Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/233

Rh 1814.] NAPOLEON 221 Battle of form s sake a final massacre was still necessary. It took Leipsic. place on a satisfactory scale between. October 14th and 19th, and ended in the decisive defeat of Napoleon and the capture of Leipsic. Perhaps nearly half a million of men were engaged in these final battles. It is reckoned that in the last three days the Prussians lost sixteen, the Russians twenty-one, and the Austrians fourteen thousand nien total, fifty-one thousand. Napoleon left twenty- three thousand behind him in the hospitals and fifteen thousand prisoners ; his dead may have been fifteen thousand. He lost also three hundred pieces of artillery. The sufferings of the wounded almost exceed anything told of the retreat from Moscow. It is a misfortune that the victors allowed him to cross the Rhine in safety ; had they pressed the pursuit vigorously, helped as they now were by the Bavarians, they might have brought his career to an end at this point. But for such a decisive measure perhaps even their political views were not yet ripe. However, as at the Berezina in 1812, so now, he had to clear his road by another battle. The Bavarians under Wrede met him at Hanau, eager to earn some merit with the victorious Coalition ; but he broke his way through them and arrived at Frankfort. On November 1st and 2d he carried the remains of his army, some 70,000 men, across the Rhine at Mainz. The work of eight years was undone ; Napoleon was thrown back to the position he had occupied at the rupture of the peace of Amiens. The Russian disaster had cancelled Friedland ; Leipsic had cancelled Austerlitz. But could Napoleon consent to humble himself ? If he could not make concessions in the summer, still less could he do so now. Could he return and reign quietly at Paris, a defeated general, his reputation crushed by the two greatest disasters of history 1 But he might by abdicating have spared France, already mortally exhausted, the burden of another war. It is among the most unpardonable even of his crimes to have dragged his unhappy country through yet another period of massacre, though nothing that could even appear to be a national interest was at stake. In November advances were made to him by the allies, in which peace was proposed on the basis of the &quot;natural frontiers.&quot; This would have secured to France the main fruits of the First Revolutionary War, that is, Belgium, the Left Bank, Savoy, and Nice. Such terms seem generous when we consider the prostration of France and the overwhelming superiority of the allies. But though the Prussian war -party loudly protested against them, and maintained the necessity of weakening France so as to render her harmless, Austria favoured them, being jealous alike of Prussia and of the spirit of liberty which the war was rousing in the German population. A little compliance on the part of Napoleon might at this moment have made the general desire for peace irresistible. But he showed no such disposition. He first evaded the pro posal, and then, too late, accepted it with suspicious qualifications. After having been decimated, France must now be invaded and subjugated, for him. Invasion On December 1st the allies issued their manifesto from ofFrance Frankfort, in which they declare themselves at war not with France but with Napoleon (an imitation of the Revolu tionary principle &quot; Peace with peoples, war with Govern ments &quot;), and the invasion followed with almost Napoleonic rapidity. The three armies remain separate as they had been in Germany. The great army under Schwarzenberg passes through Switzerland, and makes its way to the plateau of Langres (the source of the Seine, Aube, and Marne), where it begins to arrive about the middle of January ; Blucher s Silesian army crosses the middle Rhine to Nancy ; the northern army, nominally under Bernadotte, passes through Holland. In the course of the march Switzerland and allies. Holland were swept into the Coalition, the resources of which were now become overwhelming. It would be difficult to state for what object Napoleon now called on France to fight another campaign, particularly as the allies guaranteed to her a larger territory than she had possessed under the old monarchy. His officers indeed wondered what personal object he could have. They were astonished to hear him talk of another campaign in Germany to be undertaken next spring, of being soon on the Vistula again, &c. He was no doubt a prey to illusions, his fortune having accustomed him to expect results ten times greater than the probabilities justified, but his confidence was founded on (1) the great force which still remained to him shut up in German fortresses, (2) the mutual jealousy of the allies, (3) his own connexion with the emperor of Austria, (4) the patriotism which Avould be roused among the French, as in 1792, by the invasion. But his calcula tions were confounded by the rapidity of the invaders, who gave him no time to call out the nation. The Senate did indeed grant him 300,000 men, but to levy, drill, and arm them was impossible, and he had neglected to fortify Paris. In the armies which had returned from Germany there began desertion of all who were not French. The campaign opened at the end of January and was over at the end of March. The scene of it was the country between the Marne, Aube, and Seine, partly also the department of Aisne. At first, though successful at Brienne, Napoleon seemed unable to resist the superior numbers of the enemy. He was defeated at La Rothiere. But the invaders were as yet irresolute ; they divided their forces. This gave him an opportunity. He attacked Bliicher, and, though with greatly inferior forces, won four battles in four days, at Champaubert (February 10th), at Montmirail (llth), at Chateau-Thierry (12th), at Vauchamps (13th). For the moment this brilliant success gave the campaign quite another character ; the hopes and patriotic feelings of the French were roused. A congress had already been opened at Chat il Ion, and under the impression of these victories it would have been easy to conclude a peace, had not Napoleon s position made a reasonable peace inadmis sible to him. He felt this, and fell back upon illusions and upon attempts to sever Austria from the Coalition. At the beginning of March the Coalition was strengthened by the treaty of Chaumont, in which each of the four powers bound themselves for twenty years to keep 150,000 men on foot. Directly afterwards Napoleon received a crushing blow from the fall of Soissons and the junction of Bliicher with the northern army under Biilow, which had entered France by way of Holland and Belgium. Their united force amounted to more than 100,000 men. The battles of Craonne and Laon followed, in which Napoleon, without suffering actual defeat, saw his resources dwindle away. On March 18th the conferences at Chatillon came to an end, the plenipotentiaries of the allies declaring Napoleon to have no intention but that of gaining time. About the 24th the allies came to the resolution to march on Paris. They had before them only Marmont and Mortier, for Napoleon himself had resolved to manoeuvre in their rear, and had marched to St Dizier. The marshals, after an engagement at Fere Champenoise, made good their retreat to Paris, where the enemy followed them on the 29th. Joseph Bonaparte withdrew Marie Louise and the king of Rome to Tours. On the 30th the allies attacked in three divisions, the Silesian army on the side of Montmartre, Prince Eugene of Wiirtemberg and Barclay de Tolly by Pantin and Romainville, the crown prince of Wiirtemberg and Giulay by Vincennes and Charenton. In the afternoon, after an obstinate resistance, the marshals offered a capitulation, and engaged to evacuate the town before seven o clock in the morning. Napoleon, advancing