To this ring of 300,000 fighters Napoleon could oppose scarcely half as many. Yet the French fought on, if not for victory, yet for honour; and, under the lead of Prince Poniatowski, whose valour on the 16th had gained him the coveted rank of a Marshal of France, the Poles once more clutched desperately at the wraith of their national independence. Napoleon took his stand with his staff on a hill behind Probstheyde near a half-ruined windmill, fit emblem of his fortunes; while, further south, the three allied monarchs watched from a higher eminence the vast horse-shoe of smoke slowly draw in towards the city. In truth, this immense conflict baffles all description. On the north-east, the Crown Prince of Sweden gradually drove his columns across the Parthe, while Blücher hammered at the suburbs.
Near the village of Paunsdorf, the allies found a weak place in the defence, where Reynier's Saxons showed signs of disaffection. Some few went over to the Russians in the forenoon, and about 3 p.m. others marched over with loud hurrahs. They did not exceed 3,000 men, with 19 cannon, but these pieces were at once effectively used against the French. Napoleon hurried towards the spot with part of his Guards, who restored the fight on that side. But it was only for a time. The defence was everywhere overmatched.
Even the inspiration of his presence and the desperate efforts of Murat, Poniatowski, Victor, Macdonald, and thousands of nameless heroes, barely held off the masses of the allied Grand Army. On the north and north-east, Marmont and Ney were equally overborne.[[382]] Worst of all, the supply of cannon balls was[pg.363] running low. With pardonable exaggeration the Emperor afterwards wrote to Clarke: "If I had then had 30,000 rounds, I should to-day be the master of the world."
At nightfall, the chief returned weary and depressed to the windmill, and instructed Berthier to order the retreat. Then, beside a watch-fire, he sank down on a bench into a deep slumber, while his generals looked on in mournful silence. All around them there surged in the darkness the last cries of battle, the groans of the wounded, and the dull rumble of a retreating host. After a quarter of an hour he awoke with a start and threw an astonished look on his staff; then, recollecting himself, he bade an officer repair to the King of Saxony and tell him the state of affairs.
Early next morning, he withdrew into Leipzig, and, after paying a brief visit to the King, rode away towards the western gate. It was none too soon. The conflux of his still mighty forces streaming in by three high roads, produced in all the streets of the town a crush which thickened every hour. The Prussians and Swedes were breaking into the northern suburbs, while the white-coats drove in the defenders on the south. Slowly and painfully the throng of fugitives struggled through the town towards the western gate. On that side the confusion became ever worse, as the shots of the allies began to whiz across the arches and causeway that led over the Pleisse and the Elster, while the hurrahs of the Russians drew near on the north. Ammunition wagons, gendarmes, women, grenadiers and artillery, cavalry and cattle, the wounded, the dying, Marshals and sutlers, all were wedged into an indistinguishable throng that fought for a foothold on that narrow road of safety;[pg.364] and high above the din came the clash of merry bells from the liberated suburbs, bells that three days before had rung forced peals of triumph at Napoleon's orders, but now bade farewell for ever to French domination. To increase the rout, a temporary bridge thrown over the Elster broke down under the crush; and the rush for the roadway became more furious. In despair of reaching it, hundreds threw themselves into the flooded stream, but few reached the further shore: among the drowned was that flower of Polish chivalry, Prince Poniatowski.
But this mishap was soon to be outdone. A corporal of engineers, in the absence of his chief, had received orders to blow up the bridge outside the western gate, as soon as the pursuers were at hand; but, alarmed by the volleys of Sacken's Russians, whom Blücher had sent to work round by the river courses north-west of the town, the bewildered subaltern fired the mine while the rearguard and a great crowd of stragglers were still on the eastern side.[[383]] This was the climax of this day of disaster, which left in the hands of the allies as many as thirty generals, including Lauriston and Reynier, and 33,000 of the rank and file, along with 260 cannon[pg.365] and 870 ammunition wagons. From the village of Lindenau Napoleon gazed back at times over the awesome scene, but in general he busied himself with reducing to order the masses that had struggled across. The Old Guard survived, staunch as ever, and had saved its 120 cannon, but the Young Guard was reduced to a mere wreck. Amidst all the horrors of that day, the Emperor maintained a stolid composure, but observers saw that he was bathed in sweat. Towards evening, he turned and rode away westwards; and from the weary famished files, many a fierce glance and muttered curse shot forth as he passed by. Men remembered that it was exactly a year since the Grand Army broke up from Moscow.
Yet, despite the ravages of typhus, the falling away of the German States and the assaults of the allied horse, the retreating host struggled stoutly on towards the Rhine. At Hanau it swept aside an army of Bavarians and Austrians that sought to bar the road to France; and, early in November, 40,000 armed men, with a larger number of unarmed stragglers, filed across the bridge at Mainz. Napoleon had not only lost Germany; he left behind in its fortresses as many as 190,000 troops, of whom nearly all were French; and of the 1,300 cannon with which he began the second part of the campaign, scarce 200 were now at hand for the defence of his Empire.
The causes of this immense disaster are not far to seek. They were both political and military. In staking all on the possession of the line of the Elbe, Napoleon was engulfing himself in a hostile land. At the first signs of his overthrow, the national spirit of Germany was certain to inflame the Franconians and Westphalians in his rear, and imperil his communications. In regard to strategy, he committed the same blunder as that perpetrated by Mack in 1805. He trusted to a river line that could easily be turned by his foes. As soon as Austria declared against him, his position on the Elbe was fully as perilous as Mack's lines of the Iller at Ulm.[pg.366]
And yet, in spite of the obvious danger from the great mountain bastion of Bohemia that stretched far away in his rear, the Emperor kept his troops spread out from Königstein to Hamburg, and ventured on long and wearying marches into Silesia, and north to Düben, which left his positions in Saxony almost at the mercy of the allied Grand Army.[[384]] By emerging from the mighty barrier of the Erzgebirge, that army compelled him three times to give up his offensive moves and hastily to fall back into the heart of Saxony.
The plain truth is that he was out-generalled by the allies. The assertion may seem to savour of profanity. Yet, if words have any meaning, the phrase is literally correct. His aim was primarily to maintain himself on the line of the Elbe, but also, though in the second place, to keep up his communication with France. Their aim was to leave him the Elbe line, but to cut him off from France. Even at the outset they planned to strike at Leipzig: their attack on Dresden was an afterthought, timidly and slowly carried out. As long, however, as their Grand Army clung to the Erz mountains, they paralyzed his movements to the east and north, which merely played into their hands.