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 the Rhine frontier, and for a levy ‘en masse’ of the French people to hurl back invasion under the walls of Paris. After taking the field, the daring of his conceptions, the rapidity of his movements, the surprises he prepared for his enemy, the support he wrung from an exhausted land, the devotion he received from a panting, ill-clothed army at bay—all are so remarkable that by contrast the allies appear to be a lumbering, stupid mass.
With another antagonist they would have appeared in a very different light; Gneisenau’s clear head, Blucher’s daring, Radetzky’s good sense and courage, together with the valour of the forces at their back, would have won the goal far more easily with an ordinary, or even an extraordinary, combatant in Napoleon’s plight. The Emperor of the French had not merely a prestige worth a 100 thousand men, as he was fond of reckoning: he had an activity of mind and body, a reservoir of resources, which made his single blade cover the whole circumference of defence like the whirling spokes of a fiery wheel.
After a skirmish for the possession of St. Dizier, the campaign opened at Brienne, where Blucher, hurrying to gain touch with the main army of the allies, was caught on January 29th. The conflict probably did not recall to Napoleon his mock conflicts when a schoolboy near the same spot. The terrific struggle began late in the afternoon, and lasted in full fury until midnight, when the Prussian general, narrowly escaping capture, abandoned the town and hurried toward Trannes.
Thoroughly beaten, he needed not touch alone, but actual union with the Austrians, and this he gained near Bar on the Aube, whence Schwarzenberg was passing on toward Auxerre. Ignorant of this success, Napoleon now drew up his line with its center at La Rothiere, hoping in the first place to hold the bridge over the Aube at Lesmont, and thus secure the moral effect of his victory at Brienne, and in the second to bring on another engagement with Blucher, whom he believed to be still isolated. Marmont was at Montierender, Mortier was summoned from before Troyes.
This stand of Napoleon’s was a desperate attempt to overawe the allied sovereigns, for strategically it was fatal, since in the case of either victory or defeat the French army was in danger of being outflanked by Schwarzenberg’s advance, and thus cut off from Paris. On February first, Blucher, reinforced by twelve thousand of the Russian guard, attacked. The battle lasted, with fluctuating success for the allies, during two days, and at its close Napoleon safely retreated over the Aube to make another stand at Troyes.
The various conflicts were terrific; in the end Blucher lost six thousand dead and wounded, the French about four thousand. The odds against the latter were never less than two to one, sometimes more. Had the allies first thrown their full strength into the contest, and had they then followed up their victory by a well-organized pursuit, the campaign would have ended there. As it was, they paused, permitted a disorganized, feeble enemy to escape, and gained nothing from the bloody conflict except an ill-founded self-confidence.
Blucher wrote on the evening of the battle that they would be in Paris within eight days. To General Reynier, who was to be liberated by an exchange of prisoners, the Czar said: “We shall be in Paris before you.” A council of war was called which decided for an advance on the French capital in two columns; to Blucher, as the conqueror of La Rothiere, was assigned the shortest line, that down the Marne. For several days the allied lines moved onward, slowly, widely scattered, and carelessly. Napoleon was as calm and undaunted as if he had been the victor.
Retreating on the defensive with careful deliberation, he strengthened his forces by well-chosen periods of rest, and by hurrying in reinforcements from the various depots about and beyond Paris. On the afternoon of February 9th, when leaving Nogent for Sezanne, he wrote to his brother Joseph, whom he had left to represent his interests at Paris, that he could now reckon, all told, on between 60-70 thousand men, including engineers and artillery; that he estimated the Silesian army under Blucher at 45 thousand, and the main army under Schwarzenberg at 150 thousand, including Bubna and the Cossacks.
“If I gain a victory over the Silesian army, and put it out of account for some days, I can turn against Schwarzenberg, reckoning on the reinforcements you will send, with from seventy to 80 thousand men, and I think he cannot oppose me at once with more than from a 110-120 thousand. If I find myself too weak to attack, I shall be at least strong enough to hold him in check for a fortnight or three weeks, and this would give me the opportunity for new combinations.” To hold Schwarzenberg temporarily, Oudinot with 25 thousand men was stationed on the line from Provins to Sens, and Victor with fourteen thousand was sent to Nogent.
The Emperor himself, with the old guard, about eight thousand strong, with Ney and Marmont each commanding six thousand infantry, and with 10 thousand cavalry under Nansouty and Doumerc, set out from Sezanne to try his fortunes with Blucher.
This was the last of Napoleon’s great strategic schemes which was destined to be crowned with success. It had but a single drawback. While Napoleon was still the boldest man in war that ever lived, as at St. Helena he declared himself to be, his marshals were uneasy and depressed; Marmont, in this moment of infinite chance, as it seemed to him, fell into a panic. The marshal’s fears were not justified, for his Emperor’s daring was not foolhardy. It was calculated on the myriad chances of his enemy’s opportunity and his enemy’s ability, and in this case it was perfectly calculated. Blucher, in spite of Gneisenau’s continuous warnings, was over-confident.
Having dispersed his detachments more than ever, he had for two days been moving swiftly in the hope of cutting off Macdonald by a dashing feat of arms. In his haste he had not taken up two Russian corps which had been separated from his main line, but on the contrary he had left them so far out that they were beyond support. By a blunder of the Czar’s, reinforcements which had been promised were still a long distance in the rear. Schwarzenberg’s movements were marked by an over-confident deliberation as characteristic of him as overhaste was of Blucher. Accordingly when on the 10th Marmont advanced from Sezanne, he found the corps of Olsusieff, about 45 hundred strong, virtually isolated at Champaubert. His own numbers were slightly superior, and with a swift rush he annihilated the unready Russians. Napoleon was beside himself with joy, and began to talk of the Vistula once more; but he stopped when he saw how sour the visages of Marmont and the other marshals grew at the very mention of such an idea.
Nevertheless, if the process begun at Champaubert could be continued, victory and ultimate recovery of something more than French empire were assured. He therefore hurried Nansouty and Macdonald on toward Montmirail for a second stroke of the same kind.
The affair at Montmirail was more of a battle than that at Champaubert, for Blucher had been able to gather in the divisions of Sacken, York, Kleist, and Kapzewitch. The battle opened about an hour before noon on the 11th by a fierce artillery fire from the French, behind which Napoleon manoeuvered so as to concentrate his own force against the Russians, and separate them from York with his Prussians.
At 2 o’clock Napoleon attacked the Russians, Mortier engaging the Prussians separately. The plan succeeded, and by nightfall the enemy was in full retreat for Chateau-Thierry, where was the nearest bridge over the Marne. Napoleon had hoped that Macdonald would arrive from La Ferte-sous-Jouarre in time to seize the bridge, cut off the retreat, and make the victory decisive. But in spite of heroic exertion, that marshal could not or did not move with sufficient rapidity over the heavy dirt roads. The flying allies sacked the town with awful cruelty, and destroyed the bridge without any molestation except from the inhabitants, who wreaked their vengeance on numerous stragglers.
On the 13th the French occupied the place, repaired the bridge, and crossed to the right bank. Next morning Marmont started in pursuit of Blucher.
Somewhat flushed by such success, Napoleon deliberated whether he should not now turn and attack Schwarzenberg. The Emperor thought these victories might give pause to a mediocre Austrian, ever mindful of the terrific blows his country had received once and again from France. He was mistaken; Schwarzenberg had moved, though slowly, yet steadily forward. On the twelfth Victor abandoned the bridge at Nogent, and Napoleon sent Macdonald with twelve thousand men to join Victor at Montereau.
Early on the 14th came news that Blucher had driven Marmont back to Fromentieres. By noon Napoleon had effected a junction with this marshal near Etoges, making a famous and successful flank march over a marshy country, a manoeuver which is justly considered worthy of his great genius. Advancing then to the neighbourhood of Vauchamps, his infantry attacked in front, while the cavalry, under Grouchy, outflanked the enemy’s line and fell on the rear. Blucher was apparently doomed, for he had only three regiments of cavalry, and while facing one powerful enemy he would be forced to break the ranks of another in order to open a line of retreat.
He solved the problem, but at enormous cost. Forming his troops into a line of solid squares, one stood to support the artillery and receive the onset in front, while the others dashed at Grouchy’s horsemen, each square standing and retreating behind the next alternately as the bloody retreat went on. At last the butchery ceased, and Blucher fled to Bergeres. The French pursued only as far as Etoges. Napoleon had hoped to follow all the way to Chalons, annihilate what was left of Blucher’s army, and then to return and throw himself on Schwarzenberg. He was arrested by the news that the Seine valley, as far as Montereau, was in the hands of the Austro-Russians; that Oudinot and Victor had been driven back to Nangis; in short, that Paris was seriously menaced.
It was long asserted that in the three actions just recorded the French far outnumbered their opponents, and that Napoleon’s generalship was consequently inferior to his high average. The sufficient answer to this is in the facts now universally accepted. At Champaubert there were 4850 French against 4700 Russians; at Montmirail there were 22700 Russians and Prussians against 12800 French; and in the third engagement, near Etoges, Blucher had 21500 to 10300 hundred. It is therefore natural to compare these three victories with those at Montenotte, Millesimo, and Dego. But they were far greater.
At 44 Napoleon displayed exactly the same boldness, steadfastness, and skill which he had displayed in youth; but in addition he overcame the stolid enmity of winter, of variable weather, of roads almost impassable, of swampy fields that were almost impassable by reason of overflowing ditches and half-frozen morasses. He overcame, too, the resisting power created by his own example; for here were the choicest soldiers of the Continent, commanded by men inured for eighteen years to the hardships, the shifts, the rapidity of warfare as he himself had taught the art.
Momentarily Napoleon seems to have wondered whether allied and co-allied Europe had learned nothing in half a generation, and whether an army twice and a half larger than his own, under veteran generals, was to withdraw again behind the Rhine, the Elbe, the Oder, perhaps the Vistula. It is hard to believe that he dreamed such dreams as we read the prosaic, scientific, hard common sense of his military correspondence between January 26th and February 14th. Yet there is certainly an appearance of self-deception and vacillation in his political and diplomatic plans, due apparently to the intoxication of success, as when he spoke of the Vistula to Marmont after Champaubert.
The innermost thoughts of Metternich, and of the diplomats associated with him, are very hard to fathom. For two generations the world believed that after Leipsic, Napoleon, in his sanguine conceit, rejected offer after offer from the allies, and finally perished utterly because of a folly which made him believe he could recover his predominance. There is now every reason to believe the contrary, and to suppose that Napoleon clearly understood the situation. The war was one of extermination on the part of the allies; in the interest of their dynasties they intended not only to destroy Napoleon, but also thereby to root out the ideas for which he was supposed to stand. By the light of recent memoirs, especially those of Metternich himself, we seem forced to the conclusion that in all the offers after Leipsic there was, if anything, far less of reality and sincerity than in those between the armistice of Poischwitz and the battle.
When Castlereagh arrived at the allied headquarters early in January, 1814, he found them established in Basel. Schwarzenberg had found no difficulty in crossing Switzerland. Geneva surrendered its keys without a struggle, and generally the Swiss seemed indifferent to the violation of their neutrality. As the advance continued, it appeared that the French were equally apathetic. Bubna was driven from before Lyons by Augereau, but Dijon surrendered to a squad of cavalrymen which, at the request of the conscientious mayor, made a show of force to oblige him. It was not difficult under such circumstances for the sovereigns and their ministers to convince themselves that any peace with Napoleon would be nothing but a ‘ridiculous armistice,’ and that the Emperor of the French must, in any case, be utterly overthrown.
In response to the Frankfort proposals, the pacific Caulaincourt had promptly arrived to conduct negotiations. The invaders had almost at once suggested that they must abandon the Frankfort proposals, and confine France to her royal limits; that is, refuse her Belgium with the great port of Antwerp. So far they were agreed, but there the unanimity ceased. The Czar desired first to conquer France, and then leave her to choose her own government; he intended to take the whole of Poland, and give Alsace to Francis in return for Galicia, thus checking Austria by both Prussia and France, so that he could work his will in the Orient. Metternich wished the old balance of power, and had determined on the restoration of the Bourbons.
Francis was writing to his daughter that he would never separate her cause and that of her son from France. The Prussian king and ministers desired only such an arrangement as would secure to their country what she had regained. Stein and his associates wished the utter humiliation of their foe. Castlereagh spoke with the authority of a paymaster; he was determined to keep the Netherlands from falling under French influence, to restore the Bourbons, and to establish so nice an equilibrium in Europe that Great Britain would be unhampered elsewhere in the world. There was to be no mention of colonial restitution or neutral rights. Being a second-rate statesman, he was much influenced by Metternich, and the two sought to form an impossible alliance between constitutional liberty and feudal absolutism.
A so-called congress was opened at Chatillon on February 5th. It must be remembered that the treaty of Reichenbach was still a secret. That agreement was the reality behind the congress of Prague, the Frankfort proposals, and the meeting at Mannheim. None of those gatherings consequently was serious; that at Chatillon was even less so. The memoirs of Metternich explain all the facts: Swiss neutrality was violated by Austrian influence in order to restore the aristocratic constitution of Bern and the ascendancy of that canton; Alexander, posing still as a liberal, was angry at this violation of international law, and forbade the restoration of Vaud to its old master.
Schwarzenberg’s deliberate movements were due primarily to timidity, but they stood in good stead Metternich’s desire to restore the Bourbons. It has been asserted, and there is much probability in the conjecture, that not only the plan adopted for invading France, but the slowness of the Austrians in advancing toward Langres, toward Troyes, across into the Seine valley, together with the spurious activity they displayed before Montereau, Sens, and Fontainebleau, was part of a scheme to wear out but not to exhaust France, and then compel her to take back her dynastic rulers. Blucher, who wanted glory and revenge, and the Prussian liberals, who desired so to crush France that Prussia might be free to slough off her militarism and build up a constitutional government, were alike furious at being chained to the frontier.
All these cross-purposes and bitterness were mirrored in the ostentatious proceedings of the congress of Chatillon. Napoleon, either divining the facts, or, more probably, informed by spies, seemed indifferent, and refused at first to give full powers to Caulaincourt; finally the marshals, terrified at the prospect of indefinite war opened by the unlucky mention of the Vistula, made their influence so felt that the Emperor yielded.
Maret’s name was long held up to detestation as the instigator of Napoleon’s procrastinating policy at Dresden, the line of conduct which seemed to have made it possible for Austria to join the coalition. Among the papers of that minister is an account of his relations with Napoleon during the congress at Chatillon, which displays the evident motive of an attempt to prove how pacific his nature really was.
He declares that after the defeat at La Rothiere, Caulaincourt wrote a panic-stricken letter demanding full authority to treat. Maret handed it to the Emperor, beseeching him to yield. Napoleon seemed scarcely to heed, but indicated a passage in Montesquieu’s ‘Grandeur and Fall of the Romans,’ which he happened to be reading: “I know nothing more magnanimous than the resolution taken by a monarch who ruled in our time, to bury himself under the ruins of the throne rather than to accept proposals which a king may not entertain. He had a soul too lofty to descend lower than his misfortunes had hurled him.” “But I, sire,” rejoined the secretary—”I know something more magnanimous—to cast aside your glory in order to close the abyss into which France would fall along with you.” “Well, then, gentlemen, make your peace,” came the reply. “Let Caulaincourt make it; let him sign everything necessary to obtain it. I can support the disgrace, but do not expect me to dictate my own humiliation.” Maret informed Caulaincourt, but the latter recoiled before the responsibility, and asked for particular instructions.
The Emperor persistently refused, but wrote giving the minister ‘carte blanche’ to take any measure which would save the capital. Again Caulaincourt begged for details, and again Napoleon refused, persisting until Bertrand joined his supplications to those of Maret, whereupon he consented to abandon Belgium, and even the left bank of the Rhine.
The formal despatch containing these concessions was to be signed next morning, on February eighth, but in the interval came news of Blucher’s movements. Maret found the Emperor buried in the study of his map. “I have an entirely different matter in hand,” was the greeting; “I am at present occupied in dealing Blucher a blow in the eye.” The signature was indefinitely postponed.
On the 10th Alexander suspended the congress on the plea of Caulaincourt’s refusal to state his own or accept the offered terms. Then followed the three victories, and Napoleon, on the night of the 12th, wrote to Chatillon demanding the Frankfort proposals. Caulaincourt urgently besought the allies for an armistice, and begged Napoleon to be less exacting. Prussia and Austria were eager for the armistice, but Alexander obstinately refused to reopen the congress until the 18th, when everything seemed changed, and all the allies really desired peace. Caulaincourt, warned by Napoleon’s letter of the 12th, refused to treat without full instructions, and as he had none he began to procrastinate. In the end he bore the blame for not having used the carte blanche when he had it in order to save his country, for subsequently he had no opportunity.
