Germany from the Earliest Period, Volume 4

by Wolfgang Menzel

All the able-bodied men, as in Prussia, crowded beneath the imperial standard and the whole empire made the most patriotic sacrifices. Hungary summoned the whole of her male population, the insurrection, as it was termed, to the field.]

[Footnote 18: Russia was to receive the whole of Poland, the grandduchy of Warsaw was to be annihilated. Such was Napoleon's gratitude toward the Poles!—Illyria was to be restored to Austria. Prussia, however, was not only to be excluded from all participation in the spoil, but the Rhenish confederation was to be extended as far as the Oder. Prussia would have been compelled to pay the expenses of the alliance between France, Russia, and Austria.]

[Footnote 19: "Everywhere," said this manifesto, "do the impatient wishes of the people anticipate the regular proceedings of the government. On all sides, the desire for independence under separate laws, the feeling of insulted nationality, rage against the heavy abuses inflicted by a foreign tyrant, burst simultaneously forth. His Majesty the emperor, too clear-sighted not to view this turn in affairs as the natural and necessary result of a preceding and violent state of exaggeration, and too just to view it with displeasure, had rendered it his principal object to turn it to the general advantage, and, by well-weighed and well-combined measures, to promote the true and lasting interests of the whole commonwealth of Europe.">[

CCLXI. The Battle of Leipzig

Immediately after this—for all had been previously arranged—the monarchs of Russia and Prussia passed the Riesengebirge with a division of their forces into Bohemia, and joined the emperor Francis and the great Austrian army at Prague. The celebrated general, Moreau, who had returned from America, where he had hitherto dwelt incognito, in order to take up arms against Napoleon, was in the train of the czar. His example, it was hoped, would induce many of his countrymen to abandon Napoleon. The plan of the allies was to advance, with their main body under Schwarzenberg, consisting of one hundred and twenty thousand Austrians and seventy thousand Russians and Prussians, through the Erzgebirge to Napoleon's rear. A lesser Prussian force, principally Silesian Landwehr, under Blucher, eighty thousand strong, besides a small Russian corps, was, meanwhile, to cover Silesia, or, in case of an attack by Napoleon's main body, to retire before it and draw it further eastward. A third division, under the crown prince of Sweden, principally Swedes, with some Prussian troops, mostly Pomeranian and Brandenburg Landwehr under Bulow, and some Russians, in all ninety thousand men, was destined to cover Berlin, and in case of a victory to form a junction to Napoleon's rear with the main body of the allied army. A still lesser and equally mixed division under Wallmoden, thirty thousand strong, was destined to watch Davoust in Hamburg, while an Austrian corps of twenty-five thousand men under Prince Reuss watched the movements of the Bavarians, and another Austrian force of forty thousand, under Hiller, those of the viceroy Eugene in Italy.

Napoleon had concentrated his main body, that still consisted of two hundred and fifty thousand men, in and around Dresden. Davoust received orders to advance with thirty thousand men from Hamburg upon Berlin; in Bavaria, there were thirty thousand men under Wrede; in Italy, forty thousand under Eugene. The German fortresses were, moreover, strongly garrisoned with French troops. Napoleon had it in his power to throw himself with his main body, which neither Blucher nor the Swedes could have withstood, into Poland, to levy the people en masse and render that country the theatre of war, but the dread of the defection of the Rhenish confederation and of a part of the French themselves, were the country to his rear to be left open to the allies and to Moreau, coupled with his disinclination to declare the independence of Poland, owing to a lingering hope of being still able to bring about a reconciliation with Russia and Austria by the sacrifice of that country and of Prussia, caused that idea to be renounced, and he accordingly took up a defensive position with his main body at Dresden, whence he could watch the proceedings and take advantage of any indiscretion on the part of his opponents. A body of ninety thousand men under Oudinot meantime acted on the offensive, being directed to advance, simultaneously with Davoust from Hamburg and with Girard from Magdeburg, upon Berlin, and to take possession of that metropolis. Napoleon hoped, when master of the ancient Prussian provinces, to be able to suppress German enthusiasm at its source and to induce Russia and Austria to conclude a separate peace at the expense of Prussia.

In August, 1813, the tempest of war broke loose on every side, and all Europe prepared for a decisive struggle. About this time, the whole of Northern Germany was visited for some weeks, as was the case on the defeat of Varus in the Teutoburg forest, with heavy rains and violent storms. The elements seemed to combine, as in Russia, their efforts with those of man against Napoleon. There his soldiers fell victims to frost and snow, here they sank into the boggy soil and were carried away by the swollen rivers. In the midst of the uproar of the elements, bloody engagements continually took place, in which the bayonet and the butt-end of the firelock were almost alone used, the muskets being rendered unserviceable by the wet. The first engagement of importance was that of the 21st of August between Wallmoden and Davoust at Vellahn. A few days afterward, Theodore Korner, the youthful poet and hero, fell in a skirmish between the French and Wallmoden's outpost at Gadebusch.—Oudinot advanced close upon Berlin, which was protected by the crown prince of Sweden. A murderous conflict took place, on the 23d of August, at Gross-Beeren between the Prussian division under General von Bulow and the French. The Swedes, a troop of horse artillery alone excepted, were not brought into action, and the Prussians, unaided, repulsed the greatly superior forces of the French. The almost untrained peasantry comprising the Landwehr of the Mark and of Pomerania rushed upon the enemy, and, unhabituated to the use of the bayonet and firelock, beat down entire battalions of the French with the butt-end of their muskets. After a frightful massacre, the French were utterly routed and fled in wild disorder, but the gallant Prussians vainly expected the Swedes to aid in the pursuit. The crown prince, partly from a desire to spare his troops and partly from a feeling of shame—he was also a Frenchman—remained motionless. Oudinot, nevertheless, lost two thousand four hundred prisoners. Davoust, from this disaster, returned once more to Hamburg. Girard, who had advanced with eight thousand men from Magdeburg, was, on the 27th, put to flight by the Prussian Landwehr under General Hirschfeld.

Napoleon's plan of attack against Prussia had completely failed, and his sole alternative was to act on the defensive. But on perceiving that the main body of the allied forces under Schwarzenberg was advancing to his rear, while Blucher was stationed with merely a weak division in Silesia, he took the field with immensely superior forces against the latter, under an idea of being able easily to vanquish his weak antagonist and to fall back again in time upon Dresden. Blucher cautiously retired, but, unable to restrain the martial spirit of the soldiery, who obstinately defended every position whence they were driven, lost two thousand of his men on the 21st of August. The news of Napoleon's advance upon Silesia and of the numerical weakness of the garrison left at Dresden reached Schwarzenberg just as he had crossed the Erzgebirge, and induced him and the allied sovereigns assembled within his camp to change their plan of operations and to march straight upon the Saxon capital. Napoleon, who had pursued Blucher as far as the Katzbach near Goldberg, instantly returned and boldly resolved to cross the Elbe above Dresden, to seize the passes of the Bohemian mountains, and to fall upon the rear of the main body of the allied army. Vandamme's corps d'armee had already set forward with this design, when Napoleon learned that Dresden could no longer hold out unless he returned thither with a division of his army, and, in order to preserve that city and the centre of his position, he hastily returned thither in the hope of defeating the allied army and of bringing it between two fires, as Vandamme must meanwhile have occupied the narrow outlets of the Erzgebirge with thirty thousand men and by that means have cut off the retreat of the allied army. The plan was on a grand scale, and, as far as related to Napoleon in person, was executed, to the extreme discomfiture of the allies, with his usual success. Schwarzenberg had, with true Austrian procrastination, allowed the 25th of August, when, as the French themselves confess, Dresden, in her then ill-defended state, might have been taken almost without a stroke, to pass in inaction, and, when he attempted to storm the city on the 26th, Napoleon, who had meanwhile arrived, calmly awaited the onset of the thick masses of the enemy in order to open a murderous discharge of grape upon them on every side. They were repulsed after suffering a frightful loss. On the following day, destined to end in still more terrible bloodshed, Napoleon assumed the offensive, separated the retiring allied army by well-combined sallies, cut off its left wing, and made an immense number of prisoners, chiefly Austrians. The unfortunate Moreau had both his legs shot off in the very first encounter. His death was an act of justice, for he had taken up arms against his fellow- countrymen, and was moreover a gain for the Germans, the Russians merely making use of him in order to obscure the fame of the German leaders, and, it may be, with a view of placing the future destinies of France in his hands. The main body of the allied army retreated on every side; part of the troops disbanded, the rest were exposed to extreme hardship owing to the torrents of rain that fell without intermission and the scarcity of provisions. Their annihilation must have inevitably followed had Vandamme executed Napoleon's commands and blocked up the mountain passes, in which he was unsuccessful, owing to the gallantry with which he was held in check at Culm by eight thousand Russian guards, headed by Ostermann,[1] who, although merely amounting in number to a fourth of his army, fought during a whole day without receding a step, though almost the whole of them were cut to pieces and Ostermann was deprived of an arm, until the first corps of the main body, in full retreat, reached the mountains. Vandamme was now in turn overwhelmed by superior numbers. One way of escape, a still unoccupied height, on which he hastened to post himself, alone remained, but Kleist's corps, also in full retreat, unexpectedly but opportunely appeared above his head and took him and the whole of his corps prisoners, the 29th of August, 1813.[2]

At the same time, the 26th of August, a most glorious victory was gained by Blucher in Silesia. After having drawn Macdonald across the Katzbach and the foaming Neisse, he drove him, after a desperate and bloody engagement, into those rivers, which were greatly swollen by the incessant rains. The muskets of the soldiery had been rendered unserviceable by the wet, and Blucher, drawing his sabre from beneath his cloak, dashed forward exclaiming, "Forward!" Several thousand of the French were drowned or fell by the bayonet, or beneath the heavy blows dealt by the Landwehr with the butt-end of their firelocks. It was on this battlefield that the Silesians had formerly opposed the Tartars, and the monastery of Wahlstatt, erected in memory of that heroic day,[3] was still standing. Blucher was rewarded with the title of Prince von der Wahlstatt, but his soldiers surnamed him Marshal Vorwarts. On the decline of the floods, the banks of the rivers were strewn with corpses sticking in horrid distortion out of the mud. A part of the French fled for a couple of days in terrible disorder along the right bank and were then taken prisoner together with their general, Puthod.[4] The French lost one hundred and three guns, eighteen thousand prisoners, and a still greater number in killed; the loss on the side of the Prussians merely amounted to one thousand men. Macdonald returned almost totally unattended to Dresden and brought the melancholy intelligence to Napoleon, "Votre armé du Bobre n'existe plus."

The crown prince of Sweden and Bulow had meanwhile pursued Oudinot's retreating corps in the direction of the Elbe. Napoleon despatched Ney against them, but he met with the fate of his predecessor, at Dennewitz, on the 6th of September. The Prussians, on this occasion, again triumphed, unaided by their confederates.[5] Bulow and Tauenzien, with twenty thousand men, defeated the French army, seventy thousand strong. The crown prince of Sweden not only remained to the rear with the whole of his troops, but gave perfectly useless orders to the advancing Prussian squadron under General Borstel, who, without attending to them, hurried on to Bulow's assistance, and the French were, notwithstanding their numerical superiority, completely driven off the field, which the crown prince reached just in time to witness the dispersion of his countrymen. The French lost eighteen thousand men and eighty guns. The rout was complete. The rearguard, consisting of the Wurtembergers under Franquemont, was again overtaken at the head of the bridge at Zwettau, and, after a frightful carnage, driven in wild confusion across the dam to Torgau. The Bavarians under Raglowich, who, probably owing to secret orders, had remained, during the battle, almost in a state of inactivity, withdrew in another direction and escaped.[6] Davoust also again retired upon Hamburg, and his rearguard under Pecheux was attacked by Wallmoden, on the 16th of September, on the Gorde, and suffered a trifling loss. On the 29th of September, eight thousand French were also defeated by Platow, the Hetman of the Cossacks, at Zeitz: on the 30th, Czernitscheff penetrated into Cassel and expelled Jerome. Thielemann, the Saxon general, also infested the country to Napoleon's rear, intercepted his convoys at Leipzig, and at Weissenfels took one thousand two hundred, at Merseburg two thousand, French prisoners; he was, however, deprived of his booty by a strong force under Lefebvre-Desnouettes, by whom he was incessantly harassed until Platow's arrival with the Cossacks, who, in conjunction with Thielemann, repulsed Lefebvre with great slaughter at Altenburg. On this occasion, a Baden battalion, that had been drawn up apart from the French, turned their fire upon their unnatural confederates and aided in their dispersion.[7]