A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4

W >> Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks >> Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4





[Footnote 1: Literally, the general levy of the people.--_Trans._]

[Footnote 2: The exasperation of the people had risen to the utmost
pitch. The French rascals in office, especially the custom-house
officers, set no bounds to their tyranny and license. No woman of
whatever rank was allowed to pass the gates without being subjected to
the most indecent inquisition. Goods that had long been redeemed were
continually taken from the tradesmen's shops and confiscated. The
arbitrary enrolment of a number of young men as conscripts at length
produced an insurrection, in which the guard-houses, etc., were
destroyed. It was, however, quelled by General St. Cyr, and six of the
citizens were executed. On the approach of the Russians, St. Cyr fled
with the whole of his troops. The bookseller Perthes, Prell, and von
Hess, formed a civic guard.--_Von Hess's Agonies_.]

[Footnote 3: The people rose _en masse_ at Ronsdorf, Solingen, and
Barmen, and marched tumultuously to Elberfeld, the great manufacturing
town, but were dispersed by the French troops. The French authorities
afterward declared that the sole object of the revolt was to smuggle
in English goods, and, under this pretext, seized all the foreign
goods in Elberfeld.]

[Footnote 4: Kutusow had, just at that conjuncture, expired at
Bautzen.]

[Footnote 5: The nature of the ground rendered a night march
impossible. The Russian, Michaelofski Danilefski, however, throws the
blame upon an officer in Blucher's headquarters, who laid the
important orders committed to his charge under his pillow and
overslept himself.]

[Footnote 6: It may here be mentioned as a remarkable characteristic
of those times that Goethe, Ernest Maurice Arndt, and Theodore Körner
at that period met at Dresden. The youthful Körner, a volunteer Jæger,
was the Tyrtæus of those days: his military songs were universally
sung: his father also expressed great enthusiasm. Goethe said almost
angrily, "Well, well, shake your chains, the man (Napoleon) is too
strong for you, you will not break them!"--_E. M. Arndt's
Reminiscences._]

[Footnote 7: "Unfortunately there were German princes who, even this
time, again sent their troops to swell the ranks of the oppressor;
Austria had, unfortunately, not yet concluded her preparations;
consequently, it was only possible to clog the advance of the
conqueror by a gallant resistance."--_Clausewitz_. The Bavarians stood
under Raglowich, the Würtembergers under Franquemont, the Saxons under
Reynier. There was also a contingent of Westphalians and Badeners.]

[Footnote 8: Blücher exclaimed on this occasion: "He's a rascally
fellow that dares to say we fly." Even Fain, the Frenchman, confesses
in his manuscript of 1813, in which he certainly does not favor the
Germans: "The best Marshals, as it were, killed by spent balls. Great
victories without trophies. All the villages on our route in flames
which obstructed our advance. 'What a war! We shall all fall victims
to it!' are the disgraceful expressions uttered by many, for the iron
hearts of the warriors of France are rust-grown." Napoleon exclaimed
after the battle, "How! no result after such a massacre? No prisoners?
They leave me not even a nail!" Duroc's death added to the
catastrophe. Napoleon was so struck that for the first time in his
life he could give no orders, but deferred everything until the
morrow.]

[Footnote 9: But they merely encamped in the streets, showed
themselves more anxious than threatening, and were seized with a
terrible panic on a sudden conflagration breaking out during the
night, which they mistook for a signal to bring the _Landsturm_ upon
them. And yet there were thirty thousand French in the city. How
different to their spirit in 1807!]

[Footnote 10: Brother to the unfortunate Henry von Bulow.]

[Footnote 11: Crome was afterward barefaced enough to boast of this
work in his Autobiography, published in 1833. Napoleon dictated the
fundamental ideas of this work to him from his headquarters. His
object was to pacify the Germans. He promised them henceforward to
desist from enforcing his continental system, to restore liberty to
commerce, no longer to force the laws and language of France upon
Germany. L'empereur se fera aimer des Allemands. The Germans were, on
the other hand, warned that the allies had no intention to render
Germany free and independent, they being much more interested in
retaining Germany in a state of division and subjection. The unity of
Germany, it was also declared, was alone possible under Napoleon,
etc.]

[Footnote 12: This arose from hatred to the party that dared to uphold
the German cause instead of a Prussian, Saxon, etc., one, and by no
means by chance, but, as Manso remarks, intentionally, "through low
cunning and injustice."]

[Footnote 13: The king of Saxony was, in return, insulted by Napoleon,
in an address to the ministers was termed _une veille hête_, and
compelled to countenance immoral theatrical performances by his
presence, a sin for which he each evening received absolution from his
confessor. Vide Stein's Letter to Münster in the Sketches of the War
of Liberation.]

[Footnote 14: He also said, like his master, "I know of no Germans, I
only know of Bavarians, Würtembergers, Westphalians," etc.]

[Footnote 15: His written defence, in which he so lyingly, so humbly
and mournfully exculpates himself that one really "compassionates the
devil," is a sort of satisfaction for the Germans.]

[Footnote 16: Poniatowsky's dismissal with the Polish army from Poland
was apparently a service rendered to Napoleon, but was in reality done
with a view of disarming Poland. Poniatowsky might have organized an
insurrection to the rear of the allies, and would in that case have
been far more dangerous to them than when ranged beneath the standard
of Napoleon.]

[Footnote 17: The people in Austria fully sympathized with passing
events. How could those be apathetic who had such a burden of disgrace
to redeem, such deep revenge to satisfy? An extremely popular song
contained the following lines:

"Awake, Franciscus! Hark! thy people call!
Awake! acknowledge the avenger's hand!
Still groans beneath the foreign courser's hoof
The soil of Germany, our fatherland.

"To arms! so long as sacred Germany
Feels but a finger of Napoleon.
Franciscus! up! Cast off each private tie!
The patriot has no kindred, has no son."

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]

Napoleon's generals had been thrown back in every quarter, with
immense loss, upon Dresden, toward which the allies now advanced,
threatening to enclose it on every side. Napoleon manoeuvred until the
beginning of October with the view of executing a _coup de main_
against Schwarzenberg and Blucher; the allies were, however, on their
guard, and he was constantly reduced to the necessity of recalling his
troops, sent for that purpose into the field, to Dresden. The danger
in which he now stood of being completely surrounded and cut off from
the Rhine at length rendered retreat his sole alternative. Blucher had
already crossed the Elbe on the 5th of October, and, in conjunction
with the crown prince of Sweden, had approached the head of the main
body of the allied army under Schwarzenberg, which was advancing from
the Erzgebirge. On the 7th of October, Napoleon quitted Dresden,
leaving a garrison of thirty thousand French under St. Cyr, and
removed his headquarters to Duben, on the road leading from Leipzig to
Berlin, in the hope of drawing Blucher and the Swedes once more on the
right side of the Elbe, in which case he intended to turn unexpectedly
upon the Austrians; Blucher, however, eluded him, without quitting the
left bank. Napoleon's plan was to take advantage of the absence of
Blucher and of the Swedes from Berlin in order to hasten across the
defenceless country, for the purpose of inflicting punishment upon
Prussia, of raising Poland, etc. But his plan met with opposition in
his own military council. His ill success had caused those who had
hitherto followed his fortunes to waver. The king of Bavaria declared
against him on the 8th of October,[8] and the Bavarian army under
Wrede united with instead of opposing the Austrian army and was sent
to the Maine in order to cut off Napoleon's retreat. The news of this
defection speedily reached the French camp and caused the rest of the
troops of the Rhenish confederation to waver in their allegiance;
while the French, wearied with useless manoeuvres, beaten in every
quarter, opposed by an enemy greatly their superior in number and
glowing with revenge, despaired of the event and sighed for peace and
their quiet homes. All refused to march upon Berlin, nay, the very
idea of removing further from Paris almost produced a mutiny in the
camp.[9] Four days, from the 11th to the 14th of October, were passed
by Napoleon in a state of melancholy irresolution, when he appeared as
if suddenly inspired by the idea of there still being time to execute
a _coup de main_ upon the main body of the allied army under
Schwarzenberg before its junction with Blucher and the Swedes.
Schwarzenberg was slowly advancing from Bohemia and had already
allowed himself to be defeated before Dresden. Napoleon intended to
fall upon him on his arrival in the vicinity of Leipzig, but it was
already too late.--Blucher was at hand. On the 14th of October,[10]
the flower of the French cavalry, headed by the king of Naples,
encountered Blucher's and Wittgenstein's cavalry at Wachau, not far
from Leipzig. The contest was broken off, both sides being desirous of
husbanding their strength, but terminated to the disadvantage of the
French, notwithstanding their numerical superiority, besides proving
the vicinity of the Prussians. This was the most important cavalry
fight that took place during this war.

On the 16th of October, while Napoleon was merely awaiting the arrival
of Macdonald's corps, that had remained behind, before proceeding to
attack Schwarzenberg's Bohemian army, he was unexpectedly attacked on
the right bank of the Pleisse, at Liebert-wolkwitz, by the Austrians,
who were, however, compelled to retire before a superior force. The
French cavalry under Latour-Maubourg pressed so closely upon the
emperor of Russia and the king of Prussia that they merely owed their
escape to the gallantry of the Russian, Orlow Denisow, and to Latour's
fall. Napoleon had already ordered all the bells in Leipzig to be
rung, had sent the news of his victory to Paris, and seems to have
expected a complete triumph when joyfully exclaiming, "Le monde tourne
pour nous!" But his victory had been only partial, and he had been
unable to follow up his advantage, another division of the Austrian
army, under General Meerveldt, having simultaneously occupied him and
compelled him to cross the Pleisse at Dolnitz; and, although Meerveldt
had been in his turn repulsed with severe loss and been himself taken
prisoner, the diversion proved of service to the Austrians by keeping
Napoleon in check until the arrival of Blücher, who threw himself upon
the division of the French army opposed to him at Möckern by Marshal
Marmont. Napoleon, while thus occupied with the Austrians, was unable
to meet the attack of the Prussians with sufficient force. Marmont,
after a massacre of some hours' duration in and around Möckern, was
compelled to retire with a loss of forty guns. The second Prussian
brigade lost, either in killed or wounded, all its officers except
one.

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