Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/231

Rh 1813.] NAPOLEON 219 while Davoust, stationed on the Weser with 30,000 men, was holding down the insurrection of North Germany. The war which now commenced ended not only to the disadvantage of Napoleon, but unlike any former war it ended in a complete defeat of France, nay, in the conquest of France, an event to which nothing parallel had been seen in modern Europe. Nor was this result attained by any political or revolutionary means, e.g., by exciting a republican or Bourbon party against Napoleon s authority, but by sheer military superiority. The causes of this remarkable result must be noted as we proceed. Mean while we remark that the war, though technically one, is really three distinct wars. There is first the war with Russia and Prussia which occupies the month of May, and is concluded by an armistice on June 4th. There is next a war with Russia, Prussia, and Austria, which begins in August and is practically terminated in October by the expulsion of Napoleon from Germany. Thirdly, there is an invasion of France by the same allied powers. This began in January 1814, and ended in April with the fall of Napoleon. In the first of these wars Napoleon maintained on the whole his old superiority. It has excited needless admiration that with his raw levies he should still have Prussia been able to win victories, since of his two enemies Russia had suffered as much as himself in 1812, and Prussia s army was at the beginning of the year actually to make. In the first days of May he advanced down the valley of the Saale, making for Leipsic by Naumburg, Weissenfels, and Liitzen. On the 2d was fought the battle commonly called from Liitzen, though the Germans usually name it from the village of Gross-Gorschen. By this battle, in which the great military reformer of Prussia, Scharnhorst, received the wound of which he died soon after, the allies were driven to retreat across the Elbe, and Dresden was restored to the king of Saxony. The Prussians attribute their ill-success partly to the insufficiency of the Russian commander Wittgenstein, under whom they fought. Napoleon soon pursued the allies across the Elbe, and another battle was fought on May 20 and 21 at Bautzen on the Spree. Here again Napoleon remained master of the field, though his loss seems to have been considerably greater than that of the enemy. The allies retired into Silesia, and a pause took place, which led to the armistice of Poischwitz, signed on June 4th. During this armistice Napoleon formed the resolution which led to his downfall. He might seem now to have almost retrieved his losses. If he could not revive the great army of the Revolution which lay buried (or unburied) in Russia, he had reasserted the ascendency of France. Politically he had suffered but one substantial loss, in the rebellion of Prussia. The blows of Liitzen and Bautzen had arrested the movement which threatened to dissolve the Confederation of the Rhine and to unite all Germany against him. They had also shaken the alliance of Prussia and Russia. Between the generals of the two armies there reigned much jealousy ; the old question, raised after Austerlitz and Friedland, was beginning to be asked again by the Russians, Why should they fight for others 1 Rela- At Tilsit Napoleon had dissolved the Coalition by form- tions to ing as it were a partnership with Russia. It might seem Austria, possible now to form a similar partnership with Austria, This course had indeed been entered upon at the marriage of the archduchess. Napoleon seems to have taken this alliance seriously. He conceived it as the final suppression of the Revolution, as a complete adhesion on his own part to conservatism. The language of the bulletins at this time is ultra-conservative. Thus the enemy is described as &quot; preaching anarchy and insurrection.&quot; Stein is charged with &quot;rousing the rabble against the proprietors.&quot; But, though he had borrowed the Austrian tone, he had not yet enlisted Austrian interests on his side. It was evidently in his power to confer on Austria the greatest advantages, and, as it were, to divide his power with her. Less than this he could not offer, since the losses of France and Russia had given to Austria a decisive weight, but it might seem that he might offer it without much humiliation, as the alliance with Austria had sub sisted since 1810 and had been cemented by marriage. If he did not thus win Austria, he might expect her to adhere to the other side, for in such a crisis neutrality was out of the question. Could Napoleon then hope to overcome a quadruple alliance of England, Russia, Prussia, and Austria 1 Such a hope was not justified by the victories of Liitzen and Bautzen. The force of Prussia increased every day, and the Spanish enthusiasm with which her new army fought had been displayed even on those fields ; the force of Austria had been impaired by no Russian campaign ; while France was evidently near the end of her resources. The legerdemain by which, in 1800, 1805, 1806, Napoleon had made conquests was now worn out ; his blows were no longer followed by abject submission and surrender ; he was not even able, for want of cavalry, to make his victories decisive. Thus ample concessions to Austria were indis pensable ; but, these assumed, his position might seem good. He took the momentous resolution to make no such con cessions, saw Austria join the Coalition, and after a campaign of two months found himself driven in tumul tuous ruin across the Rhine. This step is the counter part of Tilsit, and destroyed the work of Tilsit. Was he simply blinded by passion 1 His language might lead us to think so. Austria was the state which he had oftenest defeated, and he seems to have been unable to regard it with the respect which he had shown to Russia at Tilsit. From the beginning of 1813 we find him calculating indeed on the help of Austria, and fully recognizing the im portance of her alliance, yet indignant at the very thought of having to pay for it. He would prefer to make advances to his enemy Russia rather than give his ally Austria any equality with himself in the alliance. Austria on her part seems disposed to be faithful to him. She begins by adhering to the substance of her treaty of March 1812, but requiring certain modifications in it. Napoleon must withdraw from north-west Germany, dissolve the duchy of Warsaw, cede Illyria, perhaps also dissolve the Confedera tion of the Rhine. But on the last point she might prob ably have given way, so that Napoleon, already victorious against Russia and Prussia, might now, without yielding any substantial part of his power, have checkmated another Coalition by the help of Austria. Nevertheless it seems as if Napoleon, though this course was open to him for several months, was not for a moment attracted by it, though the clamour for peace which his OAvn army and his own marshals raised compelled him to profess to take it into considera tion. He continued deliberately to contemplate in prefer ence a war against Russia, Prussia, and Austria united, and regarded the armistice simply as a delay which would enable him to bring up new forces. Austria on her part was gradually convinced that no concession was to be obtained from him, and drifted towards the decisive resolution which she could not avoid. Metternich has left us an account of the interview, lasting ten hours, which he had with Napoleon on June 28, in the Marcolini palace at Dresden. We see in it Napoleon s contempt for a power he has so often defeated, his inability to believe that it has still spirit to resist; at the same time we become aware that he believes himself to be necessary to the Austrian emperor, as being the bulwark of all thrones and of monarchy itself against