Page:EB1911 - Volume 08.djvu/602

 the Moczinski redoubt was definitely recaptured from Colloredo, and the Prussians were driven out of the Grosser Garten. The coup of the Allies had failed, for every hour saw the arrival of fresh forces on the side of Napoleon, and at length the Austrian leader drew off his men to the heights again. He was prepared to fight another battle on the morrow—indeed he could scarcely have avoided it had he wished to do so, for behind him lay the mountain defiles, towards which Vandamme was marching with all speed.

Napoleon’s plan for the 27th was, as usual, simple in its outline. As at Friedland, a ravine separated a part of the hostile line of battle from the rest. The villages west of the Plauen ravine and even Löbda were occupied in the early morning by General Metzko with the leading division of Klenau’s corps from Freiberg, and upon Metzko Napoleon intended first to throw the weight of his attack, giving to Victor’s infantry and the cavalry of Murat, king of Naples, the task of overwhelming the isolated Austrians. The centre, aided by the defences of the Dresden suburbs, could hold its own, as the events of the 26th had shown, the left, now under Ney, with whom served Kellermann’s cavalry and the Young Guard, was to attack Wittgenstein’s Russians on the Pirna road. Thus, for once, Napoleon decided to attack both flanks of the enemy. His motives in so doing have been much discussed by the critics; Vandamme’s movements, it may be suggested, contributed to the French emperor’s plan, which if carried out would open the Pirna road. Still, the left attack may have had a purely tactical object, for in that quarter was the main body of the Prussians and Russians, and Napoleon’s method was always to concentrate the fury of the attack on the heaviest masses of the enemy, i.e. the best target for his own artillery. A very heavy rainstorm during the night seriously affected the movements of troops on the following day, but all to Napoleon’s advantage, for his more mobile artillery, reinforced by every horse available in and about Dresden, was still able to move where the Allied guns sank in mud. Further, if the cavalry had to walk, or at most trot, through the fields the opposing infantry was almost always unable to fire their muskets. “You cannot fire; surrender,” said Murat to an Austrian battalion in the battle. “Never,” they replied; “you cannot charge us.” On the appearance of Murat’s horse artillery, however, they had to surrender at once. Under such conditions, Metzko, unsupported either by Klenau or the main army beyond the ravine, was an easy victim. Victor from Löbda drove in the advanced posts and assaulted the line of villages Wolfnitz-Töltschen; Metzko had to retire to the higher ground S.W. of the first line, and Murat, with an overwhelming cavalry force from Cotta and Burgstädl, outflanked his left, broke up whole battalions, and finally, with the assistance of the renewed frontal attack of Victor’s infantry, annihilated the division. The Austrian corps of Gyulai arrived too late to save it. A few formed bodies escaped across the ravine, but Metzko and three-fourths of his men were killed or taken prisoners.

Meanwhile Ney on the other flank, with his left on the Pillnitz road and his right on the Grosser Garten, had opened his attack. The Russians offered a strenuous resistance, defending Seidnitz, Gross Döbritz and Reick with their usual steadiness, and Ney was so far advanced that several generals at the Allied headquarters suggested a counter-attack of the centre by way of Strehlen, so as to cut off the French left from Dresden. This plan was adopted, but, owing to various misunderstandings, failed of execution. Thus the Allied centre remained inactive all day, cannonaded by the Dresden redoubts. One incident only, but that of great importance, took place here. The tsar, the king of Prussia, Schwarzenberg and a very large headquarter staff watched the fighting from a hill near Räcknitz and offered an easy mark to the French guns. In default of formed bodies to fire at, the latter had for a moment ceased fire; Napoleon, riding by, half carelessly told them to reopen, and one of their first shots, directed at 2000 yards range against the mass of officers on the sky-line, mortally wounded General Moreau, who was standing by the emperor Alexander. A council of war followed. The Allied sovereigns were for continuing the fight; Schwarzenberg, however, knowing the exhaustion of his troops decided to retreat. As at Bautzen, the French cavalry was unable to make any effective pursuit.

The forces engaged were 96,000 French, Saxons, &c., and 200,000 Austrians, Russians and Prussians. The French losses were about 10,000, or a little over 10%, those of the Allies 38,000 killed, wounded and prisoners (the latter 23,000) or 19%. They lost also 15 colours and 26 guns.

 DRESS (from the Fr. dresser, to set out, arrange, formed from Lat. directus, arranged, dirigere, to direct, arrange), a substantive of which the current meaning is that of clothing or costume in general, or, specifically, the principal outer garment worn by a woman (see ). The verb “to dress” has various applications which can be deduced from its original meaning. It is thus used not only of the putting on of clothing, but of the preparing and finishing of leather, the preparation of food for eating, the application of cleansing and healing substances or of bandages, &c., to a wound, the drawing up in a correct line of a body of troops, and, generally, adorning or decking out, as of a ship with flags. In the language of the theatre the “dresser” is the person who looks after the actor’s wardrobe and assists him in the changing of his costumes. For the printer’s use of “dresser” see.

 DRESSER, in furniture, a form of sideboard. The name is derived from the Fr. dressoir, a piece of furniture used to range or dresser the more costly appointments of the table. The appliance is the direct descendant of the credence and the buffet, and is, indeed, a much more legitimate inheritor of their functions than the modern sideboard, which, as we know it, is practically an 18th-century invention. It developed into its present shape about the second quarter of the 17th century, and has since then changed but little. As a piece of movable furniture it was made rarely, if at all, after the beginning of the 19th century until the revival of interest in what is called “farmhouse furniture” at the very beginning of the 20th century led in the first place to the construction of many imitation antique dressers from derelict pieces of old oak, and especially from panels of chests, and in the second to the making of avowed imitations. The dresser conformed to a model which varied only in detail and in ornament. Its simple and agreeable form consisted of a long and rather narrow table or slab, with drawers or cupboards beneath and a tall upright closed-in back arranged with a varying number of shallow shelves for the reception of plates; hooks for mugs were often fixed upon the face of these shelves. Towards the end of the 17th century small cupboards were often added to the superstructure. The majority of these dressers were made of oak, but when, early in the Georgian period