Prussians into Bohemia, England also gave her financial support. In pursuance of the secret article agreed on at Reichenbach, Cathcart now advanced £250,000 at once; and the knowledge that our financial support was given to the federative paper notes issued by the allies enabled the Court of Vienna privately to raise loans and to wage war with a vigour wholly unexpected by Napoleon.[[347]]
Certainly the allied Grand Army suffered from no[pg.335] lack of advisers. The Czar, the Emperor Francis, and the King of Prussia were there; as a compliment to Austria, the command was intrusted to Field-Marshal Schwarzenberg, a man of diplomatic ability rather than of military genius. By his side were the Russians, Wittgenstein, Barclay, and Toll, the Prussian Knesebeck, the Swiss Jomini, and, above all, Moreau.
The last-named, as we have seen, came over on the inducement of Bernadotte, and was received with great honour by the allied sovereigns. Jomini also was welcomed for his knowledge of the art of war. This great writer had long served as a French general; but the ill-treatment that he had lately suffered at Berthier's hands led him, on August 14th, to quit the French service and pass over to the allies. His account of his desertion, however, makes it clear that he had not penetrated Napoleon's designs, for the best of all reasons, because the Emperor kept them to himself to the very last moment.[[348]]
The second part of the campaign opens with the curious sight of immense forces, commanded by experienced leaders, acting in complete ignorance of the moves of the enemy only some fifty miles away. Leaving Bautzen on August 17th, Napoleon proceeded eastwards to Görlitz, turned off thence to Zittau, and hearing a false rumour that the Russo-Prussian force in Bohemia was only 40,000 strong, returned to Görlitz with the aim of crushing Blücher. Disputes about the armistice had given that enterprising leader the excuse for entering the neutral zone before its expiration; and he had had sharp affairs with Macdonald and Ney near Löwenberg on the River Bober. Napoleon hurried up with his Guards, eager to catch Blücher;[[349]] the French were now[pg.336] 140,000 strong, while the allies had barely 95,000 at hand. But the Prussian veteran, usually as daring as a lion, was now wily as a fox. Under cover of stiff outpost affairs, he skilfully withdrew to the south-east, hoping to lure the French into the depths of Silesia and so give time to Schwarzenberg to seize Dresden.
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1813
But Napoleon was not to be drawn further afield. Seeing that his foes could not be forced to a pitched battle, he intrusted the command to Macdonald, and rapidly withdrew with Ney and his Guard towards Görlitz; for he now saw the possible danger to Dresden if Schwarzenberg struck home. If, however, that leader remained on the defensive, the Emperor determined to fall back on what had all along been his second plan, and make a rush through the Lusatian defiles on Prague.[[350]] But a[pg.337] despatch from St. Cyr, which reached him at Görlitz late at night on the 23rd, showed that Dresden was in serious danger from the gathering masses of the allies. This news consigned his second plan to the limbo of vain hopes. Yet, as will appear a little later, his determination to defend by taking the offensive soon took form in yet a third design for the destruction of the allies.