Meanwhile the Grand Army of the allies, strengthened by the approach from Poland of 50,000 Russians of the Army of Reserve, was creeping through the western passes of the Erz into the plains south of Leipzig. This move was not unexpected by Napoleon. The importance of that city was obvious. Situated in the midst of the fertile Saxon plain, the centre of a great system of[pg.353]roads, its position and its wealth alike marked it out as the place likely to be seized by a daring foe who should seek to cut Napoleon off from France.
As fortune turned against him, he became ever more nervous about Leipzig. Yet, for the present, the northward march of Blücher rivetted his attention. It puzzled him. Even as late as October 2nd he had not fathomed Blücher's real aim[[369]]. But four days later he heard that the Prussian leader had crossed the Elbe. At once he hurried north-west with the Guard to crush him, and to resume the favourite project of threatening Berllin and join hands with Davoust. Charging St-Cyr with the defence of Dresden, and Murat with the defence of Leipzig, he took his stand at Düben, a small town on the Mulde, nearly midway between Leipzig and Wittenberg. Thence he reinforced Ney's army, and ordered that Marshal northwards to fall on the rear of Bernadotte and Blücher; while he himself waited in a moated castle at Düben to learn the issue of events.
The saxon Colonel, von Odeleben, has left us a vivid picture of the great man's restlessness during those four days. Surrounded by maps and despatches, and waited on by watchful geographer and apprehensive secretary, he spent much of the time scrawling large letters on a sheet of paper, uneasily listening for the tramp of a courier. In truth, few days of his life were more critical that those spent amidst the rains, swamps, and fogs of Düben. Could he have caught Bernadotte and Blücher far apart, he might have overwhelmed them singly, and then have carried the war into the heart of Prussia. But he knows that Dresden and Leipzig are far from safe. The news from that side begins to alarm him: and [pg.354] though, on the north, Ney, Bertrand, and Reynier cut up the rearguard of the allies, he learns with some disquiet that Blücher is withdrawing westwards behind the River Saale, a move which betokens a wish to come into touch with Schwarzenberg near Leipzig.
Yet this disconcerting thought spurs him on to one of his most daring designs. "As a means of upsetting all their plans, I will march to the Elbe. There I have the advantage, since I have Hamburg, Magdeburg, Wittenberg, Torgau, and Dresden."[[370]] What faith he had in the defensive capacities of a great river line dotted with fortresses! His lieutenants did not share it. Caulaincourt tells us that his plan of dashing at Berlin roused general consternation at headquarters, and that the staff came in a body to beg him to give it up, and march back to protect Leipzig. Reluctantly he abandons it, and then only to change it for one equally venturesome. He will crush Bernadotte and Blücher, or throw them beyond the Elbe, and then, himself crossing the Elbe, ascend its right bank, recross it at Torgau, and strike at Schwarzenberg's rear near Leipzig.
The plan promised well, provided that his men were walking machines, and that Schwarzenberg did nothing in the interval. But gradually the truth dawns on him that, while he sits weaving plans and dictating despatches—he sent off six in the small hours of October 12th—Blücher and Schwarzenberg are drawing near to Leipzig. On that day he prepared to fall back on that city, a resolve strengthened on the morrow by the capture of one of the enemy's envoys, who reported that they had great hopes of detaching Bavaria from the French cause.
The news was correct. Five days earlier, the King of Bavaria had come to terms with Austria, offering to[pg.355] place 36,000 troops at her disposal, while she, in return, guaranteed his complete sovereignty and a full territorial indemnity for any districts that he might be called on to restore to the Hapsburgs.[[371]] Napoleon knew not as yet the full import of the news, and it is quite incorrect to allege, as some heedless admirers have done, that this was the only thing that stayed his conquering march northwards.[[372]] His retreat to Leipzig was arranged before he heard the first rumour as to Bavaria's defection. But the tidings saddened his men on their miry march southwards; and, strange to say, the Emperor published it to all his troops at Leipzig on the 15th, giving it as the cause why they were about to fall back on the Rhine.
There was much to depress the Emperor when, on the 14th, he drew near to Leipzig. With him came the King and Queen of Saxony, who during the last days had resignedly moved along in the tail of this comet, which had blasted their once smiling realm. Outside the city they parted, the royal pair seeking shelter under its roofs, while the Emperor pressed on to Murat's headquarters near Wachau. There, too the news was doubtful. The King of Naples had not, on that day, shown his old prowess. Though he disposed of larger masses of horsemen than those which the allies sent out to reconnoitre, he chose his ground of attack badly, and led his brigades in so loose an array that, after long swayings to and fro, the fight closed with advantage to the allies.[[373]] It was not without reason that Napoleon on that night received his Marshals rather coolly at his modest quarters in the village of Reudnitz. Leaning against the stove, he ran over several names of those who were now slack in their duty; and when Augereau[pg.356] was announced, he remarked that he was not the Augereau of Castiglione. "Ah! give me back the old soldiers of Italy, and I will show you that I am," retorted the testy veteran.
As a matter of fact, Napoleon was not the old Napoleon, not even the Napoleon of Dresden. There he had overwhelmed the foe by a rapid concentration. Now nothing decisive was done on the 15th, and time was thereby given the allies to mature their plans. Early on that day Blücher heard that on the morrow Schwarzenberg would attack Leipzig from the south-east, but would send a corps westwards to threaten it on the side of Lindenau. The Prussian leader therefore hurried on from the banks of the Saale, and at night the glare of his watch-fires warned Marmont that Leipzig would be assailed also from the north-west. Yet, despite the warnings which Napoleon received from his Marshal, he refused to believe that the north side was seriously threatened; and, as late as the dawn of the 16th, he bade his troops there to be ready to march through Leipzig and throw themselves on the masses of Schwarzenberg.[[374]] Had Napoleon given those orders on the 15th, all might have gone well; for all his available forces, except Ney's and Reynier's corps, were near at hand, making a total of nearly 150,000 men, while Schwarzenberg had as yet not many more. But those orders on the 16th were not only belated: they contributed to the defeat on the north side.
The Emperor's thoughts were concentrated on the south. There his lines stretched in convex front along undulating ground near Wachau and Liebertwolkwitz, about a league to the south and south-east of the town. His right was protected by the marshy ground of the small river Pleisse; his centre stretched across the roads leading towards Dresden, while his left rested on a small stream, the Parthe, which curves round towards the[pg.357] north-west and forms a natural defence to the town on the north. Yet to cautious minds his position seemed unsafe; he had in his rear a town whose old walls were of no military value, a town on which several roads converged from the north, east, and south, but from which, in case of defeat, he could retire westward only by one road, that leading over the now flooded streams of the Pleisse and the Elster. But the great captain himself thought only of victory. He had charged Macdonald and Ney to march from Taucha to his support: Marmont was to do the same; and, with these concentrated forces acting against the far more extended array of Schwarzenberg, he counted on overthrowing him on the morrow, and then crushing the disunited forces of Blücher and Bernadotte. [[375]]
