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.
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.
As regards the execution of the allied plans, the honours must unquestionably rest with Blücher and Gneisenau. Their tactful retreats before Napoleon in Silesia, their crushing blow at Macdonald, above all, their daring flank march to Wartenburg and thence to Halle, are exploits of a very high order; and doubtless it was the emergence of this unsuspected volcanic force from the unbroken flats of continental mediocrity that nonplussed Napoleon and led to the results described above. Truly heroic was Blücher's determination to push on to Leipzig, even when the enemy was seizing the Elbe bridges in his rear. The veteran saw clearly that a junction with Schwarzenberg near Leipzig was the all-important step, and that it must bring back the French to that point. His judgment was as sound as his strokes were trenchant; and, owing to the illusions which Napoleon still cherished as to the saving strength of the Elbe line, the French arrived on that mighty battlefield half-famished and wearied by fruitless marches and countermarches. Of all Napoleon's campaigns, that of the second part of 1813 must rank as by far the weakest in conception, the most fertile in blunders, and the most disastrous in its results for France.
NOTE TO THE THIRD EDITION.—In order not to overcrowd these chapters with diplomatic details, I have made only the briefest reference to the Treaties signed at Teplitz on Sept. 9th, 1813, with Russia and Prussia, which cemented the fourth great Coalition; but it will be well to describe them here.
A way having been paved for a closer union by the Treaty of Kalisch (see p. 276) and by that of Reichenbach (see p. 317), it was now agreed (1) that Austria and Prussia should be restored as nearly as possible to the position which they held in 1805; (2) that the Confederation of the Rhine should be dissolved; (3) and that "full and unconditional independence" should be accorded to the princes of the other German States. This last clause was firmly but vainly opposed by Stein and the German Unionist party. Austria's help was so sorely needed that she could dictate her terms, and she began to scheme for the creation of a sort of Fürstenbund, or League of Princes, under her hegemony. The result was seen in her Treaty of October 7th, 1813, with Bavaria, which detached that State from the French alliance and assured the success of Metternich's plans for Germany (see pp. 354-355). The smaller States soon followed the lead given by Bavaria; and the reconstruction of Germany on the Austrian plan was further assured by the Treaty of Chaumont (see pp. 402-403). Thus the dire need of Austrian help felt by Russia and Prussia throughout the campaigns of 1813-1814 had no small share in moulding the future of Europe.
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