The eagerness of the Prussians and the Austrians to grant an armistice was at first due to the belief that Caulaincourt’s request was a confession of exhaustion; the Czar’s assent to reopening the congress on the 18th was wrung from him by the military operations between the fourteenth and that date. Convinced that Paris was menaced, Napoleon left Marmont to hold Blucher, and starting for La Ferte-sous-Jouarre on the 15th, covered 50 miles with his army in a marvelous march of 66 hours, arriving on the evening of the 16th with his men comparatively fresh.
Next morning the French began to advance, and the Austrians to withdraw toward the Seine. Victor was to seize Montereau that same day and hold the bridge. Compelled to drive an Austrian corps out of Valjouan, the marshal did not reach his goal until six or seven in the evening, and finding it beset by the Crown Prince of Wurtemberg with 14 thousand Germans, he merely drove in the outposts and then halted for the night. His ardor was far from intense, and though, like Macdonald at Chateau-Thierry, he might feel that he had done all that could be demanded, yet he lost the opportunity of annihilating a considerable portion of the enemy’s force.
Simultaneously Macdonald had now advanced until he stood before Bray, while Oudinot on the left was before Provins. Thus far Napoleon’s advance had been a front movement to cover Paris, but that same day, the 17th, he drove Wittgenstein from Nangis, and then expected by a rush over the bridge at Montereau to prevent Schwarzenberg from extending his flank to Fontainebleau, a move which would surround the French right. As a matter of fact, strange riders speaking curious outlandish tongues, Cossack scouts in other words, had appeared for the first time that very day in Nemours and Fontainebleau, terrifying the inhabitants. It seems highly probable that if Napoleon’s force could have made a quick push from Montereau early on the 18th, it would have cut off a considerable portion of Schwarzenberg’s left. In any case the Emperor was deeply incensed by what he considered Victor’s slackness, and degraded him. The humbled marshal confessed his fault, displaying profound contrition, and was speedily restored to partial favour, being intrusted with the command, under Ney, of a portion of the young guard.
This was the third of the marshals—Augereau, Macdonald, Victor, each in turn—who since the opening of the campaign had shown a physical and moral exhaustion disabling them from rising to the heights of Napoleon’s expectation. “We must pull on the boots and the resolution of ‘93’,” wrote the Emperor to Augereau; he was quite right: nothing short of the unsapped revolutionary vigour of France could have saved his cause.
On the 18th, after a six hours’ struggle, the French under Gerard and Pajol seized Montereau. Napoleon had halted at Nangis, and there Berthier received by a flag of truce a letter from Schwarzenberg, declaring that he had ceased his offensive march in consequence of news that preliminaries of peace had been signed the day previous at Chatillon. This was probably as base a ruse as any ever practised by Napoleon’s generals.
It is likely that all the Austrian marches and countermarches for ten days past had been but a bustling semblance calculated for diplomatic effect. Be that as it may, before Napoleon’s advance the Austrian commander had quailed, and, with the French at Montereau, his columns were already moving back to Troyes, where they were drawn up in battle array. Napoleon wrote indignantly to Joseph that the ruse was probably preliminary to a request for an armistice, and that he would now accept nothing short of the Frankfort proposals. “At the first check the wretched creatures fall on their knees.” Meanwhile he led his army over the river to Nogent, and prepared to attack Schwarzenberg.
But Blucher had not been idle; by superhuman exertions he had collected and strengthened his army at Chalons, and on the 21st he appeared at Mery on the Seine, threatening Napoleon’s left flank in case of an advance toward Troyes. By this time the flames of French patriotism were rekindled in town and country, and, the soldiers being flushed with victory, it was clearly the hour to strike at any hazard. Oudinot was despatched with ten thousand men to hold Blucher, and this task he actually accomplished, capturing that portion of Mery which lay on the left bank of the river, and fortifying the bridge-head against all comers.
Marmont being at Sezanne with eight thousand men to cover Paris, and Mortier at Soissons with ten thousand to prevent the advance of York and Sacken, Napoleon marched on Troyes. It was late in the evening when his main army was drawn up, and in order to leave time for his rear to come in, he postponed operations until the morning. Schwarzenberg had 70 thousand in line, but at four in the early dawn of the 22nd, leaving in place a front formation sufficient to mask his movements, he decamped with his main force and withdrew behind the Aube.
Arrived at Bar, the Austrian commander wrote on the 26th an admirable letter of justification for the course he had taken. Defeat would have meant a retreat, not behind the Aube, but the Rhine. “To offer a decisive battle to an army fighting with all the confidence gained in small affairs, manoeuvering on its own territory, with provisions and munitions within reach, and with the aid of a peasantry in arms, would be an undertaking to which nothing but extreme necessity could drive me.” This retreat put a new aspect on the diplomacy of Chatillon. On the nineteenth Caulaincourt received a despatch from Napoleon revoking the carte blanche entirely; the same day Napoleon received an ultimatum from the congress, written several days before, to the effect that he was to renounce all the acquisitions of France since 1792, and take no share in the arrangements subsequent to the peace.
This last clause being a covert suggestion of abdication, the recipient flew into a passion; when finally he was soothed by the pleadings of Berthier and Maret, he gave such a meaningless reply as would enable negotiations to proceed, but his counter-project he addressed directly to the Emperor Francis. It was a refusal to give up Antwerp and Belgium, and an emphatic recurrence to the Frankfort proposals. “If we are not to lay down our arms except on the offensive conditions proposed at the congress, the genius of France and Providence will be on our side.”
Napoleon’s missive suggested to his father-in-law, as was its intention, that a continental peace on the Frankfort basis would leave France free to recuperate her sea power and continue the war with England alone. This was the wedge which for some time past the writer had been proposing to drive into the coalition so as to separate Austria from Russia. Castlereagh was very uneasy as to the possible effect of the message, and there was much anxiety among all the diplomats. Their first step was to send a pacific reply and renew their request for an armistice. Napoleon consented, but stipulated that hostilities should proceed during the preliminary pourparlers, and that in the protocol a clause should be inserted declaring that the plenipotentiaries were reassembled at Chatillon to discuss a peace on the basis proposed at Frankfort.
A commission to arrange the terms of the armistice met on the 24th. That they were not in earnest is shown by Frederick William’s despatch of the 26th to Blucher, saying, “The suspension of arms will not take place.” That very day, also, in a council of war held by the allied generals, it was determined to form an invading army of the south. Blucher was authorized to make a diversion in favour of the main army—a move which he had really begun the day before by a march to the right. Napoleon, leaving Macdonald and Oudinot, with 40 thousand men, to follow Schwarzenberg, hurried after Blucher with his remaining force. On the 28th the commission adjourned its sessions with a formal reiteration of the ultimatum already made by the allied powers.
The reason was that by that time its members believed Napoleon to be elsewhere engaged. Schwarzenberg’s army had checked Oudinot, and as his troops recuperated their strength the leader recovered partial confidence. Blucher being off for Paris, with Napoleon on his heels, the main army of the allies had then turned on the forces of Macdonald and Oudinot, and had driven them westward until in the pursuit it reached Troyes, where it halted, ready, in case of Blucher’s defeat, to recross the Rhine.
The congress of Chatillon was formally reopened on March first, and continued its useless sessions until the nineteenth, when it closed. During this second period none of the important dignitaries, except Schwarzenberg and the King of Prussia, attended; the rest withdrew to Chaumont, where, on March 9th, the three powers signed a treaty with England, dated back to March first, binding themselves, in return for an annual subsidy of five million pounds sterling equally divided, that each would keep 150 thousand men in the field, for 20 years if necessary, provided Napoleon would not accept the boundaries of royal France—a futile stipulation. This treaty was the precursor of that iniquitous triple alliance between Russia, Austria, and Prussia which was destined not merely to hamper England herself so seriously in the subsequent period of history, but to stop for some time the progress of liberal ideas throughout Europe.
Blucher crossed the Marne on February 27th with half his force, and then attempted to cross the Ourcq in order to attack Meaux from the north. But he was checked by Marmont and Mortier, with the 16 thousand men they already had, and then, after six thousand new recruits came in from Paris, he was forced to retreat.
Should Napoleon arrive in time he would be annihilated. Accordingly he hastened up the valley of the Ourcq with his entire force. Napoleon arrived on the Marne too late to attack Blucher’s rear, and after some hesitation as to whether he should not return to complete his work with Schwarzenberg, he finally determined that, inasmuch as the fortress of Soissons was secure, and Blucher must therefore retreat to the eastward, he could himself deliver an easy but staggering blow on the Prussian flank when they should cross the Aisne at Fismes. Accordingly, on March third the worn-out columns of the French passed over the Marne.
Unfortunately, Soissons had been left by Marmont in charge of an inexperienced commander, who had surrendered almost without resistance when, on March 2nd, Bulow and Wintzengerode, having come in from the Netherlands, suddenly appeared before the place. This stroke of good fortune enabled Blucher not merely to find a city of refuge for his exhausted and disorganized force, but to recruit it by the two victorious and elated corps which thenceforth served him as an invaluable rear-guard. Napoleon, thwarted again, gave no outward sign of the despair he must have felt, but crossed the Aisne on March 5th, and occupied Rheims, in order at least to cut Blucher off from any connection with Schwarzenberg. He then turned to join Marmont and Mortier in order to drive Blucher still farther north, so that, as he wrote to Joseph, he might gain time sufficient to return by Chalons and attack Schwarzenberg.
In spite of all his discouragements, Blucher had no intention of retreating without a blow. There was constant friction between the Prussian commander and his subordinates, so that dissension prevented prompt action. Nevertheless, after much delay the army was got in motion to resume the offensive, the general plan being to move eastward instead of withdrawing due north, to cross the plateau of Craonne, and, descending into the plain north of Berry, to attack the French in force as they advanced to Laon. Napoleon had expected to meet his foe under the walls of that city; his quick advance was as much of a surprise to Blucher as Blucher’s was to him. The first shock of battle, therefore, occurred at Craonne on the sixth, when neither army was in readiness.
But Blucher secured the advantage of position. Though he had only a portion of his force, the troops he did have were on a commanding plateau above the enemy when the action began. The skirmishes of the first day, however, were indecisive. Napoleon’s knowledge of the district being defective, he sought to secure the best possible information from the inhabitants. Some one mentioning incidentally that the mayor of a neighbouring town was named de Bussy, Napoleon recalled, with his astounding memory, that in the regiment of La Fere he had had a comrade so named. The mayor turned out to be the sometime lieutenant, and, with superserviceable zeal, the former friend poured out worthless information which led the Emperor to believe that on the morrow there would be only Blucher’s rear-guard to disperse.
But it was not so. Blucher struggled with his utmost might to gather in his cavalry and artillery, while Sacken, with the Russians, stood like a wall, repelling the successive surges of Ney and Victor the whole day through. At nightfall the Prussian commander, finding it impossible to assemble guns or horsemen over the icy fields, gave orders for retreat, and his army passed on to Laon.
Though Craonne was a victory, the losses of the French were proportionately greater than those of the enemy, and the pursuit, though spirited, gained no advantage. “The young guard melts like snow; the old guard stands; my mounted guards likewise are much reduced,” were the words of Napoleon’s private letter. Yet he pressed on. The night of the seventh he spent in a roadside inn under the sign of “The Guardian Angel.” There Caulaincourt’s last messenger from Chatillon found him.
The congress was still sitting, but the warrior knew the fact meant and could mean nothing to him; though the allies had increased their demands in proportion to their victories, they had not lessened them in proportion to their defeats. Whatever terms he might accept, and whatever Metternich might say, this war he felt sure was one for his extermination. As he said then and there, it was a bottomless chasm, and he added, “I am determined to be the last it shall swallow up.” So he made no answer, and spent the night completing his plans for battle at Laon.
That place stands on a terraced hill rising somewhat abruptly from the plain, and throughout the eighth Blucher arrayed his army in and on both sides of the city, which itself was of course the key. Napoleon, being a firm believer in such movements when on friendly soil, made a long night march. He reached the enemy’s fore-posts early on the 9th, and drove them in. At 7 Ney and Mortier began the battle under cover of a mist, and captured two hamlets at the foot of the hill. Marmont was on the right, and had already been cut off from the center by a body of Cossacks; but he attacked the village of Athies.
After a long day’s hard fighting, he succeeded in capturing a portion of it. Further exertion being impossible, his men bivouacked, while he himself withdrew to the comforts of Eppes, a chateau three miles distant. It was noon when Napoleon learned that Marmont had been severed from the line; at once he renewed his attack on Laon, but though he gained Clacy on his left, he lost Ardon, and was thus more completely cut off from Marmont. That night York fell upon Marmont’s men unawares, and routed them utterly.
Napoleon heard of this disaster shortly after midnight. He was, of course, deeply agitated—did he dare risk being infolded on both sides, or should he brave his fate in order to mislead the enemy? He chose the desperate course, and when day broke stood apparently undismayed. Even when two fugitive dragoons arrived and confirmed in all its details the terrible news from Athies, he issued orders as bold as if his army were still entire.
This was a desperate ruse, but it succeeded, for the pursuit of Marmont’s men was stayed. At four the main French army began its retreat, and the next morning saw it at Soissons; six thousand had been killed and wounded. Again Napoleon’s name had stiffened the allies into inactive horror, for they did not pursue. York was so disgusted with the dissensions at Blucher’s headquarters that he threw up his command and left for Brussels. Blucher was literally at the end of his powers.
“For heaven’s sake,” said Langeron, a French refugee in the Russian service, on whom the command would have devolved, “whatever happens, let us take the corpse along.” “The corpse,” with dimmed eyes and trembling hands, traced in great rude letters an epistle beseeching York to return, and this, indorsed by another from the Prince Royal of Prussia, brought back the able but testy refugee.
Meantime Rheims, intrusted to a feeble garrison, had been taken by Langeron’s rear-guard under St. Priest, another French emigrant in the service of the allies. By this disaster communication between Schwarzenberg and Blucher had been reestablished. In the short day Napoleon could spend at Soissons, he took up 2500 new cavalrymen, a new line regiment of infantry, a veteran regiment of the same, and some artillery detachments. It is not easy to conceive of recuperative power more remarkable than that which was thus exhibited both by France and her Emperor. These men had been sent forward from Paris in spite of the profound gloom now prevalent there.
The truth was at last known in the capital; Joseph was hopeless; the Empress and her court were preparing for extremities. News had come that in the south Soult had been thrown back on Toulouse; that in the southwest royalist plots were thickening; that in the southeast Augereau had been forced back to Lyons; Macdonald was ready to abandon Provins at the first sign of advance by Schwarzenberg; and the sorry tale of Laon was early unfolded. Yet the administrative machinery was still running, and soldiers were being manufactured from the available materials. Those who had been sent to Soissons had been hastily gathered, equipped, and drilled almost without hope, but they were precious since they enabled Napoleon to refit his shattered battalions.
Marmont had unwisely abandoned Berry-au-Bac, and that in disregard of orders. But otherwise he had done his best to make good a temporary lapse, and had got together about eight thousand men at Fismes. His narratives give a graphic picture of the situation—of disorder, confusion, chaos among his troops, of artillery served by inexperienced sailors, of undrilled companies whose members had neither hats, clothes, nor shoes. There were plenty of captured uniforms and head-coverings, but they were so infested with vermin that the French, sorry as was their plight, refused to wear them, and clung to their old tatters. Marmont’s men were heroes, he himself was not yet a traitor. Though overborne by a sense of Napoleon’s recklessness, and therefore unfit for the desperate self-sacrifice which would have made him a fit coadjutor for his chief, he was prepared to atone for his disgrace at Athies.
Early in the morning of the 13th the main French army moved from Soissons; at four in the afternoon Marmont opened the attack on Rheims. Napoleon himself had arrived, but his troops were slow in coming up, and there was no heavy artillery wherewith to batter in the gates. The struggle went on with desperate courage and gallantry on both sides. St. Priest was killed by the same gunner whose aim had been fatal to Moreau. “We may well say, O Providence! O Providence!” wrote Napoleon to his brother. At ten the beleaguered garrison began to sally and flee. Napoleon rose from the bearskin on which he had been resting before a bivouac fire, and storming with rage lest his prey should escape, hurried in the guns, which were finally within reach. Amid awful tumult and carnage the place fell; three thousand of the enemy were slain, and about the same number were captured. The burghers were frenzied with delight as the Emperor marched in, and the whole city burst into an illumination.
Next morning Napoleon and Marmont met. The culprit was loaded with reproaches for the affair at Athies, and treated as a stern father might treat a careless child. No better evidence of the Emperor’s low state is needed. Marmont was now the hero of the hour; his peccadillos might well have been forgotten for the sake of securing his continued faithfulness. With Napoleon at his best, this would surely have been the case; but aware that at most the war could be a matter of only a few weeks, the desperate man overdid his role of self-confidence, being too rash, too severe, too haughty. Not that he was without some hope.
Although for two years the shadow had been declining on the dial of Napoleon’s fortunes, and although under adverse conditions one brilliant combination after another had crumbled, yet his ideas were as great as ever, the adjustment of plans to changing conditions was never more admirable. The trouble was that effort and result did not correspond, and this being so, what would have been trifling misdemeanors in prosperity seemed to him in adversity to be dangerous faults. The great officers of state and army, imitating their master’s ambitions, had acquired his weaknesses, but had failed in securing either his strength or his adroitness. With him they had lost that fire of youth which had carried them and him always just over the line of human expectation, and so his nice adjustments failed in exasperating ways at the very turn of necessity.
Hard words and stinging reproofs are soon forgotten in generous youth; they rankle in middle life; and even the invigorating address or inspiring word, when heard too often for 20 years, fails of effect. The beginning of the end was the loss of Soissons at the critical instant. Napoleon was uncertain and touchy; his marshals were honeycombed with disaffection; the populations, though flashing like powder at his touch, had nowhere risen ‘en masse’. Thereafter the great captain was no longer waging a well-ordered warfare. Like an exhausted swordsman, he lunged here and there in the grand style; but his brain was troubled, his blade broken. Some untapped reservoirs of strength were yet to be opened, some untried expedients were to be essayed, but the end was inevitable. The movement on Rheims was the spasmodic stroke of the dying gladiator.
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