For four hours after his arrival at Charleroi, Napoleon, uneasy as to the whereabouts of his detachments, stood in idleness waiting for news. During this interval the first Prussian corps under Ziethen, retreating from Charleroi, reached Fleurus unmolested, all except a small body, which gathered at Gosselies, on the Brussels road, but was easily dispersed […]
The supreme effort of the dynasties to outlaw Napoleon, and restore France to the Bourbons, was made by what was nominally an alliance of eight members—Austria, Great Britain, Prussia, Russia, France, Spain, Portugal, and Sweden. The last was, however, absorbed in her struggle with Norway, and, though Spain and Portugal were signatories, the real strength
It has lately been recalled that as early as July, 1814, the Emperor of Elba remarked to an English visitor that Louis XVIII, being surrounded by those who had betrayed the Empire, would in turn probably be himself betrayed by them. For the ensuing four months, however, the exile gave no sign of any deep
Napoleon’s journey to Elba was a series of disenchantments. As has been said, he had stipulated in his ‘treaty’ that the Empress should accompany him to St. Tropez, where he was to embark. Her absence, he persisted in declaring, was explicable only by forced detention; and he again talked of withdrawing his abdication at this
There is no doubt that Napoleon sincerely and dearly loved his ‘growlers’; there is no doubt that with grim humor he constantly circumvented and used them for his own ends; even in his agony he contemplated a course which, leaving them convinced of their success, would yet render their action of no effect. After a
From early dawn until midday on March 30th the fighting before Paris was almost continuous, the assailants displaying an assurance of victory, the defenders showing the courage of despair. Marmont and Mortier kept their ranks in order, and the soldiers fought gallantly; elsewhere the militia and the boys emulated each other and the regulars in
The pallid, silent Emperor at St. Dizier was closeted with considerations like these. He knew of the defeat which forced Marmont and Mortier back on Paris; the loss of the capital was imminent; parties were in a dangerous state; his marshals were growing more and more slack; he had failed in transferring the seat of
Though unscientific as a military move and futile as to the ultimate result of the war, the capture of Rheims was, nevertheless, a telling thrust. On receipt of the news from Laon, Schwarzenberg had immediately set his army in motion against Macdonald, and Blucher, after waiting two days to restore order among his worried troops
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
The year 1814 is the most astonishing of Napoleon’s military life. He first conceived a plan for combining the resources of Italy, Switzerland, Naples, and France. This failed by Augereau’s sloth and Murat’s ingratitude. Nothing daunted, the fertile brain then outlined schemes for meeting the quick advance of the allies through the Netherlands, for defending
What happened in France between the first days of November, 1813, when Napoleon reached St. Cloud, and the close of the year, is so incredible that it scarcely seems to belong in the pages of sober history. Of 575 thousand Frenchmen, strictly excluding Germans and Poles, who had been sent to war during 1812 and
The battle of Leipsic is one of the most important in general history. Apparently it was only the offset to Austerlitz, as the Beresina had been to Friedland. In reality it was far more, because it gave the hegemony of continental Europe to Prussia. French imperialism in its death-throes wiped out the score of royal
But how should the retreat be conducted? Napoleon’s habit of reducing his thoughts to writing for the sake of clearness remained strong upon him to the last, and in the painstaking notes which he made with regard to this important move he outlined two alternatives: to garrison Dresden with two corps, send three to reconnoiter
Throughout the night after the victory at Dresden, Napoleon believed that the enemy would return again to battle on the morrow. This is conclusively shown by the notes which he made for Berthier during the evening. These were based on the stated hypothesis that the enemy was not really in retreat, but would on the
In later years Napoleon confessed that during the interval between the first and second Saxon campaigns he had been outwitted. His antagonists had, in his own language, ‘changed for the better’; at least they secured the war they so earnestly desired under conditions vastly more favourable to themselves than to their opponent. Both parties had