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




The battle had, on the 16th of October, raged around Leipzig; Napoleon
had triumphed over the Austrians, whom he had solely intended to
attack, but had, at the same time, been attacked and defeated by the
Prussians, and now found himself opposed and almost surrounded--one
road for retreat alone remaining open--by the whole allied force. He
instantly gave orders to General Bertrand to occupy Weissenfels during
the night, in order to secure his retreat through Thuringia; but,
during the following day, the 17th of October, neither seized that
opportunity in order to effect a retreat or to make a last and
energetic attack upon the allies, whose forces were not yet completely
concentrated, ere the circle had been fully drawn around him. The
Swedes, the Russians under Bennigsen, and a large Austrian division
under Colloredo, had not yet arrived. Napoleon might with advantage
have again attacked the defeated Austrians under Schwarzenberg or have
thrown himself with the whole of his forces upon Blücher. He had still
an opportunity of making an orderly retreat without any great exposure
to danger. But he did neither. He remained motionless during the whole
day, which was also passed in tranquillity by the allies, who thus
gained time to receive fresh reinforcements. Napoleon's inactivity was
caused by his having sent his prisoner, General Meerveldt, to the
emperor of Austria, whom he still hoped to induce, by means of great
assurances, to secede from the coalition and to make peace. Not even a
reply was vouchsafed. On the very day, thus futilely lost by Napoleon,
the allied army was reintegrated by the arrival of the masses
commanded by the crown prince, by Bennigsen and Colloredo, and was
consequently raised to double the strength of that of France, which
now merely amounted to one hundred and fifty thousand men. On the
18th, a murderous conflict began on both sides. Napoleon long and
skilfully opposed the fierce onset of the allied troops, but was at
length driven off the field by their superior weight and persevering
efforts. The Austrians, stationed on the left wing of the allied army,
were opposed by Oudinot, Augereau, and Poniatowsky; the Prussians,
stationed on the right wing, by Marmont and Ney; the Russians and
Swedes in the centre, by Murat and Regnier. In the hottest of the
battle, two Saxon cavalry regiments went over to Blücher, and General
Normann, when about to be charged at Taucha by the Prussian cavalry
under Billow, also deserted to him with two Würtemberg cavalry
regiments, in order to avoid an unpleasant reminiscence of the
treacherous ill-treatment of Lützow's corps. The whole of the Saxon
infantry, commanded by Regnier, shortly afterward went, with
thirty-eight guns, over to the Swedes, five hundred men and General
Zeschau alone remaining true to Napoleon. The Saxons stationed
themselves behind the lines of the allies, but their guns were
instantly turned upon the enemy.[11]

In the evening of this terrible day, the French were driven back close
upon the walls of Leipzig.[12] On the certainty of victory being
announced by Schwarzenberg to the three monarchs, who had watched the
progress of the battle, they knelt on the open field and returned
thanks to God. Napoleon, before nightfall, gave orders for full
retreat; but, on the morning of the 19th, recommenced the battle and
sacrificed some of his _corps d'armee_ in order to save the remainder.
He had, however, foolishly left but one bridge across the Elster open,
and the retreat was consequently retarded. Leipzig was stormed by the
Prussians, and, while the French rearguard was still battling on that
side of the bridge, Napoleon fled, and had no sooner crossed the
bridge than it was blown up with a tremendous explosion, owing to the
inadvertence of a subaltern, who is said to have fired the train too
hastily. The troops engaged on the opposite bank were irremediably
lost. Prince Poniatowsky plunged on horseback into the Elster in order
to swim across, but sank in the deep mud. The king of Saxony, who to
the last had remained true to Napoleon, was among the prisoners. The
loss during this battle, which raged for four days, and in which
almost every nation in Europe stood opposed to each other, was immense
on both sides. The total loss in dead was computed at eighty thousand.
The French lost, moreover, three hundred guns and a multitude of
prisoners; in the city of Leipzig alone twenty-three thousand sick,
without reckoning the innumerable wounded. Numbers of these
unfortunates lay bleeding and starving to death during the cold
October nights on the field of battle, it being found impossible to
erect a sufficient number of lazaretti for their accommodation.
Napoleon made a hasty and disorderly retreat with the remainder of his
troops, but was overtaken at Freiburg on the Unstrutt, where the
bridge broke, and a repetition of the disastrous passage of the
Beresina occurred. The fugitives collected into a dense mass, upon
which the Prussian artillery played with murderous effect. The French
lost forty of their guns. At Hanau, Wrede, Napoleon's former favorite,
after taking Würzburg, watched the movements of his ancient patron,
and, had he occupied the pass at Gelnhausen, might have annihilated
him. Napoleon, however, furiously charged his flank, and, on the 20th
of October, succeeded in forcing a passage and in sending seventy
thousand men across the Rhine. Wrede was dangerously wounded.[13] On
the 9th of November, the last French corps was defeated at Hochheim
and driven back upon Mayence.

In the November of this ever memorable year, 1813, Germany, as far as
the Rhine, was completely freed from the French.[14] Above a hundred
thousand French troops, still shut up in the fortresses and cut off
from all communication with France, gradually surrendered. In October,
the allies took Bremen; in November, Stettin, Zamosk, Modlin, and
those two important points, Dresden and Dantzig. In Dresden, Gouvion
St. Cyr capitulated to Count Klenau, who granted him free egress on
condition of the delivery of the whole of the army stores. St. Cyr,
however, infringed the terms of capitulation by destroying several of
the guns and sinking the gunpowder in the Elbe; consequently, on the
non-recognition of the capitulation by the generalissimo,
Schwarzenberg, he found himself without means of defence and was
compelled to surrender at discretion with a garrison thirty-five
thousand strong. Rapp, the Alsatian, commanded in Dantzig. This city
had already fearfully suffered from the commercial interdiction, from
the exactions and the scandalous license of its French protectors,
whom the ravages of famine and pestilence finally compelled to
yield.[15] Lubeck and Torgau fell in December; the typhus, which had
never ceased to accompany the armies, raged there in the crowded
hospitals, carrying off thousands, and greater numbers fell victims to
this pestilential disease than to the war, not only among the troops,
but in every part of the country through which they passed.
Wittenberg, whose inhabitants had been shamefully abused by the French
under Lapoype, Custrin, Glogau, Wesel, Erfurt, fell in the beginning
of 1814; Magdeburg and Bremen, after the conclusion of the war.

The Rhenish confederation was dissolved, each of the princes securing
his hereditary possessions by a timely secession. The kings of
Westphalia and Saxony, Dalberg, grand-duke of Frankfort, and the
princes of Isenburg and von der Leyen, who had too heavily sinned
against Germany, were alone excluded from pardon. The king of Saxony
was at first carried prisoner to Berlin, and afterward, under the
protection of Austria, to Prague. Denmark also concluded peace at Kiel
and ceded Norway to Sweden, upon which the Swedes, _quasi re bene
gesta_, returned home.[16]


[Footnote 1: This general belonged to a German family long naturalized
in Russia.]

[Footnote 2: He was led through Silesia, which he had once so
shamefully plundered, and, although no physical punishment was
inflicted upon him, he was often compelled to hear the voice of public
opinion, and was exposed to the view of the people to whom he had once
said, "Nothing shall be left to you except your eyes, that you may be
able to weep over your wretchedness."--_Manso's History of Prussia._]

[Footnote 3: An ancient battle-axe of serpentine stone was found on
the site fixed upon for the erection of a fresh monument in honor of
the present victory.--_Allgemenie Zeitung, 1817._]

[Footnote 4: This piece of good fortune befell Langeron, the Russian
general, who belonged to the diplomatic party at that time attempting
to spare the forces of Russia, Austria, and Sweden at the expense of
Prussia, and, at the same time, to deprive Prussia of her well-won
laurels. Langeron had not obeyed Blucher's orders, had remained behind
on his own responsibility, and the scattered French troops fell into
his hands.]

[Footnote 5: The proud armies of Russia and Sweden (forty-six
battalions, forty squadrons, and one hundred and fifty guns) followed
to the rear of the Prussians without firing a shot and remained
inactive spectators of the action.--_Plotho._]

[Footnote 6: In order to avoid being carried along by the fugitive
French, they fired upon them whenever their confused masses came too
close upon them.--_Bölderndorf._]

[Footnote 7: Vide Wagner's Chronicle of Altenburg.]

[Footnote 8: Maximilian Joseph declared in an open manifesto; Bavaria
was compelled to furnish thirty-eight thousand men for the Russian
campaign, and, on her expressing a hope that such an immense sacrifice
would not be requested, France instantly declared the princes of the
Rhenish confederation her vassals, who were commanded "under
punishment of felony" unconditionally to obey each of Napoleon's
demands. The allies would, on the contrary, have acceded to all the
desires of Bavaria and have guaranteed that kingdom. Even the Austrian
troops, that stood opposed to Bavaria, were placed under Wrede's
command.--Raglowich received permission from Napoleon, before the
battle of Leipzig, to return to Bavaria; but his corps was retained in
the vicinity of Leipzig without taking part in the action, and
retired, in the general confusion, under the command of General
Maillot, upon Torgau, whence it returned home.--_Bolderndorf._ In the
Tyrol, the brave mountaineers were on the eve of revolt. As early as
September, Speckbacher, sick and wasted from his wounds, but endued
with all his former fire and energy, reappeared in the Tyrol, where he
was commissioned by Austria to organize a revolt. An unexpected
reconciliation, however, taking place between Bavaria and Austria,
counter orders arrived, and Speckbacher furiously dashed his bullet-
worn hat to the ground.--_Brockhaus, 1814._ The restoration of the
Tyrol to Austria being delayed, a multitude of Tyrolese forced their
way into Innsbruck and deposed the Bavarian authorities; their leader,
Kluibenspedel, was, however, persuaded by Austria to submit.
Speckbacher was, in 1816, raised by the emperor Francis to the rank of
major; he died in 1820, and was buried at Hall by the south wall of
the parish church. His son, Andre, who grew up a fine, handsome man,
died in 1835, at Jenbach (not Zenbach, as Mercy has it in his attacks
upon the Tyrol), in the Tyrol, where he was employed as superintendent
of the mines. Mercy's Travels and his account of Speckbacher in the
Milan Revista Buropea, 1838, are replete with falsehood.]

[Footnote 9: According to Fain and Coulaincourt.]

[Footnote 10: On the evening of the 14th of October (the anniversary
of the battle of Jena), a hurricane raged in the neighborhood of
Leipzig, where the French lay, carried away roofs and uprooted trees,
while, during the whole night, the rain fell in violent floods.]

[Footnote 11: Not so the Badeners and Hessians. The Baden corps was
captured almost to a man; among others, Prince Emilius of Darmstadt.
Baden had been governed, since the death of the popular grandduke,
Charles Frederick, in 1811, by his grandson, Charles.--Franquemont,
with the Würtemberg infantry, eight to nine thousand strong, acted
independently of Normann's cavalry. But one thousand of their number
remained after the battle of Leipzig, and, without going over to the
allies, returned to Würtemberg. Normann was punished by his
sovereign.]

[Footnote 12: The city was in a state of utter confusion. "The noise
caused by the passage of the cavalry, carriages, etc., by the cries of
the fugitives through the streets, exceeded that of the most terrific
storm. The earth shook, the windows clattered with the thunder of
artillery," etc.--_The Terrors of Leipzig, 1813._]

[Footnote 13: The king of Würtemberg, who had fifteen hundred men
close at hand, did not send them to the aid of the Bavarians, nor did
he go over to the allies until the 2d of November.]

[Footnote 14: In November, one hundred and forty thousand French
prisoners and seven hundred and ninety-one guns were in the hands of
the allies.]

[Footnote 15: Dantzig had formerly sixty thousand inhabitants, the
population was now reduced to thirteen thousand. Numbers died of
hunger, Rapp having merely stored the magazines for his troops.
Fifteen thousand of the French garrison died, and yet fourteen
generals, upward of a thousand officers, and about as many
comptrollers belonging to the grand army, who had taken refuge in that
city, were, on the capitulation of the fortress, made prisoners of
war.]

[Footnote 16: The injustice thus favored by the first peace was loudly
complained of.--_Manso._]



CCLXII. Napoleon's Fall


Napoleon was no sooner driven across the Rhine, than the defection of
the whole of the Rhenish confederation, of Holland, Switzerland, and
Italy ensued. The whole of the confederated German princes followed
the example of Bavaria and united their troops with those of the
allies. Jerome had fled; the kingdom of Westphalia had ceased to
exist, and the exiled princes of Hesse, Brunswick, and Oldenburg
returned to their respective territories. The Rhenish provinces were
instantly occupied by Prussian troops and placed under the patriotic
administration of Justus Gruner, who was joined by Görres of Coblentz,
whose Rhenish Mercury so powerfully influenced public opinion that
Napoleon termed him the fifth great European power.[1] The Dutch
revolted and took the few French still remaining in the country
prisoner. Hogendorp was placed at the head of a provisional government
in the name of William of Orange.[2] The Prussians under Bulow entered
the country and were received with great acclamation. The whole of the
Dutch fortresses surrendered, the French garrisons flying
panic-stricken.

The Swiss remained faithful to Napoleon until the arrival of
Schwarzenberg with the allied army on their frontiers.[3] Napoleon
would gladly have beheld the Swiss sacrifice themselves for him for
the purpose of keeping the allies in check, but Reinhard of Zurich,
who was at that time _Landammnann_, prudently resolved not to
persevere in the demand for neutrality, to lay aside every
manifestation of opposition, and to permit, it being impossible to
prevent, the entrance of the troops into the country, by which he,
moreover, ingratiated himself with the allies. The majority of his
countrymen thanked Heaven for their deliverance from French
oppression, and if, in their ancient spirit of egotism, they neglected
to aid the great popular movement throughout Germany, they, at all
events, sympathized in the general hatred toward France.[4] The
ancient aristocrats now naturally reappeared and attempted to
re-establish the oligarchical governments of the foregoing century. A
Count Senfft von Pilsach, a pretended Austrian envoy, who was speedily
disavowed, assumed the authority at Berne with so much assurance as to
succeed in deposing the existing government and reinstating the
ancient oligarchy. In Zurich, the constitution was also revised and
the citizens reassumed their authority over the peasantry. The whole
of Switzerland was in a state of ferment. Ancient claims of the most
varied description were asserted. The people of the Grisons took up
arms and invaded the Valtelline in order to retake their ancient
possession. Pancratius, abbot of St. Gall, demanded the restoration of
his princely abbey.--Italy, also, deserted Napoleon. Murat, king of
Naples, in order not to lose his crown, joined the allies. Eugene
Beauharnais, viceroy of Italy, alone remained true to his imperial
stepfather and gallantly opposed the Austrians under Hiller, who,
nevertheless, rapidly reduced the whole of Upper Italy to submission.

The allies, when on the point of entering the French territory,
solemnly declared that their enmity was directed not against the
French nation, but solely against Napoleon. By this generosity they
hoped at once to prove the beneficence of their intentions to every
nation of Europe and to prejudice the French, more particularly,
against their tyrant; but that people, notwithstanding their immense
misfortunes, still remained true to Napoleon nor hesitated to
sacrifice themselves for the man who had raised them to the highest
rank among the nations of the earth, and thousands flocked anew
beneath the imperial eagle for the defence of their native soil.

The allies invaded France simultaneously on four sides, Bulow from
Holland, Blucher, on New Year's eve, 1814, from Coblentz, and the main
body of the allied army under Schwarzenberg, which was also
accompanied by the allied sovereigns. A fourth army, consisting of
English and Spaniards, had already crossed the Pyrenees and marched up
the country. The great wars in Russia and Germany having compelled
Napoleon to draw off a considerable number of his forces from Spain,
Soult had been consequently unable to keep the field against
Wellington, whose army had been gradually increased. King Joseph fled
from Madrid. The French hazarded a last engagement at Vittoria, in
June, 1813, but suffered a terrible defeat. One of the two Nassau
regiments under Colonel Kruse and the Frankfort battalion deserted
with their arms and baggage to the English. The other Nassau regiment
and that of Baden were disarmed by the French and dragged in chains to
France in reward for their long and severe service.[5] The Hanoverians
in Wellington's army (the German Legion), particularly the corps of
Victor von Alten (Charles's brother), brilliantly distinguished
themselves at Vittoria and again at Bayonne, but were forgotten in the
despatches, an omission that was loudly complained of by their
general, Hinuber. Other divisions of Hanoverians, up to this period
stationed in Sicily, had been sent to garrison Leghorn and
Genoa.[6]--The crown prince of Sweden followed the Prussian northern
army, but merely went as far as Liege, whence he turned back in order
to devote his whole attention to the conquest of Norway.

In the midst of the contest a fresh congress was assembled at
Chatillon, for the purpose of devising measures for the conclusion of
the war without further bloodshed. The whole of ancient France was
offered to Napoleon on condition of his restraining his ambition
within her limits and of keeping peace, but he refused to cede a foot
of land, and resolved to lose all or nothing. This congress was in so
far disadvantageous on account of the rapid movements of the armies
being checked by its fluctuating diplomacy. Schwarzenberg, for
instance, pursued a system of procrastination, separated his _corps
d'armee_ at long intervals, advanced with extreme slowness, or
remained entirely stationary. Napoleon took advantage of this
dilatoriness on the part of his opponents to make an unexpected attack
on Blucher's corps at Brienne on the 29th of January, in which Blucher
narrowly escaped being made prisoner. The flames of the city, in which
Napoleon had received his first military lessons, facilitated
Blucher's retreat. Napoleon, however, neglecting to pursue him on the
30th of January, Blucher, reinforced by the crown prince of Wurtemberg
and by Wrede, attacked him at La Rothière with such superior forces as
to put him completely to the rout. The French left seventy-three guns
sticking in the mud. Schwarzenberg, nevertheless, instead of pursuing
the retreating enemy with the whole of his forces, again delayed his
advance and divided the troops. Blucher, who had meanwhile rapidly
pushed forward upon Paris, was again unexpectedly attacked by the main
body of the French army, and the whole of his corps were, as they
separately advanced, repulsed with considerable loss, the Russians
under Olsufief at Champeaubert, those under Sacken at Montmirail, the
Prussians under York at Château-Thierry, and, finally, Blucher himself
at Beaux-champ, between the 10th and 14th of February. With
characteristic rapidity, Napoleon instantly fell upon the scattered
corps of the allied army and inflicted a severe punishment upon
Schwarzenberg, for the folly of his system. He successively repulsed
the Russians under Pahlen at Mormant, Wrede at Villeneuve le Comte,
the crown prince of Wurtemberg, who offered the most obstinate
resistance, at Montereau, on the 17th and 18th of February.[7]
Augereau had meantime, with an army levied in the south of France,
driven the Austrians, under Bubna, into Switzerland; and, although the
decisive moment had arrived, and Schwarzenberg had simply to form a
junction with Blucher in order to bring an overwhelming force against
Napoleon, the allied sovereigns and Schwarzenberg resolved, in a
council of war held at Troyes, upon a general retreat.

Blucher, upon this, magnanimously resolved to obviate at all hazards
the disastrous consequences of the retreat of the allied army, and, in
defiance of all commands, pushed forward alone.[8] This movement, far
from being rash, was coolly calculated, Blucher being sufficiently
reinforced on the Marne by Winzingerode and Bulow, by whose aid he, on
the 9th March, defeated the emperor Napoleon at Laon. The victory was
still undecided at fall of night. Napoleon allowed his troops to rest,
but Blucher remained under arms and sent York to surprise him during
the night. The French were completely dispersed and lost forty-six
guns. Napoleon, after this miserable defeat, again tried his fortune
against Schwarzenberg (who, put to shame by Blucher's brilliant
success, had again halted), and, on the 20th of March, maintained his
position at Arcis sur Aube, although the crown prince of Wurtemberg
gallantly led his troops five times to the assault. Neither side was
victorious.

Napoleon now resorted to a bold _ruse de guerre_. The peasantry, more
particularly in Lorraine, exasperated by the devastation unavoidable
during war time, and by the vengeance here and there taken by the
foreign soldiery, had risen to the rear of the allied army.
Unfortunately, no one had dreamed of treating the German Alsatians and
Lothringians as brother Germans. They were treated as French. Long
unaccustomed to invasion and to the calamities incidental to war, they
made a spirited but ineffectual resistance to the rapine of the
soldiery. Whole villages were burned down. The peasantry gathered into
troops and massacred the foreign soldiery when not in sufficient
numbers to keep them in check. Napoleon confidently expected that his
diminished armies would be supported by a general rising _en masse_,
and that Augereau, who was at that time guarding Lyons, would form a
junction with him; and, in this expectation, threw himself to the rear
of the allied forces and took up a position at Troyes with a view of
cutting them off, perhaps of surrounding them by means of the general
rising, or, at all events, of drawing them back to the Rhine. But, on
the self-same day, the 19th of March, Lyons had fallen and Augereau
had retreated southward. The people did not rise _en masse_, and the
allies took advantage of Napoleon's absence to form a grand junction,
and, with flying banners, to march unopposed upon Paris, convinced
that the possession of the capital of the French empire must
inevitably bring the war to a favorable conclusion. In Paris, there
were numerous individuals who already regarded Napoleon's fall as _un
fait accompli_, and who, ambitious of influencing the future prospects
of France, were ready to offer their services to the victors. Both
parties speedily came to an understanding. The _corps d'armee_ under
Marshals Mortier and Marmont, which were encountered midway, were
repulsed, and that under Generals Pacthod and Amey captured, together
with seventy pieces of artillery, at La Fère Ohampenoise. On the 29th
of March, the dark columns of the allied army defiled within sight of
Paris. On the 30th, they met with a spirited resistance on the heights
of Belleville and Montmartre; but the city, in order to escape
bombardment, capitulated during the night, and, on the 31st, the
allied sovereigns made a peaceful entry. The empress, accompanied by
the king of Rome, by Joseph, ex-king of Spain, and by innumerable
wagons, laden with the spoil of Europe, had already fled to the south
of France.

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