1813. 61 CHAPTER V. 1813. Napoleon's second visit to Dresden-Battle of Bautzen--The Congress at Prague -Napoleon ill advised-Battle of Vittoria-General Moreau-Rupture of the conferences at Prague-Defection of Jomini-Battles of Dresden and Leipsic Account of the death of Duroc-An interrupted conversation resumed a year after-Particulars respecting Poniatowski-His extraordinary courage and death-His monument at Leipsic and tomb in the cathedral of Warsaw. ON the 2d of May Napoleon won the battle of Lutzen. A week after he was at Dresden, not as on his departure for the Russian campaign, like the Sovereign of the West surrounded by his mighty vassals: he was now in the capital of the only one of the monarchs of his creation who remained faithful to the French cause, and whose good faith eventually cost him half his dominions. The Emperor stayed only ten days in Dresden, and then went in pursuit of the Russian army, which he came up with on the 19th, at Bautzen. This battle, which was followed on the two succeeding days by the battles of Wurtchen and Ochkirchen, may be said to have lasted three days—a sufficient proof that it was obstinately disputed. It ended in favour of Napoleon, but he and France paid dearly for it: while General Kirschner and Duroc were talking together the former was killed by a cannon-ball, which mortally wounded the latter in the abdomen. The moment had now arrived for Austria to prove whether or not she intended entirely to desert the cause of Napoleon.1 All her amicable demonstrations were limited to 1 There is a running attack in Erreurs (tome ii. pp. 289-325) on all this part of the Memoirs, but the best account of the negotiations between France, Austria, an offer of her intervention in opening negotiations with Russia. Accordingly, on the 4th of June, an armistice was concluded at Pleiswitz, which was to last till the 8th of July, and was finally prolonged to the 10th of August. war. The first overtures after the conclusion of the armistice of Pleiswitz determined the assembling of a Congress at Prague. It was reported at the time that the Allies demanded the restoration of all they had lost since 1805; that is to say, since the campaign of Ulm. In this demand Holland and the Hanse Towns, which had become French provinces, were comprehended. But we should still have retained the Rhine, Belgium, Piedmont, Nice, and Savoy. The battle of Vittoria, which placed the whole of Spain at the disposal of the English, the retreat of Suchet upon the Ebro, the fear of seeing the army of Spain annihilated, were enough to alter the opinions of those counsellors who still recommended Notwithstanding Napoleon's opposition and his innate and the Allies will be found in Metternich, vol. i. pp. 171-245. Metternich, with good reason, prides himself on the skill with which he gained from Napoleon the exact time, twenty days, necessary for the concentration of the Austrian armies; see especially pp. 194, 195. Whether the negotiations were consistent with good faith on the part of Austria is another matter; but one thing seems clear the Austrian marriage ruined Napoleon. He found it impossible to believe that the monarch who had given him his daughter would strike the decisive blow against him. Without this belief there can be no doubt that he would have struck Austria before she could have collected her forces, and Metternich seems to have dreaded the result. "It was necessary, therefore, to prevent Napoleon from carrying out his usual system of leaving an army of observation before the Allied armies, and himself turning to Bohemia to deal a great blow at us, the effect of which it would be impossible to foresee in the present depressed state of the great majority of our men" (Metternich, vol. i. p. 177). With our knowledge of how Napoleon held his own against the three armies at Dresden we may safely assume that he would have crushed Austria if she had not joined him or disarmed. The conduct of Austria was natural and politic, but it was only successful because Napoleon believed in the good faith of the Emperor Francis, his father-in-law. It is to be noted that Austria only succeeded in getting Alexander to negotiate on the implied condition that the negotiations were not to end in a peace with France. See Metternich, vol. i. p. 181, where, in answer to the Czar's question as to what would become of their cause if Napoleon accepted the Austrian mediation, he says that if Napoleon declines Austria will join the Allies. If Napoleon accepts, "the negotiations will most certainly show Napoleon to be neither wise nor just, and then the result will be the same. In any case we shall have gained the necessary time to bring our armies into such positions that we need not again fear a separate attack on any one of them, and from which we may ourselves take the offensive." 1 The news of this decisive battle increased the difficulty of the French plenipotentiaries at Prague, and raised the demands of the Allies. It also shook the confidence of those who remained faithful to us.-Bourrienne. 1813. DEATH OF MOREAU. 63 France, disposition to acquire glory by his victories, probably he would not have been inaccessible to the reiterated representations of sensible men who loved their country. therefore, has to reproach his advisers. General Moreau arrived; it has been said that he came at the solicitation of Bernadotte. This is neither true nor At this juncture probable. In the first place, there never was any intimacy between Bernadotte and Moreau; and, in the next, how can it be imagined that Bernadotte wished to see Moreau Emperor! But this question is at once put at rest by the fact, that in the interview at Abo the Emperor of Russia hinted to Bernadotte the possibility of his succeeding Napoleon. It was generally reported at the time, and I have since learnt that it was true, that the French Princes of the House of Bourbon had made overtures to Moreau through the medium of General Willot, who had been proscribed on the 18th Fructidor; and I have since learned from an authentic source that General Moreau, who was then at Baltimore, refused to support the Bourbon cause. Moreau yielded only to his desire of being revenged on Napoleon; and he found death where he could not find glory.1 At the end of July the proceedings of the Congress at Prague were no further advanced than at the time of its assembling. Far from cheering the French with the prospect of a peace, the Emperor made a journey to Mayence; the Empress went there to see him, and returned to Paris 1 Having mentioned the name of Moreau I may take this opportunity of correcting an error into which I fell while speaking of General Lajollais in connection with the conspiracy of Georges, etc. Some papers have fallen into my hands, proving beyond a doubt that General Lajollais was not an accomplice in the conspiracy.-Bourrienne. Napoleon seems to have believed that it was a shot from one of the redoubts near Dresden, where he was present, which struck Moreau. Cathcart (War in Russia and Germany, pp. 229-231), who was an eye-witness, says that the shot came from a field-battery about a quarter of a mile distant. Napoleon, according to Cathcart, was then about a mile off; thus Thiers (tome xvi. p. 315) is wrong in saying that Moreau was "struck by a French bullet, fired, so to say, by Napoleon." Moreau's death put an end to an important disagreement between Metternich and the Emperor Alexander, who wished to take the title of Generalissimo of the Allied armies, with Moreau, as his lieutenant, really in command. "When," says Metternich (vol. i. p. 207), "Alexander met me the next day he said to me, 'God has uttered His judgment: He was of your opinion.' Readers of Metternich will remark how habitually Providence was of his opinion. immediately after the Emperor's departure. Napoleon went back to Dresden, and the armistice not being renewed, it died a natural death on the 17th of August, the day appointed for its expiration. A fatal event immediately followed the rupture of the conferences.1 On the 17th of August Austria, wishing to gain by war as she had before gained by alliances, declared that she would unite her forces with those of the Allies. On the very opening of this disastrous campaign General Jomini went over to the enemy. Jomini belonged to the staff of the unfortunate Marshal Ney, who was beginning to execute, with his wonted ability, the orders he had received. There was much surprise at his eagerness to profit by a struggle, begun under such melancholy auspices, to seek a fresh fortune, which promised better than what he had tried under our flag. Public opinion has pronounced judgment on Jomini.2 The first actions were the battle of Dresden, which took place seven days after the rupture of the armistice, and the battle in which Vandamme was defeated, and which rendered the victory of Dresden unavailing. I have already mentioned 1 It was on the 11th of August, not the 17th, that Metternich announced to Caulaincourt, Napoleon's plenipotentiary at Prague, that Austria had joined the Allies and declared war with France; see Thiers, tome xvi. p. 225. At midnight on 10th August Metternich had despatched the passports for the Comte Louis de Narbonne, Napoleon's Ambassador, and the war manifesto of the Emperor Francis; then he "had the beacons lighted which had been prepared from Prague to the Silesian frontier, as a sign of the breach of the negotiations, and the right (.e. power) of the Allied armies to cross the Silesian frontier" (Metternich, vol. i. p. 199). 2 Jomini had been cruelly treated by Berthier, the chief of the staff, who had been always indisposed towards him. At the very time that Jomini, then chief of the staff to Ney, was expecting some well-won reward for his part in the battle of Bautzen, he received an order placing him in arrest for not having sent in a return delayed by the difficulty of getting the information from the divisions. Jomini, long discontented, now passed over to the Russians, and thenceforward acted as military adviser to Alexander. It is fair to remember that he was Swiss, not French, and that, when going over, he first placed all Ney's outposts in safety from a surprise. He defends himself in his own work (Vie de Napoléon, tome iv. p. 368, note), and says that even if he had been capable of revealing any plan of Napoleon he did not know it. See also Sainte Beuve (le Général Jomini), where the matter is treated at length. It would not be right to treat Jomini as a traitor, but to act against any army with which he had served so long, and with whose triumphs he had been so connected, was a deplorable act in the life of that great writer. He was naturally looked on with great jealousy by his new comrades. He says Muffling (p. 82) proved himself that same day a sublime teacher indeed, but at the same time so unpractical on the field of battle that his advice was not asked again. 1813. BATTLE OF LEIPSIC. 65 Bavaria was no sooner that Moreau was killed at Dresden.1 rid of the French troops than she raised the mask and ranged In October the loss of the battle herself among our enemies. of Leipsic decided the fate of France. The Saxon army, which had long remained enemy during the battle.2 faithful to us, went over to the Prince Poniatowski perished at the battle of Leipsic in an attempt to pass the Elster. 1 The following is a contemporary account of the death of Moreau, whose military fame once rivalled that of Bonaparte. It is taken from a letter written by a British officer, and dated Toplitz, 4th September 1813. “General Moreau died yesterday. He was in the act of giving some opinion on military matters, while passing with the Emperor of Russia behind a Prussian battery to which two French batteries were answering, one in front and the other in flank, and Lord Cathcart and Sir R. Wilson were listening to him, when a ball struck his thigh and almost carried his leg off, passed through his horse, and shattered his other leg to pieces. He gave a deep groan at first, but immediately after the first agony of pain was over he spoke with the utmost tranquillity, and called for a cigar. They bore him off the field on a litter made of Cossacks' pikes, and carried him to a cottage at a short distance, which, however, was so much exposed to the fire that they were obliged, after just binding up his wounds, to remove him farther off to the Emperor's quarters, where one leg was amputated, he smoking the whole time. When the surgeon informed him that he must deprive him of the other leg he observed, without showing any pain or peevishness, but in the calmest manner, that had he known that before his other was cut off he should have preferred dying. The litter on which they had hitherto conveyed him was covered with nothing but wet straw, and a cloak drenched through with rain, which continued in torrents the whole day. They now placed more cloaks over him, and laid him more comfortably in a good litter, in which he was carried to Dippoldeswalde; but long before his arrival there he was soaked through and through. He was brought, however, safely to Laun, where he seemed to be going on well, till a long conference which took place between him and three or four of the Allied generals, by which he was completely exhausted. Soon after this he became extremely ill, and hourly grew worse. Through the whole of his sufferings he bore his fate with heroism and grandeur of mind not to be surpassed, and appeared to those with whom he conversed to endure but little pain, so calm and so extremely composed was he. He died at six o'clock yesterday morning."-Editor of 1836 edition. The following letter from General Moreau to his wife, after receiving his mortal wound, was communicated to the Editor of the 1836 edition by Sir J. Philippart : : "Ma chère amie-A la bataille de Dresde, il y a trois jours, j'ai eu les deux jambes emportées d'un boulet de canon. Ce coquin de Bonaparte est toujours heureux. On m'a fait l'amputation aussi bien que possible. Quoique l'armée ait fait un mouvement retrograde, ce n'est nullement par revers, mais pour se rapprocher du Général Blucher. Excuse mon grifonage; je t'aime et t'embrasse de tout mon cœur. Je charge Rapatel de finir.—V. M.” 2 The battle of General Blucher, on the 16th, was followed by a complete and signal victory on the 18th, by the combined forces, over Bonaparte, at the head of his army, in the neighbourhood of Leipsic. The collective loss of above 100 pieces of cannon, 60,000 men, and an immense number of prisoners; the desertion of the Saxon army, and also of the Bavarian and Würtemberg troops still remaining in the French ranks, consisting of artillery, cavalry, and infantry; VOL. III. 72 |