The Age of Napoleon
III. TO THE RHINE
So expanded and financed, the Allies now had some 492,000 men in arms, with 1,383 cannon; Napoleon, having received a contingent from Denmark, and the new conscripts he had waited for, had 440,000 troops and 1,200 pieces of artillery. The Allies formed three armies: an “Army of the North,” under Bernadotte, centered in Berlin; an “Army of Silesia,” under the impetuous and undiscourageable Blücher, formed around Breslau; and the largest of the three, the “Army of Bohemia,” under Prince von Schwarzenberg, focused in Prague. Together they formed a half circle covering Napoleon at Dresden; separately each of the three was free to fight its own way to Paris. Against these Napoleon opposed an “Army of the Left,” under Oudinot, to hold Bernadotte; an “Army of the Center,” under Ney, to watch Blücher; and an “Army of the Right,” under himself, to guard the roads by which Schwarzenberg might let loose an avalanche of men from Bohemia. There were discouraging but apparently unavoidable defects in the French position: Napoleon could not use his fine Italian scheme of concentrating his whole force on one of his enemies at one time, since this would leave the road to Paris open to the others; two of his armies had to manage without the spur of his presence and the quick versatility of his tactical skill.
On August 12 Blücher opened the fall campaign of 1813 by moving westward from Breslau to attack Ney’s divisions at the Katzbach in Saxony. Ney’s men were caught napping, perhaps literally, and fled in panic. Napoleon rushed up from Görlitz with his Imperial Guard and Murat’s cavalry, re-formed Ney’s troops, and led them to a victory that cost Blücher 6,000 men.12 But at the same time Schwarzenberg led his 200,000 men north in a dash to seize the French headquarters at Dresden. Napoleon turned back from the pursuit of Blücher, led 100,000 men 120 miles in four days, and found the Austrians holding almost all the heights around the Saxon capital. On August 26 the French army, led by the Old Guard and the Young Guard, crying “Vive l’Empereur!” broke through the enemy lines, and fought so ferociously—Murat leading his cavalry with his old-time recklessness—that, after two days of combat, Schwarzenberg ordered a retreat, leaving 6,000 of his men dead, disabled, or captured. Napoleon himself had directed some batteries in the thickest of the fire.13
Alexander, from an exposed hill, had watched the conflict with his new favorite, Moreau, beside him. A cannonball shattered both of Moreau’s legs. A few days later he died, in the arms of the Czar, but crying out, “I, Moreau, struck by a French shot, and dying amid the enemies of France! “14
Vandamme pursued the retreating Austrians, was not followed and supported by Napoleon (who had been stricken with violent gastric pains), fell into a trap, and surrendered his 7,000 men to one of Schwarzenberg’s divisions (August 28). Soon afterward Ney lost 15,000 men in an engagement at Dennewitz (September 6). Napoleon mourned to see his victory at Dresden so annulled. He sent orders to the Senate to call up 120,000 conscripts from the class of 1814, and 160,000 from the class of 1815. These were youngsters who would need many months of training. At the same time 60,000 Russian troops, hardened by a campaign in Poland, were added to Alexander’s army; and on October 8 the Bavarian Army, previously supporting Napoleon, joined his foes.
So strengthened, the Allies now aimed to capture Leipzig, and to decide the war in a battle where their united forces would prevail over any Napoleonic strategy. In October 160,000 men—led by Blücher, Bennigsen, Bernadotte, Schwarzenberg, Eugen of Württemberg, and other generals-converged upon the city. Napoleon brought up his armies from north, center, and south, 115,000 men in all, under Marmont, Alexandre Macdonald, Augereau, Bertrand, Kellermann, Victor, Murat, Ney, and Prince Józef Poniatowski. Rarely had so much military genius, or so many nationalities, met on any one field; this, as the Germans called it, was the Völkerschlacht —the Battle (literally the Slaughter) of the Nations.
Napoleon took his stand in an exposed position in the rear of his forces, and directed their movements during the three days of the action (October 16–19, 1813). According to his own account,15 the French had the upper hand until October 18, when the Saxon troops went over to the Allies and then turned their guns upon the French, who, surprised and confused, began to give ground. On the next day the contingents from the Confederation of the Rhine defected to the Allies. Seeing that his men, apparently running out of ammunition,16 were suffering enormous losses, Napoleon ordered them to retreat across the Rivers Pleisse and Elster. Most of them succeeded in this, but an excited engineer blew up a bridge over the Elster while some of the French were crossing; many were drowned, including the gallant Poniatowski, who had fought so well that Napoleon had made him a marshal on the battlefield. Only 60,000 of the 115,000 who had fought for Napoleon at Leipzig reached the River Saale; thousands fell prisoners, and 120,000 French troops left in German fortresses were lost to France. Those of the retreating French who reached the Saale received food and clothing and supplies. Then they made their way westward to the Main at Hanau; there they fought and defeated a force of Austrians and Bavarians; and on November 2, after two weeks of flight, they reached the Rhine at Mainz, and crossed the river into France.
IV. TO THE BREAKING POINT
Napoleon seemed ruined beyond recovery. Not counting French soldiers immobilized in Germany, his army now consisted of 60,000 defeated and exhausted men huddled near the Rhine, “a mass of stragglers without arms, without clothes, bearing about them the germs of typhus fever, with which they infected every place through which they passed.”17 From every direction came discouraging news. In Italy Eugène had by great effort raised a force of 36,000 men, but was now confronted by 60,000 Austrian troops across the Adige. In Naples Murat was plotting to save his throne by defecting to the Allies. In the Netherlands a domestic revolt, aided by a Prussian division under Bülow, overthrew French rule (November, 1813); English troops took control of the Scheldt; the house of Orange was restored. Jérôme had fled from Westphalia. From Spain the triumphant Wellington crossed the Bidassoa into France (October 7); in December he laid siege to Bayonne.
France itself seemed to be falling to pieces. The loss of Spain, the interruption of trade with Germany and Italy, had brought an economic crisis with factories closing and banks failing. In October the closing of the banking house of Jabach set off a series of bankruptcies. The stock market fell from 80 in January, 1813, to 47 in December. Thousands of unemployed roamed the streets, or concealed their poverty in their homes, or joined the Army to eat. The common people rebelled against further conscription; the middle class protested against higher taxes; the royalists called for Louis XVIII; all classes demanded peace.
Napoleon reached Paris on November 9, and was welcomed by his unhappy Queen and his rejoicing son. He set about raising a new army of 300,000 men as the first necessity for either war or peace. He sent engineers to repair roads to new fronts, to restore town walls, to build fortresses, to prepare to cut dikes or demolish bridges if necessary to slow an invader’s advance. He conscripted horses for the cavalry, ordered cannon from the foundries, arms and munitions for the infantry; and as public revenues fell because of poverty and resistance to taxation, he delved more and more deeply into his cellar hoard. The nation looked on in wonder and fear, admiring his resilience and resourcefulness, dreading another year of war.
The Allies, hesitant before the Rhine and winter, sent to him from Frankfurt, on November 9, an informal unsigned offer of peace: France was to retain her natural frontiers—the Rhine, the Alps, the Pyrenees—but was to surrender all claim to anything beyond them.18 On December 2 Napoleon replied through Caulaincourt, minister for foreign affairs, giving his official consent. However, the revolution in Holland ended French control of the mouths of the Rhine; the Allies aided this revolution, and withdrew their acceptance of natural frontiers for France.19 Instead they issued (December 5) the “Declaration of Frankfurt”: “The Allied Powers are not making war on France. The Sovereigns desire France to be great, strong, and happy…. The Powers confirm the French Empire in the possession of a
n extent of territory that it never possessed under its kings.”20
Not much was needed to separate the people from the Emperor. The Senate and the Legislature were in open revolt against him, demanding a constitution with guarantees of freedom. On December 21 the Allies crossed the Rhine into France. On December 29 the Senate sent Napoleon its assurances of loyalty and support. But on the same day Lainé, member from royalist Bordeaux, read to the Legislature a report criticizing the “mistakes” and “excesses” of the imperial administration, praising “the happy sway of the Bourbons,” and congratulating the Allies on “wishing to keep us within the limits of our own territory, and to repress an ambitious activity which for the last twenty years has been so fatal to all the peoples of Europe.”21 The Legislature voted, 223 to 31, to have Lainé’s report printed. That evening Napoleon ordered the session closed.
On January 1, 1814, the Legislature sent him a delegation to wish him the compliments of the season. He replied with an outburst of accumulated anger and fatigue:
“Surely, when we have to drive the enemy from our frontiers, it is not time to ask me for a constitution. You are not the representatives of the nation, you are merely the deputies sent by the departments…. I alone am the representative of the people. After all, what is the throne? Four pieces of gilt wood covered with velvet? No! The throne is a man, and that man is myself. It is I who can save France, and not you! If I were to listen to you I would surrender to the enemy more than he is demanding. You shall have peace in three months, or I shall perish.”22
After the shocked delegates had left him Napoleon sent for some selected senators, explained his policy and his negotiations for peace, and concluded with a humble confession as if before the judgment seat of history:
“I do not fear to acknowledge that I have made war too long. I had conceived vast projects; I wished to secure to France the empire of the world. I was mistaken; those projects were not proportioned to the numerical force of our population. I should have been obliged to put them all under arms; and I now perceive that the advancement of society, and the moral and social well-being of a state, are not compatible with converting an entire people into a nation of soldiers.
“I ought to expiate the fault I have committed in reckoning too much on my good fortune; and I will expiate it. I will make peace. I will make it in such terms as circumstances demand, and this peace shall be mortifying to me alone. It is I who have deceived myself; it is I who ought to suffer, it is not France. She has not committed any error; she has poured forth her blood for me; she has not refused me any sacrifice….
“Go, then, gentlemen, announce to your departments that I am about to conclude a peace, that I shall no longer require the blood of Frenchmen for my enterprises, for myself,… but for France, and to maintain the integrity of her frontiers. Tell them that I ask only the means of repelling a foreign foe from our native land. Tell them that Alsace, Franche-Comté, Navarre, Béarn are being invaded. Tell them that I call upon Frenchmen to come to the aid of Freedom.”23
On January 21 he ordered his agents to release Pope Pius VII from Fontainebleau, and arrange for his return to Italy. On January 23 he assembled in the Tuileries the officers of the National Guard, presented to them the Empress and the “King of Rome” (a handsome boy not yet three years old), and recommended them to the care of the Guard. Once again, he appointed Marie Louise regent during his absence, this time with his brother Joseph as lieutenant general of the empire and administrator for the Empress. On the 24th he was notified that Murat had gone over to the Allies, and was marching up from Naples with eighty thousand men to aid in expelling Eugène from Italy. On that day he bade goodbye to wife and son, whom he was never to see again, and left Paris to join his reconstituted army and challenge the invaders of France.
V. TO PARIS
They were again advancing on converging lines, this time with their eyes on Paris. Schwarzenberg literally stole a march on the French by crossing the Rhine at Basel with 160,000 men, violating Swiss neutrality with the happy connivance of Bernese oligarchs; moving rapidly through the cantons, taking undefended Geneva, and emerging into France a hundred miles farther west than the French had expected; and hurrying north toward Nancy in the hope of joining Blücher, or coordinating with him there. Napoleon had ordered French armies to drop their local campaigns in Italy and southeast France and march north to intercept Schwarzenberg, or at least slow his advance; but Eugène was tied up by Austrians, and Soult had his hands full with Wellington.
Meanwhile Blücher, with his “Army of Silesia” still 60,000 strong, crossed the Rhine at Mainz, Mannheim, and Coblenz, and advanced almost unopposed to Nancy, whose rulers and populace received him and his Prussian troops as deliverers from Napoleonic tyranny.24 Bernadotte, having lost his hope of being chosen to succeed Bonaparte, had left the Allies after Leipzig, to beat the Danes into ceding Norway to Sweden (January 14, 1814); that done, he and his army joined Blücher in the drive on Paris.
The French forces that Napoleon had left in eastern France dared not confront either Blücher or Schwarzenberg. Ney retreated west from Nancy, Mortier from Langres, Marmont from Metz, and awaited the coming of Napoleon.
He brought with him, to his new headquarters at Châlons-sur-Marne (only ninety-five miles from Paris), some 60,000 recruits; adding these to the 60,000 survivors of Leipzig under Ney, Marmont, and Mortier, he had a total of 120,000 with whom to stop Blücher and Schwarzenberg’s total of 220,000. He was limited to a policy of keeping the Allied armies from merging, avoiding confrontation with Schwarzenberg, and stopping or delaying their advance upon Paris by nibbling victories won over Allied divisions caught off guard or far enough away from their central command to be attacked without engaging their main forces. The campaign of 1814 was one of Napoleon’s most brilliant in strategy, but also—because of the dearth of reinforcements—one of the most costly in mistakes. Blücher too made many mistakes, but he was the most indomitable and resourceful of all those generals who now or later opposed Napoleon. Schwarzenberg was more cautious, partly by temperament, partly because he carried Czar Alexander and Emperor Francis II in his train.
Some initial victories gave Napoleon undue confidence. He caught Blücher’s men dining or napping at Brienne (January 29, 1814), defeated them, and came near to capturing Blücher himself. They retreated, and Napoleon was too wise to follow them, for his own army had lost 4,000 men, and he too had a narrow escape: a Prussian was approaching him with drawn saber when General Gourgeaud shot the impertinent fellow dead. Napoleon grieved over the damage the battle had done to the town and its famous school, where he had received his scientific education and his military training; he promised to restore them after the invaders had been driven from France.25
He had little time for reminiscence; Schwarzenberg had rushed up to buttress Blücher, and suddenly Napoleon’s 46,000 victors found themselves almost surrounded by 100,000 Austrians, Prussians, and Russians at La Rothière (February 1). Napoleon had no choice but to fight; he so ordered, and commanded in person. The battle was almost equal, but equal losses were disastrous for the French, and the Emperor led them in retreat to Troyes. Blücher, restless with Schwarzenberg’s cautious advance, separated from him and decided to follow his own route and pace to Paris via the Marne while the Austrians proceeded along the Seine. Allied officers were so confident of victory that they made engagements to meet at the Palais-Royal in the coming week.26
After giving his wounded army a week’s rest, Napoleon assigned part of it to Victor and Oudinot to retard Schwarzenberg, and himself marched with 60,000 men through the swamps of St.-Gond as a shortcut to Champaubert. There they caught up with Blücher’s rear, and Marmont led the French to a decisive victory (February 10). Pushing on, they met, a day later, another portion of Blücher’s army at Montmirail; Napoleon and Blücher were both present, but Marmont again was the hero. On February 14 the main forces clashed in a larger combat at Vauchamps, and Napoleon guided his now more confident army to
victory. In four days Blücher had lost 30,000 men.27 Napoleon sent 8,000 prisoners to be paraded through Paris to restore the morale of the citizens.28
However, Schwarzenberg had meanwhile driven back Oudinot and Victor almost to Fountainbleau; one full-scale attack could have brought the Austro-Russian army, and its two Emperors, within a day’s march of Paris. Shocked by report of this setback, which canceled all his victories, Napoleon, leaving Marmont to at least harass Blücher, dashed south with 70,000 men, caught an Allied army under Wittgenstein at Montereau, defeated it (February 18), took a position at Nangis, and sent Victor and Oudinot to attack Schwarzenberg in flank and rear. Finding himself in danger on three sides, the Austrian general thought it an opportune time to suggest an armistice to Napoleon. The Emperor replied that he would agree to a cease-fire only if it pledged the Allies to the Frankfurt offer—which left France its natural boundaries. The Allies, insulted by this proposal that they should retreat behind the Rhine, ended the negotiations, and, in defiance, at Chaumont on March 9, confirmed their alliance for twenty years. Schwarzenberg retired to Troyes, still commanding 100,000 men.
Napoleon, with 40,000, pursued him cautiously. Meanwhile he learned that Blücher had re-formed his forces, and was again making a path to Paris with 50,000 men. Leaving Oudinot, Macdonald, and Etienne-Maurice Gérard to trouble Schwarzenberg, he marched his men back from the Seine to the Marne, and joined Marmont and Mortier in the hope of trapping Blücher at the River Aisne, where the Prussian’s only escape would be by a bridge to Soissons. But two other Allied armies, 50,000 men, moved down from the north upon Soissons, and frightened its commandant to surrender the city and the bridge. Blücher’s forces crossed the bridge, burned it, and united with their rescuers to total 100,000 troops. Napoleon pursued them with 50,000 men, fought them indecisively at Craonne, and was defeated by them in a savage conflict of two days at Laon (March 9–10).