But how should the retreat be conducted? Napoleon’s habit of reducing his thoughts to writing for the sake of clearness remained strong upon him to the last, and in the painstaking notes which he made with regard to this important move he outlined two alternatives: to garrison Dresden with two corps, send three to reconnoiter about Chemnitz, and then march, with five and the guard, to attack Schwarzenberg; or else to strengthen Murat, place him between Schwarzenberg and Leipsic, and then advance to drive Bernadotte and Blucher behind the Elbe. But in winter the frozen Elbe with its flat shores would be no rampart.
Both plans were abandoned, and on the 7th orders were issued for a retreat behind the Saale, the precipitous banks of which were a natural fortification. Behind this line of defence he could rest in safety during the winter, with his right at Erfurt and his left at Magdeburg. Dresden must, he concluded, be evacuated. This would deprive the allies of the easy refuge behind the Saxon and Bohemian mountains which they had sought at every onset, but it might leave them complete masters of Saxony. To avoid this he must take one of three courses: either halt behind the Mulde for one blow at the armies of the North and of Silesia, or join Murat for a decisive battle with the Austrian general, or else concentrate at Leipsic, and meet the onset of the united allies, now much stronger than he was.
The night of the 7th was spent in indecision as to any one or all of these ideas, but in active preparation for the actual movements of the retreat, however it should be conducted; any contingency might be met or a resolve taken when the necessity arose. During that night the Emperor took two warm baths. The habit of drinking strong coffee to prevent drowsiness had induced attacks of nervousness, and these were not diminished by his load of care. To allay these and other ailments, he had had recourse for some time to frequent tepid baths.
Much has been written about a mysterious malady which had been steadily increasing, but the burden of testimony from the Emperor’s closest associates at this time indicates that in the main he had enjoyed excellent health throughout the second Saxon campaign. He was, on the whole, calm and self-reliant, exhibiting signs of profound emotion only in connection with important decisions. He was certainly capable of clear insight and of severe application in a crisis; he could still endure exhausting physical exertion, and rode without discomfort, sitting his horse in the same stiff, awkward manner as of old. There were certainly intervals of self-indulgence and of lassitude, of excessive emotion and depressing self-examination, which seemed to require the offset of a physical stimulus; but on the whole there do not appear to have been such sharp attacks of illness, or even of morbid depression, as amount to providential interference; natural causes, complex but not inexplicable, sufficiently account for the subsequent disasters.
For instance, considerations of personal friendship having in earlier days often led him to unwise decisions, a like cause may be said to have brought on his coming disaster. It was the affection of the Saxon king for his beautiful capital which at the very last instant, on October 8th, induced Napoleon to cast all his well-weighed scheme to the winds, and—fatal decision!—leave Saint-Cyr and Lobau, with three corps, in Dresden. A decisive battle was imminent; the commander was untrue to his maxim that every division should be under the colours. But with or without his full force, the master-strategist was outwitted: the expected meeting did not take place as he finally reckoned. On the 10th his headquarters were at Duben, and his divisions well forward on the Elbe, ready for Bernadotte and Blucher; but there was no foe. Both these generals had been disconcerted by the unexpected swiftness of the French movements; the former actually contemplated recrossing the river to avoid a pitched battle with those whom he hoped before long to secure as his subjects.
But the enthusiastic old Prussian shamed his ally into action, persuading him at least to march south from Acken, effect a junction with the army of Silesia, and cross the Saale to threaten Napoleon from the rear. This was a brilliant and daring plan, for if successful both armies might possibly unite with Schwarzenberg’s; but even if unsuccessful in that, they would at least reproduce the situation in Silesia, and reduce the French to the ‘hither-and-thither’ system, which, rendering a decisive battle impossible, had thwarted the Napoleonic strategy.
Napoleon spent a weary day of waiting in Duben, yawning and scribbling, but keeping his geographer and secretary in readiness. It was said at the time, and has since been repeated, that throughout this portion of the campaign Napoleon was not recognizable as himself: that he ruminated long when he should have been active; that he consulted when he should have given orders; that he was no longer ubiquitous as of old, but sluggish, and rooted to one spot. But it is hard to see what he left undone, his judgment being mistaken as it was. When rumors of Bernadotte’s movements began to arrive, he dismissed the idea suggested by them as preposterous; when finally, on the 12th, he heard that Blucher was actually advancing to Halle, and no possible doubt remained, he gave instant orders for a march on Leipsic. Critics have suggested that again delay had been his ruin; but this is not true. An advance over the Elbe toward Berlin in search of the enemy would merely have enabled Blucher and Bernadotte to join forces sooner, and have rendered their union with Schwarzenberg easier.
No stricture is just but one: that Napoleon, knowing how impossible it was to obtain such exact information as he seemed determined to have, should have divined the enemy’s plan, and acted sooner. The accurate information necessary for such foresight was not obtainable; in fact, it seldom is, and some allowance may be made if the general lingered before rushing into the ‘tube of a funnel,’ as Marmont expressed it. On the morning of the 13th, while the final arrangements for marching to Leipsic were making, came the news of Bavaria’s defection. It spread throughout the army like wildfire, but its effect was less than might be imagined, and it served for the priming of a bulletin, issued on the 15th, announcing the approaching battle.
On the 15th, Murat, who had been steadily withdrawing before the allied army of the South, was overtaken at Wachau by Schwarzenberg’s van. He fought all day with magnificent courage, and successfully, hurling the hostile cavalry skirmishers back on the main column. Within sound of his guns, Napoleon was reconnoitering his chosen battle-field in and about Leipsic; and when, after nightfall, the brothers-in-law met, the necessary arrangements were virtually complete.
Those who were present at the council thought the Emperor inexplicably calm and composed—they said indifferent or stolid. But he had reasons to be confident rather than desperate, for by a touch of his old energy he had concentrated more swiftly than his foe, having a hundred and seventy thousand men in array. Reynier, with 14 thousand more, was near; if Saint-Cyr and Lobau, with their 30 thousand, had been present instead of sitting idly in Dresden, the French would actually have outnumbered any army the coalition could have assembled for battle. The allies could hope at best to produce 200 thousand men; Bernadotte was still near Merseburg; Blucher, though coming in from Halle, was not within striking distance. In spite of his vacillation and final failure to evacuate Dresden, Napoleon had an excellent fighting chance.
The city of Leipsic, engirdled by numerous villages, lies in a low plain watered by the Parthe, Pleisse, and Elster, the last of which to the westward has several arms, with swampy banks. Across these runs the highway to Frankfort, elevated on a dike, and spanning the deep, central stream of the Elster by a single bridge. Eastward by Connewitz the land is higher, there being considerable swells, and even hills, to the south and south-east. This rolling country was that chosen by Napoleon for the main battle against Schwarzenberg; Marmont was stationed north of the city, near Mockern, to observe Blucher; Bernadotte, the cautious, was still at Oppin with his Swedes.
On the evening of the 15th, his dispositions being complete, Napoleon made the tour of all his posts. At dusk three white rockets were seen to rise in the southern sky; they were promptly answered by four red ones in the north. These were probably signals between Schwarzenberg and Blucher. Napoleon’s watch-fire was kindled behind the old guard, between Reudnitz and Crottendorf.
The battle began early next morning. Napoleon waited until 9, and then advanced at the head of his guards to Liebertwolkwitz, near Wachau, on the right bank of the Pleisse, where the decisive struggle was sure to occur, since the mass of the enemy, under Barclay, with Wittgenstein as second in command, had attacked in four columns at that point. Between the Pleisse and the Elster, near Connewitz, stood Poniatowski, opposed to Schwarzenberg and Meerveldt; westward of the Elster, near Lindenau, stood Bertrand, covering the single line of retreat, the Frankfort highway, and his antagonist was Gyulay. Thus there were four divisions in the mighty conflict, which began by an onset of the allies along the entire front. The main engagement was stubborn and bloody, the allies attacking with little skill, but great bravery. Until near midday Napoleon more than held his own. Victor at Wachau, and Lauriston at Liebertwolkwitz, had each successfully resisted six desperate assaults; between them were massed the artillery, a hundred and fifty guns, under Drouot, and behind, all the cavalry except that of Sebastiani.
The great artillery captain was about to give the last splendid exhibition of what his arm can do under favourable circumstances—that is, when strongly posted in the right position and powerfully supported by cavalry. He intended, with an awful shock and swift pursuit, to break through the enemy’s center at Guldengossa and surround his right. So great was his genius for combinations that while the allies were that moment using 325 thousand effective men all told to his 214 thousand, yet in the decisive spot he had actually concentrated 115 thousand to their 114 thousand. This was because Schwarzenberg, having attempted to outflank the French, was floundering to no avail in the swampy meadows between the Pleisse and the Elster, and was no longer a factor in the contest.
When, at midday, all was in readiness and the order was given, the artillery fire was so rapid that the successive shots were heard, not separately, but in a long, sullen note. By two, Victor and Oudinot on the right, with Mortier and Macdonald on the left, were well forward of Guldengossa, but the place itself still held out. At three the cavalry, under Murat, Latour-Maubourg, and Kellermann, were sped direct upon it. With awful effort they broke through, and the bells of Leipsic began to ring in triumph—prematurely. The Czar had peremptorily summoned from Schwarzenberg’s command the Austro-Russian reserve, and at four these, with the Cossack guard, charged the French cavalry, hurling them back to Markkleeberg. Nightfall found Victor again at Wachau, and Macdonald holding Liebertwolkwitz. Simultaneously with the great charge of the allies Meerveldt had dashed out from Connewitz toward Dolitz, but his force was nearly annihilated, and he himself was captured.
At Mockern, Marmont, after gallant work with inferior numbers, had been beaten on his left, and then compelled for safety to draw in his right. While he still held Gohlis and Eutritzsch, the mass of his army had been thrown back into Leipsic. Throughout the day Bertrand made a gallant and successful resistance to superior numbers, and drove that portion of the allied forces opposed to him away from Lindenau as far as Plagwitz. At nightfall three blank shots announced the cessation of hostilities all around.
In the face of superior numbers, the French had not lost a single important position, and whatever military science had been displayed was all theirs; Blucher made the solitary advance move of the allies, the seizure of Mockern by York’s corps; Schwarzenberg had been literally mired in his attempt to outflank his enemy, and but for Alexander’s peremptory recall of the reserves destined for the same task, the day would have been one of irretrievable disaster to the coalition. Yet Napoleon knew that he was lost unless he could retreat. Clearly he had expected a triumph, for in the city nothing was ready, and over the Elster was but one crossing, the solitary bridge on the Frankfort road. The 17th was the first day of the week; both sides were exhausted, and the Emperor of the French seems to have felt that at all hazards he must gain time.
During the previous night long consultations had been held, and the French divisions to the south had been slightly compacted. In the morning Meerveldt, the captured Austrian general, the same man who after Austerlitz had solicited and obtained on the part of Francis an interview from Napoleon, was paroled, and sent into his own lines to ask an armistice, together with the intervention of Francis on the terms of Prague: renunciation of Poland and Illyria by Napoleon, the absolute independence of Holland, of the Hanse towns, of Spain, and of a united Italy. When we remember that England was paymaster to the coalition, and was fighting for her influence in Holland, and that Austria’s ambition was for predominance in a disunited Italy, we feel that apparently Napoleon wanted time rather than hoped for a successful plea to his father-in-law.
This would be the inevitable conclusion except for the fact that he withdrew quietly to his tent and there remained; the resourceful general was completely apathetic, being either over-confident in his diplomatic mission or stunned by calamity. The day passed without incident except a momentary attack on Marmont, and the arrival of Bernadotte, who had been spurred to movement by a hint from Gneisenau concerning the terms on which Great Britain was to pay her subsidies. It was asserted at the time that Napoleon gave orders early in the morning for building numerous bridges over the western streams. If so, they were not executed, only a single flimsy structure being built, and that on the road leading from the town, not on the lines westward from his positions in the suburbs. His subordinates should have acted in so serious a matter even without orders; but, like the drivers of trains which run at lightning speed, they had, after years of high-pressure service, lost their nerve. Marmont asserts that even Napoleon was nerveless. “We were occupied,” he wrote, “in restoring order among our troops; we should either have commenced our retreat, or at least have prepared the means to commence it at nightfall.
But a certain carelessness on the part of Napoleon, which it is impossible to explain and difficult to describe, filled the cup of our sorrows.” Considering who wrote these words, they must be taken with allowance; but they indicate a truth, that in his decadence this hitherto many-sided man could not be both general and emperor. No answer from Francis was received; the allies agreed on this course, and determined, according to their agreement with England, not to cease fighting till the last French soldier was over the Rhine. It was midnight when Napoleon finally drew in his posts and gave preliminary orders to dispose his troops in readiness either to fight or to retreat.
When day dawned on October 18th the French army occupied an entirely new position: the right wing, under Murat, lying between Connewitz and Dolitz; the center at Probstheida in a salient angle; the left, under Ney, with front toward the north between Paunsdorf and Gohlis. Within this arc, and close about the city, stood all the well-tried corps, infantry, artillery, and cavalry, under their various leaders of renown—Poniatowski, Augereau, Victor, Drouot, Kellermann, Oudinot, Latour-Maubourg, Macdonald, Marmont, Reynier, and Souham; Napoleon was on a hillock at Thonberg, with the old guard in reserve.
His chief concern was the line of retreat, which was still open when at 7, the fighting began. Schwarzenberg, with the left, could get no farther than Connewitz. Bennigsen, with the right, started to feel Bernadotte and complete the investment. Neither was entirely successful, but Marmont withdrew from before Blucher, and Ney from before Bernadotte and Bennigsen, in order to avoid being surrounded; so that the two French armies were united before nightfall on the western outskirts of the town, where Bertrand had routed Gyulay, and had kept open the all-important line of retreat, over which, since noon, trains of wagons had been passing. But magnificent as was the work of all these doughty champions on both sides, it was far surpassed in the centre, where during the entire day, under Napoleon’s eye, advance and resistance had been desperate. Men fell like grass before the scythe, and surging lines of their comrades moved on from behind. Such were the numbers and such the carnage that men have compared the conflict to that of the nations at Armageddon.
At Victor’s stand, near Probstheida, the fighting was fiercer than the fiercest. The allied troops charged with fixed bayonets, rank after rank, column following on column; cannon roared while grape-shot and shells sped to meet the assailants; men said the air was full of human limbs; ten times Russians and Prussians came on, only to be ten times driven back. The very soil on which the assailants trod was human flesh. Hour after hour the slaughter continued. Occasionally the French attempted a rally, but only to be thrown back by musket fire and cavalry charge. It was the same at Stotteritz, where no one seemed to pause for breath. Woe to him who fell in fatigue: he was soon but another corpse in the piles over which new reinforcements came on to the assault or countercharge.
At last there was scarcely a semblance of order; in hand-to-hand conflict men shouted, struggled, wrestled, thrust, advanced, and withdrew, and in neither combatants nor onlookers was there any sense of reality. By dusk the heated cannon were almost useless, the muskets entirely so, and, as darkness came down, the survivors fell asleep where they stood, riders in their saddles, horses in their tracks. Napoleon learned that 35 thousand Saxons on the left had gone over to the enemy, and some one of his staff handing him a wooden chair, he dropped into it and sank into a stupor almost as he touched it. For half an hour he sat in oblivion, while in the thickening darkness the marshals and generals gathered about the watch-fires, and stood with sullen mien to abide his awakening. The moon came slowly up, Napoleon awoke, orders were given to complete the dispositions for retreat already taken, and, there being nothing left to do, the Emperor, with inscrutable emotions, passed inside the walls of Leipsic to take shelter in an inn on the creaking sign-board of which were depicted the arms of Prussia!
Throughout the night French troops streamed over the stone bridge across the Elster; in the early morning the enemy began to advance, and ever-increasing numbers hurried away to gain the single avenue of retreat. Until midday Napoleon wandered aimlessly about the inner town, giving unimportant commands to stem the ever-growing confusion and disorder. Haggard, and with his clothing in disarray, he was not recognized by his own men, being sometimes rudely jostled.
After an affecting farewell to the King of Saxony, in which his unhappy ally was instructed to make the best terms he could for himself, the Emperor finally fell into the throng and moved with it toward Lindenau. Halting near the Elster, a French general began to seek information from the roughly clad onlooker who, without a suite or even a single attendant, stood apparently indifferent, softly whistling, “Malbrook s’en va t’en guerre.”
Of course the officer started as he recognized the Emperor, but the conquered sovereign took no notice. Bystanders thought his heart was turned to stone. Still the rush of retreat went on, successfully also, in spite of some confusion, until at two some one blundered. By the incredible mistake of a French subaltern, as is now proven, the permanent Elster bridge was blown up, and the temporary one had long since fallen. Almost simultaneously with this irreparable disaster the allies had stormed the city, and the French rear-guard came thundering on, hoping to find safety in flight. Plunging into the deep stream, many, like Poniatowski, were drowned; some, like the wounded Macdonald, swam safely across. The scene was heartrending as horses, riders, and footmen rolled senseless in the dark flood, while others scrambled over their writhing forms in mad despair. Reynier and Lauriston, with 20 thousand men, were captured, the King of Saxony was sent a prisoner to Berlin, and Stein prepared to govern his domains by commission from the allies. By 10 in the evening Bertrand was in possession of Weissenfels; Oudinot wheeled at Lindenau, and held the unready pursuers in check.
Next morning, the 20th, Napoleon was alert and active; retreat began again, but only in tolerable order. Although he could not control the great attendant rabble of camp-followers and stragglers, he had nevertheless about 120 thousand men under his standards; as many more, and those his finest veterans, were besieged and held in the fortresses of the Elbe, Oder, and Vistula by local militia. These places, he knew, would no longer be tenable; in fact, they began to surrender almost immediately, and the survivors of Leipsic were soon in a desperate plight from hunger and fatigue. Yet the commander gave no sign of sensibility.
“I was thus he left Russia,” said the surly men in the ranks. Hunger-typhus appeared, and spread with awful rapidity; the country swarmed with partizans; the columns of the allies were behind and on each flank; 56 thousand Bavarians were approaching from Ansbach, under Wrede; at Erfurt all the Saxons and Bavarians still remaining under the French eagles marched away. The only foreign troops who kept true were those who had no country and no refuge, the unhappy Poles, who, though disappointed in their hopes, were yet faithful to him whom they wrongly believed to have been their sincere friend. Though stricken by all his woes, the Emperor was undaunted; the retreat from Germany was indeed perilous, but it was marked by splendid courage and unsurpassed skill.
At Kosen and at Eisenach the allies were outwitted, and at Hanau, on the 29th, the Bavarians were overwhelmed in a pitched fight by an exhibition of personal pluck and calmness on Napoleon’s part paralleled only by his similar conduct at Krasnoi in the previous year. At the head of less than six thousand men, he held in check nearly 50 thousand until the rest of his columns came up, when he fell with the old fire upon a hostile line posted with the river Kinzig in its rear, and not only disorganized it utterly, but inflicted on it a loss of ten thousand men, more than double the number which fell in his own ranks. But in spite of this brilliant success, the ravages of disease continued, and only 70 thousand men of the imperial army crossed the Rhine to Mainz. Soon the houses of that city were packed, and the streets were strewn with victims of the terrible hunger-typhus. They died by hundreds, and corpses lay for days unburied; before the plague was stayed thousands found an inglorious grave.
