The world's leading conquerors

by Wilson Lloyd Bevan

At this point Metternich intervened after an armistice had been signed at Pressnitz early in July, 1813. He agreed to support the coalition, unless the French consented to give up Holland, Switzerland, Spain, the Confederation of the Rhine, Poland, and the larger part of Italy. Napoleon was indignant when Metternich laid down these terms during a personal interview at Dresden. “You want war,” he said; “well, you will get it. I will meet you at Vienna. How many allies have you got, four, five, six, twenty? The more you have the less disturbed I am. What do you want me to do? Disgrace myself? Never. I can die, but I shall never give up an inch of territory. Your sovereigns who are born on a throne can let themselves be beaten twenty times, and always return to their capital. I cannot do it, because I am an upstart soldier. You are not a soldier, and you do not know what takes place in a soldier’s soul. I grew up on battlefields, and a man such as I am cares little for the lives of a million men.”

When a congress met at Prague to arrange the terms of peace, they proved far more favorable to France than those first proposed, for she was granted her natural frontiers and Italy in addition. It was nothing short of madness on Napoleon’s part to refuse such concessions; only a portion of them had even been dreamed of as possibilities under the Bourbon monarchs at the height of their ambition. Even from his own point of view, he might have trusted to the certainty of future jealousies between the central European powers and Russia, by which his place as the arbiter of Europe could be regained. Metternich, indeed, was as insincere in his profession on behalf of peace as Napoleon himself, because the congress closed before a special messenger with the French counter proposals reached Vienna. War was resumed on August 11th.

The situation was now as follows: the French were about to be surrounded by three great armies; 130,000 Austrians, 240,000 Russians, and a mixed host, composed of various contingents from all the allies great and small, under the former French marshal, Bernadotte, numbering 180,000 men. Moreover, there were 200,000 combined English and Spanish soldiers ready to cross the Pyrenees. Altogether 1,000,000 men were ranged in arms against the French Emperor. The plan as developed by Bernadotte, now King of Sweden, was to wear Napoleon out. A decisive battle would be avoided, but his lieutenants would be destroyed in detail. Moreau, the victor of Hohenlinden, was brought from the United States, where he had been living in exile, to assume the command of the allies.

To oppose the vast allied forces, Napoleon had altogether no more than 550,000 men, of whom 330,000 were in Germany. At Dresden, at the end of August, an attack on the place was successfully resisted, and Moreau, the generalissimo of the allies, lost his life. But Napoleon’s scattered marshals fared badly, and the French army suffered heavy losses just at a time when no man could be spared. The enveloping plan was successfully carried out. Napoleon, at Leipzig, realized his hopeless position, for he tried there to arrange an armistice. With his 155,000 men he had against him 330,000 of the coalition. The situation was rendered worse because the German troops serving with the French deserted and joined the enemy; some, like the Saxons, during the very course of the terrible battle which raged for three days around Leipzig (October, 1813). At the end, 15 French generals and 25,000 men were made prisoners, and 350 cannon were taken; 13,000 of the French were massacred in the houses of Leipzig. The losses on both sides were frightful, for 130,000 was the sum total of the killed and wounded, 50,000 of whom were French.

In the retreat which followed, the demoralization was so great that only 40,000 men reached the Rhine, yet nearly 200,000 men were left, by Napoleon’s orders, in various German fortresses, most of them, too, experienced troops who were unable to take further part in the war when their country was invaded in the next year’s campaign. Some attempt was made to arrange terms of peace now that everywhere the Napoleonic system had fallen to pieces. The French armies were driven out of Holland. In Italy alone Eugène Beauharnais was manfully and loyally supporting the Emperor’s cause, but he had only 30,000 men.

The people of France had no heart for more warfare, and the allies let it be known that they were fighting Napoleon and not France. But still the great mass of the people had no wish for a change of dynasty; the war was unpopular, but not its author. As soon as it became known that the cause of the allies meant a restoration of the Bourbons, and that France would be invaded, in order to displace Napoleon, the answer of the country, exhausted though it was and drained of its male population, was spontaneous and unmistakable. From the autumn of 1813, to March, 1814, France placed in the field under Napoleon’s orders, 350,000 men. This is a marvelous record, not to mention the tremendous financial drain caused by the equipment of a fresh army.

The new recruits were not trained, well armed, or sufficiently clothed; there was not time to prepare them for warfare, for the allies crossed the frontiers of France in midwinter (1813). There was no resistance to their progress until Napoleon with an army of 122,000 began to conduct his last extended campaign in the neighborhood of Châlons. By reason of a success gained near Rotheise the allies hoped soon to be in Paris. This over-confidence exposed them to a series of defeats, inflicted upon several of their generals in succession, by Napoleon, in a remarkable exposition of his strategy that recalled the early days of his career in Italy. By the end of February the principal army of the allies retired near Troyes, afraid, though numbering 150,000 men, to face a stand-up fight with Napoleon, who had only 70,000 men. Public confidence was restored in France, especially among the country people, indignant at the brutal treatment they received at the hands of the foreign soldiers. There was now stirred up a spirit of national resistance, which recalled the early days of the French Revolution. The peasantry arose, and inflicted severe losses on the marauding troops. Attempts were made in the spring to arrange terms of peace, but on neither side was there a sincere belief that the war could be brought to an end by mutual concessions. The Congress of Châtillon lasted from the 4th of February to the 19th of March; it was only a concession to public opinion, for the allies really wished for a Bourbon restoration, while Napoleon, depending on his marriage with the daughter of Francis I of Austria, felt certain that he could ultimately detach the Austrians from the coalition. At one time the allied armies were so discouraged, after fighting ten battles on French soil, that they contemplated a retreat eastward.

Confidence was restored to them, not by their military successes, but by the capture of some private despatches from various officials to the French Emperor, which spoke in no uncertain terms of the discontent of the people of Paris and of the general depression throughout a country that was no longer able to bear the material exhaustion caused by the war. So encouraged, the allies marched to Paris; Napoleon anticipated this step, and had ordered the government to withdraw towards the Loire, feeling sure that in time he could drive his foes from French territory. Yet he realized to the full the bad effect of the seizure of his capital.

In approaching the city the allies had only to deal with the marshals, not with the master hand of the Emperor, who first heard of their march westward three days after it had begun. The end soon came; there was a murderous engagement near the city, after which the arrangements for an armistice were made with Joseph Bonaparte, acting for the regent, the Empress Marie Louise. When Napoleon heard the news of the capitulation, he indignantly prepared to annul the action of his brother, and to call the people to arms for a hand-to-hand struggle in the streets of Paris with the foreign soldiery. In a few days, owing to the shrewd persuasions of Talleyrand, who induced Alexander of Russia to accept no alternative government for the country but a Bourbon restoration, Napoleon found himself forced to abdicate.

This step was not taken until after long hesitations, for even to the last he believed in the possibility of continuing hostilities. The troops were still enthusiastically loyal, and eagerly listened to his appeal to them to march upon Paris. But his marshals insisted that he must abdicate. This he finally did in a conditional form, reserving the rights of Napoleon II, and the regency of Marie Louise. This form, owing to the refusal of the Czar to accept it, was finally altered until it read as follows: “The allied powers having proclaimed that the Emperor Napoleon was the sole obstacle to the restoration of peace in Europe, the Emperor Napoleon, loyal to his oaths, declares that he renounces in behalf of himself and his heirs the thrones of France and Italy, because there is no personal sacrifice, even to the extent of his life, that he is not ready to make in the interest of France.”...