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THE 
 
 tf>aee (nuee (nugogin* mt^i 
 
 DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON 
 
 BY 
 
 FIELD-MARSHAL VISCOUNT WOLSELEY 
 
 WITH INTRODUCTION 
 
 BY 
 
 LORD FREDERICK HAMILTON AND SIR DOUGLAS STRAIGHT 
 
 EDITORS OF THE " PALL MALL MAGAZINE" 
 
/4^3 
 
THE 
 
 Decline and Fall 
 
 OF 
 
 NAPOLEON 
 
 FIELD MARSHAL 
 VISCOUNT WOLSELEY, K.P. 
 
 WITH PLANS AND ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 BOSTON 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS 
 
 1895 
 
3lO ti 
 
 A-^77 
 
 5 
 
 LONDON - 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, 
 
 STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 When the proposal for a series of republications in 
 book form of some of the more important articles and 
 short stories appearing in the pages of the Pall Mall 
 Magazine was first made to us by Mr. R. B. Marston, 
 we accepted it without hesitation, perceiving at once 
 that an admirable medium would thus be provided by 
 which much valuable literary matter might be made 
 known to an even wider circle of the public than 
 the readers of the periodical of which we have the 
 conduct. Field-Marshal Viscount Wolseley's graphic, 
 and analytical papers on the " Decline and Fall of 
 Napoleon," which constitute this, the first volume 
 of the Pall Mall Magazine Library, achieved, 
 as we are able to say from personal knowledge, 
 a very remarkable success not only in England 
 and America, but on the Continent ; especially in 
 Paris, where they were translated and published in 
 book form. Much the same may be said with regard 
 to General Lord Roberts' valuable and instructive 
 articles on the " Rise of Wellington," which found 
 
INTROD UCTION. 
 
 especial favour with military readers in all branches 
 of the Service, and we have reason to think that the 
 collection of these into a single and handy volume 
 will meet with the general approval of military men, 
 and might form a valuable text-book for military 
 students. The articles commenced by Viscount 
 Wolseley and continued by Lord Roberts are now 
 being followed in the pages of the Pall Mall 
 Magazine by Lieut-General Sir Evelyn Wood's 
 papers on "Cavalry in the Waterloo Campaign," and 
 we hope from time to time to be able to secure other 
 able military writers as contributors to deal with 
 subjects having an equal historical interest. We 
 conclude by saying that the Publishers have our 
 hearty sympathy and will have our lively co-operation 
 in the publication of the Pall Mall Magazine 
 Library, and so far as lies in our power we shall 
 endeavour to assist them in making each successive 
 volume such as to entitle it to a foremost place in 
 the literature of the day. 
 
 Frederic Hamilton. 
 Douglas Straight. 
 
 Editors Pall Mall Magazine. 
 
 1 8, Charing Cross Road. 
 March, 1895. 
 
THE DECLINE AND FALL 
 OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE CAMPAIGN OF l8l2. 
 
 The expression, " Decline and Fall," adopted as a title 
 for these chapters, seems to imply an unquestioned 
 falling off in Napoleon's brain-power as well as in his 
 bodily vigour towards the end of his marvellous career. 
 From many different sources we have irresistible 
 evidence that upon several occasions during his later 
 years he was subject to periodic attacks of a mys- 
 terious malady. Its nature has been variously de- 
 scribed ; but it was so much his interest and that of 
 those around him to conceal the facts and disguise the 
 symptoms that the world is still ignorant of what the 
 disease really was. On three critical occasions, at 
 least, he was affected by it during the four years of 
 his life with which I propose to deal in these pages. 
 It usually followed upon periods of enormous mental 
 and physical exertion and generally during great 
 exposure. It may, perhaps, be best defined as a 
 
 B 
 
THE DECL1XE AXD FALL OF XAPOLEOX. 
 
 sudden attack of lethargy or physical and moral 
 prostration, sometimes accompanied by acute bodily 
 pain. Its effects, as known to lookers-on, were, that 
 at some critical moment of a battle his wonderful 
 power of quick and correct decision seemed to desert 
 him ; so much so, that for the time being he almost 
 abandoned the reins to chance. 
 
 Throughout his active life he always worked at very 
 high pressure, and so overstrained the machinery of his 
 mind and body that both deteriorated with more than 
 ordinary rapidity. The sword as well as the scabbard 
 showed unmistakable signs of wear-and-tear when 
 they had been only a dozen years in constant use, 
 and the sharp and startling contrast between the 
 manner in which he gave effect to his great plans in 
 his earlier and in his later campaigns is very re- 
 markable. 
 
 The most abstemious of young officers had become 
 m 1812 the pampered ruler of a court Oriental in its 
 luxury and had already, at the age of forty-four, 
 impaired his general health by indulgence in its 
 dissipations. Even those who hate his memory will 
 admit that his brain was almost superhuman in its 
 grasp of subjects that interested him. Probably no 
 other man has ever dealt so energetically for an equal 
 number of years, and with such direct responsibility, 
 with so great a variety of involved and complicated 
 public questions of the first magnitude. But, during 
 this process, his clear, nimble brain had suffered from 
 exhausting anxieties and the unceasing work they 
 entailed. His splendid constitution gradually yielded 
 to the frequent exposure and constant fatigues, by 
 
1HK CAMPAIGN OF 1812. 3 
 
 night and day, which the peculiar nature of his 
 position imposed upon him. 
 
 Beyond all doubt the Republican General Bona- 
 parte who, " rushing down from the Apennines with 
 the rapidity of a torrent," overran Piedmont and 
 Lombardy in 1796 was both mentally and bodily, to 
 a large extent, a different man from the Emperor 
 Napoleon who was defeated at Waterloo. Many 
 careful students of this Colossus amongst men have 
 been compelled — unwillingly perhaps — to admit that 
 had the Corsican general who fought at Rivoli been 
 in command of the French army when it crossed the 
 Sambre in 181 5 our "Iron Duke" would not have 
 been allowed to add the " crowning mercy " of 
 Waterloo to the list of his glorious achievements. 
 Nay, more : had it been the Emperor of the 
 " Hundred Days " who assumed command of the 
 army of Italy in 1796 and not the young citizen 
 Bonaparte one feels instinctively that all the brilliant 
 operations of that year in the valleys of the Po the 
 Mincio and the Adige would not have been what they 
 were. Beaulieu and Wurmser might be still grate- 
 fully remembered by their countrymen, and whatever 
 peace had been won its terms would not have been 
 so favourable to France as those contained in the 
 Treaty of Campo Formio. As the world flies 
 onwards, with apparently increasing velocity, the 
 sayings, doings, aspirations, even the villanies of this 
 great history-maker are all the more closely studied. 
 A year seldom passes without the publication of some 
 new work about him in which his character, genius, 
 and performances are examined from every side by 
 
 B 2 
 
4 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 every sort of thinker and writer ; and the more we 
 discover about him and the more we strive to 
 measure his greatness, the vaster, the more infinitely 
 
 <W»n£ 
 
 NAPOLEON. 
 
 immense, it seems to be. A superlatively bad man, 
 dishonest and untruthful and whose career embraces 
 some serious mistakes in national policy, whose public 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1812. 
 
 life ended in a disastrous defeat and who died in 
 prison, is yet so great a man that his name fills more 
 pages in the world's solemn history than that of any 
 other mortal. 
 
 Everything connected with him is deeply in- 
 teresting, not only to the military student but also to 
 the philosopher and the statesman. No other mortal 
 has been praised and blamed, deified by some and 
 abused by others, as he has been. To men of action 
 prone to worship the great history-makers of the 
 world, he is the most remarkable and the greatest 
 human being who has ever walked this earth ; but, at 
 the same time, to a large class of thinkers and philo- 
 sophers his greatness is merely that of Belial, all 
 "false and hollow." Fashioned from his cradle to 
 rule men and direct events for many years the 
 civilised world rang with his name ; and even when 
 in prison nations shook with dread as they con- 
 templated the possibility of his escape from the rock 
 to which they had tied him. He is one of the few 
 great figures in history whom the perspective of time 
 does not cause to dwindle in size or diminish in 
 importance. 
 
 Up to the year 18 12 he had carried out no war in 
 Europe under his own personal direction which had 
 not been, in the long run, brilliantly successful. 
 From that year onwards he entered upon none which 
 did not end disastrously. By his invasion of Russia 
 in 1812 he lost, almost entirely, the most magnificent 
 army he had ever marshalled under his banners, 
 returning in haste to Paris a solitary fugitive. As the 
 result of his campaign in 181 3 he had to lead back 
 
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 the remnants of a beaten army behind the shelter of 
 his own frontier-fortresses. His brilliant operations 
 of 1 8 14 between that frontier and Paris ended in his 
 forced abdication and his acceptance of the little 
 island of Elba as his only dominion ; and, having 
 returned to France in 181 5 he was hopelessly 
 defeated at Waterloo and sent to spend the re- 
 mainder of his days at St. Helena. 
 
 To what are we to attribute this change in the 
 fortunes of him who had long been the " spoiled child 
 of Victory " ? Were his plans faulty or did he fail in 
 their execution ? Was the invasion of Russia less 
 ably planned and the wants of his mighty host less 
 carefully provided for than in his invasion of Austria 1 
 by that wonderful march from Boulogne to Vienna 
 which ended in Austerlitz ? Surely not ; for the more 
 we study his voluminous correspondence of 1811-12, 
 the more we are struck, not merely with the stupendous 
 nature of the task he undertook when he crossed the 
 Niemen, but with the careful provisions he made for 
 overcoming the difficulties with which that mighty 
 operation bristled. The general scheme was worked 
 out with a splendour of conception and a mastery of 
 detail which, I think, stands unrivalled in the history 
 of the world. And yet the campaign of 1 812 was an 
 appalling failure. Nevertheless it is impossible for 
 any careful student of his later campaigns to deny 
 that again and again throughout them he displayed, 
 often in a remarkable manner, his old brilliancy it 
 strategical and tactical combinations and his former 
 supremacy over events. 
 
 The invasion of Russia in 1 812 was about the most 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1812. 7 
 
 stupendous undertaking upon which any man has 
 ever ventured. But many are apt to treat it as if its 
 only serious difficulties lay in the nature of the 
 country to be overrun in its very severe winters and 
 in its great [distance from the French frontier. At 
 any rate : these difficulties have been commonly 
 recognised as the direct causes which led to Napo- 
 leon's failure ; indeed so much is this the case that 
 Russia seems to have enjoyed a long immunity from 
 invasion because it was in the heart of Russia that 
 Napoleon's first failure occurred. But there were 
 causes other than the difficulties peculiar to military 
 operations in Russia which made well-nigh impossible 
 the task which he had set himself to do. 
 
 He did not really wish for a war with his old ally 
 and personal friend, the Czar Alexander. The war 
 was forced upon him as part of the " Continental 
 system " he had designed for the purpose of de- 
 stroying the commercial prosperity of England. It 
 was, in fact, merely a very important episode in the 
 life-and-death struggle with England upon which he 
 had entered. The destruction of her maritime ascen- 
 dency — her maritime tyranny he called it — was 
 essential before he could hope for any realisation of 
 the universal dominion he aspired to.* From the 
 battle of Trafalgar, and more especially after the war 
 with Austria in 1 809, up to the invasion of Russia his 
 whole energies were directed to effecting the complete 
 
 * " La Russie dtait la derniere ressource de l'Angleterre : il 
 s'agissait de ramener Alexandre au systeme continental; la 
 cause dtait europeenne, et toute l'Europe marchait devant moi." 
 — " Napole'on a Ste. Helene." 
 
8 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON 
 
 exclusion of all British merchandise from every port 
 in Europe. England was apparently the only serious 
 obstacle to his ambition ; and, as he had utterly failed 
 in his combinations against her fleet, he now sought to 
 ruin her by the destruction of her commerce. 
 
 But her goods still poured into central Europe 
 
 ALEXANDER THE -FIRST. 
 
 through Russian ports ; and it consequently became a 
 question whether he should declare war against the 
 Czar or abandon his " Continental system " as a 
 failure. But his pride was involved in the latter 
 alternative ; and much as he disliked any breach in 
 the alliance that had been hatched at Tilsit he 
 elected for war. It has been well said, he made " a 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1812. 
 
 dispute about tariffs the ground for the greatest 
 military expedition known to authentic history." But 
 the selection of alternatives he then made ended in 
 his ruin not in that of England. 
 
 War with Russia, for a man in Napoleon's position, 
 meant the invasion of that vast empire, and for it 
 armies were required far beyond the power of France 
 to supply from her own population. He was there- 
 fore obliged to depend upon the military forces of 
 Austria, Prussia, and other doubtful allies. He was 
 compelled to lead them through states of ancient 
 military renown whose inhabitants, humbled to the 
 dust in his previous wars, had become bitterly hostile 
 to his armies by whom they had been so cruelly ill- 
 treated. Indeed, his campaigns had begun to carry 
 the conviction into every home throughout central 
 Europe that, however terrible it might be to embark 
 in a war against France it was necessary either to do 
 so or to succumb from misery and starvation. 
 
 In his war against British merchandise he had so 
 bullied and irritated European nations, great and 
 small, that not only every Cabinet but almost every 
 family longed for the despot's overthrow, and were 
 prepared to make any sacrifice to that end. In 
 France itself this spirit was alive and began to show 
 itself, for the misery of its people had reached a 
 climax. And yet, whilst England added about three 
 hundred million sterling to her already large national 
 debt during this war against Napoleon, France, under 
 his rule, did not borrow a franc. But the conscrip- 
 tion, rigorously enforced, was draining her life-blood, 
 and of the conscripts intended for the " Grand Army " 
 
THE DECLINE AND LALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 in 1812 some 50,000 had proved so refractory that it 
 was necessary to place them in islands from which 
 they could not escape, until, having been manu- 
 factured into soldiers, they were marched off under 
 escort to distant parts of the Empire. 
 
 The Marshals, whom Napoleon had created and 
 loaded with riches and honours, were sick of war and 
 wanted to enjoy the result of their labours. They 
 
 ST. CYR. 
 
 already dreaded his plans for this new and distant 
 conquest. Although French garrisons held all thd 
 most important fortresses along the lines of communt 
 cation between the Rhine and the Vistula, tha 
 difficulties of maintaining and protecting those conk 
 munications were well-known to men like Grouchy, 
 Desaix, St. Cyr, Vandamme, Ney, Davoust, Au- 
 gereau, Murat, and the others whom he selected for 
 commands in this gigantic enterprise. They were' 
 
BONAPARTE AT THE BRIDGE OF ARCOLA. 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1812. 13 
 
 aware that although the new theatre of war was 
 fertile it was practically without roads and devoid of 
 those towns and villages — the usual centres of popu- 
 lation — which enable armies on the march to obtain 
 daily the food and transport they require. 
 
 A startling contrast may well be drawn between the 
 abject poverty of the gloomy young Corsican lieu- 
 tenant, struggling to find food for himself and his 
 brother on his slender pay, and the affluence and 
 luxury of the French Emperor, with Marie Louise by 
 his side, distributing large fortunes amongst his 
 relatives and his newly-created peers. But any such 
 pictures lack the dramatic incidents and stage-like 
 trappings which cling round the contrast between 
 Napoleon as the central figure at the Dresden 
 pageant of May 18 12 and as he appeared seven 
 months afterwards, when he arrived at the gates of 
 the Tuileries in a hackney coach by night, fresh from 
 the horrors of his ghastly retreat. The astounding 
 ups and downs in his career are almost as remarkable 
 as his genius. Before the battle of Actium, it is said, 
 that upon one afternoon there were fourteen kings in 
 Antony's reception-room. But at Dresden, upon the 
 occasion I refer to, Napoleon received the homage of 
 nearly all the sovereigns and princes between the 
 Pyrenees and the Carpathians. The Emperor of 
 Austria, the Kings of Prussia and Saxony, the 
 Viceroy of Italy, and many reigning dukes and 
 margraves and ministers of European renown, were 
 there to do him honour, and settle the strength of the 
 various contingents they were to send for the invasion 
 of Russia under his banner. 
 
14 THE DECLINE AND FALL OP NAPOLEON. 
 
 His published correspondence tells us how he sur- 
 mounted the diplomatic difficulties he experienced 
 at the outset ; and it is an evidence of the skilful 
 elaboration with which he worked out the complex 
 scheme for utilising the resources of states whose 
 rulers and people, he knew, longed for his overthrow. 
 The arrangements he made for repressing with ade- 
 quate and reliable forces all possible disaffection in 
 his rear when he crossed into Russia are now before 
 us, and those who study his letters must be struck 
 with the care and foresight he bestowed upon the 
 great but disastrous undertaking into which he was 
 led by his pride and an overweening confidence in his 
 " star." 
 
 The " Grand Army," which he collected on the 
 Niemen for the invasion of Russia, numbered over 
 half a million of men and consisted of eleven Army] 
 Corps, — exclusive of the Old and Young Guard, of 
 four splendid Corps of Cavalry, and of the Austria^ 
 contingent of 32,000 men : all included, it was about" 
 600,000 strong, but of these, not more than one-third 
 were French. He took with him over 1200 guns into 
 the field. 
 
 To meet this imposing array of invaders the Czar 
 had collected three armies having a total strength 
 of about 215,000 men. There was also, in additionj 
 a fourth Russian army in the field of about 40,000 
 men, but it was engaged in operations on the 
 Moldavian frontier of Turkey. Napoleon hoped it 
 would there find ample employment and be unable 
 to influence his operations in any way. These were 
 small forces with which to defend "Holy Russia" 
 
o 
 
 H 
 <! 
 
 o 
 
 Bi 
 
 o 
 u 
 
 w 
 X 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1812. 17 
 
 against the hosts now arrayed against her under the 
 most renowned captain of any age ; but they were all 
 Russians fired with the deepest enthusiasm, both 
 religious and patriotic, and about to fight on their 
 own soil in defence of everything that man holds 
 most dear. 
 
 The French armies were all commanded by well- 
 known generals of proved ability in the field. But 
 the Czar was no great strategist himself, and his 
 generals, unknown to fame as commanders, pos- 
 sessed no special skill in war or aptitude in the 
 movement of troops. At the very outset they had 
 been led into faulty dispositions, the result of false 
 reports spread by Napoleon that he meant to 
 occupy Volhynia. In consequence of these rumours 
 they had scattered their troops over so wide a front 
 that it would be impossible to concentrate them 
 in time to meet any sudden blow from Napoleon. 
 Divided councils the mutual jealousies of generals 
 and uncertain and undigested projects still further 
 tended to confuse and weaken the nature of the 
 resistance they might offer. 
 
 Napoleon reached the Niemen at Kovno and 
 crossed it on June 24th. He had long hesitated to 
 take this final step, and would gladly have made 
 peace on easy terms if only Alexander would close 
 his ports to English goods. But at last his mind was 
 made up, and he determined to invade Russia. The 
 faulty distribution of the enemy's forces lent itself to 
 an attack upon their centre. His plan was to force a 
 way through it to Smolensk — then still commonly 
 regarded as the bulwark of the empire— operating in 
 
18 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 the Polish province of Lithuania where he was sure 
 to meet with many sympathisers. 
 
 His passage of the Niemen met with no resistance 
 and the Russians fell back on Smolensk before his 
 advancing troops. This policy of "retreat" was no 
 carefully designed plan, as many have asserted, to 
 lure the French on to their destruction in the roadless 
 wilds of Russia. Under the circumstances the 
 Russian commander could, in fact, do nothing else ; 
 for by skilful movements Napoleon with his central 
 force had separated the Russian armies like a wedge 
 well driven home, and he was too strong at all 
 points for any force the Russians could then pos- 
 sibly bring against him. In thus falling back 
 Alexander's generals hoped to concentrate at Smo- 
 lensk to make a stand there. Public opinion, as far 
 as it could be said to exist then in Russia, cried 
 out loudly for a battle and roundly abused Barclay 
 de Tolly for his Wellingtonian policy of cautious 
 retreat. 
 
 Napoleon entered Wilnaon June 28th and remained 
 there until July 16th, a loss of time it is impossible 
 to explain away when we remember how late in the 
 year it was when he opened the campaign. Many 
 specious excuses for it have been urged ; but it was a 
 fatal mistake if he had mapped out in imagination, as 
 without doubt he had done, the probable course the 
 war was likely to take. This mistake was all the moi^ 
 serious if he meant to advance beyond the Dniepei 
 in the event of his terms being rejected after bis 
 first great victory. He calculated upon winning 
 that victory between the upper waters of that rivet 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1812. 19 
 
 and the Dwina, somewhere on or about the Witepsk- 
 Orcha line. 
 
 During his stay at Wilna he evinced an undoubted 
 desire for peace and seems to have realised the danger, 
 if not the unwisdom, of forcing the despot Alexander 
 into the ranks of his active and declared enemies. A 
 want of power over himself to decide such great 
 questions as that of war or peace already began to 
 show itself, and there was an unwonted hesitation, 
 even then, in the policy he followed. 
 
 The Polish question now thrust itself most incon- 
 veniently before him. In early life all his sympathies 
 • — and they were strong then — were with the Poles and 
 he had regarded the partition of their country as a 
 crime which demanded expiation from all who took 
 part in it or shared in the spoil. He knew that the 
 most serious blow he could strike the Czar would be 
 the restoration of Poland and that he could obtain 
 the consent of Austria and Prussia to that measure by 
 giving them equivalents elsewhere for their Polish 
 provinces. As a very young man liberty was his 
 only religion ; but he had now learned to hate and to 
 fear that term. The poor and friendless Corsican 
 subaltern could afford to entertain lofty notions about 
 freedom ; but the rich and powerful French Emperor, 
 endowed with despotic authority, had forgotten his 
 /outhful aspiration in the pursuit of personal ambition. 
 He had no desire, as he put it, to be the Don Quixote 
 }f Poland by reconstituting it as a kingdom on those 
 Republican principles which would have alone been 
 icceptable to the Polish nationalists of that day. 
 Lately received into one of the greatest reigning 
 
20 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. ^ 
 
 houses in Europe he seems to have acquired, with his 
 bride all the royal prejudices of her race, and 
 especially a hatred of republicanism in any form. 
 This feeling was shared by all the kings and princes 
 with whom he now associated on equal terms. In 
 their society he forgot that he had risen from the 
 people and acted as if he had been born in the 
 purple. To fight Russia by the re-establishment of 
 Polish independence was not therefore to be 
 thought of. 
 
 Although he hesitated to launch his armies into the 
 heart of Russia the very greatness of the plan he had 
 made for the capture of Moscow seems to have 
 fascinated him. Without doubt he was under the 
 influence of the great successes he had gained in 
 former years. His magnificent victories, and the 
 flattery they brought in their wake, made him believe 
 himself invincible. He remembered how those vic- 
 tories had in every instance given him peace quickly 
 and upon his own terms, and he could see no good 
 reason why a great victory near Smolensk should not 
 similarly cause Alexander to sue for peace. 
 
 Napoleon left Wilna on the night of July 1 6- 17th 
 by the St. Petersburg road as if he meant to march 
 upon that city. But it was only a feint, his real object 
 being to make for Witepsk in the hope of catching 
 Barclay in that neighbourhood. Having, therefore, 
 marched about fifty-six miles towards the Russian 
 camp at Drissa he turned off sharp to the right on 
 the evening of the 17th and reached Globokoe the 
 following morning. Having halted there for four 
 days to little purpose he reached Witepsk on July 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1812. 
 
 28th after some unimportant fighting. Barclay de 
 Tolly fell back skilfully before him day by day. 
 
 Napoleon's movements had been eminently suc- 
 cessful so far, but yet things were not going as 
 smoothly as he had hoped. Portentous storms of rain 
 had for some time overwhelmed his columns on the 
 march and made their progress extremely slow. 
 Encumbered with enormous trains his attempts at 
 forced marches, or even those very rapid movements 
 upon which his strategy was usually largely based, 
 only drove his men by thousands into hospital or left 
 them by tens of thousands as starving stragglers to 
 indicate the route he had followed. The country was 
 exhausted of supplies by the retreating Russians so 
 that it became daily more and more difficult to supply 
 men and horses with food. Prussia, and every pro- 
 vince his armies had passed through before crossing 
 the Niemen, had been swept of horses. But the deep 
 mud of the tracks which served for roads in Russia 
 began to destroy them already with alarming rapidity. 
 The unwilling drivers deserted upon every possible 
 opportunity. Even before he reached Wilna he had 
 been compelled by want of horses to leave behind one 
 hundred guns and five hundred waggons. 
 
 His advance through the centre of the Russian zone 
 of operations had separated their armies, which, 
 together with their own faulty movements, laid them 
 seriously open to be attacked and destroyed in detail. 
 But his commanders had already begun to quarrel 
 amongst themselves ; they would not work cordially 
 together and failed to carry out his best laid plans or 
 give effect to his ablest schemes for the annihilation 
 
22 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 of the eilemy's columns. The first stage of the 
 campaign had been most skilfully thought out and 
 prepared for by the master-mind who directed it, but 
 yet the result was failure. For after some insignificant 
 rear-guard actions the armies of Bagration and of 
 Barclay succeeded in effecting their junction at 
 Smolensk on August 3rd. 
 
 It was during the long halt of sixteen days at 
 Witepsk that Napoleon learnt of England's success in 
 negotiating a peace in the north between Russia and 
 Sweden and in the south between Russia and Turkey. 
 Two considerable bodies of Russian troops were thus 
 set free to reinforce the armies then operating on the 
 right and left of the French line of advance. There 
 were, however, vast distances to be traversed by them 
 before they could reach the zone of Napoleon's opera- 
 tions, and he hoped to finish the war before they could 
 bring any direct influence to bear upon his move- 
 ments. At the same time he naturally felt that they 
 were certain within a calculable period to make them- 
 selves felt upon his long line of communications. 
 This should have been to him an additional 
 warning against any advance that year beyond the 
 Dnieper. Hitherto his operations had been in a 
 region where the inhabitants were largely of Polish 
 origin and by no means enthusiastic well-wishers of 
 the House of Romanof. But if he ventured beyond 
 Smolensk he would find himself amongst a purely 
 Russian people deeply imbued with very strong 
 religious and national sentiments, and much excited 
 by the appeals made to their patriotism by Alexander, 
 their Pope as well as King. 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1812. 
 
 23 
 
 Napoleon left Witepsk on August 13th, hoping 
 to fall upon the Russian army before it reached 
 Smolensk and possibly to cut it off from that place. 
 
 KING OF ROME. 
 
 The torrents of rain which had fallen throughout July 
 were now succeeded by stifling heat, and during the 
 march the dust on the clay roads was intolerable. 
 The rest at Witepsk was grateful to the soldier in 
 
24 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 such weather, but the losses from sickness and deser- 
 tions were already appalling. One hundred and fifty 
 thousand of his Grand Army were missing, either 
 dead or in hospital or wandering about the line of 
 communication as stragglers. He knew too well that 
 the farther he penetrated into Russia the greater 
 would become this evil. 
 
 On August 1 6th, 17th, and 18th, there was a good 
 deal of fighting near Smolensk, with great loss on 
 both sides ending in the retreat of the Russians. But 
 Napoleon failed to force his wary adversary into a 
 decisive battle. He found himself in what had been 
 a large city but was now merely a mass of burning 
 ruins — for his shells had set it on fire — where only a 
 small amount of food was forthcoming. The harvest 
 of the previous year had been bad — a fact known to 
 Napoleon before he planned the invasion of Russia — 
 and that of 18 12, then being reaped, was either carried 
 off or largely destroyed by the peasants in their flight. 
 They had also driven away most of the cattle and 
 horses, making it difficult for the Intendance to collect 
 what grain there was left in the fields. 
 
 What Napoleon wanted and sought for was a great 
 and decisive battle that would enable him to end the 
 war without any farther advance into Russia. But 
 although Barclay was no great general he was too 
 clever to thus play into his adversary's hands. His 
 policy, and it was a sound one in his position, was to 
 engage in rear-guard actions upon every favourable 
 opportunity, as he did at Smolensk," and then, before 
 his army was seriously compromised, to draw off 
 farther into the interior whilst his Cossacks harassed 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1812. 25 
 
 the French columns on the march, swept the country 
 of provisions, and slew the stragglers. In a roadless 
 country, like the Russia of that time, this was certainly 
 Barclay's true policy ; but it did not find favour with 
 his army and was generally denounced in every part 
 of Russia. 
 
 Up to this time Napoleon had felt so certain of 
 being able to force on a decisive action before Barclay 
 should get past Smolensk, that he had always held 
 out that place to his soldiers as the farthest limit of 
 the year's campaign. He had striven to console them 
 by describing it as a fine city where they would find 
 rest in the midst of a fertile country teeming with the 
 corn and fruits of an abundant harvest. But they 
 found themselves instead surrounded by burning 
 streets and in a country where the homesteads far 
 and near were in flames. 
 
 Throughout, Napoleon's plans had been admirable 
 on paper, but owing to the dilatory and spiritless 
 manner in which those plans had been carried out by 
 his generals he had as yet accomplished nothing of 
 importance. On the other hand, his enemy had suc- 
 ceeded in rectifying the great fault of their original 
 disposition by the concentration of their two principal 
 armies at Smolensk. His lieutenants advised him to 
 halt and not go farther into Russia that year. Behind 
 the Dwina and the Dnieper he could, they said, re- 
 organise his army and establish a new base for another 
 campaign the following summer, should no peace be 
 arranged in the meantime. The serious nature of the 
 enterprise upon which he had embarked was patent to 
 all his marshals and must now, if it had not done so 
 
26 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 earlier, have come home to him also. But he still 
 believed in his "star" and could not realise the 
 possibility of failure. We can only account for his 
 neglect of all plans to meet the accident of non- 
 success by that overweening confidence in himself and 
 in his luck to which in the end he mostly owed his 
 destruction. When, therefore, failure overtook him 
 it not only surprised him but it found him without 
 any formulated scheme to negative its effects. 
 
 He still trusted in the generally accepted opinion 
 that Barclay would soon be forced by the Russian 
 army and people to stand and fight. Besides, the 
 cautious policy his councillors urged upon him did not 
 suit his humour or his reputation. He could not, as 
 yet, brook the idea of taking any public step that 
 might be construed into a confession of failure on his 
 part. He still relied much upon his influence over 
 Alexander to obtain a satisfactory peace whilst he 
 used all his skill to bring about a pitched battle. He 
 could still count upon two months of good weather in 
 which to manoeuvre and he felt that such a battle 
 would enable him to crush his enemy, and by that 
 one stroke end the war. 
 
 It was not until August 25th that he started from 
 Smolensk with his Guard, the Cavalry under Murat 
 being already for several days close on the enemy's 
 trail. But the horses were in such a miserable con- 
 dition that little could be expected from them, and 
 Murat did little. From Smolensk to Moscow is about 
 two hundred and fifty miles. The road passes through 
 a fertile country but the retreating Russians had 
 converted it into a desert. The sagacious policy by 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1812. 27 
 
 which Wellington had out-generalled Massena, when 
 he retreated upon his lines at Torres Vedras, was 
 just then generally held in high esteem amongst 
 strategists. It was closely followed by Barclay as 
 long as he was left in chief command. The French 
 found every village deserted, many of them burned, 
 and all food for man and beast that could not be 
 carried off carefully destroyed. 
 
 This policy, however, though fatal to Napoleon 
 was not understood by the better classes and was 
 abominable to the peasantry who were the direct 
 sufferers from it. The cry against the commander 
 became at last too strong to be resisted, and Barclay 
 was replaced by Kutusof who had acquired a great 
 reputation in his wars against the Turks. In accord- 
 ance with the desire of all classes, civil and military, 
 he resolved to fight a great battle in defence of 
 Moscow, Russia's ancient capital. The position he 
 selected at Borodino was about seventy-five miles 
 west of that city, and he entrenched it strongly ; 
 there Napoleon attacked him on September 7th. 
 
 The distance from Wilna on the Niemen to Boro- 
 dino was only about five hundred and twenty miles 
 by the route Napoleon followed. Yet, out of the half- 
 million of men he had with him when on that river, 
 he was only able to place in line at Borodino, for 
 what he believed would be the decisive battle of the 
 war, about 1 30,000 men. And yet his losses in action 
 up to that time had been insignificant. By drawing 
 in all detachments and many bodies of undisciplined 
 Cossacks and ill-organised militia, the Russian com- 
 mander had managed to collect an army of about 
 
28 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 equal strength. There was a considerable proportion 
 of recruits and very young soldiers in the French ranks 
 but the great bulk of Napoleon's troops at Moscow 
 were the finest veterans in Europe and were led by the 
 most experienced officers then alive. But in fighting 
 value the French army suffered seriously from the 
 many nationalities and languages of those who con- 
 tributed to swell its total. On the other hand, in the 
 Russian army one faith, one language, and one 
 national enthusiasm pervaded the whole. Standing to 
 defend their great historic capital it was quite certain 
 that every man would sell his life dearly in its defence. 
 Under these circumstances a murderous contest was 
 to be expected ; the result fulfilled popular antici- 
 pation for the battle of Borodino was perhaps the 
 bloodiest in modern history. 
 
 As subsequently at Waterloo, Napoleon was over- 
 joyed at finding that his enemy meant to stand for 
 a great pitched battle, especially as the original 
 distribution of the Russian army at Borodino gave 
 him every promise of inflicting a crushing defeat upon 
 it. He made his arrangements for an attack upon the 
 Russian left which if successful would enable him to 
 cut off the enemy from Moscow and drive their centre 
 into the river upon which Borodino stands. 
 
 According to all the best conceptions of the general's 
 science nothing could be more perfectly conceived or 
 in design better elaborated than Napoleon's plan of 
 attack ; but from a variety of causes the execution 
 was poor and unsuccessful. One of those causes was 
 an overwhelming attack of his mysterious malady at 
 the most critical period of the battle. It occurred 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1812. 29 
 
 when Ney, having gained a great success, only 
 required prompt and sufficient support to have made 
 Borodino a great and most probably a decisive 
 victory. But instead of being so it merely ended in 
 the utter exhaustion of both sides, whilst' some 80,000 
 dead and wounded covered the field. The Russians 
 retreated ; but they left neither gun nor standard 
 behind as a trophy in the hands of the French. This 
 battle gave Moscow to the French ; but when we 
 fully consider Napoleon's position at the moment it 
 seems to me that the Russians really gained more by 
 it than the French. 
 
 Napoleon entered Moscow on September 14th. 
 The pillage and burning of that picturesque city is a 
 well-known story. It has been graphically told by the 
 historians of many nations ; its dramatic incidents 
 have furnished the romance-writer with many a plot 
 and still supply the artist with endless subjects for his 
 pen and brush. Want of space prevents me from 
 dwelling upon it ; but Napoleon's fatal delay in that 
 city cannot be passed over without remark. It was 
 that delay, coming upon the time lost at Wilna, 
 Globokoe, and Witepsk, which determined the fate of 
 his army and, as some argue with much force, his 
 own downfall also. 
 
 He made some serious mistakes in his calculations 
 about this Russian war— the date when the rigorous 
 winter might be expected, for example ; but the 
 great blunder which runs through all his actions 
 in this campaign was his misconception of the Czar 
 Alexander's character. This is a curious fact; for 
 Napoleon knew him well and had numerous oppor- 
 
30 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 tunities for gauging his ability, temperament, aims, 
 and what were the strongest forces that worked within 
 him to influence his actions. But although I believe 
 Napoleon to have been by far the greatest of all great 
 men, he has always struck me as having been a bad 
 judge of character. Like many other rulers and 
 generals he did not care to surround himself with 
 very clever or brilliant assistants and he often made 
 serious mistakes in the selection of men to do his 
 bidding. In this respect he was, I think, inferior to 
 Marlborough who seems to have understood not only 
 the thoughts of those he personally dealt with but to 
 have known by intuition even the manner in which 
 they would give effect to his or to their own projects. 
 Be this as it may Napoleon certainly misread 
 Alexander's character, and lingered on in Moscow 
 under the delusion that his prolonged stay there would 
 bring the Czar to terms ; in this belief he was encour- 
 aged by the wily Kutusof. His army was rapidly 
 falling off in numbers, whilst the Russian armies 
 were being constantly reinforced. His delay gave 
 time for the main Russian army to recover from 
 the effects of Borodino and to take up a position 
 about forty miles south-west of Moscow which 
 threatened Napoleon's line of retreat. It gave the 
 army of Finland time to approach the zone of 
 operations and the army of Tchichagof, from the 
 south, to do so likewise. Above all it brought on 
 still nearer the dreaded winter, the greatest enemy of 
 all. The one thing it did not bring was any answer 
 from the Czar beyond the statement that he refused to 
 negotiate as long as his enemy was on Russian soil. 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1812. 31 
 
 It was, I think, a fatal error of Napoleon to have 
 advanced beyond Smolensk in 18 12. But he might 
 have retrieved it in a great measure if, after an interval 
 sufficient to prove his assured possession of Moscow 
 and to rest his army there, he had forthwith begun 
 his return march upon Smolensk. He could have 
 effected his retreat without difficulty up to Sep- 
 tember 2 1st, or even a few days later; for he might 
 then have selected a line through districts that had 
 not been devastated. He might have chosen his 
 winter quarters so as to be within reach of his 
 magazines, whilst he continued to threaten Russia 
 with a fresh invasion the following year. He would 
 have left her for the present with her ancient capital 
 destroyed, many of her best towns ruined, and the 
 impotence of her generals and armies to resist his 
 advance clearly demonstrated to the world. 
 
 Napoleon did not leave Moscow until October 19th. 
 The winter was already upon him and there had even 
 been a premature fall of snow a week before the city 
 was evacuated. His army was still somewhat over 
 90,000 strong but it was encumbered with trains of 
 waggons laden with loot. Had Napoleon burned 
 every article pillaged from the capital and filled the 
 carts so emptied with food, the march would have 
 been greatly accelerated. Thousands would have 
 been saved of those who died of want. 
 
 I cannot dwell upon the details of this disastrous 
 retreat though it teems with incidents deserving of 
 notice. It is one of the most dreadful events in 
 military history and its story can never fail to 
 interest all mankind. Suffice it to say, that indis- 
 
\MAP nrfiibuing-ttt Retreat oftlir FRENCH ARMY/mm MOSCOW toFARIS. 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1812. 
 
 cipline in its most hideous form soon set in with 
 all its fatal results. Some time before Napoleon 
 reached Smolensk — November 9th— the Grand Army 
 had been diminished by half the numbers which had 
 quitted Moscow three weeks before. The horses 
 perished so rapidly that guns were almost daily left 
 behind for want of means to draw them. A strange 
 want of foresight on the part of Napoleon was his 
 neglect to make provision for rough-shoeing the 
 horses, to enable them to keep their feet over the 
 frozen roads. This neglect had no small influence 
 upon the horrors of the disaster which overtook his 
 army. 
 
 By the time the Beresina was reached the retreating 
 mass had degenerated into mobs made up of thousands 
 of men, mostly unarmed, who had once been soldiers 
 but who would not then even face the enemy or obey 
 any orders. Their rear and flanks were covered by 
 small fighting divisions in which the proportion of 
 officers was many times greater than usual. These 
 small bodies of determined men alone retained any 
 fighting formation or even the semblance of soldiers. 
 
 At Smorgoni, on December 5th, Napoleon made 
 up his mind that his only hope of saving the empire 
 lay in his rapid return to France. There he would 
 raise a new army, and by lying bulletins try and 
 make the world forget his disasters in glowing 
 descriptions of fabulous victories achieved between 
 the Niemen and the Moskwa. He transferred the 
 supreme command to Murat, who, three days after- 
 wards, brought the remains of the Grand Army into 
 Wilna. When Kovno was reached its fighting 
 
 D 
 
34 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. ^ 
 
 strength was scarcely six thousand armed men. The 
 passage of the river was signalised by a feat of arms, 
 which is remarkable even among the many in Ney's 
 career. Covering the retreat across the Niemen with 
 a mere handful of gallant soldiers sustained by his 
 splendid example, he found himself at last in Kovno 
 
 MURAT. 
 
 with a party of only thirty or forty men and the bridge 
 over the river in possession of the enemy. Seizing 
 a musket he led this little band of heroes to the 
 attack, cleared the bridge and once more rejoined 
 the army to be again its protector against the 
 Cossacks who still swarmed round its rear guard. 
 Later on the arrival of some fresh troops from 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1812. 35 
 
 Italy enabled Eugene de Beauharnais to lead back 
 behind the Elbe the wretched remains of what could 
 then only be called in irony "The Grand Army." 
 Ney, " the bravest of the brave," — a proud name even 
 amongst the many which adorn the history of France 
 — covered himself with honour and glory when in 
 
 NEY. 
 
 command of the rear-guard during the appalling 
 disasters of this retreat from Moscow. His daring 
 courage will be for ever the admiration of all Peoples 
 who still preserve any national sentiment for the self- 
 sacrificing soldier who counts his life as dross in com- 
 parison with the upholding of his country's honour. 
 As we read of Ney's chivalrous conduct throughout 
 
 D 2 
 
36 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 this campaign we cannot help feeling what poor 
 creatures many of Homer's fabulous heroes were 
 when compared with him. 
 
 The invasion of Russia ended in disastrous failure. 
 Those who like may attribute this fact to mere ill-luck 
 on Napoleon's part ; but to me it seems truer to say, 
 that he was no longer the leader he had been in his 
 early campaigns and that his great work was done. 
 He had destroyed the rotten remains of systems 
 which had lingered on in Europe from the middle 
 ages. Though as Emperor he may have sought to 
 revive some of them, what he had done in the 
 plenitude of his power rendered hopeless any attempt 
 to restore them except artificially and even then 
 with the certainty that they must soon disappear 
 altogether. But it was time that his own despotism 
 should pass away. It pressed, too heavily upon the 
 civilised world and it was essential, for human in- 
 terests that Europe should once more breathe freely. 
 The decree from above had gone forth against him, 
 and as ill-luck it was recognised by himself when he 
 said that his star was no longer in the ascendant. 
 
( 37 ) 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 THE CAMPAIGN OF 18 13. 
 
 It will be remembered that it was on December 5th, 
 18 12, that Napoleon left his army at Smorgoni, bent 
 upon making for Paris with all possible speed. It is 
 not my intention, in these pages, to follow the fortunes 
 of the " Grand Army " after he had quitted it. All 
 ranks felt his departure to be a fresh calamity that had 
 overtaken them. As long as he was with the army, 
 so great was their faith in him as a leader, they be- 
 lieved he would eventually save them. The feeling of 
 personal devotion with which he had inspired them 
 exercised a strong influence over their discipline and 
 fighting power. But as soon as it became widely 
 known that he was no longer present to command 
 them in action and to chide them when they failed in 
 any duty, despair seemed to take possession of their 
 minds and to enfeeble their bodily strength. Thence- 
 forward all orders were disregarded, and Murat, their 
 nominal commander-in-chief, could no longer control 
 their actions or enforce his authority. Even his subor- 
 dinate generals refused to obey him. The men did 
 as they pleased, and absolute ruin was the result. 
 ' ' A general recklessness confounded all ranks, 
 
38 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON.^ 
 
 command ceased, and it became a sauve-qui-peut at a 
 funeral pace." * 
 
 When bidding good-bye to his generals at 
 
 Smorgoni, Napoleon promised to rejoin them in the 
 
 early summer with a new army of 300,000 men. The 
 
 Austrian and Prussian contingents to the right and 
 
 left of the Grand Army had not been seriously 
 
 engaged in Russia, and he calculated that the remains 
 
 of the Grand Army, when joined by the reserves 
 
 collected between the Oder and the Elbe, would 
 
 amount to about 200,000 men. He therefore hoped 
 
 to appear again on the Vistula with an imposing 
 
 force of nearly half a million of soldiers. But as far 
 
 as his Allies were concerned he was soon undeceived. 
 
 The Prussians, under General York, entered into a 
 
 convention with the Russians at the end of 
 
 December, and the Austrians, under Schwarzenberg, 
 
 fell back towards Galicia without any attempt to 
 
 resist the Czar's advance. 
 
 Napoleon had hoped that the remains of the Grand 
 Army would be able to hold its own on the Vistula 
 until he should be in a position to rejoin it with a 
 large reinforcement in the summer. But this defec- 
 tion of his Allies rendered that impossible. Prince 
 Eugene Beauharnais, who had succeeded Murat as 
 commander-in-chief, soon found himself compelled to 
 withdraw to the Elbe, having first thrown strong garri- 
 sons into the fortresses on the Oder and the Vistula. 
 
 It took some little time for the world outside 
 Russia to realise the completeness of the Moscow 
 disaster ; but when it became generally understood a 
 * Sir Robert Wilson. 
 
THE CAMPAIGN O* 1813. 39 
 
 revival, at least an outward expression of national 
 enthusiasm, showed itself daily more and more 
 throughout Germany and the states of Central 
 Europe. 
 
 The conviction arose all along the line that the 
 moment had come when the cruel yoke under which 
 they had so long groaned might be effectually thrown 
 off ; and this feeling was deeper and more general in 
 the houses of the middle classes than in the cabinets 
 of kings and statesmen. The many principalities 
 which Napoleon had formed into the Confederation 
 of the Rhine, as well as other allied powers, already 
 began to secretly negotiate with England and Russia 
 to accomplish his overthrow ; the terror of his name 
 as yet prevented them from openly declaring against 
 him. So much was this the case, that for some time 
 even the defection of York's contingent was disavowed 
 by the King of Prussia as the unauthorised act of 
 that general. Austria still professed to be his ally 
 and protesting against the defection of others 
 assured him that her negotiations with his enemies 
 were undertaken in his interests. But the states of 
 Central Europe were already honeycombed with 
 secret societies whose moving influence was personal 
 hatred to Napoleon and detestation of the system he 
 had imposed upon Europe. Day by day their kings 
 and princes were urged to declare themselves against 
 the common enemy, and the angry passions of the 
 
 people, thus aroused, hastened the inevitable result. 
 Wellington said that Napoleon at the beginning of 
 
 1812 governed one half of Europe directly and almost 
 
 all the other half indirectly. To shake off completely 
 
4 o THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 the dread in which his name was held could not 
 therefore be accomplished in a moment, and it took 
 some little time before even the knowledge of his 
 Russian catastrophe drove the conviction into the 
 hearts of his nominal allies that he was vulnerable, 
 like all other mortals. However, before Napoleon 
 was again able to take the field in Germany, Prussia, 
 urged on by the Czar, plucked up courage to openly 
 declare against him, and his father-in-law, the 
 Emperor Francis, announced that Austria would 
 assume a position of armed neutrality. 
 
 But meanwhile Napoleon in Paris was not idle. 
 Day and night he worked hard at the creation and 
 organisation of a new army that should restore his 
 renown which had been so seriously shaken by the 
 recent disasters. At no previous period of his career 
 did his commanding genius, his colossal power of 
 work, his capacity for organisation — both civil and 
 military — his wisdom, in fact, shine out more con- 
 spicuously. No other man could have accomplished 
 what he did in that dreary winter. The result of all 
 these labours was, that by April 25th, 1813, he was able 
 to take the field with a new army of 140,000 men 
 well equipped with guns and every fighting requisite. 
 This army rendezvoused at Erfurth, Weimar, Gotha, 
 Saalfeld, and Coburg. His one weak point was his 
 cavalry for which he could not obtain a sufficient 
 number of suitable horses. 
 
 In the meantime the remains of the Grand Army 
 under Eugene had been largely reinforced, and, now 
 numbering some 40,000, was collected at and round 
 Magdeburg. The corps of Davoust, not yet very 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1813 
 
 41 
 
 strong, was between Tougau and Dessau, and that of 
 Victor was between Magdeburg and the Saale. 
 Behind these forces his new army was being organised 
 in France with all possible speed and was able to join 
 hands with them before the end of April. 
 
 From the date of his return to Paris until he was 
 
 EUGENE EEAUHARNAIS. 
 
 again in the field with his newly raised but yet 
 formidable army was only four months : almost an 
 incredible achievement. Europe had assumed that 
 the old and dreaded war-lion was no more or at least 
 wounded to the death ; and great, therefore, was the 
 astonishment of all nations when this new army 
 sprang from the ground, as it were, at his command. 
 
42 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 But to make it up he was compelled to draw largely 
 upon his armies in Spain for old soldiers to leaven 
 the newly raised mass, and whole regiments of well- 
 seasoned Marines were incorporated in it with the 
 same object. Although the great bulk were immature 
 men imperfectly trained as soldiers, he had the great 
 advantage of possessing, left from the wreck of the 
 " Grand Army " of Russia, a large number of experi- 
 enced officers who were of incalculable value in the 
 organization of this new army. But still it could not 
 be compared for marching or for fighting power with 
 his armies of Austerlitz or of Jena. Of the generals 
 in command of divisions, few were capable of handling 
 large numbers of men in action ; indeed, his letters of 
 this period teem with complaints of their inefficiency. 
 To raise and equip an army in 1 8 1 3 was, however, 
 a much simpler operation than it would be at the 
 present time. All the implements and weapons of 
 destruction then were of the simplest kind. No 
 complex machinery was required for their construc- 
 tion, and the repair of those injured in the field was an 
 easy matter. In those days you could almost cut 
 down a tree to-day, and by to-morrow have it converted 
 into a gun carriage, and the guns themselves could be 
 cast by the hundred with the greatest rapidity. Be- 
 sides, the soldier then had comparatively little to 
 learn. No months spent oh ranges were required to 
 teach him to shoot. He loaded his primitive firelock 
 as our musketeers had done theirs at Sedgemoor, and, 
 like them, fired it straight to his front at any enemy 
 within a hundred and fifty yards distance. No long 
 and careful training in attack formations was necessary 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1813. 43 
 
 to teach him to face clouds of shrapnel bullets and the 
 hail of close rifle fire which the assailant has now to 
 advance through. A battle was not then the appalling 
 convulsion, the terror-striking trial to the nerves and to 
 a man's instinct of self-preservation, that it is in these 
 days of great explosives and of arms of precision. The 
 regimental officer then had himself little to learn 
 beyond what came naturally to the English country 
 gentleman. The tactics were of the simplest sort. 
 Fire discipline was then as unknown as the art of 
 photography, and the officer's chief duty was to lead 
 his men straight upon the enemy. The military system 
 of every great European power at this moment rises 
 in evidence to protest against the theory of the British 
 optimist on this subject. In the Confederate war of 
 1861-65 great quickly raised armies fought well against 
 armies similarly constituted and equally undisciplined 
 and untrained. It is often therefore urged, by men 
 who know nothing of war, that in case of invasion we 
 too could in like manner put hundreds of thousands 
 of men in the field who would save us. The civilian 
 is prone to forget that our hastily improvised army 
 would have to meet a thoroughly organized army of 
 regular troops. You might just as well hope to win 
 the Derby with an imperfectly trained horse as to win 
 a battle with partially trained, ill-disciplined levies 
 against an army of regular soldiers. 
 
 The reappearance of Napoleon towards the end of 
 April in the heart of Germany with a new army took 
 the Allies by surprise, and they had yet to learn how 
 formidable that army could be under his leadership. 
 They had made up their minds that, after the annihi- 
 
44 THE DECLINE AND FALL 0J> NAPOLEON. 
 
 lation of his enormous army in Russia, Napoleon 
 would never again be in a position to cross their 
 path. But here he was once more, apparently as 
 vigorous as ever, barring their advance, and ready to 
 spring at the throat of the first army he met. 
 
 Kutosof had fallen a victim to the malignant fever 
 then devastating the districts traversed by the re- 
 treating French army as it starved " exhausted regions 
 in its way." He had been replaced by Wittgenstein. 
 It was exceedingly important to the cause of the 
 Allies that their troops should be pushed forward 
 as soon and as far as possible in order to give con- 
 fidence to the country people, then only too anxious 
 for an opportunity of joining their standards. The 
 armies of the Allied powers had all suffered more or 
 less in the previous year's operations and their num- 
 bers was consequently not what they had been. Their 
 strength was still further reduced by the Istrong de- 
 tachments it was necessary to leave behind to watch 
 the French garrisons in the Prussian fortresses. The 
 result of this attempt to cover as much ground as 
 possible, in order to inspire general confidence, was 
 that the Allied Armies advanced in far too scattered 
 fractions. Their great enemy was consequently 
 amongst them in strength superior to theirs at all 
 important points before they even knew for certain 
 that he had any new army at all with which he could 
 take the field. 
 
 On May ist, as Napoleon was pushing forward to 
 seize Leipzig, his troops had a trifling skirmish with 
 the Russian advanced-guard. Although this some- 
 what opened the eyes of the Allies to the fact that 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1813. 45 
 
 they had a regular army as an enemy on their path, 
 they still refused to believe that it was an efficiently 
 trained force or that Napoleon could possibly be 
 again in the field with the numbers he had actually 
 with him. Wittgenstein persisted in believing that 
 he had to deal only with a comparatively insignificant 
 army almost exclusively composed of recently en- 
 rolled young conscripts. So strong was this 
 conviction that he assumed the offensive hoping to 
 surprise the French on the march. With this object 
 in view, he pushed forward to Lutzen at the head of 
 about seventy thousand men and suddenly found 
 himself in the midst of Napoleon's army. The battle 
 of May 2nd, known by the name of that city, was the 
 outcome of these movements, and the eyes of the 
 Russian general were soon opened to the great mis- 
 take he had made. Although the nature of his 
 offensive movement gave him some advantage at the 
 earlier stages of the battle he was soon heavily re- 
 pulsed by the troops whom Napoleon had thoroughly 
 in hand. The battle was indecisive, but Wittgen- 
 stein's position the day after was so obviously faulty 
 and dangerous that he was glad to escape from it by 
 a rapid retreat. The Emperor's weakness in cavalry 
 prevented any effective pursuit, and the defeated 
 Allies fell back in safety behind the Elbe. 
 
 This battle, the first of the year, though without 
 any decisive result — indeed, a rather doubtful French 
 victory — was yet sufficient to inspire Napoleon's 
 young soldiers with a spirit of confidence when they 
 found themselves pursuing an enemy who had so 
 lately driven the Grand Army out of Russia. 
 
46 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 By May 8th the Allies had fallen back to the strong 
 position of Bautzen and Napoleon had made a trium- 
 phant entry into Dresden, the home of his faithful ally 
 
 . Position of French Army pLAN 0F THE BATTLES OF -LEIPZIG 
 
 on October 16. 
 Position of French Army On THE i6th and i8th October, 1813. 
 
 on October iB. 
 
 c. Russian Army. 
 
 D. -Austrian Army. 
 
 E. Prussian Army. 
 
 F. Sv/tdjik Army. 
 
 the King of Saxony. That monarch, who had been 
 hard pressed by the Austrians to abandon his friend, 
 now returned to his capital. Although the heart of his 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1813. 47 
 
 people was in the great German movement against 
 the French Emperor, he was able, by his personal 
 influence, to place the whole resources of his kingdom 
 at Napoleon's disposal. For the time, at least, this 
 checked the contagion of desertion from the French 
 alliance. 
 
 This occupation of Dresden, together with Ney's 
 capture of Torgau and that of Hamburg by Davoust, 
 placed the line of the Elbe once more in Napoleon's 
 hands. 
 
 It is a remarkable feature in the decline of 
 Napoleon's fortune that he won many battles where 
 he only just missed gaining the decisive success that 
 would in all probability have restored his position in 
 Europe. The last day's battle near Smolensk, in the 
 previous year, is a case in point. It might, it ought 
 to have ended in the complete destruction of Barclay's 
 army ; and had it done so, it would most probably 
 have insured peace on terms in every way acceptable 
 to the French Emperor. The battle of Bautzen, which 
 now followed, is another instance. 
 
 The Allies, about 1 50,000 strong, had taken up a 
 very strong position, with their left resting on the 
 Bohemian mountains, and had strongly fortified it. 
 It had, however, one most serious defect : there was 
 only one line of retreat -from it. This, Napoleon's 
 quick eye took in at once, and he laid his plans 
 accordingly. His intention was to assail it in front 
 himself with about 80,000 men whilst Ney with about 
 70,000 more should fall upon the right flank and rear 
 of the Allies to cut them off from their only line of 
 retreat. But the handwriting on the wall had already 
 
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 condemned Napoleon to eventual destruction ; and 
 here, as throughout the remaining events of his career, 
 the cup of success was dashed from his lips just as he 
 essayed to drink from it. Ney failed to carry out 
 the mission entrusted to him and which in the 
 morning he had started to execute. The Prussians 
 held the right of the Allied position. Blucher, who 
 commanded them, had detached a small force of 
 infantry and artillery to protect his rear, and with it 
 Ney became engaged. Instead of pressing his march 
 along the rear of the Allied Army to cut off its 
 retreat and attack it in rear whilst Napoleon assailed 
 it in front, Ney allowed his movement to be checked 
 and his direction diverted by this insignificant 
 Prussian detachment. This fighting soon roused 
 Blucher to a sense of his extreme danger and he at 
 once fell back and made good his retreat. Barclay 
 with his Russians took up the duties of a rearguard, 
 and, having shown a good front to his enemy as 
 long as daylight lasted, he also got safely away during 
 the night. It was entirely Ney's fault that the 
 Prussian and the Russian armies were thus able to 
 escape from the snare so well devised by Napoleon 
 to catch them in. It must be remembered that the 
 French army was quite half again as strong as theirs 
 was. Such are the uncertainties of war even when 
 waged under the personal direction of so great a 
 captain as Napoleon. Ney, in fact, had only succeeded 
 in manoeuvring the Allies out of a position in which 
 Napoleon intended to destroy them and where they 
 must have been destroyed had his orders been skilfully 
 obeyed. Had the Emperor left Ney to attack in front 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1813. 
 
 49 
 
 whilst he himself directed the turning movement, 
 Bautzen would doubtless have been one of the most 
 complete victories he ever gained. Indeed, it is hardly 
 possible to doubt that he would have almost regained 
 at a blow his former position in Europe. The whole 
 available force of the Russians and Prussians within 
 the region of operations would have been hopelessly 
 broken up. Austria, which was waiting to see which 
 way victory inclined, would have held back from the 
 Alliance against him ; he could then have easily 
 crushed the troops being collected at Berlin, and the 
 provinces that subsequently became the recruiting 
 ground for armies to be employed against him would 
 have remained subject, being held in subjection by 
 his triumphant legions. 
 
 Both Lutzen and Bautzen were bloody contests for 
 the two contending sides yet neither led to any 
 decisive result. Well indeed may the baffled Emperor 
 have cried in anger, " What a massacre for nothing ! " 
 Although the Allies again made good their retreat 
 after the battle: of Bautzen, both it and Lutzen were 
 held to be substantial French victories in the general 
 estimation of Europe. They reasserted Napoleon's 
 military ascendency and weakened the influence of the 
 secret societies which were then in full blast through- 
 out Central Europe. These societies worked hard to 
 dissolve the Confederation of the Rhine and to accom- 
 plish the Emperor's downfall. Every allied army is 
 weak through the national jealousy of the troops em- 
 ployed — a feeling which is often seriously heightened 
 by the envious rivalry of their respective leaders. In 
 this instance an angry spirit had already grown up 
 
 E 
 
So THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 between the two allies then in the field. The 
 Prussians attributed their defeat to Wittgenstein's 
 want of ability, and the Russians began to murmur 
 at having to fight battles in defence of Prussian 
 territory. 
 
 The natural and safe line of retreat for the allied 
 
 BERNADOTTE. 
 
 Prussian and Russian army would have been north- 
 wards, towards Prussia and Poland. To retreat in an 
 easterly direction to Silesia, along the Austrian frontier, 
 was certain destruction if Austria were really and 
 honestly neutral as she still professed to be. Such a 
 line of retreat would have enabled Napoleon to drive 
 them into Austrian territory. Viewing the tortuous 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1813. 51 
 
 policy which then characterised the Cabinet of Vienna, 
 it is difficult to guess what would have happened had 
 Napoleon by a rapid pursuit driven the Russo-Prussian 
 army into Bohemia. This would have forced Austria's 
 hand, a result which she was most anxious to avoid as 
 she still desired above all things to gain time. As long 
 as she professed to be a neutral power she would have 
 been bound to disarm troops which had taken refuge 
 in her territory. Though she still pretended to be an 
 ally, the line of retreat adopted by the Russians and 
 the Prussians after Bautzen caused Napoleon to sus- 
 pect the existence of a secret understanding between 
 his father-in-law and his openly avowed enemies. The 
 possibilities which Austria's adherence to the Alliance 
 would open up seem to have so startled Napoleon that 
 he was led into what is generally acknowledged to 
 have been one of the most fatal mistakes he ever made. 
 He halted his armies, arrested the further progress of 
 the campaign, agreed to a truce — to which the Allies 
 were only too glad to consent — and at Prague opened 
 negotiations for peace. This secured the Allies time, 
 and time was what the Allies, and Austria in particular, 
 most desired. Russia wanted it to enable her to bring 
 up the great levies she had raised during the enthusiasm 
 of the previous year. They had now been converted 
 into soldiers, but enormous distances and bad roads 
 separated St. Petersburg, Moscow and the still more 
 distant Russian provinces from Bohemia whose 
 borders had now become the theatre of operations. 
 The time thus gained enabled Prussia to fill the 
 depleted ranks of her army with the efficient, well- 
 drilled soldiers furnished under the Short Service 
 
 E 2 
 
52 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 System, which the genius of Scharnhorst, Gneisenau 
 and Stein had created. It enabled the secret societies, 
 now supported by powerful governments, to sap the 
 very foundations of Napoleon's strength, even in the 
 German States where his word was still law ; and last, 
 but not least, it gave the sovereigns who sought his 
 downfall time to obtain from England the subsidies 
 which were so much needed by states impoverished 
 through his wars, his " Continental system," and the 
 exactions of his armies. 
 
 Napoleon wished for peace, but the terms he de- 
 manded were preposterous, while those offered by 
 Austria were fair and reasonable. He had now 
 retrieved the honour of the French army after its 
 grievous misfortunes of the previous year. His country 
 was weighed down with taxation and drained of its 
 manhood to find soldiers for his wars. He knew she 
 longed for peace, and all his best Marshals impressed 
 upon him the fruitlessness of further hostilities. But 
 his pride would not allow him to make peace upon any 
 but the most exacting terms, which the events, so far, 
 of this campaign did not warrant his demanding. In 
 this, which I deem to have been the turning point in 
 his career, he certainly did not show the great wisdom 
 he displayed upon nearly every other serious occasion 
 in his life. He undoubtedly misunderstood the 
 strength of the forces, of the moral forces especially, 
 with which he had now to contend. His unbounded 
 energy and the great machinery he had inherited 
 from the Revolution as its executor — and in many a 
 sense he was its embodiment also— had hitherto en- 
 abled him to make time tell in his favour. It usually 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1813. 53 
 
 does tell in favour of the despot who has to fight 
 against a confederacy of many long-established nations 
 bound by the traditions of their old-fashioned and 
 perhaps cumbersome mode of military procedure. But 
 he was no longer contending against governments 
 which, out of tune with the epoch, were fighting ex- 
 clusively for the preservation of an archaic state policy 
 as best they could with armies made up of unwilling 
 recruits. He had now to face the rulers of an almost 
 united Europe, each leading a nation even more 
 anxious to destroy him than those rulers were them- 
 selves. 
 
 If the Allies were sincere in wishing for peace, 
 Napoleon ought to have made it after Bautzen ; if 
 they were not so and only wished to deceive him in 
 order to gain time, he ought to have seen through 
 their deceit, and pressing them hard before their rein- 
 forcements could arrive, he should have forced them 
 to make peace upon the lines which Austria declared 
 she was willing to negotiate upon. 
 
 Hitherto I have said little or nothing of the war 
 which England was then waging against Napoleon in 
 the Peninsula. And yet, when all is said and done 
 and every allowance is made for the stern determina- 
 tion of the Czar and his allies to prosecute the war to 
 the bitter end, it must be generally admitted that it 
 was the war maintained by England against France 
 in Spain by land and all over the world at sea, 
 together with the pressure which she brought to bear 
 upon Napoleon by means of her lavish subsidies, that 
 eventually destroyed him. The " Spanish ulcer," 
 which since 1808 had been tapping the strength of the 
 
54 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 French army, now told seriously against Napoleon's 
 power in Germany. The successive defeats sustained 
 by his Marshals beyond the Pyrenees had seriously 
 reduced the number of French troops available for 
 service elsewhere. But, hitherto, Wellington's victories 
 were only of local effect ; for the French army in 
 Spain had all along been vastly superior in numbers 
 to his, the only organised force Napoleon had to 
 contend with there. So much was this the case, that 
 it was only the impossibility of any effective union 
 between the French Marshals which enabled Welling- 
 ton to hold his own — a circumstance to which he was 
 also indebted for being able to defeat them separately 
 one after the other. But in 1 8 1 3 the case was altogether 
 different. The battle of Vittoria — fought June 21st— 
 was no mere local victory. It was not only a crushing, 
 a final blow to Napoleon's power in Spain, but it laid 
 the south of France open to invasion by Wellington's 
 thoroughly efficient Anglo-Portuguese army at a 
 moment when Austria, Prussia, and Russia were 
 preparing to invade her from the east. Beyond all 
 doubt this great victory of Wellington's had an 
 important influence in determining the action of 
 Austria during the truce and the negotiations at 
 Prague. 
 
 When hostilities recommenced on August 1 ith, the 
 Allied forces in Germany — about 500,000 strong with 
 1800 guns — were divided into the three following 
 armies : the main army in Bohemia, under Schwarz- 
 enberg, of about 320,000 ; that of Blucher in Silesia 
 of about 95,000 ; and of Bernadotte, at Berlin, of 
 about 90,000 men. There were also some divisions, 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1813. 55 
 
 about 40,000 in all, employed in watching the French 
 garrisons of Danzig and Hamburg ; and behind all, 
 there were reserves of about 250,000 men. This 
 calculation of the Allies' strength does not include the 
 troops in Spain under Wellington or the Austrian 
 forces in Bavaria and Italy. 
 
 After all Napoleon's great exertions, he had, 
 available for field operations on and beyond the Elbe, 
 only about 400,000 men with 1200 guns. 
 
 The Allies determined upon the following scheme of 
 operations. Bernadotte was to cover Berlin and drive 
 Davoust from Hamburg, and Blucher was to engage 
 the enemy in front whilst Schwarzenberg, with the 
 main army, was to operate against his communica- 
 tions. This last-named move would, it was felt, be 
 greatly facilitated by the configuration of the mountains 
 which form the northern frontier of Bohemia. 
 
 Schwarzenberg's army, with which were the Czar, 
 the Emperor of Austria, and the King of Prussia, was 
 to march behind the screen of these mountains and 
 fall upon the defences of the Elbe, attacking Dresden 
 from the south, and, if possible from the west. 
 
 Bernadotte's army at Berlin was continually growing 
 in size and increasing in efficiency. Its nucleus con- 
 sisted of the Swedes he had brought with him from the 
 north, a handful of English, some Russians, and the 
 skeleton of a Prussian army to be completed by re- 
 servists and recruits. These Prussians joined in large 
 numbers all eager for what they now felt to be a 
 national war and full both of patriotic enthusiasm and 
 bitter hatred of the French. Bernadotte's army was a 
 ource of considerable anxiety to Napoleon for he felt 
 
56 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 that if he did not crush it at once, whilst it was still 
 weak from want of organisation, it was bound to be- 
 come a formidable thorn in his left flank when he 
 advanced beyond the Elbe. Blucher, by his fiery 
 patriotism, imparted to his army in Silesia a weight 
 and consequence far beyond its numbers ; and General 
 York's corps, which formed part of it, also added to its 
 
 SCHWARZENBKKG. 
 
 importance from the fact that it had been in Russia 
 with Napoleon and had been the first to desert him. 
 
 But notwithstanding the numerical superiority of 
 the Allies they still dreaded to engage the great king 
 of war himself. Impressed doubtless by their failure 
 in the first phase of the campaign and also by the fact 
 that their rapid retreat both at Lutzen and Bautzen 
 had rendered those French victories almost fruitless 
 in result for Napoleon, they resolved upon a novel 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1813. 57 
 
 method of procedure which they endeavoured to follow 
 for the rest of the war. It was, to attack, whenever 
 they could, any army that was commanded by any of 
 Napoleon's Marshals, but if Napoleon were present, to 
 retreat and avoid a battle. This policy proved fatal 
 to most of Napoleon's projects, for although during 
 the following campaign he made many rapid advances 
 and forced marches in the hope of compelling his 
 enemy to fight, he always failed to do so. Wherever 
 he appeared the threatened Allied commander retired, 
 like an ignis fatuus, before him. 
 
 It is quite possible that as yet none of the Allied 
 sovereigns may have seriously contemplated Napoleon's 
 forcible deposition, much less have formulated any 
 plan for bringing it about. But it must have been 
 very evident to himself that if his army were defeated, 
 or if he even failed to obtain the great victoiy between 
 the Elbe and the Oder upon which his hopes were 
 fixed, he would soon find himself standing on French 
 soil in defence of the Rhine frontier. Already Wel- 
 lington threatened invasion from the south, and 
 Napoleon felt that he could best defend the Pyrenees 
 by a masterstroke, as of yore, in Germany. For this 
 his best chance lay in a vigorous offensive beyond the 
 Elbe over which, after Lutzen, he held all the pas- 
 sages. Its strong places being in his possession 
 made it into a good fortified base pushed forward 
 into Germany from behind which he might deliver 
 his blows in safety. His plan was to operate with 
 three armies : one under Oudinot against Berlin, 
 another under Macdonald against Blucher, whilst, 
 with a large central force under his own immediate 
 
58 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 command he would be able to rapidly reinforce 
 either of those armies. He would thus temporarily 
 make the reinforced army far superior in numbers to 
 its immediate antagonist. Besides these armies there 
 were the Corps of Vandamme, St. Cyr, Victor, and 
 Poniatowski, who were intended to hold the Elbe and 
 watch Bohemia. 
 
 This scheme of campaign may be fairly described 
 
 as over-ambitious and on too grand a scale when we 
 
 remember how numerically inferior his army was to 
 
 the Allied forces arrayed against him. It was a bold 
 
 game, an enormous venture for the great prize of 
 
 Universal Empire at which he had aimed so long. 
 
 In framing it he seems to have ignored the disasters 
 
 of the previous year, and to have refused to admit 
 
 that his renown and the fear in which all nations held 
 
 him were not what they had been before he had led 
 
 his armies across the Niemen. But in his opinion it 
 
 was the only safe course to take if he meant to regain 
 
 his former authority in Europe and to bring back its 
 
 sovereigns to their previous state of vassalage to 
 
 himself. A great a startling military success was 
 
 the first. the all-important essential for his plan, and 
 
 he was as fully sensible of the difficulties to be 
 
 encountered before he could secure it as he was of 
 
 the dangers to his throne which the struggle would 
 
 involve. This policy, which he deliberately adopted, 
 
 was on a par with the " nothing risk nothing win " the 
 
 " all or nothing " play of the gambler, who having had 
 
 a long run of ill luck, and finding himself nearly ruined 
 
 unwisely and recklessly stakes his all upon one venture 
 
 Finding that Blucherwas the first of his antagonists 
 
' — 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1813. 61 
 
 to move, Napoleon opened the campaign by a rapid 
 march to support Macdonald. But before Napoleon 
 could do anything against the veteran Prussian he had 
 fallen back, having ascertained that the Emperor was 
 present with the army in his front. * 
 
 Just at this same time news reached Napoleon that 
 the main army of the Allies was crossing the Bohe- 
 mian frontier with the evident intention of attacking 
 Dresden. He at once marched back upon that place, 
 gathering together as he went all his forces from the 
 Bohemian frontier. 
 
 St. Cyr had been left to hold Dresden, but its dis- 
 mantled defences, which Napoleon had ordered to be 
 restored, were still in a very imperfect condition. 
 Napoleon's intention was to cross the Elbe near the 
 Bohemian frontier and whilst St. Cyr held the Allied 
 Army in front to fall upon its rear, and, cutting it off 
 from every line of retreat, to utterly destroy it. A 
 grand combination worthy of the great genius who 
 framed it. But St. Cyr sent him an urgent despatch 
 to say he could not undertake to defend Dresden as 
 it was then. Another plan was therefore necessary 
 and it was formed on the instant. He ordered 
 Vandamme with 30,000 men to occupy a position in 
 the gorges of the Erzgebirge on the Allied line ot 
 retreat, and moved himself upon Dresden with the 
 remainder of the troops at his disposal. He reached 
 that city at 10 A.M. on August 26th, his headquarters 
 having marched about 120 miles in four days. His 
 troops, though fatigued — for the roads were very bad 
 from heavy rain — pressed eagerly forward, as in their 
 best days, to meet the enemy. 
 
62 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 The operations which led to the battles round 
 Dresden are most instructive for the military student. 
 On one side — until Vandamme's defeat at Kulm — 
 the ablest strategy, the most fearless decision, the 
 clearest grasp of the position, and the most rapid 
 movements ; on the other, divided counsels, feeble 
 indecision, and a dread of facing their redoubtable 
 adversary. The presence with the Allied Army of 
 Emperors, Kings, and their attendant ministers and 
 advisers so delayed its movements that it was not 
 until late in the afternoon of August 26th that the 
 Allies began their attack upon Dresden, being then 
 under the belief that Napoleon was absent. For so 
 much did his presence count on any field of battle 
 that as soon as they discovered their mistake orders 
 were at once issued to suspend the attack. It was 
 nevertheless made — in sheer helplessness it would 
 seem — and was bloodily repulsed. 
 
 By the following day, August 27th, all the available 
 French troops had arrived in front of the Allied Army. 
 Napoleon made a careful reconnaissance of the posi- 
 tion it occupied covering the heights round Dresden 
 on the left bank of the Elbe. The centre was crowded 
 with masses of men but the left was isolated beyond 
 the deep ravine through which the Weisseritz flows 
 into that river below the city. Upon this left Napo- 
 leon resolved to deliver his chief attack whilst he 
 held in check the densely-occupied centre by the fire 
 of a great array of field-guns. His attack upon the 
 Allied left was most successful ; and, as soon as their 
 infantry had been driven from the villages they occu- 
 pied into the open Murat, who directed the operation, 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1813. 63 
 
 poured down his horsemen upon it. This isolated 
 left wing was utterly destroyed and the Allied Army 
 was cut off from all hope of retreat by the roads in 
 rear of that flank. In the meantime Ney, who had 
 operated against the Allied right, succeeded in cutting 
 off their retreat by that flank, and their crowded 
 centre had suffered heavily from the batteries which 
 Napoleon had massed against it. 
 
 Like Turenne's battle at Entzheim, these operations 
 round Dresden were executed under a heavy down- 
 pour of rain, which destroyed the roads and so 
 rendered all retreat most difficult. 
 
 This was the only occasion upon which Napoleon 
 ever attacked both wings of a superior enemy in 
 position contenting himself simply with a heavy 
 artillery fire upon the hostile centre. The object he 
 here aimed at was to cut off the Allies from their 
 easiest line of retreat and compel them to retire by 
 their centre upon the passes through the Erzgebirge in 
 which Vandamme was posted to bar the way. 
 
 Obliged to fall back, principally from want of pro- 
 visions and ammunition the arrival of which had been 
 prevented by the badness of the roads, the Allies thus 
 found themselves restricted to one road as their line of 
 retreat. At first Napoleon pressed their retiring 
 columns with his wonted energy and as long as he 
 remained to direct the operations everything went 
 well. Knowing the position which Vandamme 
 occupied in the mountains he was justified in believing 
 that the destruction of the whole Allied Army was 
 certain. The capture of the two Emperors and the 
 King of Prussia would most probably re-establish his 
 
64 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 renown and authority which had been so seriously 
 shaken by the disastrous retreat from Moscow. How 
 all these speculations, these hopes, must have filled 
 Napoleon's mind at this critical moment ! How he 
 must have congratulated himself upon having adopted 
 the audacious policy he had followed instead of 
 standing upon the defensive near the Rhine, as most 
 leaders would have done under similar circumstances ! 
 What stupendous anxieties must then have crowded 
 that mighty brain ! What consequences, not only for 
 himself but for all Europe, depended upon the turn 
 which the events of the next few hours might take ! 
 Oh, war is a terrible thing from every aspect ; but in 
 none is it more so than in its awe-inspiring uncertainty, 
 and the chances which affect its results. Well indeed 
 may Turenne have said, that after the ablest com- 
 binations have been planned by the first generals 
 three-fourths of the result still depend upon accident. 
 Here is an illustration in point, for here once more the 
 evil genius of what I may call Napoleon's declining 
 years snatched from him the results which he had 
 every right to expect from his recent victory. 
 
 He suddenly relinquished his personal direction of 
 the pursuit and went back to Dresden. That it was 
 illness or physical prostration which caused him to do 
 so there can be, I think, no doubt. The man who 
 hitherto throughout this campaign had been on horse- 
 back at daybreak each morning when there was 
 fighting to be expected was not likely to have 
 abandoned this pursuit — upon which his very existence 
 as Emperor depended — had he been strong enough, 
 bodily and mentally, to have continued it. But at this 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OZ 1813. 65 
 
 critical moment he seems to have suddenly become an 
 altered man. We know that he was exposed during 
 the battle to the drenching rain which fell that day 
 and this may have brought on an attack of that 
 mysterious malady to which I referred in the previous 
 chapter. This is borne out by the fact that there is a 
 sudden and unmistakable change in the tone and 
 spirit of the letters he wrote after his return to Dresden 
 from those he had previously written. At first his 
 orders for the pursuit are clear, vigorous, and charac- 
 teristic. Suddenly the Marshals are left without in- 
 structions and the pursuit is relaxed in consequence. 
 
 The Allies, no longer harassed or pressed in rear, 
 had time thus allowed them to realise that with their 
 overwhelming numbers they could easily brush 
 Vandamme from their path. This they did at Kulm 
 on August 30th, his cavalry and about ten thousand 
 foot alone escaping to rejoin Napoleon. Vandamme, 
 who boasted that he feared neither God nor devil, was 
 taken prisoner and all his guns and the rest of his 
 force were either captured or destroyed. " Vandamme," 
 said Napoleon, " is very precious to me for if ever I 
 have occasion to make war against the infernal 
 regions he is the only general I have who would be 
 capable of tackling the devil." 
 
 In the meantime Oudinot with 60,000 men had 
 been heavily defeated on August 26th at Gross Beeren 
 by Bernadotte with an army over 150,000 strong and 
 composed of better elements than Napoleon had given 
 it credit for. Gerard's Division, which had hastened 
 to Oudinot's assistance, was almost entirely destroyed. 
 This was Napoleon's first experience of the power 
 
 F 
 
66 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 which a Short Service System, well applied, gives the 
 ruler who is shrewd enough to make use of it. Though 
 Swedes, English, and Russians were important 
 elements in Bernadotte's army at Berlin it was on 
 Bulow's Prussian Corps, formed almost entirely of 
 Reservists, that most of the fighting at Gross Beeren 
 had fallen. 
 
 On August 26th Macdonald's army, about 80,000 
 strong, having been caught by Blucher in the act of 
 passing the Katzbach was driven back upon its swollen 
 torrent and escaped with barely 20,000 men. 
 
 These defeats at Kulm, Gross Beeren, and the 
 Katzbach were heavy blows to the fighting efficiency 
 of Napoleon's army in Germany, and were deadly 
 wounds to his reputation for invincibility. They were 
 all the more serious because they served, in a remark- 
 able degree, to give new life to the Allied forces 
 whose spirit had been damped by their defeats at 
 Dresden and by the perils of their retreat from that 
 city — perils which were appalling as long as Napoleon 
 was able to direct the pursuit in person. They 
 inspired all Germans with increased determination to 
 fight the war out to the bitter end, and increased both 
 the number of recruits who joined the regular army 
 and of the Corps of Free Lances who now harassed 
 Napoleon's communications everywhere. Time was 
 working against him and every hour that did not 
 represent progress for his arms was a fatal loss to him ; 
 for England was now straining every nerve to re-arm 
 the populations whom, after his early career of victory, 
 he had disarmed lest they should fight against him. 
 
 Napoleon now despatched Ney with fresh troops 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1813. 67 
 
 towards Berlin. He had intended to reinforce him 
 with his own central array but the necessity of 
 supporting Macdonald's broken army obliged him 
 instead to hurry forward against Blucher. That 
 fighting Field Marshal, however, as soon as he heard 
 that Napoleon was with the army marching to attack 
 him, fell back promptly to avoid a battle. Meantime 
 the Grand Army of the Allies, relieved of Napoleon's 
 presence, again passed the Bohemian mountains to 
 threaten Dresden for the second time. This move 
 brought back Napoleon in a hurry to that city in the 
 hope of once more catching that Army, and in this 
 instance of destroying it after he had beaten it in 
 battle. Here again he was doomed to disappoint- 
 ment for as soon as his return became known the 
 Allies again retired behind the Erzgebirge, and 
 Blucher resumed the offensive against Macdonald. 
 Meanwhile, Ney, unsupported and left without the 
 personal direction of Napoleon, had advanced against 
 Bernadotte and was severely defeated at Dennewitz 
 on September 6th. 
 
 All Napoleon's movements were closely watched 
 by irregular troops who obtained the best information 
 everywhere from the inhabitants who in all districts 
 were well-wishing informers and self-constituted spies. 
 On the other hand, he had the utmost difficulty in 
 obtaining reliable information about his enemies' 
 doings or whereabouts. Nothing was more remark- 
 able about Napoleon's personal conduct of a war than 
 the skill and energy he always displayed in his 
 arrangements for securing, at every phase of a cam- 
 paign, the earliest and best intelligence of all that was 
 
 F 2 
 
68 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 taking place in the theatre of war whilst he carefully 
 concealed his own movements and intentions from 
 the enemy. He lays it down as a maxim that the 
 general who has to remain in ignorance of his 
 enemies' proceedings is ignorant of his trade. Yet in 
 this campaign, especially after the truce, he could 
 learn very little about the distribution and strength 
 of the Allied Armies opposed to him ; whilst on the 
 other hand, although the efforts made and the methods 
 pursued by Schwarzenberg and the Allied headquarters 
 for this purpose were feeble in the extreme, they 
 had good information about the French armies. The 
 passionate hatred of millions which his " Continental 
 system " and his soldiers' treatment of the inhabitants 
 had roused against him made it difficult for his spies 
 to act, and this in a great measure made up for the 
 deficiencies of the Allied leaders in this respect. His 
 complete ignorance of the strength and real com- 
 position of Bernadotte's army in Berlin, which was 
 the main cause of Ney's and Oudinot's disastrous 
 defeats, is a good illustration of what I mean. But 
 the general failure of his Marshals in 1813 was 
 largely owing to the military system which he had 
 created, I mean the centralization of all initiative in 
 himself. 
 
 Napoleon's armies were thus rapidly crumbling 
 away under the hands of his Marshals whilst the 
 Allies successfully evaded his own blows. He made 
 repeated efforts to overwhelm Blucher but to no 
 purpose, for as I have stated that wily soldier either 
 retreated or by calling in his detached forces became 
 too strong to be attacked with any certainty of 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1813. 69 
 
 success. Upon each occasion Napoleon was com- 
 pelled to relinquish the hope of crushing Blucher. and 
 to fall back nearer France. 
 
 These retirements of their great adversary in person 
 increased the confidence of the Allies. Bennigsen, 
 with a fresh Russian army, was near at hand, and 
 this, amongst other reasons, now caused the Allied 
 leaders to resolve upon taking the offensive. Their 
 plan was, that Blucher and Bernadottc on one flank 
 and the main army, strengthened by Bennigsen, on 
 the other were to cross the Elbe and join hands in 
 rear of Napoleon's army, and so cut it off from its 
 base on the Rhine. But before this could be accom- 
 plished the defection of Bavaria rendered Napoleon's 
 forward position so dangerous that he felt obliged to 
 fall back upon Leipzig with all his forces, a point so 
 central for all lines of communication between France 
 and Germany that he could not afford to allow the 
 Allies to seize it. 
 
 In this historic neighbourhood both the contending 
 sides now gathered for a great battle. It began on 
 October 16th and lasted three days. Upon each of 
 these days the Allies received such large reinforce- 
 ments that they were able to hem in Napoleon closer 
 and closer within a circle so narrow that at last he 
 could manoeuvre no longer. At every point around 
 him he was met with greatly superior numbers. On 
 the 1 8th, in the middle of the battle, the Saxon and 
 Wiirtemberg contingents went over to the Allies and 
 actually turned their weapons against their friends of 
 the morning. 
 
 Napoleon's chief of the staff, accustomed always to 
 
70 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 victory when carrying out the schemes of his great 
 master, had made no proper provision for the retreat 
 which now became inevitable. No extra bridges had 
 been laid across the Elster and none of the impedi- 
 menta had been sent to the rear. When, therefore, 
 the retreat began in the early morning of October 19th, 
 there was great confusion from the intermingling of 
 troops and baggage. The rearguard fought splendidly 
 but was eventually cut off and either captured 
 or destroyed through the premature destruction 
 of the bridge it was to have retreated by. This 
 battle cost Napoleon about 50,000 men, 300 guns, 
 and a great mass of military material ; but yet when 
 his old allies, the Bavarians, strove to bar his passage 
 he brushed them aside with ease and succeeded in 
 recrossing the Rhine at Mayence on November 2nd. 
 Not more, however, than about 75,000 or 80,000 good 
 troops, the remains of the large army with which he 
 opened the campaign six months before, crossed that 
 river with him. 
 
 The Allies, instead of pursuing vigorously, spent 
 the next two months — almost uselessly — in reducing 
 the many fortresses still held by the French on the 
 Elbe the Oder and the Vistula. Had they pressed 
 Napoleon hard they might have destroyed his army 
 before it could recross the Rhine. Had this been the 
 result of the campaign the Allied sovereigns might 
 have eaten their Christmas dinner in the Tuileries, 
 and we should not have had the history of the inter- 
 esting but useless campaign of 18 14 to record. But 
 the weakness and folly of the Allies in failing to pur- 
 sue_with all their might not only gave some respite to 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1813. 71 
 
 Napoleon's jaded troops, but also gave him time to 
 prepare for that most remarkable campaign which 
 began about the end of the following January. 
 
 Both in 18 12 and 181 3 the collapse of the Imperial 
 power was mainly due to causes which for some years 
 had been sapping the foundations on which it rested, 
 whilst they left the edifice itself, apparently, as stately 
 and imposing as ever. The failure of Schwarzen- 
 berg's Austrians in 18 12 and the defection of York 
 were only more overt signs of what was happening 
 in detail wherever Napoleon's armies moved or 
 wherever the authority of his edicts was recognised. 
 The sentiment of all European nations was bitterly 
 hostile to him, and this accounts largely for the slow 
 movement and frequent destruction of the supply- 
 trains upon which his army depended. The drivers 
 and conductors — mostly German — forced to serve 
 with these trains, loathed helping their conqueror. 
 
 The composition of his army, more than any other 
 one cause, had forced him onwards when he hesitated 
 at Smolensk as to whether he should winter there or 
 push on for Moscow. The great forces with which he 
 appeared in Russia and with which he reappeared in 
 the 1813 campaign were largely swollen by allies held 
 to him only by a belief in his power — in what the 
 world conceived to be his omnipotence. But when 
 that belief was rudely shaken by the destruction of 
 his army in Russia they were only too ready to de- 
 sert him : in fact, they began to fear his enemies more 
 than they feared him ; and in the campaign of 18 13 
 all these hostile elements made themselves more felt 
 than in the previous year. 
 
72 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 Independently of Napoleon's failure to destroy his 
 enemy after the battle of Dresden he made several 
 mistakes this year. But they were more mistakes 
 in diplomacy than in the practice of war. His re- 
 jection of the terms proposed by Austria during the 
 truce will always seem the height of folly to most 
 men ; and, amongst the errors in his military plans 
 we are most struck with his having locked up, to no 
 useful purpose, an army of about a hundred and fifty 
 thousand soldiers in the fortresses on the Oder and 
 the Vistula. It is easy to pick holes in the character 
 even of a saint, to point out errors made by even the 
 real kings of men in their management of public 
 affairs. But the more closely we study the pro- 
 ceedings of Napoleon in "1813, notwithstanding the 
 mistakes he made, the greater appears his remarkable 
 individuality, and the more inclined we are to say 
 with the Duke of Wellington about him, " How much 
 the fate of the world depends upon the temper and 
 passions of one man ! " 
 
 As I have said of his campaign in Russia I say of 
 this in Germany, Napoleon in 18 13 was not the man 
 he was in 1796 or in 1805. His conceptions were as 
 great, the grandeur of his undertakings was as 
 striking, but his execution was not as of yore. His 
 career of brilliant success had made him believe that 
 he was not only different from other men in brain- 
 power but that a special goddess of victory was his 
 guardian angel, and that he was the favoured son 
 of Fortune. The plans he devised entitled him to 
 expect success and he seems to have believed that 
 a special providence — his " star "—would preside over 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1813. 73 
 
 their execution. Although this was apparently never 
 absent from his mind yet no man ever left the 
 execution of his plans less to chance than he did as 
 long as his health and strength were normal. In this 
 campaign we read of him being on horseback at all 
 hours watching the enemy and reconnoitring the 
 position for himself, personally superintending the 
 passage of his troops and trains over rivers, and doing 
 all that any commander in his best days could have 
 done to avoid failure. But over and over again we 
 find luck run against him. 
 
 In the war-game we now play so generally in our 
 garrison towns the dice have to be thrown in certain 
 cases when squadrons of equal strength charge one 
 another. ■ Men sometimes say that, as war is a science, 
 the introduction of this element of chance into the 
 game robs it of much of its instructional value. But 
 those who know what real war is smile at this 
 criticism. They know that an accidental pain in the 
 stomach or a clod in the eye of either leader at the 
 critical moment just before a charge may always 
 decide the result. The accidents which influence 
 that result in real war render it often quite as much 
 a matter of chance as in the throw of the dice in the 
 Kriegspiel of peace. 
 
 As far as any one now can judge of what might 
 what ought to have happened after the battle of 
 Dresden, it seems very evident to me that had not 
 Napoleon withdrawn, as he did, from the personal 
 direction of the pursuit nothing could have saved the 
 Allied Army from destruction or capitulation. I can 
 only find one explanation of that withdrawal, and it 
 
74 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 is the sudden collapse through illness at the moment 
 of Napoleon's mental and physical powers. The ball 
 was at his foot ; but he turned back instead of 
 making a goal and his subordinates could not make 
 it for him. 
 
( 75 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE CAMPAIGN OF 1814. 
 
 During the month of November 18 13, the French 
 armies, after their defeat at Leipzig, were driven 
 helter-skelter towards the Rhine, and the Allies in 
 their wake approached that river on their way to 
 Paris. When the Allied sovereigns reached Frank- 
 fort, the difficulties of their great task seem to have 
 impressed them, for they began to realise how 
 unequal their generals were to cope with Napoleon. 
 It is therefore scarcely to be wondered at that, not- 
 withstanding their recent successes, they were still 
 prepared to treat with him on terms that would have 
 left him as sovereign over a greater France than any 
 of its legitimate kings had ever ruled over. Besides, 
 his father-in-law, the Emperor of Austria, had not yet 
 resolved to dethrone his own daughter. They offered 
 him as frontiers the Pyrenees, Switzerland and the 
 Rhine to the sea, besides giving him Nice and Savoy. 
 These were the boundaries which had been the day- 
 dream of Lewis XIV. and which Marlborough's 
 victories had alone prevented him from securing. 
 
 When 1 8 14 opened, Napoleon's position was critical. 
 With the exception of the fortresses which he still 
 
76 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 unwisely held on the Oder the Vistula and else- 
 where he had lost the whole of Germany. All the 
 great military powers had become — one after the 
 other — his enemies, and their armies were in full 
 march for Paris. Italy and Switzerland had just 
 turned against him ; the English fleets had driven his 
 flag off the ocean, and Wellington, at the head of a 
 thoroughly organised army well experienced in war 
 and flushed with recent victories, was already on 
 French soil threatening his capital from the south. 
 
 How seriously the defeats experienced at Moscow 
 and Leipzig had wounded France no man knew 
 better than Napoleon. But in the game of war, 
 especially when a despot like Lewis XIV. is pitted 
 against a Confederation of many nations, time often 
 brings many chances to the weaker 'side. He trusted 
 so much to this and to his own skill that, although 
 he knew that every arithmetical calculation was 
 against him he deliberately preferred to trust his 
 luck and expose his country to the likelihood of a 
 mortal blow rather than accept any terms which 
 should injure his own future renown as a .ruler and 
 a conqueror. To satisfy his craving for immortal 
 fame the fair fields of France must be given over 
 to the ravages of infuriated Cossacks and her capital 
 occupied by revengeful Prussians. 
 
 The France he had to work upon was, however, no 
 longer the France of 1805. The fields were largely 
 fallow from the lack of men and horses to till them, 
 and nearly all agricultural work had devolved upon 
 the women and children. After a quarter of a 
 century of revolutionary horrors and imperial victories 
 
the campaign of 1814. 11 
 
 exhausted France cried aloud for peace at any price ; 
 but her despot would not hearken. He would not 
 have it at the cost of his own glory and future 
 fame, and for this cruel decision future ages will 
 condemn him. Come what might he was determined 
 to immortalise his name by the display of what his 
 great military genius could do under the most adverse 
 circumstances. He would have it remembered by all 
 generations of Frenchmen that he had not despaired 
 of the destinies and fortune of France even in her 
 darkest hour. Under a pretended all-absorbing love 
 for her he hoped to hide the burning craze for fame 
 and immortal renown which now filled his thoughts 
 and which filled them from boyhood to his death. 
 He kept for his brother's ear alone that according to 
 his views of this world, " it is better to die a king 
 than to live as a prince." 
 
 In ancient history we read of men who lived almost 
 exclusively for fame, for the admiration of future 
 generations. They cared little for the hardships and 
 the pains of war or how others suffered from them as 
 long as they might hope thereby to render their 
 names immortal. But in this thirst for the applause 
 and worship of peoples yet unborn few have equalled 
 none have exceeded Napoleon. He had entered 
 public life at a time when those around him daily 
 ransacked the histories of Greece and Rome for 
 tales of national heroism, when even the unlettered 
 crowd had learnt to babble of Csesar and of Brutus. 
 In his early days the names of Leonidas, Epami- 
 nondas, Fabricius, Hannibal, Scipio and other 
 Grecian and Roman heroes were constantly on the 
 
78 THE DECLINE AND FALL Oh NAPOLEON. 
 
 lips of the real as well as the sham actors in what 
 were then the appalling tragedies of every-day life. 
 Immortal renown was the great aim of Napoleon 
 and no man at any period ever achieved it to a 
 greater degree. No man ever lived more for the 
 future than he did. Very early in his career he 
 felt that historians would class him with Cyrus, 
 Alexander, Mahomet, and the greatest conquerors 
 who had overrun the earth. He knew that his reign 
 would be compared with that of Charlemagne, 
 Henri IV. and Lewis XIV. and his ambition was to 
 leave behind him a name greater than theirs. Were 
 he now to make peace on the Allies' conditions how 
 could he meet on equal terms the spirits of other 
 great conquerors in those Elysian fields of which he 
 loved to talk ? 
 
 His mind was of that peculiarly superstitious nature 
 that, whilst we may assume he had never bent a knee 
 in true reverence to his Maker, he did firmly believe in 
 some good spirit who watched over him and ensured 
 him success. This guardian angel had pulled him 
 through many great difficulties, more than once even 
 converting defeat into victory. Why should Fortune 
 now turn her back upon the ablest soldier of the age, 
 the wisest and greatest man alive ! His thoughts 
 were more occupied with future history and as to how 
 posterity would regard him, than with the present and 
 the events taking place around him. Peering afar off 
 into future ages it would seem as if the glare dazzled 
 his eyes, so that he had no power to take in any 
 exact estimate of the things near and immediately 
 surrounding him. As a soldier he had equalled 
 
THE CAMPAIGN- OF 1814. 79 
 
 the fame of Turenne, even of Marlborough ; as a 
 king he had brought France greater renown than 
 Lewis XIV. ; but he would not, like that monarch, 
 self-styled " the Great," sign away all his glory in any 
 second treaty of Utrecht. 
 
 Throughout this campaign Napoleon did all he 
 could to give to his operations the colour of a national 
 war waged, as in 1792, in defence of France against 
 invaders bent upon her destruction. He did his best 
 to pose as a national hero, — he was an inimitable 
 actor, — and when we read in the French histories of 
 the Allied hosts drawn from all points of the compass 
 who were then converging upon Paris, we are apt to 
 think of him as the soldier-patriot, disputing every 
 inch of French territory ; as the giant driven to bay 
 with his back to the wall, dealing out knock-me-down 
 blows first to one then to the other of his antagonists 
 as each in turn dared to assail him. The mind natur- 
 ally recurs to young William of Nassau's heroic defence 
 of Holland when it was invaded by Lewis XIV. 
 We remember William's splendid patriotism during 
 that prolonged struggle : how he fought almost 
 against hope ; how at last, sooner than surrender his 
 country to the invader, he gave back to the sea whole 
 provinces which his industrious countrymen had re- 
 claimed from the Northern Ocean ; and how, when 
 tempted by the French king with offers of personal 
 sovereignty, he said he would die in the last ditch 
 sooner than forsake the people who had trusted him. 
 But our William IIL loved Holland, the land of his 
 birth, with all his heart with all his soul, he was a 
 real patriot and hero. But superhuman as I believe 
 
80 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 Napoleon's genius to have been I cannot feel that 
 in the three last years of his wars he either proved 
 himself a hero or a true French patriot. Had he 
 loved his own personal renown less and France 
 more how different would have been his end ! how 
 much useless loss of life how much misery and 
 defeat he would have spared France ! When we 
 think of all this, I can well understand the Frenchmen 
 who, loathing his memory, remind us that when, as a 
 youth, he was talking of his future to his most 
 intimate school friend, he said : " I will do these 
 Frenchmen all the harm I can." 
 
 Upon his return to Paris after Leipzig he called, as 
 usual, for large levies, but few except mere boys 
 answered the call. He could not find horses for his 
 cavalry and many of the newly-enrolled foot had 
 neither muskets nor belts. Most of the National 
 Guard were in sabots and blouses. He wanted 
 money but time was still more required, and to gain 
 it he strove to obtain an armistice early in the cam- 
 paign. The Allies would not listen to the proposal. 
 They would make peace at once on their own terms, 
 but would not halt, even to make it, until they had 
 reached Paris. Napoleon never trusted to his luck 
 more than in 1814, feeling that in the very vast- 
 ness of the combination against him there were many 
 elements that might at any moment declare in his 
 favour. He thoroughly understood the inherent, 
 weakness of all Coalitions : on this point, as on many 
 others, he had not studied Marlborough's campaigns 
 in vain. He very naturally looked for the chances 
 which would be afforded him by an Allied Army 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1814. 
 
 commanded by three sovereigns, all more or less 
 jealous of one another and each with special interests 
 to serve. 
 
 The nine weeks' campaign of 18 14 was the only- 
 defensive one Napoleon ever waged. In his previous 
 wars he had always taken the initiative and assuming 
 
 LANNES. 
 
 a vigorous and rapid offensive had overwhelmed 
 his enemy, not only by superior strategy but by 
 the force and rapidity of his blows, until his 
 adversary lay prostrate before him bleeding from 
 every pore. 
 
 By November 1st, having placed the Rhine between 
 
 G 
 
82 THE DECLIXE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 his disorganised troops and the enemy, his first idea 
 was to hold that river if possible in order to retain 
 the provinces on its left bank as a recruiting ground 
 and to obtain a revenue from them. He had not 
 expected that the Allies would have embarked in a 
 winter campaign and had fondly hoped that, protected 
 by that river, he would have had time allowed him to 
 reorganise his army and, by the augmentation of 
 another conscription, to prepare it for a new campaign 
 in the following spring. But here his calculations 
 were at fault. His energy was as fierce as ever and 
 his plans and arrangements were stamped with all his 
 usual ability ; the Allies moved slowly and timidly 
 and ignorantly after they had crossed the Rhine ; 
 he won what he announced in Paris as victories ; but 
 notwithstanding all this he never was given the time 
 he required to drill or arm and equip the conscripts 
 who obeyed the Senate's call for 300,000 fresh 
 soldiers. Most people now agree in thinking that as 
 soon as he found the Allies were actually crossing 
 into France, he should have made peace upon the 
 best terms he could obtain. 
 
 Many ambitious self-seekers mistake their own 
 personal aims and their mad quest after personal fame 
 for the good and the renown of their country, — this is 
 not uncommon in political life. But Napoleon was 
 far too shrewd and able a man to entertain any such 
 illusion, although he had at all times striven to 
 impress France with the conviction that whatever he 
 did was done purely in her interests, and in 1 8 14 
 that he was only fighting in her cause. When a 
 prisoner at St. Helena he mendaciously strove to 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1814. 83 
 
 make the world accept this explanation of his strange 
 and reckless conduct in that year. 
 
 Determined to carry on the war, as soon as the 
 Allies began to cross the Rhine he felt that with his 
 weakened forces it was hopeless to think of main- 
 taining himself on that river. He accordingly ordered 
 the corps under Ney, Victor, and Marmont, to fall back 
 upon Verdun, Chalons, and Bar-sur-Aube, before the 
 advancing enemy. Besides these there were also 
 available MacDonald's corps and the guard under 
 Mortier and Oudfnot. In this year's war the number 
 of troops engaged is more than usually uncertain ; 
 besides, Napoleon's very rapid movements and the 
 great exposure to which his men were subjected 
 thinned his ranks day by day. In all wars forced 
 marches and constant movement soon cause the 
 strength of battalions to dwindle away even in fine 
 weather ; but the cold and rain of winter and the 
 irregularity of supplies which repeated forced marches 
 entail increase the rate of diminution enormously. 
 The whole of his drilled and equipped army at the 
 date when the Allies passed the Rhine was only some- 
 thing between seventy and eighty thousand, of which 
 about one-fourth were cavalry : the proportion of his 
 guns to men was much larger than was usual at that 
 period. During the progress of the campaign he 
 frequently received reinforcements which materially 
 increased his strength ; those which joined the Allies 
 were more numerous, but they brought with them 
 much sickness contracted during their long line of 
 march. 
 
 Though Napoleon recovered fairly well from the 
 
 G 2 
 
S4 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 disasters of Moscow he never did so from the defeat 
 at Leipzig. For the campaign of 1813 he had still 
 untouched in the vaults of the Tuileries an immense 
 reserve fund upon which to draw when money grew 
 scarce, and the manhood of the country had not been 
 as yet exhausted. This was all changed now and 
 the taxes had become enormous : that on income 
 alone was 25 per cent, for all non-military people. 
 This caused the rich and the middle classes to lone 
 
 o 
 
 for a Bourbon restoration and reduced the poor to 
 abject want. But these taxes came in slowly, and 
 Napoleon soon spent all the ready money which 
 remained to him in refitting his retreating army and 
 in the equipment of the new levies he was collecting. 
 France had no longer her former faith in him and 
 began at last to regard his wars as both endless and 
 aimless. The strictly enforced conscriptions of the 
 last two years had denuded the land of young men : 
 the only males to be seen in the villages were the 
 boys and old fathers of families. In fact, he had 
 forestalled the annual contingents of recruits by some 
 years. In every department of the Empire there was 
 now a decided inclination to resist the conscription as 
 far as men could safely venture to do so. In many 
 districts those drawn to be soldiers had taken to the 
 woods. The worst features of the press-gang in its 
 most oppressive days were distanced by the cruelties 
 of Napoleon's latest conscriptions. Of the 300,000 
 men voted to reinforce his army after the disasters of 
 Leipzig, only 63,000 had answered the call by 
 January 31st, 1814. The unwisdom and inexpedi- 
 ency of his " Continental system " was now openly 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1814. 85 
 
 acknowledged and freely spoken of, and, amongst 
 what we may at least by courtesy style the ruling 
 classes under such a ruler, there had grown up a 
 craving for that tranquil prosperity which as was 
 now generally believed his wars made impossible. 
 The shocks caused by his recent disasters seemed 
 at last to have aroused France from the state of in- 
 toxication into which the dazzling glory of his former 
 victories had sunk her. The Royalists the Republicans 
 the Priest-party as well as the scheming politicians of 
 the Talleyrand type, all were now encouraged by the 
 aspect of affairs within the very borders of France 
 to intrigue against Napoleon and his oppressive rule. 
 The Legislative Body, his faithful slaves as long as he 
 was victorious, now plucked up courage to ask for 
 guarantees for popular liberty and even ventured to 
 restrict his demands for money. He dismissed them 
 in anger ; the Senate, still in awe of him, gave him all 
 he wanted. But this summary dismissal of the Legisla- 
 ture tended to reduce his influence and his power to 
 obtain from a discouraged, as well as an impoverished 
 people, the men and supplies he then so urgently 
 needed. Indeed, such became the state of public 
 feeling that he did not dare to render that popular 
 force, the National Guard, as really effective as he 
 might have done. 
 
 Napoleon's aims were still directed to great objects, 
 as if he had met with no crushing disasters during the 
 two previous years ; his schemes were still so vast, 
 so far-reaching, that he would not bring down his 
 thoughts to so restricted a compass as the mere 
 defence of France. Bent on great plans for future 
 
86 ''THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 action, he had in 1 8 12-13 left a considerable army 
 behind him in the fortresses of Germany which 
 employed on the Elbe in 18 13 might have insured 
 him victory. In the same way he could not now 
 make up his mind to concentrate all his resources for 
 the defensive campaign which he clearly saw was then 
 before him. The thirty or forty thousand seasoned 
 troops with which Suchet held Catalonia would have 
 been an invaluable addition to his small army in the 
 plains of Champagne ; Eugene was operating in Italy 
 with an army of about the same strength ; Augereau 
 at Lyons was organising a new force ; and Soult 
 might have spared some valuable troops, had 
 Napoleon ordered him to restrict his army to purely 
 defensive operations against Wellington. As in the 
 previous year's campaign, Napoleon's general plan of 
 operations was too ambitious and was not in scale 
 with the actual position in which he then found 
 himself. 
 
 In judging of Napoleon's decision to hold on as 
 long as he could to the largest possible extent of 
 territory, both in 18 13 and the following year, we 
 must not, however, forget that he was fighting for 
 recruiting areas. Wherever there were enough French 
 troops to maintain his authority he was able to raise 
 soldiers, for he still had zealous friends in every pro- 
 vince ; but as soon as his authority was no longer 
 recognised the countries so lost to him too often 
 became a valuable recruiting ground for his enemies. 
 For example, when the Confederation of the Rhine 
 had been broken up as the result of his recent mis- 
 fortunes, nearly 150,000 troops that had previously 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1814. 
 
 87 
 
 fought under his banner were transferred to swell the 
 armies opposed to him. The countries which had 
 formed that Confederation, being nearest to France, 
 
 FREDERICK WILLIAM III. OF PRUSSIA. 
 
 were of all others then the most important on that 
 account. 
 
 Some of Napoleon's best troops had come from 
 Piedmont and Tuscany— in fact Eugene's army was 
 almost entirely recruited in Italy— but at the same 
 
88 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 time to have brought them into France might have 
 entailed their loss through desertion to the enemy, 
 as had happened in the cases of Saxony, Wurtemberg 
 and Bavaria when Napoleon evacuated those king- 
 doms. Besides he counted on Eugene's army, aided 
 by Augereau, to secure the alliance and assistance of 
 the Swiss amongst whom Napoleon had many ardent 
 friends. It was his intention that Eugene, thus 
 supported, should fall upon the Allies' lines of com- 
 munication after their armies had entered France, -and 
 he hoped that the warlike inhabitants of Alsace and 
 Lorraine would be thus encouraged to act with 
 greater vigour in the enemy's rear. As a matter of 
 fact those two provinces did strenuously oppose 
 the advance of the Allies. With the exception of 
 Augereau's comparatively small army, Napoleon 
 could hardly count upon assistance from any of these 
 sources if he restricted his plan of operation to the 
 fields watered by the Marne and the Seine, where it 
 was evident he must fight to protect Paris. But on 
 the other hand if Eugene's army joined him, the 
 Emperor of Austria would be able to move his troops 
 under Bellegarde from Italy into France. 
 
 The case of his armies in Spain was different. It 
 is difficult not to think that Napoleon was indulging 
 in expectations there which the battle of Vittoria 
 had made unworthy of serious consideration. Time 
 pressed, and as soon as he found that the Allies 
 meant to cross the Rhine he should have sent back 
 Ferdinand to Madrid ; but instead of doing this, we 
 find him at the eleventh hour negotiating terms for 
 that king's restoration. His reason for this was, that 
 
THE CAMPAIGN- OF 1814. 89 
 
 by keeping up the army under Soult to a respectable 
 figure and by retaining possession of Catalonia 
 with the army of Suchet, he hoped to so arrange 
 matters with Spain that, under the returned monarch, 
 Wellington's position would be rendered politically 
 impossible. Were he relieved of all pressure from 
 that quarter by this withdrawal of the English from 
 Spain, he might be able to rally to him the armies 
 of both Soult and Suchet. 
 
 But Wellington's complete victory at Vittoria had 
 stamped these schemes with the ominous words, " too 
 late." Suchet's hold upon Catalonia had become 
 little more than an isolated and irrelevant detail 
 which, if persisted in, could only involve the ultimate 
 loss of the French garrisons stationed in that pro- 
 vince ; and Soult's army, though admirably led, was 
 unable to withstand Wellington's triumphant invasion 
 of France. It is dangerous, indeed presumptuous, for 
 any soldier to criticise Napoleon's military con- 
 ceptions and plans ; but it strikes military students 
 of this campaign that he would have done better had 
 he restricted Soult's army to gaining time by an 
 active defensive on the Pyrenean frontier and ordered 
 every French soldier that could be spared from it and 
 from Spain generally to join his army in the valleys 
 of the Marne and the Seine. 
 
 As long as the French arms were victorious in 
 Central Europe the elements of opposition to his 
 authority were apparently feeble and were easily 
 suppressed wherever they showed themselves ; but as 
 soon as the ebbing tide of failure set in and that 
 Napoleon's star was seen to be undoubtedly on the 
 
90 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 wane the decline of his power proceeded with an 
 increasing rapidity until the final crash came. The 
 vast French Empire of 1811 provided him with 
 immense resources in men. He commanded the 
 services of Poles, Italians, Swiss, Saxons, Danes. 
 Wurtembergers, and Bavarians, and he was able to 
 extract money and material from others who were not 
 friendly to him. As his dominion, however, became 
 reduced in extent by every step he took backwards 
 not only were these supplies cut off but the larger 
 became the armies opposed to him. The zealous 
 self-sacrifice of whole nations, supported by the in- 
 exhaustible wealth of England, brought successively 
 into the field masses of men who eventually swept 
 away his power as if by an ever-increasing avalanche 
 pouring down upon the collapsing structure of his 
 Empire. 
 
 There is yet another excuse for Napoleon's deter- 
 mination to fight rather than make peace in 18 14. 
 Before the Allies crossed the Rhine he had calculated 
 that they would make large detachments for the 
 purpose of besieging the fortresses in which he had 
 left garrisons behind. He also thought they would 
 require armies for various duties in the provinces now 
 being restored to their legitimate rulers. He did not, 
 consequently, anticipate so large a disproportion 
 between his own army and that of the Allies when 
 both had taken the field in France. But before 
 crossing the Rhine the Allies had almost exclusively 
 employed their militia to invest or besiege the French 
 garrisons in Germany ; and in their advance from 
 that river towards Paris they stopped to besiege no 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1814. 91 
 
 fortress, contenting themselves with observing or in- 
 vesting them. This was what Malborough intended 
 to do when, early in his wars, he urged the Dutch to 
 allow him to march direct upon Paris and there 
 dictate terms to Lewis XIV. 
 
 I have thus dwelt upon the larger features of the 
 war in 18 14 because I think it is misleading to the 
 student of history to direct his attention exclusively 
 to the operations in the valleys of the Marne and the 
 Seine. I am glad to find that of late years there has 
 been a natural tendency, amongst those who carefully 
 follow all the events in Napoleon's career, to revolt 
 against any isolated treatment of this campaign as 
 a kind of academic study upon the influence on 
 defensive operations of two lines of river in a theatre 
 of war. The able summary of this campaign by Sir 
 E. Hamley and the manner in which he has treated 
 its remarkable events has long tended, in my opinion 
 to unduly concentrate attention upon the movements 
 of the Allies and of Napoleon between the Marne 
 and the Seine to the exclusion of all the other 
 influences which helped to bring about the abdication 
 of the great soldier-Emperor. In almost every cam- 
 paign the questions which determine a general in his 
 decisions are of a much wider scope than the mere 
 strategical or tactical movements which can be 
 executed along certain features of a particular line of 
 country. But, at any rate, "the decline and fall of 
 Napoleon " cannot be well understood unless we fully 
 realise the basis upon which his power and supremacy 
 rested and how seriously that foundation had been 
 already shaken before the Allies crossed the Rhine. 
 
92 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 No technical criticism of his magnificent strategy, no 
 mere professional analysis of his splendid tactics on 
 the field of battle will suffice. 
 
 By the end of 1813 there were about a million of 
 men under arms for the avowed object of pulling 
 down Napoleon from his position as Dictator in 
 Europe ; but we must study the moral as well as the 
 physical forces that worked against him if we would 
 fully comprehend his fall. Throughout the greater 
 part of Europe there were two parties then, one 
 favourable, the other bitterly hostile to him. The 
 first was still under the influence of the enormous 
 advantages they had gained through the French 
 Revolution and from the success of its • armies ; 
 the second was smarting under the pressure of 
 Napoleon's Continental System and the remem- 
 brance of the many injuries and insults received from 
 his soldiers. Time and the shortness of human 
 memory for favours received had acted against the 
 party friendly to him, and every day strengthened 
 that which hated him. The agencies which Captain 
 Mahan has so ably traced in his interesting work on 
 the influence of sea-power were also at work against 
 him ; but there were others also. The spoliation of 
 Italy and Switzerland, the gradual springing up in all 
 the provinces of ancient Germany of a common 
 German feeling bitterly hostile to France, and the 
 social reforms introduced into Prussia by the able 
 statesmanship of Stein, were amongst the chief causes 
 which acted powerfully in developing a determined 
 opposition to Napoleon's supremacy. 
 
 The Allies built a golden bridge for his retreat over 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1814. 93 
 
 the Rhine as their pursuit after Leipzig was feeble 
 in the extreme. They did not begin to cross that 
 river until December 21st, 181 3, having reached it in 
 three columns : one had marched upon the Lower 
 Rhine through Holland sweeping, as it passed, that 
 nation into the coalition against Napoleon ; another 
 under Blucher, about 50,000 strong, upon the Middle 
 Rhine at Coblentz ; and the third and largest, about 
 120,000 men under Schwarzenberg, upon Bale where 
 it crossed by the stone bridge. Bale belonged to 
 Switzerland, which threw in its lot with the Coalition. 
 Before the end of the year the two last-named armies 
 were assembled in the valleys of the Marne and the 
 Seine. They were no longer prepared to grant 
 Napoleon the favourable terms they had proposed at 
 Frankfort, for they had begun to realise that there 
 could be no permanent tranquillity in Europe as long 
 as he was left to rule France upon any conditions-. 
 
 Before passing the Rhine the Allies issued a 
 manifesto to the French people declaring that it was 
 their wish to see France strong and prosperous. 
 They endeavoured to impress upon all classes that it 
 was Napoleon alone who stood between them and the 
 peace which was so ardently longed for. Their " only 
 conquest," they said, " should be peace — a peace that 
 should give permanent repose to France and to all 
 Europe." Following the example of the old Direc- 
 tory, they declared they did not make war upon the 
 people but upon their rulers. The Allied armies 
 were generally received with cordiality as friends 
 come to give them back peace. To the shame, how- 
 ever, of thejnvaders, they sullied their operations by 
 
94 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 great excesses ; but when we remember how all 
 grades in the French army had pillaged and oppressed 
 the inhabitants of Central Europe it is not to be 
 wondered at that, having in their turn become con- 
 querors, they should take vengeance for the wrongs 
 and insults they had previously endured. 
 
 Napoleon now found himself under the unlooked- 
 for necessity of having to defend his capital against 
 the Allies who were marching upon it. Amongst the 
 unfavourable conditions under which he was com- 
 pelled to begin this struggle, the retired position of 
 his fortresses behind the Rhine frontier was a serious 
 misfortune. Hitherto his war policy had always been 
 to dictate terms to his enemies in their capitals, and 
 the result of his far-reaching conquests was that he 
 had neglected the girdle of fortresses with which 
 Lewis XIV. had protected the eastern frontier of his 
 kingdom. But that frontier had been left behind : it 
 was not Napoleon's frontier and he had consequently 
 thought it useless to spend money upon the main- 
 tenance of works designed to defend the bygone 
 limits of a restricted France. These fortresses were 
 not, therefore, in a state to resist any siege. Besides, 
 typhus fever, too often the scourge of a defeated 
 army, was decimating his troops in those places, 
 having been imported from Russia and by the 
 garrisons lately withdrawn from Germany. 
 
 Napoleon saw the net that was being drawn around 
 him by the mighty hosts which now threatened Paris 
 from all points. But he was not without hope, for he 
 could foresee in the coming struggle numerous possi- 
 bilities for the exercise of his commanding ability ; 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1814. 95 
 
 and one of the most striking peculiarities of his 
 declining fortunes was, that like the ruined speculator 
 he based his calcalutions more upon the possible than 
 the probable. He believed that his army in the 
 Pyrenees, under the skilful leadership of Soult, would 
 suffice to keep Wellington at a distance long enough 
 to enable him to dispose of his own immediate an- 
 tagonists. He calculated much upon the national 
 spirit which the invasion of France would call forth ; 
 and although it was not as strong or as pronounced as 
 he had anticipated, it is most creditable to the oppressed 
 and ruined people that it did show itself, especially 
 in some districts. He believed this feeling would 
 animate his soldiers, and inspire them with a dash 
 and valour even greater than ever. His was an army 
 of Frenchmen fighting to defend the soil of France : 
 what might he not therefore expect from them under 
 his superlatively able leadership ? Opposed to him 
 were the armies of three nations and many princi- 
 palities, each with its special aims and jealousies. 
 One was the army of his father-in-law who was 
 present with it and would not surely allow his 
 daughter to be deposed or her husband driven into 
 exile. No one knew better than he did the weakness 
 of a divided command, especially when the com- 
 manders were like those now pursuing him. Schwar- 
 zenberg — the nominal commander-in-chief of the 
 Allied armies — was a poor and extremely timid 
 strategist under all circumstances, but in front of 
 Napoleon he was apparently so awed that his habitual 
 want of dash and hesitating slowness led him into an 
 inordinate dissemination of his forces. In many ways 
 
96 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 he resembled some of the Austrian generals whom 
 Napoleon had destroyed years before. He was, in 
 fact just the sort of commander to give his great 
 antagonist the opportunities he wanted and would be 
 sure to make good use of. Blucher was a man of 
 entirely different mettle : a soldier by instinct, a 
 dashing leader by disposition and temper. Though 
 old he was overflowing with energy. Not learned in 
 the scien.ce of war he was apt to be rash, but his 
 reckless daring was now kept within bounds by the 
 highly educated Gneisenau and Muffling, who never 
 left him. 
 
 The immediate object of the Allied sovereigns 
 upon crossing the Rhine, was the occupation of Paris, 
 but the general plan they adopted to secure it was 
 extremely faulty. For the convenience of subsistence 
 they unwisely distributed their armies over a wide 
 front, as if there had been no great master of war 
 within the zone of operations watching for an oppor- 
 tunity to beat them in detail. Instead of moving 
 upon the enemy's capital by converging lines, so that 
 Napoleon should not be able to seriously attack one 
 without having the others on his flank, they marched 
 with great intervals between their armies which were 
 consequently unable to support one another. They 
 entirely ignored the fact that the shortest and quickest 
 and safest way to reach Paris was through the de- 
 struction of Napoleon's army. As they manoeuvred 
 they threw away to a large extent the only one great 
 advantage they possessed — that of vastly superior 
 numbers. Schwarzenberg's timid movements may or 
 may not have been controlled by Metternich, but not- 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1814. 97 
 
 withstanding the many checks and defeats experienced 
 by the Allies, as a matter of fact those defeats inflicted 
 serious losses upon the French. Though often driven . 
 back the Allies always returned to their advance upon 
 Paris with undiminished numbers and with the renewed 
 energy which the arrival of reinforcements always 
 imparts, whilst their opponent's army was dwindling 
 away having no reserves to maintain it. But, as in 
 the previous year, the Allies - still feared to tackle any 
 body of troops with which Napoleon was known to be 
 present. They courted action with his Marshals, but 
 the ascendency which his very name exercised over 
 them was still enormous. Schwarzenberg's first idea 
 was the safety of the Austrian army ; and, feeling 
 that he was no match for his great adversary, his 
 mind seemed always more bent upon defensive than 
 offensive combinations. He was not the man to 
 conduct the invasion of France especially when 
 Napoleon was in the field against him. 
 
 Let us now follow the general movements of the 
 opposing forces. 
 
 Only two of the three armies of invasion, to which I 
 have referred, marched for Paris— that of Schwarzen- 
 berg from Langres down the valley of the Seine to 
 Troyes, and that of Blucher from Nancy to Joinville 
 and down the Marne to St. Dizier. This separate 
 line of advance was just what Napoleon most desired. 
 It gave him the chance of beating first one then the 
 other. Blucher's being the smaller body he turned 
 first upon him. His plan was excellent ; but it failed 
 through one of those accidents which in war have so 
 often frustrated the most ably devised schemes. An 
 
 H 
 
98 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 intercepted despatch disclosed the movement to the 
 Allies. An indecisive action at Brienne, on January 
 28th, was succeeded by Napoleon's defeat at La 
 Rothiere on February 1st, where he lost heavily and 
 had 54 guns and 3000 men taken by the enemy. 
 
 After this victory the Allies again separated their 
 armies whilst Napoleon fell back upon Nogent. In 
 the meantime, whilst Schwarzenberg was slowly and 
 timidly following the retreating Emperor, Blucher was 
 pushing past beyond him to the north making straight 
 for Paris. In the haste of movement Blucher had, for 
 the convenience of administration, broken up his 
 army into detachments. Sacken with 15,000 men 
 was at Ferte-sous-Jouarre ; York's corps was dis- 
 seminated along the road towards Chateau Thierry ; 
 5000 Russians were at Champ-Aubert ; and Blucher 
 himself was at Fere-Champenoise with 20,000 men. 
 Here was a great chance for a man of Napoleon's 
 quick perception and decision. He first attacked and 
 destroyed the Russians at Champ-Aubert, then turned 
 upon Sacken whom he defeated with a loss of 26 
 guns and 4000 prisoners besides killed and wounded, 
 the remnants of his force, together with York's corps, 
 being driven by Mortier northwards towards Soissons. 
 Marmont who, in full communication with Napoleon, 
 had been slowly falling back before Blucher's own 
 corps during these events was now joined by the 
 Emperor. At Vauchamp Blucher found himself 
 obliged to fall back and was vigorously pursued by 
 Marmont who surprised and defeated his rearguard 
 of Russians under Ourousoff. In this retreat Blucher 
 lost 15 guns and 8000 men. 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF \%l\. 99 
 
 It was now Schwarzenberg's turn. With the main 
 army he had advanced towards Paris as far as the 
 River Yeres but was there held in check by Oudinot, 
 Victoi and Macdonald. Putting his guards into carts 
 and carriages and marching night and day, Napoleon 
 joined those Marshals on January 16th at Guignes. 
 The following day he surprised the advance-guard of 
 the Allies at Mormant, when this huge army fell 
 back, pursued by Napoleon's handful of men, and did 
 not halt till beyond Troyes. 
 
 This new condition of things weakened the Coali- 
 tion, for each of the Allied sovereigns seemed more 
 than ever to think of the position his own army would 
 occupy at the end of the war rather than of the 
 measures required to bring it to a conclusion. Each 
 was intent upon what was to be his share in the 
 plunder when the terms of peace were settled. The 
 fact that certain provinces were actually held by the 
 troops of any one particular Power when the cessation 
 of hostilities came about would be a strong argument 
 in- favour of their retention by that Power. All were 
 therefore anxious to place themselves in what would 
 be the most advantageous position when the war 
 should come to an end. Austria desired to secure 
 large territory in Italy ; but as, thanks to Eugene's 
 skilful generalship, Italy had not yet been conquered 
 Austrian statesmen had no desire whatever to bring 
 about a premature peace. The real director of the 
 Austrian army's movements at this time was not 
 Schwarzenberg but the wily Metternich. That subtle 
 and crafty statesman had negotiated the secession of 
 Bavaria, Wurtemberg and Saxony, and he thought 
 
 H 2 
 
ioo THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 that Austria's claims to supersede France in the 
 leadership of the states which had formed the Con- 
 federation of the Rhine should therefore be recog- 
 nised. Having secured Murat's co-operation against 
 his former master and benefactor he had every hope 
 of being able in a short time to expel Eugene and 
 occupy the Italian provinces. In order, however, to 
 be in a position to enforce Austria's claims to these 
 advantages it was necessary that the Austrian army 
 should be kept as strong as possible. He was quite 
 willing that Blucher, in his eagerness to seize Paris, 
 should knock the Prussian and the Russian armies to 
 pieces but he was determined that Schwarzenberg 
 should do nothing of the kind with his army. The 
 tardy appearance in Switzerland at this time of 
 Augereau's corps in the rear of the Allies, came, there- 
 fore, as a convenient excuse for what was otherwise 
 desirable — I mean, the further falling back of the 
 Grand Army. The Allies of Austria were quite alive 
 to the true nature of Metternich's policy and to the 
 reasons which dictated it but they were not in a 
 position to quarrel with her about it. They were con- 
 sequently compelled to bend to the inevitable and 
 devise a plan of campaign to accord with" her obvious 
 intentions. 
 
 Under strong pressure from England, Bernadotte 
 had despatched from the north the corps of Woronzoff 
 and Bulow to support Blucher in his next attempt to 
 reach Paris by the valley of the Marne. The former 
 joined Blucher when Wintzingerode's corps had taken 
 possession of Soissons and St. Priest was bringing up 
 a reinforcement of some 12,000 men through the 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1814. 
 
 Ardennes and Chalons. Blucher's army, including these, 
 was over 100,000 strong. It was now decided that 
 Blucher should play the first and active part in the cam- 
 paign whilst Schwarzenberg remained on the defen- 
 sive : if Napoleon turned upon Blucher's army, the 
 Grand Army under Schwarzenberg was to advance 
 cautiously ; disgusted as the other members of the 
 Coalition were at such a plan of operations they were 
 made to feel it was all they could expect from their 
 Austrian allies. 
 
 Napoleon had arrived before Troyes on February 
 22nd ; and on the 24th Blucher, without waiting to 
 get his army in hand, pushed forward to attack 
 Marmont on the Marne. Marmont fell back before 
 the fiery Prussian towards La Ferte-sous-Jouarre. 
 There he was within supporting distance by Mortier, 
 who had been watching Wintzingerode, who had 
 moved from Soissons to Rheims, and Bulow who had 
 reached Laon. As soon as Wintzingerode had 
 quitted Soissons Mortier recaptured it and placed in 
 it a fairly strong garrison under General .Moreau.* 
 Mortier and Marmont together could only muster 
 12,000 men but by a skilful use of the Marne and the 
 Ourcq they checked Blucher's advance beyond the 
 latter river till March 1st, when they were reinforced 
 by 6,000 men from Paris. 
 
 Meanwhile Napoleon, leaving Troyes on February 
 27th, hastened with 25,000 men to the support of his 
 Marshals and was at Ferte-sous-Jouarre, in Blucher's 
 
 * This General Moreau must not be confounded with 
 Napoleon's old rival for power, who had been killed the 
 previous year by a chance round shot. 
 
102 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 rear, by March ist. Napoleon's prospects of dealing 
 Blucher a deadly blow now seemed most brilliant, and 
 he must have felt as if he had him already in the 
 hollow of his hand. Blucher had no choice but to 
 retreat in all haste northwards by way of Soissons. 
 But Napoleon knew that it was held by Moreau and 
 that its defences had recently been improved. He at 
 once pushed Marmont and Mortier in pursuit and on 
 March 3rd crossed the Marne with his own force in 
 support of them. Blucher had called to him Wintzin- 
 gerode and also Bulow who had arrived vid Holland 
 and Belgium and who, upon reaching Soissons, had 
 induced Moreau to surrender just at the moment 
 when Napoleon was expecting to gain the full advan- 
 tage of a fortified post on Blucher's only possible line 
 of retreat. It is difficult to say what might have 
 happened had Moreau done his duty ; for, with an 
 army recently defeated to be forced across an unford- 
 able river by an antagonist of Napoleon's calibre is an 
 ugly business under all circumstances. It is certain 
 that Moreau was not a traitor but he was a weak- 
 kneed creature unworthy of any responsibility in war. 
 Napoleon was furious, and most justly so, when he 
 heard the news. " Have that miserable creature 
 arrested," he wrote, " and also the members of the 
 council of defence : have them arraigned before a 
 Military Commission consisting of general officers, 
 and, in God's name, see that they are shot in twenty- 
 four hours." Had Moreau held out for a day and a 
 half longer than he did I cannot see how Blucher could 
 have escaped an overwhelming disaster. Thiers refers 
 to this surrender in his usual inflated terms as, next to 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1814. 103 
 
 Waterloo, the most fatal event in French history. 
 This may be a great" exaggeration ; but, as far as the 
 war of 1 8 14 in France was concerned, it is not too 
 much to say that Napoleon's star set when Soissons 
 surrendered. No such other opportunity again pre- 
 sented itself in this campaign. 
 
104 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE campaign OF 1 8 1 4— continued. 
 
 On the night of March 3rd Blucher safely crossed the 
 Aisne and took up a position between Craonne and 
 Soissons along its northern bank. Napoleon, crossing 
 that same river at Berry-au-Bac in advance of his 
 Marshals, who were engaged in an unsuccessful 
 attempt on Soissons, turned Blucher's left, defeated 
 Woronsoff at Craonne and pushed on by the Soissons 
 road to Laon, whither Blucher, on finding his left 
 turned, had withdrawn his whole army. 
 
 The battle of Laon followed on March 9th. 
 Marmont's attack from the south-east had been fairly 
 successful during the day, as Blucher, under the im- 
 pression that there must be some central body between 
 Marmont and Napoleon who was advancing from the 
 south-west, hesitated to attack. Having at last 
 discovered his mistake he fell upon Marmont's 
 bivouacs by night and nearly destroyed him, taking 
 45 guns and 2,500 prisoners. It was a tremendous 
 blow to Napoleon at this stage of his fortunes ; but, 
 far from succumbing to it he resolved to continue his 
 own attack upon Laon the following day. He had 
 less than 20,000 men, but he calculated that, in order 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1814. 105 
 
 to make sure of success in his attack upon Marmont, 
 Blucher must have seriously reduced the force now 
 opposed to himself. It was not until he had ascertained 
 that Blucher was concentrating all his force with the 
 intention of falling upon him that he at last yielded 
 
 TALLEYRAND. 
 
 to the entreaties of his Marshals and fell back upon 
 Soissons. Before as well as after the battle of Laon it 
 was of importance to Napoleon that he should husband 
 his resources in every possible way. As a matter of 
 abstract prudence, theiefore, it could not have been 
 
106 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON- 
 
 wise of him to attack an enemy nearly threefold his 
 strength and in a good defensive position. Besides, 
 he would have been the first to have condemned any 
 of his Marshals who had allowed, as he had done, one 
 fraction of his army to advance by the road from 
 Soissons to Laon while the other marched by a road 
 beyond all supporting distance from it — that is, by the 
 road from Berry-au-Bac to that same town. The 
 point of concentration was also known to be in occupa- 
 tion of the enemy — a fact which rendered the opera- 
 tion still more dangerous and still further opposed to 
 the well-understood maxims of war. This northern 
 movement upon Soissons and Laon cost Napoleon 
 and the Allies about 12,000 men each; but whilst 
 the former could not replace his loss the latter 
 were at once able to do so. Blucher lost a great 
 chance at Laon for had he but launched the whole 
 of his troops upon Napoleon, it is difficult to see 
 how the little French army in his front could have 
 been saved from utter destruction. But it has been 
 well said indeed of all the contests in this campaign 
 that the great Corsican's presence, like Medusa's 
 head, invariably paralysed as well as terrorised his 
 enemies. 
 
 In the several rapid movements he made from one 
 flank to the other of the theatre of war, Napoleon had 
 seldom with him more than about 25,000 men. Each 
 time that he marched from right to left or vice versd, 
 he was of course compelled to leave behind a sufficient 
 number to conceal his departure from whatever Allied 
 forces had been in front of him, and also to make head 
 against them should they assume an active offensive 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1814. 107 
 
 in his absence. Rumour, however, always greatly 
 exaggerated his numbers and he took every care to do 
 so himself by all possible methods. Indeed, his move- 
 ments were so extremely rapid that he never gave the 
 enemy time to ascertain his real strength for his 
 practice always was to strike at once when he reached 
 the hostile forces. An exaggerated notion of his 
 numbers was therefore easily fostered. His audacity 
 in striking with his little army at part of Schwarz- 
 enberg's vast host of 120,000 men was of itself suffi- 
 cient to make his opponents believe that he was strong, 
 for it was not thought he would venture upon such 
 daring operations unless he had a powerful army 
 behind him. Throughout this phase of the campaign 
 he relied almost entirely upon his own skill in 
 handling troops ; he looked to the terror of his name 
 to keep him out of serious danger whilst he trusted 
 greatly to his luck and to Schwarzenberg's bungling 
 and cautious slowness for opportunities to pull the 
 chestnuts from between the bars before the fire could 
 touch them. 
 
 On March nth the Russian general St. Priest took 
 the fortified town of Rheims by sudden assault during 
 the night — a place of considerable strategic importance 
 at the moment as its possession re-established com- 
 munications between the still widely separated armies 
 of Blucher and Schwarzenberg. St. Priest, foolishly 
 believing that Napoleon's army had been destroyed by 
 Blucher at Laon, billeted his 15,000 men in the 
 villages round Rheims and took little or no precau- 
 tions to protect them from surprise. Napoleon, aware 
 of St. Priest's isolated position, moved secretly and by 
 
io8 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 forced marches upon Rheims, and on March 13th 
 retook the town and drove him in great disorder and 
 with great loss from the neighbourhood. 
 
 This reappearance of Napoleon on the field of battle 
 at a moment when the Allies had begun to think his 
 end had come drew from one of his distinguished 
 opponents the following remarks : " We expect to see 
 this terrible man everywhere. He has beaten us all, 
 one after the other: we dread the audacity of his 
 enterprises the rapidity of his movements and his 
 able combinations. One has scarcely conceived any 
 scheme of operations before he destroys it." 
 
 Napoleon's fierce attack upon Laon, his practical 
 destruction of St. Priest and his bold stay at Rheims 
 close to Blucher's position on the Aisne were not 
 without their effect. We find that, notwithstanding 
 the great Prussian general's feverish anxiety to finish 
 the war, he did not again venture to move southwards 
 beyond that river until March 20th — until, in fact, he 
 knew that Napoleon had quitted Rheims. Napoleon 
 halted at that place from March 14th to 17th ; and 
 on the latter date, gathering in some fresh reinforce- 
 ments, marched to Epernay in order to threaten 
 Schwarzenberg who had only ventured to advance 
 beyond Troyes when he heard, on the 14th, of 
 Napoleon's repulse at Laon. But the Austrian 
 commander-in-chief moved slowly and cautiously 
 driving before him Macdonald and Oudinot who had 
 been left to watch him. As soon, however, as he 
 heard that Napoleon had reached Epernay he again 
 took alarm and again fell back pursued in hot haste 
 by Napoleon, who made for Arces-sur-Aube full of 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1814. 109 
 
 confidence notwithstanding his very great inferiority 
 in strength. 
 
 A sudden change now came over the plans of the 
 Allies. The Czar had long inwardly chafed at the 
 repeated retreats and uncertain movements of the 
 Allied forces whenever and wherever Napoleon made 
 his appearance, even with the most insignificant 
 numbers. The fear that Austria might withdraw 
 from the Coalition had now passed away ; for by a 
 new treaty each nation had pledged itself not to make 
 any treaty without the consent of the other Allied 
 powers. The Emperor Alexander consequently felt 
 that he might now safely insist upon a sounder and 
 more active military policy. The result was an order 
 issued to all the component parts of the Allied army 
 under Schwarzenberg's command to march north- 
 wards, and, having joined hands with Blucher, to press 
 on direct for Paris as one concentrated army no 
 matter what Napoleon might do. The Allied army 
 was engaged in striving to effect this intended con- 
 centration near Arces when Napoleon took up his 
 position there. He soon found himself nearly hemmed 
 in and with difficulty effected his retreat across the 
 Aube. In order to secure the bridges he had himself 
 to dismount and, sword in hand, rally the fugitives. 
 
 His fortunes now appeared to be almost at their 
 last ebb. He had the advantage of operating upon 
 interior lines and of interposing between the two 
 great masses into which the invading army was 
 divided, but yet he had been roughly and with great 
 loss repulsed by both. He clearly saw that they 
 were at last bent upon closing in upon him to crush 
 
no THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 him between them. In the south Wellington had 
 beaten Soult at Orthez and was advancing on 
 Toulouse, having despatched Beresford to Bordeaux 
 where he had been received with enthusiasm ; and 
 La Vendee was moving in behalf of the Bourbons. 
 He was begirt with enemies and his friends were 
 only half-hearted, yet he did not despair. The 
 calmness with which he faced disaster, the resource 
 and ingenuity with which he contrived to find hope 
 and almost substantial grounds for hope, is most 
 remarkable. Think what we may of him per- 
 sonally, we cannot refuse to admire the magnificent 
 courage and indomitable spirit of this self-contained 
 giant of strength and superhuman genius. 
 
 He could no longer oppose the direct advance of 
 the Allies upon Paris ; but there was still one course 
 open to him : he might fall upon their lines of 
 communication with all the troops he could collect 
 whilst Joseph did his best to defend the capital. He 
 calculated that there had been already time for the 
 recovery and convalescence of the invalids thrown 
 into the great frontier fortresses of Luxembourg, 
 Verdun, Metz, Thionville, etc., etc., and also for the 
 tolerable training of many conscripts within those 
 places. These fresh troops would swell his ranks 
 and the possession of those fortresses for purposes of 
 supply would enable him to move with great freedom. 
 By this daring operation he hoped to relieve Paris of 
 all or at least of any serious pressure upon it. This 
 calculation was based upon the supposition that, in 
 accordance with all tradition all theory and all 
 precedent in formally conducted armies, the Allies 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1814. 
 
 would conceive it to be an unquestioned necessity 
 to fall back in order to restore and protect their 
 communications with the Rhine which Napoleon had 
 fallen upon and cut off. He also attached great 
 importance to the moral effect which this startling 
 and very bold combination would have upon his own 
 soldiers as well as upon the enemy. But its success 
 depended upon the defence of Paris by Joseph until 
 Napoleon had had time to reach the valley of the 
 Meuse with all his available forces. This was the 
 weak point in his scheme ; for his poor feeble brother 
 was a broken reed to rest upon, and he had not even 
 taken any effective steps to place Paris beyond the 
 danger of a coup de main. 
 
 When Napoleon started from Arces-sur-Aube in 
 the direction of Vitri and St. Dizier, to carry out his 
 new and daring project, his numbers were too .small 
 to enable him to act successfully upon the enemy's 
 rear. He had consequently to draw to himself 
 Pacthod's division, then at Bergeres, and the corps 
 of Marmont and Mortier which he had left to 
 watch Blucher when he turned south to fall upon 
 Schwarzenberg. But in taking these troops with him 
 he withdrew from the neighbourhood of Paris the 
 only really good corps allotted for its defence and 
 upon which its safety most depended. As Blucher 
 had advanced they had fallen back in a south-westerly 
 direction towards the capital and had reached 
 Fere-en-Tardenois when they received Napoleon's 
 order to join him at St. Dizier by way of Chalons. 
 Had these orders reached them before Blucher, in 
 his southward movement to join Schwarzenberg, had 
 
112 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 reached a position to the eastward of them they could 
 easily have complied ; but, as it was, their only chance 
 of doing so then was by a cross-country road to Vitri. 
 
 For the second time in this campaign an intercepted 
 despatch disclosed the Emperor's project to the 
 enemy. Anxious to keep up the failing spirits of the 
 dejected court in Paris, he had written his wife a full 
 account of the project which he still hoped would 
 restore his fortunes. And this it- was that fell into 
 the enemy's hands on March 24th. 
 
 As long as Blucher and Schwarzenberg had operated 
 independently against Paris with a great interval 
 between their armies, the central line, that between 
 Paris and Chalons, was generally available for 
 Napoleon's movements. This was, he deemed, all the 
 safer now since he had driven those two hostile armies 
 so wide apart. Not only had he consequently 
 ordered Marmont and Mortier to use it in coming to 
 him but other troops were then marching westward 
 by it. General Compans with about three thousand 
 men had reached La Ferte en route to join him by 
 Sezanne. Two divisions of the National Guard were 
 nearing Chalons with a large convoy of artillery. All 
 these detachments, in ignorance of their danger, were 
 moving independently between the two Allied armies, 
 whose presence they were not aware of, whilst 
 Napoleon at the same moment was farther from Paris 
 than either Blucher or Schwarzenberg. This was a 
 very dangerous condition of things for the French. 
 
 When the full nature of Napoleon's scheme became 
 known to the Allies, Blucher at once resolved that 
 instead of pressing south-westwards by himself 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1814. 113 
 
 towards Paris he would march direct upon Chalons 
 to ensure his junction with Schwarzenberg in the 
 great open country between it and Vitri. Having 
 begun this movement, he despatched at the same 
 time a large force of cavalry and horse artillery under 
 Wintzingerode towards St. Dizier. This he did in 
 order to conceal the intended movement of the two 
 concentrated armies upon Paris which was now laid 
 open to them by Napoleon's movement towards Chau- 
 mont and the Upper Meuse. Schwarzenberg at first 
 was somewhat alarmed by the news contained in the 
 intercepted despatch ; but as one consequence of 
 Napoleon's movement on St. Dizier and thence south- 
 wards upon Doulevent, the French cavalry had chased 
 from Chaumont and Bar-sur-Aube the Allied diplo- 
 matic headquarters with the Emperor of Austria and 
 Metternich. They had fled to Dijon. Schwarzenberg 
 was by this relieved of the clog upon all his plans and 
 movements which their vicinity had proved ; and as 
 he could no longer, for the time at least, appeal to the 
 authority of his court he consented to the now 
 strongly expressed desire of the Czar that the Grand 
 Army should at once join Blucher and that the two 
 armies so united .should march direct upon Paris, 
 regardless of what Napoleon might do. The Allied 
 forces having effected their junction as intended 
 moved forward at last for Paris on March 24th, as 
 one vast force, to the delight of all the soldiers in 
 those armies. Its advance was in two columns 
 covered by great masses of horsemen, who on 
 the 25th upon reaching Soude-Sainte-Croix — about 
 half-way between Vitri and Fere Champenoise — 
 
114 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 struck upon Marmont's camp just as Mortier's 
 columns had reached it. Those two Marshals were 
 very roughly handled and driven back in the utmost 
 disorder upon Fere Champenoise, and finally upon 
 Allemant near Sezanne. The French troops as a 
 body had not behaved well this day and their losses 
 were very heavy. Whilst the Marshals were so 
 engaged, a great artillery-train together with a large 
 ammunition and provision convoy, also bound for 
 Napoleon's camp, came upon the scene to the north- 
 ward. Abandoned to its fate by the flying troops 
 under Marmont and Mortier, arid overwhelmed on all 
 sides by cavalry and horse artillery, it was totally 
 destroyed. Altogether, the French loss this day 
 amounted to 60 guns and about 10,000 men. 
 
 Cut off from all possibility of joining Napoleon 
 and almost surrounded by enemies, the defeated 
 Marshals had to make a wide detour by Melun in 
 order to get back between Paris and the now steadily 
 advancing and concentrated Allied armies. They 
 reached Charenton — to the south-east of the city — at 
 midday on March 29th. 
 
 By that date the Allies also had reached the neigh- 
 bourhood of the capital upon its northern and eastern 
 sides. The Empress and the Council of Regency 
 escaped to Blois in accordance with Napoleon's 
 instructions, leaving Joseph to provide for the defence 
 of the city. Nothing could have been more feeble 
 than his conduct in this emergency. The force at his 
 disposal consisted of some cadres of the Guard into 
 which at the last moment he had poured some 
 thousands of conscripts. Marmont and Mortier had 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1814. 115 
 
 brought back about 12,000 men and Compans, lately 
 reinforced by a few battalions, was in command of 
 some 6000 more. General Money had taken command 
 of about 5000 of the National Guard who had been 
 lately organised. There was a large quantity of 
 heavy guns available, but no adequate steps had been 
 taken to place them in position or to establish any 
 defensive works on the commanding heights round 
 Paris. We often hear much ignorant ridicule of 
 permanent fortifications and this is a good illustration 
 of how foolish it sometimes is ; for if in 1814 that city 
 had been protected by external forts, as in 1870, the 
 result of this campaign might have been very 
 different. But far-seeing as Napoleon generally 
 was he had not contemplated the possibility — until 
 too late — of Paris, the centre and focus of his power, 
 being assailed by an enemy. Had he even in the 
 month of January constructed great field works on 
 the east and north and south of Paris and thickly 
 armed them with heavy guns, the city might have 
 held out whilst he, in the valley of the Meuse, made 
 havoc of his enemies' lines of communication. 
 
 The Allies pressed forward upon the north of Paris 
 on a front extending from the St. Denis (Bois de 
 Boulogne) road eastward to Belleville and Romainville, 
 and upon March 30th drove the French from all their 
 forward positions into the city. Joseph then authorised 
 Marmont to negotiate for the evacuation of the place, 
 and by the evening of that same day a convention 
 having been agreed to, all hostilities ceased. 
 
 Meanwhile Napoleon's cavalry had actually seized 
 Chaumont directly on Schwarzenberg's line of 
 
 I 2 
 
Il6 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 communication. He was himself at Doulevent on 
 March 25th, anxiously awaiting the arrival of Marmont 
 and Mortier on the very day of their great disaster 
 when it was reported to him that large masses of the 
 enemy's cavalry were in sight. For the moment no 
 news could have pleased him better, for it seemed to 
 imply that, as he had calculated upon, Schwarzenberg 
 was falling back to restore his communications. He 
 at once moved to the attack with all the forces he had 
 at hand, hoping to cut his way through the hostile 
 horse and join hands with the Marshals whom he 
 hourly expected. This cavalry of the enemy was 
 under Wintzingerode, and over it he gained a brilliant 
 success driving it at last with great loss to the north- 
 east far off the immediate zone of operations and 
 beyond Bar le Due. It was from his prisoners he then 
 first gathered some indication of what had happened. 
 In the first place he was startled to find that it was 
 with Blucher's and not with Schwarzenberg's army 
 he had been fighting. Secondly, they all reported 
 vague rumours of the Allies' march upon Paris. It 
 became therefore vitally important he should ascertain 
 the facts. 
 
 Halting himself at St. Dizier, he pushed a strong 
 reconnaissance forward to Vitri on the 26th. From it 
 for the first time he heard of the Marshal's defeat at 
 Fere-Champenoise on the 25 th, and also that Talley- 
 rand and his party had summoned the Allies to Paris, 
 whither they had marched. 
 
 Even after the reception of this news his own 
 inclination was to adhere to his plan for moving on the 
 enemy's communications with every man he could 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1814. 117 
 
 collect, leaving the Allies to do their worst upon Paris. 
 But the series of disasters his arms had sustained 
 during the last three campaigns had robbed him of 
 much of his old undisputed sway. Most of his 
 generals were despondent — Berthier, his chief of the 
 staff, most so. All agreed that he must either save 
 Paris or succumb. The pressure brought to bear by 
 those about him was now too strong to be resisted. 
 Two years before he would have summarily dismissed 
 the man who ventured unasked to give him any advice 
 at all. Besides, he began to realise that Paris could 
 not hold out long enough against the Allies' overwhelm- 
 ing numbers to enable him to attack and spread disorder 
 in the enemy's rear. He consequently hurried back 
 towards Paris with all the troops he could take with 
 him in one of his rapid, relayed marches. Travelling 
 post, and moving by Troyes, he reached Fontainebleau 
 on March 31st. There he learnt that Paris had 
 surrendered, but even yet he was by no means 
 disposed to give up the game. On the very day of 
 his arrival he addressed a despatch to the Empress 
 telling her of the rising en masse of the eastern 
 provinces, of the capture of all sorts of distinguished 
 people when his cavalry broke in upon the diplomatic 
 headquarters, etc., etc. He went upon the plan of 
 telling untruths without hesitation when he thought it 
 advisable to spread abroad the most flattering stories 
 of his victories and of the losses inflicted upon the 
 enemy. 
 
 Paris being now lost to him, he makes arrange- 
 ments for prosecuting the war with Orleans as his 
 new base and new seat of government. Orders were 
 
Ii8 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 issued for the concentration of all his forces, both 
 those which fell back from Paris upon its surrender 
 and those which had been following his rapid move- 
 ments ; they were to take up a position south of Paris 
 between it and Essonne. He provides for the reor- 
 ganisation of the civil government, appointing special 
 prefects and other administrative officers to assist him 
 in carrying on the war upon which he is still bent. 
 
 But able as his conceptions are, clever and business- 
 like as are all his arrangements, he is no longer the 
 absolute monarch who can feel certain of his orders 
 being obeyed. His Guards and the privates and 
 under-officers generally are still faithful and will 
 follow him anywhere ; but the Marshals whom he 
 has raised from the ranks, and the Senate whose 
 members owe their places and fortunes to him, all 
 have determined, and wisely determined for the sake 
 of France, that the war shall end — that there shall be 
 peace no matter how destructive its terms may be 
 to the master who had made them. Amongst the 
 many ways in which the personal loyalty of the rank 
 and file to Napoleon at this juncture shows in strong 
 contrast with the calculated treason of his generals, the 
 following story is a good illustration : Marmont, acting 
 within his right — within his duty in fact — entered 
 into negotiations for himself and on behalf of his 
 corps that they would abide by the decree of the 
 Senate. When on April 2nd that body declared the 
 Emperor deposed and nominated a Provisional Govern- 
 ment, Marmont issued orders on the assumption that 
 his men felt as he did. But when they and their 
 regimental officers learned that the intention was to 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF, 1814. 119 
 
 abandon Napoleon they refused to obey. Marmont 
 was riding towards his corps when the generals met 
 him and told him this news, warning him at the same 
 time that he would certainly be shot if he appeared 
 on parade. He was too brave a man to fear his 
 own soldiers so he rode in amongst them. After a 
 very French scene where everybody seems to have 
 cried together he succeeded in carrying his corps 
 with him and led them into the camp of the Allies. 
 
 For some time there was much talk of a Regency 
 under the Empress until Napoleon's son was old 
 enough to reign, but all felt that this would only 
 mean Napoleon under a new guise. Even he himself 
 scoffed at the notion of a Regency under a child, as 
 he called his wife. The only other alternative was 
 the restoration of the Bourbons, and for this the Allies 
 declared. As Talleyrand well said, " the Regency 
 was an intrigue, the Bourbons alone were a prin- 
 ciple." 
 
 It was his Marshals who forced Napoleon to abdi- 
 cate. They were sick of war, had drunk deep of its 
 glory and had exhausted all the rewards it was in 
 the power of their great leader to bestow. For the 
 ten previous years many of them had not spent as 
 many months at home. The story of Marmont's 
 desertion of the master who had raised him to a great 
 position would require an article to itself. Whatever 
 posterity may think of its morality, there can be no 
 doubt that it was the final blow which destroyed 
 Napoleon in 18 14. We are asked by some historians 
 to condemn these men because the sovereign they 
 destroyed had covered them with wealth and honours ; 
 
120 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 but it must not be forgotten that they had then to 
 decide between fidelity to him and loyalty to their 
 countiy. Who can therefore justly blame them ? 
 Not surely those whose ancestors deserted James II. 
 and joined the great William of Nassau because the 
 welfare of England depended upon the success of the 
 Revolution ! 
 
 On April 5th and 6th Napoleon urged his Marshals 
 to follow him behind the Loire and continue the 
 struggle. He appealed to their loyalty and to those 
 feelings which attach soldiers to great leaders ; but 
 all in vain. As scheme upon scheme was projected 
 in that colossal, that labyrinthine mind of his, how 
 the iron must have entered into his soul as he, the 
 " man of thousand thrones," was forced to listen to 
 his Marshals, his former humble servants, when they 
 declared in tones of dictation and of menace that he 
 must abdicate unconditionally for they would take no 
 part in the civil war which his proposed action would 
 entail upon France ! Convinced as many are that 
 the campaign of 18 14 was not only a folly but a 
 crime, still one cannot contemplate Napoleon's last 
 week at Fontainebleau without the deepest feeling of 
 pity for his lot. And who can withhold his admira- 
 tion of the sterling courage, the honest fidelity and 
 simple loyalty of the rank and file to the master who 
 had so often led them to victory ? Although we may 
 feel that he was little worthy of their noble devotion, 
 who will deny his meed of praise to the humble, 
 warm-hearted and gallant French soldier for bestow- 
 ing it upon the idol of his life ? 
 
 As soon as it became generally known at Fontaine- 
 
TRE CAMPAIGN OF 1814. 
 
 bleau that Napoleon had abdicated he was deserted 
 by his generals and by nearly all his staff, and very 
 few officers remained even to do duty at his head- 
 quarters. 
 
 On April nth Napoleon issued an address to the 
 army that had remained faithful to him, spoke his 
 famous farewell to his Generals and signed his Act of 
 Abdication. The Allies gave him the pleasant little 
 island of Elba as his future residence and allowed 
 him to play there at royalty under the title of 
 Emperor, with a small party of his Guards and such 
 of his courtiers as wished to accompany him into exile. 
 These easy terms entailed upon the world a risk of 
 war which the Allies were not justified in permitting. 
 He was the Peace-Destroyer of Europe and his re- 
 appearance in France at any time would mean more 
 war, more miseiy to nations, his own adopted nation 
 included. Having at last, after great suffering and 
 exertions, caught this unrivalled bird of prey they 
 should not have contented themselves with any mere 
 clipping of his wings : they should have pinioned him 
 and have closely caged him, as they subsequently did 
 at St. Helena, and taken every precaution, no matter 
 how inconvenient to him, to render his escape im- 
 possible. Had he been in their place no sentimental 
 feeling for fallen greatness, for defeated royalty would 
 have influenced his decision ; his knowledge of human 
 nature, his practical common sense would have told 
 him that Napoleon Bonaparte was not the man to 
 remain long a prisoner in a little island from which 
 escape was comparatively easy. Had proper pre- 
 cautions been taken in 18 14 to prevent his ever again 
 
122 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 troubling the world, what an amount of bloodshed 
 and of consequent misery the Allies would have 
 saved Europe, what defeat and further abasement 
 they would have spared France ! 
 
 Wellington's final stroke which shattered Soult's 
 army at Toulouse was not delivered until six days 
 after the date of Napoleon's abdication, so slowly in 
 those days did news travel. Soult had heard vague 
 rumours of what had taken place at Paris and Fon- 
 tainebleau but had received no official authority for 
 a suspension of arms. 
 
 And so ended the much-talked-of and very remark- 
 able campaign of 1814. Until the Napoleonic idea, 
 so fostered by the writings of M. Thiers, had led 
 France into the war of 1870 it was the common study 
 of all military students as a brilliant example of 
 the offensive-defensive. It is full of instruction for 
 soldiers, and also abounds in incidents that are fitting 
 subjects for the high-flown exaggeration of the 
 grandiloquent French historian in his description 
 of the wounded tiger's death-struggle ; woe be- 
 tide the man who dared to approach within reach 
 of even his crippled strength ! But looking at it 
 from the standpoint of French patriotism — if an 
 Englishman can do so — one feels obliged to condemn 
 it as a campaign that should never have taken place. 
 The odds against Napoleon when he determined 
 upon it, were so overwhelming that nothing short of 
 a miracle in his favour could have secured him 
 eventual success. We admire, we praise the man 
 who when fighting solely for his country fights to 
 the last trusting to some chance miracle to give her 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1814. 125 
 
 the victory. But no one can be justified in fighting 
 out a war to the bitter end, as Napoleon did in 18 14, 
 when that war is waged for his own reasons and his 
 own personal objects. 
 
 In the actual theatre of war Napoleon's strategy 
 for the first three months of this year is beyond all 
 praise. But as a campaign, as a great episode in this 
 three years' war, it was based upon a thoroughly un- 
 sound military policy. When he made up his mind 
 to refuse the terms offered by the Allies before they 
 had crossed the Rhine he should have secured to 
 himself all the possible chances in his favour. I have 
 already referred to the garrisons in Germany and to 
 his armies in Spain which he might have withdrawn. 
 Why not at once have sent back to Madrid his 
 prisoner, the real king of Spain, having made an 
 advantageous peace with him ? This and his de- 
 position of Joseph, the poor unmilitary creature to 
 whom he had given that historic crown, would have 
 gone far towards conciliating what I may term the 
 spirit the sentiment of Divine Right to which the 
 Allied sovereigns attached considerable weight. It 
 would certainly have tended to make some of them 
 half-hearted in the contest and to weaken still more 
 the ties which kept the Alliance together. Had he 
 wished he might — immediately after Dresden — have 
 easily detached his father-in-law, the Emperor of 
 Austria, from the Coalition. Indeed, whilst freely 
 admitting that the whole strategic conception of the 
 campaigns of 18 13 and 18 14 was of the highest order, 
 the general military policy, largely based upon the 
 unexpected chances of the game, which he then pur- 
 
126 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 sued was faulty in the extreme ; and if an ordinary- 
 individual may venture to question the wisdom of the 
 man whom he believes to have been the greatest of 
 God's human creations, it was opposed to the interests 
 of exhausted France and most hurtful to what was 
 still dearer to him — I mean his own interests. Many 
 of the battles in this campaign are splendid examples 
 of Napoleon's best style of fighting and of his master- 
 genius in war, but they must not be confounded with 
 victories. They are so styled by M. Thiers and his 
 school ; but beyond the glory which some of them 
 shed upon him and the French army at the time, each 
 battle was little more than a serious reduction of his 
 already attenuated forces — that is, of his power to 
 continue the struggle against the practically inex- 
 haustible strength of the Allied armies then con- 
 verging upon Paris. The game played by the 
 invaders was a game of attrition reminding us very 
 much of that played by General Grant when brought 
 face to face with Lee, the Napoleon in ability of the 
 American civil war. Like General Grant, the Allies 
 were always ready to lose one thousand of their men 
 if they could only kill half that number of their 
 enemies. 
 
 In 1 8 14 Napoleon's army was a mixture of seasoned 
 soldiers and young conscripts in a proportion of about 
 one to five, and France has good reason to be proud of 
 them for all alike fought well. When overpowered 
 and beaten they did not condescend to attribute their 
 defeat — as under the Second Empire — to the treason 
 of their leaders. But let us at once disabuse ourselves 
 of the notion that they were fighting for France. 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1S14. 127 
 
 They fought for and at the bidding of the man 
 Napoleon Bonaparte, the great the magnificent 
 Emperor who had inundated France with glory — with 
 a glory that has never been surpassed and which 
 possibly may never again be equalled. 
 
 The Allies set to work in the Congress of Vienna 
 to provide for the disposition of what had once been 
 Napoleon's empire and there was much bickering over 
 the spoils. The Bourbons and the returned emigres 
 settled down to govern France again as if no Napoleon 
 had ever been born, certainly as if he no longer existed. 
 But the heterogeneous elements in France, the survival 
 of the Revolution as well as of the Empire, were quite 
 beyond the power of their narrow minds to grasp, 
 much less to deal with effectively. The strong hand 
 of a soldier-dictator like Napoleon was required to 
 control them. The task was far beyond the powers 
 of the few returned nobles and the handful of lawyers 
 who now essayed to govern France under a new 
 Bourbon king. But it would be beyond the scope of 
 my subject to deal with that interesting and com- 
 plicated story. Suffice it to say that it was the 
 quarrels of the Powers assembled in Congress at 
 Vienna and the manifest incapacity of the Bourbons 
 and of their followers to satisfy and control France, 
 that eventually gave another opportunity to the great 
 Soldier-King whose first fall I have here endeavoured 
 to describe. Of his wonderful resurrection for the 
 one hundred days which ended at Waterloo I shall 
 speak in the following chapters. 
 
128 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE HUNDRED DAYS. — THE BATTLE OF LIGNY. 
 
 At one o'clock in the afternoon of March ist, 1815, 
 three little ships cast anchor in the Gulf of St. Juan. 
 They carried the great Napoleon who, with some 
 eleven hundred of his finest soldiers, had escaped from 
 Elba, his badly-guarded prison-house, only a few days 
 before. For purposes of battle this handful of men 
 would have been useless but they were invaluable to 
 protect their master from police interference during his 
 advance upon Paris. 
 
 His return to. France was not influenced by any 
 deep patriotic motive but was the outcome of a 
 fiendish and inordinate ambition of the most selfish 
 kind. It meant a new outburst of war, more blood- 
 shed and a fresh crop of misery to Europe. France 
 required peace above all things after her many years 
 of Revolutionary horrors and devastating strife ; but 
 Napoleon from Elba brought her war with England 
 and every Continental State. His return begat new 
 trials and new sufferings for humanity. 
 
 The troops sent by Lewis XVIII. to oppose his 
 advance upon Paris greeted him with shouts of Vive 
 i 'Empereur. Even the chivalrous Ney, who had sworn 
 
THE HUNDRED DAYS. iig 
 
 allegiance to his new master, the Bourbon King, was 
 drawn into the great military whirlpool of revolt and 
 declared for the leader whose fortunes he had so long 
 followed both in sunshine and in gloom. 
 
 Napoleon entered Paris on March 21st, his journey 
 having been a sort of royal and triumphal progress. 
 When he reached the Tuileries he had good reason 
 for saying to Caulincourt that the success of his rash 
 venture was a return once more of that dazzling good- 
 fortune which had spoiled him during so many years. 
 
 As soon as it was known at Vienna that Napoleon 
 had landed in France the Plenipotentiaries, there 
 assembled in Congress, issued a formal notice of 
 outlawry against him. In it they declared that "as 
 an enemy and disturber of the tranquillity of the world 
 he is abandoned to public vengeance." All European 
 countries rang with the call to arms to crush this 
 tyrant this peace destroyer whom no Treaties could 
 bind. To help the nations of Europe, England 
 promised to pay them monthly, in proportion to 
 their armies, a total amount of over ^11,000,000 
 sterling. 
 
 Napoleon's first great want was time : to re-establish 
 his authority reorganise his government and create a 
 new army that would enable him to meet his enemies 
 in the field. He strove to divide the Coalition against 
 him by an endeavour to treat separately with each of 
 the Allied Powers. But they were not to be taken 
 in by his specious declarations and refused even to 
 receive his Envoys. 
 
 He had hoped that, once in the Tuileries again as 
 the accepted Sovereign of the people he would be 
 
 K 
 
130 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 able to take up the reins of government and rule as 
 before. He felt that it was only as Dictator he could 
 hope to steer France safely through the thousand 
 dangers with which his return surrounded her. A wise 
 man of action he was neither the fool nor the criminal 
 to imagine that the talkers and thinkers of the Senate 
 or those who in the Lower House babbled of liberty 
 and argued about the abstract principles of parlia- 
 mentary government were the men to rule France at 
 such a conjuncture. Had those who then directed her 
 destinies been wise and sincerely and heartily in his 
 favour they would with one voice have hailed him as 
 Dictator. But he soon found that nothing was then 
 further from their thoughts. To his soldiers he was 
 still the Emperor as of yore but the jabbering dreamers 
 in both Houses of Parliament persisted in regarding 
 him as merely the elected head of a constitutional 
 monarchy. The very men he had chosen to be his 
 ministers would not have him as Dictator, and his 
 brother Lucien — the irreconcilable Republican — was 
 openly opposed to any re-establishment of the Empire 
 upon its former basis. He soon realised that until 
 victory had decked him with a new aureole of Imperial 
 authority he could not hope to be again the undisputed 
 ruler of France unless indeed he would stoop to appeal 
 to the worst passions of the people generally. He 
 knew that with the military sentiment of the country 
 in his favour he might easily arouse such a crusade 
 against the rich the privileged classes and all those 
 who cried for a Bourbon King, that he might at once 
 become again the unquestioned and all-powerful 
 despot. But his experience of the Revolution horrors 
 
THE HUNDRED DAYS. 131 
 
 in his young days had given him a rooted loathing of 
 unbridled democracy and of mob rule. As he said at 
 St. Helena he had no wish or intention to be the King 
 of a modern Jacquerie. 
 
 As he would not be such a King and could not be 
 again the absolute Emperor the only line open to him 
 was that of Constitutional Sovereign — a position which 
 his advisers urged him to assume. His first and most 
 urgent want was an army sufficiently large to destroy 
 his enemies in the field and to obtain this he felt he 
 must bend before the pressure of his friends. Promises 
 always sat lightly upon him and he was now prepared 
 to promise anything if they would only give him what 
 he needed at the moment. In order therefore to 
 satisfy popular opinion he promulgated, on April 22nd, 
 a form of Constitution which on nearly all important 
 points closely resembled the Charter that had been 
 recently published by Lewis XVIII. But it is not 
 too much to say that this Constitution would not have 
 been worth the paper it was written on had he re- 
 turned triumphant to Paris after Waterloo. He 
 would then have quickly and rudely silenced those 
 who dared to babble of liberal and parliamentary 
 institutions. For the moment, however, it answered 
 his purpose. Indeed many were even foolish enough 
 to believe the statement in his new charter to the 
 effect that he had formerly postponed the introduc- 
 tion of free institutions into France in order to 
 establish a great federal system in Europe ; that he 
 was anxious to establish such a system because he 
 had always thought it would lead generally to 
 progress and civilisation, but that at any rate he 
 
 K 2 
 
132 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 would in future restrict his efforts to increase pros- 
 perity and strengthen public liberty at home. How 
 he must have laughed inwardly as he wrote this ! 
 
 Both Houses of his Parliament went out of their 
 way to remind him that he was merely the head 
 of a constitutionally governed country : that the two 
 Chambers were national and representative institu- 
 tions and no longer Napoleonic clubs as formerly. 
 To us now their addresses read as childishly comic ; 
 by him they were simply regarded as impertinent. In 
 one of his dignified answers he told them : " It is in 
 times of difficulty that great nations, like great men 
 unfold all the energy of their character and become 
 objects of admiration to posterity ! " He warned them 
 not to imitate the example of the leaders of the 
 Byzantine empire who had made themselves for ever 
 the laughing-stock of posterity by persisting in the 
 discussion of subtle abstract points of constitutional 
 procedure at a time when the barbarians were pressing 
 them on all sides and at the very moment even when 
 their battering-rams were breaking down the gates of 
 the capital. But much as he hated liberty in every 
 form, he did not then feel strong enough to dismiss his 
 half-hearted advisers upon the eve of that war with all 
 Europe which his escape from Elba had entailed upon 
 France. What were his inward reservations when he 
 swore to abide by this new constitution may be judged 
 from what he said aloud : " I am not the man to 
 permit a pack of lawyers to make my laws for me 
 nor to allow the factions to cut off my head." 
 
 Napoleon's reconquest of France was thus achieved 
 without bloodshed ; but it was more the unpopularity 
 
THE HUNDRED DAYS. 1 33 
 
 of the Bourbons than his own claims upon the people's 
 love which secured him this easy success. Their 
 conduct had been as foolish as it was unstatesmanlike. 
 Napoleon said justly of them that they had learnt 
 nothing from past experience and had forgotten 
 nothing. In heaping rewards and favours upon their 
 loyal adherents from whom they had nothing to fear, 
 they neglected, offended, and even oppressed their 
 enemies the children of the Revolution, who could 
 alone have kept them on the throne. They ignored 
 the effect which had been worked in the mind and 
 sentiment of the people by the Revolution as well as 
 by the glory, renown and pride with which its heir — 
 Napoleon — had covered every individual Frenchman. 
 Their adherents, the returned emigres, seemed to 
 treat all who were not Royalists as enemies and to 
 regard France as a country they had reconquered. 
 So strong was the anti-Bourbon feeling, especially in 
 Paris, that even if Napoleon had not escaped from 
 Elba it is tolerably certain a new revolution would 
 soon have chased Lewis XVIII. from the throne and 
 made Lewis-Philip king. Napoleon said of himself, 
 that upon reaching Paris it was not Lewis but the 
 Duke of Orleans he had dethroned. The thousands 
 of regimental officers of all grades who had been dis- 
 missed by the new king from the army to starve on 
 pittances that would not have supported so many 
 mechanics, were about the most dangerous men to the 
 Bourbon cause. All of them hailed Napoleon's return 
 with transports of joy. There were also thousands 
 in every class who, during the Revolution, having 
 purchased property belonging to the nobles and to 
 
134 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 the Church lived in dread of having it taken from 
 them by the Royalists. Napoleon quieted their fears 
 by confirming them in its possession — a popular act 
 which secured him a considerable following among 
 the men of influence and property. 
 
 From the hour of his arrival in Paris he worked 
 like a galley-slave. Few men indeed in the world's 
 history have effected in the same space of time any- 
 thing to be compared with what he accomplished 
 during the eighty-four days of his stay there. He 
 had to re-establish his authority all over France, to 
 tranquillise the country generally, put down Royalist 
 risings, obtain money for his military wants, adjust the 
 national finances and restore the civil administration 
 everywhere. All this he had to do at a time when the 
 whole of his energies were required to raise, organise 
 and supply with all fighting requisites an army 
 sufficiently large to enable him to meet Europe in 
 arms with any chance of success. 
 
 He succeeded in finding over £ 3,000,000 by Extra- 
 ordinary Loans and by forestalling the revenue of 
 future years. With this sum and about half that 
 amount which he found in the Treasuiy he was able 
 to fully equip the army of 200,000- men with which he 
 was about to take the field against Blucher and 
 Wellington in Flanders. 
 
 Whilst he was thus busily employed preparing for 
 the coming struggle the Allies on their side had been 
 slowly gathering their forces against him. Vast 
 armies of Russians, Austrians and Germans were in 
 movement towards the Rhine, and there were already 
 assembled in Belgium a heterogeneous army of 
 
THE HUNDRED DAYS. 135 
 
 Belgians, Dutch, Hanoverians, Germans and English- 
 men under Wellington, and if not a very good at least 
 a homogeneous Prussian army under Blucher. For 
 facility of feeding and supply, the troops of these two 
 armies in Belgium were, however, so scattered in can- 
 tonments over a wide extent of country that it would 
 take at least four days to concentrate them for battle 
 between Brussels and the French frontier. But the 
 fact is, the Allies did not expect Napoleon to assume 
 the offensive in June and all their plans were made 
 with a view to their own invasion of France later on, 
 but certainly not before July 1st, with an immense 
 army made up of Russians and Austrians as well as 
 of those nations already represented by the Allied 
 armies in Belgium. 
 
 Strange to say the full story of this Waterloo 
 campaign, the shortest and yet one of the most 
 decisive in our history, has yet to be written. It may 
 be said to have only lasted five — one might almost 
 say only four — days. Napoleon left Paris on June 
 1 2th for the valley of the Sambre and was back 
 there again on the 21st as a fallen and defeated 
 monarch. 
 
 Nelson's glorious victory at Trafalgar saved Eng- 
 land from invasion by a great and splendid army 
 under the first of all commanders, and it must con- 
 sequently be for ever regarded by us as an event of 
 the first importance in our history. But Wellington's 
 victory at Waterloo concerned the whole civilised 
 world and was fraught with the paramount import of 
 life and death to many European powers. The 
 interests involved in that one battle exceeded all that 
 
136 THE DECLIXE AXD FALL OF XAPOLEOX. 
 
 in modern history, before or since, have ever de- 
 pended upon one day's fighting. Yet it is not diffi- 
 cult to explain the causes which, until quite recent 
 years, have prevented the whole truth about it being 
 general!)' known. During this campaign there was 
 
 considerable friction between Wellington and Blucher's 
 Chief of the Staff, Count Gneisenau, who had long 
 been prejudiced against our great Duke. Circum- 
 stances connected with the battle of Waterloo and the 
 events immediately preceding it — to which I shall 
 allude presently — tended to strengthen this angry 
 
THE HUNDRED DAYS. 137 
 
 feeling. On. the other hand nothing could exceed 
 Prince Blucher's loyalty to Wellington ; and Baron 
 Muffling, the Prussian representative at the English 
 headquarters, united with the Prince in his profound 
 admiration for the Duke. Muffling, who disliked 
 Gneisenau and was fully aware of his feelings on this 
 point, was most anxious after Waterloo, in the interests 
 of both countries, to cover over and conceal many of 
 the actual incidents of the four days from June 15th 
 to 1 8th. The co-operation of the two armies had 
 resulted in one of the most glorious one of the most 
 complete victories on record — a victory which became 
 the starting-point of modern European politics. It 
 was but natural, therefore, that Gneisenau, whose 
 position gave him so much authority during the 
 campaign, should also be glad to accept his share in 
 the glory without saying much about his feelings at 
 the time of the battle. From a variety of causes 
 Wellington too had no great wish to discuss any 
 vexed question concerning Waterloo or to make known 
 the full truth regarding the events which led to it. 
 He was anxious to avoid having anything said that 
 might offend the Belgians as many of the Dutch- 
 Belgian troops, they had served under Napoleon in 
 famous wars before and were warmly attached to his 
 interests, had not behaved well in this campaign 
 against him. Moreover, many things had occurred in 
 the British army that were not in accordance with 
 Wellington's plans or intentions and he must have 
 felt that some of his own proceedings were fairly open 
 to hostile criticism. His movements had been slow 
 and he had been mistaken in his conception of his 
 
138 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 great opponent's plan of operations. Indeed, he had 
 been so deceived by Napoleon's cleverly devised 
 movements that up to almost the last moment he 
 persisted in believing that the French army would 
 manoeuvre round the English right in order to cut 
 him off from his line of retreat upon Ostend. Besides, 
 his staff had not served him well. Many of them 
 had been foisted upon him from home by private 
 and family interests and even against his wishes. 
 Believing in their statements he had in the forenoon 
 of June 15th, as will be mentioned later on, written 
 Blucher a letter in which the positions occupied by 
 his troops at the moment were incorrectly stated. 
 Altogether he had abundant reasons for wishing his 
 official account of the battle and of the operations 
 which preceded it to be accepted as final and 
 without question. In after years, whenever asked to 
 help in preparing any work on the campaign, he 
 usually answered with some degree of testiness that 
 his despatch contained all that was necessary. He 
 well knew that it contained many inaccuracies and, in 
 fact, that no commander writing immediately after 
 any great battle ever can know nearly all that has 
 happened. In this particular instance there was an 
 unusual number of mistakes in his despatch. He 
 tells us in it, for example, that at Ouartre Bras he was 
 attacked, amongst other troops, by D'Erlon's corps 
 which we know was not there at all. Very serious 
 errors have also been introduced into the history of 
 this campaign which have their sole origin in the 
 untruthful statements dictated by Napoleon at St. 
 Helena. Brilliant as were the Emperor's plans for 1 8 1 5 
 
THE HUNDRED DAYS. 139 
 
 and ably as he directed a great part of them, he yet 
 made some very serious mistakes during their general 
 execution. He was fully aware of this, and with his 
 subtle Italian genius tried in his St. Helena writings 
 to prove that everything he did was right, to conceal 
 these mistakes from posterity and ungenerously to 
 throw upon subordinates the responsibility for all that 
 went wrong. So absolutely dishonest and misleading 
 is his account of Waterloo that many of those who 
 hate his memory and the system his name represents 
 have unfairly used it in order the more effectively to 
 decry and discredit all he ever said or wrote about his 
 own wars. 
 
 As far as concerns the historical student the 
 practical result of all these causes is that much of the 
 published information upon which we have to rely 
 has been seriously tainted at its source. Statement 
 and counter-statement have followed one another 
 in quick succession until the literature of this cam- 
 paign alone forms quite a library in itself. 
 
 On the Anglo-Prussian side Miiffiing was the only 
 man who, knowing the facts, attempted to give any 
 account of what actually did take place between the 
 two Allied commanders. But in summarising it he 
 purposely slurred over much that was of importance. 
 Yet he has been generally accepted as a final 
 authority by English historians. To attempt there- 
 fore, to give such a brief account of the Waterloo 
 story as is alone possible in these pages is to write 
 with feelings somewhat akin to those of the man 
 who has to dance amongst eggs. I shall, however, 
 endeavour to avoid stating doubtful stories, though I 
 
140 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 cannot hope in this brief narrative to satisfy all those 
 who have vehemently espoused some one side or 
 another in the various controversies. 
 
 The French army with which Napoleon took the 
 field in Belgium consisted of six army corps, one of 
 which was the Imperial Guard. Three of them were 
 very weak and none were strong. The Reserve 
 Cavalry, four corps of 13,500 sabres in all, was under 
 Grouchy. There was also a cavalry division with each 
 of five out of the six army corps, so that the total 
 force in this arm numbered about 22,000 sabres. The 
 Infantry was about 85,000, making a fighting force 
 of 344 guns and 107,000 sabres and bayonets, not 
 including some ten thousand artillerymen and five or 
 six thousand train and engineers ; let us say, an army 
 of 344 guns and of about 123,000 men of all arms. 
 As far as its numbers went, Napoleon had never 
 commanded a finer body of well-trained and well- 
 seasoned soldiers. All were Frenchmen inspired with 
 the splendid fighting spirit of their nation, and, ex- 
 cepting perhaps a few of the superior officers, all 
 devoted to Napoleon and believing that his cause was 
 their cause and the cause of France. No men could 
 have fought better than they did, and although 
 Waterloo was the most disastrous defeat France had 
 sustained since Blenheim she has every reason to be 
 proud of the manner in which her sons fought on 
 that memorable June Sunday. 
 
 The Prussian army under Blucher, which as well as 
 the English army was largely composed of recruits and 
 militiamen, was divided into four army corps. Unlike 
 Wellington's army, however, it was a purely national 
 
THE HUS T DRED DAYS. 
 
 141 
 
 force, intensely German in feeling and inflamed with a 
 deadly hatred of the French and with a splendid 
 feeling of intense patriotism. The first corps, under 
 Ziethen, held Charleroi and the Sambre valley above 
 it as far as the French frontier ; the second, under 
 
 ELUCHER. 
 
 Pirch, was in and around Namur ; the third, under 
 Thielmann, was at Cine)- and in its vicinity ; and the 
 fourth, under Billow, was on the extreme left at Liege, 
 nearly sixty miles from the extreme right near Char- 
 leroi. Each of these four army corps was scattered 
 in widely extending cantonments and would require 
 many hours of hard marching to concentrate before it 
 could move upon any point of general assembly for 
 
-H2 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 the whole army. The total strength of this Prussian 
 army may be reckoned at about 100,000 infantry, 
 1 1, 800 cavalry, and 312 guns. Owing to the small 
 proportion of well-trained regular soldiers in its ranks, 
 its quality as a fighting force was much inferior to 
 that of any Prussian army which had ever before 
 taken the field against Napoleon. 
 
 Wellington's army consisted of two corps, a reserve, 
 and a corps of cavalry. The gallant but inexperi- 
 enced Prince of Orange commanded the first, which 
 was distributed about Mons, Enghien and Nivelles in 
 continuation westward of the Prussian line ; the 
 second, under Lord Hill, prolonged the line still 
 further westward as far as the Scheldt. The English 
 cavalry and that of the German Legion were under 
 Lord Uxbridge. The Hanoverian, Brunswick and 
 Netherlands cavalry were with the several contingents 
 furnished by each country. In numbers, this motley 
 army of many nations did not certainly exceed 
 80,000 foot, 14,000 horse, and about 9000 gunners, 
 engineers, and train — say in all 94,000 sabres and 
 bayonets, and 184 guns. There were twelve eighteen- 
 pounders besides ; but the Duke, for some unex- 
 plained reason, left them behind at Antwerp. How 
 often he must have wished for them on June 18th, for 
 they would have been of incalculable value many times 
 that day ! Of this army nearly 30,000 were Dutch 
 and Belgian soldiers whose sympathies were largely 
 with Napoleon, and only about 31,000 "were British. 
 The inferior quality of the soldiers composing it, the 
 haste with which it had been so recently organised, 
 and, with a few exceptions, the mediocrity of its sub- 
 
THE HUNDRED DAYS. 143 
 
 ordinate general officers, all combined to make it 
 what Wellington contemptuously pronounced it — " the 
 worst army he had ever commanded." Its 14,000 
 horsemen compared unfavourably with Napoleon's 
 magnificent body of 22,000 cavalry, though Blucher's 
 11,800 cavalry were of good stuff and well com- 
 manded. 
 
 From the foregoing statement it will be seen that 
 the two Allied armies extended over a front of 100 
 miles from east to west, and covered a depth of about 
 40 miles from north to south. I think that any 
 military critic of to-day who would defend this 
 inordinate dispersion of Wellington's and Blucher's 
 armies, especially of the former, must be blinded by 
 national prejudices. Had the Duke been beaten at 
 Waterloo history would surely have condemned the 
 position of his army on June 13th, 14th and 15th, and 
 also his decision to maintain it until the French attack 
 had been fully developed instead of at once con- 
 centrating when he first learned that the enemy's 
 columns had reached Maubeuge. 
 
 There can be little doubt that Wellington had been 
 misled by his spies and other sources of secret 
 information as to the forwardness of Napoleon's 
 preparations, and that he did not consequently expect 
 the French to enter Belgium before July 1st at 
 earliest. But when he ascertained for certain that the 
 enemy were collecting near Maubeuge it seems to 
 have been unwise — to use a mild adjective — to have 
 left his army in the scattered cantonments it then 
 occupied. On the 13th each of the two Allied armies 
 should have concentrated within supporting distance 
 
144 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 of each other. From the numbers I have given the 
 reader will see that it was Napoleon's deliberate 
 intention, with a concentrated army of about 22,000 
 sabres, 85,000 bayonets and 344 guns, to attack the 
 armies of Blucher and Wellington, which, though very 
 inferior in quality to his army, would if united make 
 up a total force of 25,800 sabres, 180,000 bayonets 
 and 496 guns. It must be remembered, however, 
 that he knew the two Allied armies to be so scattered 
 as to afford him every reason for hoping he would be 
 able to deal with each separately ; that he was also 
 well aware of how inferior their soldiers were to his 
 old and well-seasoned troops, and furthermore, that 
 the fighting worth as well as the loyalty of some of 
 their contingents was more than doubtful. 
 
 Napoleon's military instinct always favoured offen- 
 sive operations in war. His defensive campaign of 
 the previous year was carried on against the grain 
 and he had no wish to repeat it. Besides, he was 
 determined, if possible, to save France from all the 
 horrors of another invasion. He believed that he 
 could out-manceuvre Wellington and he was certain, 
 from previous experience, that Blucher would be but 
 a child in his hands. The calculation upon which he 
 based his plan of campaign was briefly, that if he 
 could obtain a brilliant success over these two generals 
 — then so near his frontier — his returned fortune and 
 the elation consequent upon victory would arouse an 
 enthusiasm in France which would enable him to 
 largely increase his army in the field and would rally 
 the Belgians, the Dutch, and possibly others to his 
 standard. It might also cause some of the armies 
 
THE HUNDRED DAYS. 145 
 
 then marching upon France to pause and might 
 induce some to make peace, or at least it might sow 
 dissension amongst the Allies and would surely gain 
 him time to consolidate his power and increase his 
 army. 
 
 Knowing that Wellington and Blucher together far 
 exceeded the French army in strength, Napoleon's 
 one chance of success lay in being able to fight them 
 separately. The difficult nature of the country known 
 as the Ardennes and the scantiness of the supplies to 
 be found there made any attack upon the Allies' left 
 practically impossible. His selection of a line of 
 advance and the part of the enemy's line he would 
 fall upon was consequently limited to a choice 
 between attacking their right, which would bring him 
 upon the English line of communication with the sea- 
 coast, or their centre — that is, the point of junction 
 between the two armies. Wellington believed that 
 his great opponent would try the first-mentioned 
 alternative, and to the end of his days was of opinion 
 that he ought to have done so. I cannot enter here 
 into his many reasons for these conclusions, but most 
 soldiers well-trained in the science of war would have 
 then thought otherwise, and think so now. An 
 attack upon the Allied right could not possibly have 
 afforded Napoleon the same rapid and conclusive 
 results that a severance of the Allied armies, by a suc- 
 cessful attack upon the point where they joined, would 
 have secured. Napoleon had accurate information as 
 to. the exact positions occupied by those armies, and 
 it did not require his genius to perceive that the 
 road from Charleroi to Brussels was practically the 
 
 L 
 
146 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 dividing line between Blucher and Wellington. 
 Charleroi, thirty-four miles by a very good road 
 from the Belgian capital, was therefore his first 
 objective point, and there and in its immediate neigh- 
 bourhood he meant to cross the Sambre. 
 
 The tendency, as he well knew, of all Allied armies 
 when so struck at is for each at once to look after its 
 own line of communication and its own special safety. 
 Blucher drew his supplies from a base on the Rhine ; 
 Wellington drew his from England vid Ostend and 
 Antwerp, which places constituted his base on the sea. 
 Napoleon expected that the effect of his army 
 suddenly crossing the Sambre near Charleroi to 
 advance upon Brussels would be to cause each of the! 
 Allied armies to curl up, as it were, within itself, and 
 so leave a gap between them into which he would 
 be able to penetrate, and wedge-like to sever all 
 communication between the two armies. This done, 
 he did not anticipate any difficulty in destroying them 
 one after the other. From all that he had heard of 
 Wellington's operations in the Peninsula he counted 
 upon his acting with great caution ; and former ex- 
 perience of Blucher as an antagonist made him certain 
 that the impetuous Prussian would rush wildly into 
 the fray. He therefore counted upon being able to 
 dispose of the Prussian army before the slowly and 
 cautiously moving English could arrive to support it. 
 
 With Brussels in his possession he believed the 
 Belgians would again throw in their lot with him and 
 the Rhine would once more become his eastern 
 frontier. The effect of this upon Europe would be 
 great and might lead to the fall of the English 
 
THE HUNDRED DAYS. 147 
 
 ministry, which hated him, and their replacement by 
 those unworthy men who were his friends, and who 
 then clamoured loudly for peace at any price with 
 France. The whole essence of Napoleon's plan was 
 secrecy and celerity. His intentions to be successful 
 must be carefully veiled from the enemy who must 
 be thoroughly deceived until the moment when the 
 sudden blow was to be struck. Fortunately for his 
 enterprise the old line of Vauban's frontier fortresses 
 between the Meuse and Dunkirk still existed, and 
 they were in fair order. Their possession enabled him 
 to conceal his doings and designs, and he could con- 
 centrate troops behind them without their being 
 immediately discovered by the enemy. He was 
 able also, by a skilful distribution of national guards 
 along the open frontier near Mons, between the 
 Sambre and the Scheldt, to make Wellington believe 
 that the blow was about to fall on his right. It was 
 this conviction of Wellington's which accounts for the 
 want of cohesion between the Allied armies when the 
 French troops had reached their appointed rendezvous 
 immediately south of the Sambre on the evening of 
 June 14th. 
 
 Napoleon left Paris for Charleroi on June 12th, well 
 neither in body nor in mind. He was fully aware 
 that he was not the man physically he had been at 
 Marengo or at Austerlitz, and his mind was full of 
 care. A firm believer in luck, all had gone so much 
 against him during the three previous years that he 
 scarcely dared to trust in fortune. "Ah," said he, 
 " you do not know what a force good luck is ! It 
 alone imparts courage. It is the feeling that fortune 
 
 L 2 
 
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 is with us which gives us the hardihood to dare. Not 
 to dare is to do nothing of moment, and one never 
 dares except as the result of good luck. Misfortune 
 depresses and blights the soul, and from thence- 
 forward one does nothing good." A few days before 
 he left Paris he told Davoust and the Count de Segur 
 — the elder — that he had no longer any confidence in 
 his star, and his worn depressed look was in keeping 
 with his words. We are told he was superstitious : 
 how much therefore this feeling must have acted 
 upon him ! Indeed, he admitted that he " felt an 
 abatement of spirit, and had an instinct of an un- 
 propitious issue." 
 
 By a series of very cleverly devised movements, in 
 the execution of which however his lieutenants made 
 many mistakes, Napoleon brought his army together 
 on the evening of June 14th within a short march of 
 Charleroi. Gerard's corps * which formed the right of 
 the line and was coming from the Moselle south of the 
 Ardennes, had not yet quite reached Philippeville, its 
 allotted place of rendezvous, owing to the badness of 
 the roads ; but the centre consisting of Vandamme's, 
 Lobau's and the Guard Corps was at Beaumont, 
 where Napoleon fixed his headquarters for the night ; 
 and the extreme left, made up of D'Erlon's and 
 Reille's Corps which had been stationed on the open 
 Belgian frontier, had reached Solre-sur-Sambre. All 
 these three places of rendezvous were within French 
 territory and were nearly equidistant, about fifteen 
 
 * The reader must not confuse General Gerard who com- 
 manded the 4th Corps, with General Girard who only com- 
 manded a Division (the 7th) in Reille's Corps (the 2nd). 
 
THE HUNDRED DAYS. 149 
 
 miles, from Charleroi. His first object was to get his 
 army across the Sambre and to seize Quatre Bras and 
 Sombreffe — they were eight miles apart and both 
 about thirteen miles beyond Charleroi — as their pos- 
 session would give him the Namur-Nivelles road, the 
 chief line of intercommunication between the two 
 Allied armies. Quatre Bras was only twenty-one 
 miles from Brussels. 
 
 The Prussian outposts soon detected the fact that 
 a great army was being assembled in their neighbour- 
 hood, but they failed to discover the French right 
 wing which, under Gerard, was so much nearer to 
 Charleroi than to Mons that its discovery would 
 certainly have indicated the fact that Charleroi and 
 not Mons was the point aimed at. As it was, the 
 French troops at Solre discovered by the Prussian 
 cavalry were as near Mons in point of distance and 
 nearer it in time of marching than they were to 
 Charleroi. Now as Mons was held by the English, 
 an attack in that direction would have implied the 
 intention of assailing Wellington's army in the first 
 instance before any attempt was made against 
 Blucher. As already mentioned, the English general 
 was so convinced that the attack would be made on 
 his right that it was only with difficulty and very 
 slowly that he brought his mind to realise how mis- 
 taken he was. At last, when it was nearly being too 
 late, he perceived that it was the right of the Prussian 
 line and the point of junction between it and the left 
 of his own ,army which Napoleon aimed at. 
 
 The possibility of Napoleon advancing into Belgium 
 by Charleroi and the bridges over the Sambre in its 
 
ISO THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 neighbourhood in order to sever and drive apart the 
 two Allied armies, had been discussed by Wellington 
 and Blucher as far back as the beginning of May. 
 At this conference a plan of action to meet such a 
 contingency was decided upon. The Prussian army 
 was to concentrate between Sombreffe and Charleroi, 
 and the English between Gosselies and the bridge at 
 Marchiennes. This would bring the two Allied 
 armies so close together that no attack upon one 
 could be made by Napoleon without having the other 
 on his flank. Yet, as a matter of fact, by 3 p.m. on 
 the 15th only one Prussian corps was near the in- 
 tended point of concentration, and of Wellington's 
 army but one division was in the vicinity, although 
 40,000 French had already crossed the Sambre at 
 Marchiennes and 70,000 more were then entering 
 Charleroi. This is a circumstance which cannot be 
 ignored by the worshippers of Wellington, for it 
 clearly shows how indifferent were his arrangements 
 for giving effect to a plan of such first importance and 
 so maturely considered and deliberately adopted as 
 this plan had been. The fact is, Wellington at 
 Brussels was too far from the theatre of action : he 
 ought to have been at Nivelles or still better at 
 Quatre Bras all the 15th. Had he been at the latter 
 place he would not certainly have allowed the day to 
 pass without orders for the immediate concentration 
 of his army there or in its neighbourhood. But 
 throughout this first day Wellington does not seem 
 to have realised the importance of Quatre Bras to his 
 army. 
 
 Before any move had been made by the Allies to 
 
THE HUNDRED DAYS. 151 
 
 oppose him, Napoleon was thus with his whole army 
 within striking distance of Ziethen's single corps of 
 only 32,000 men, and, from what he knew of the 
 character of his two antagonists, he fully hoped to 
 bring the bulk of his army into such a position as 
 would enable him to crush Blucher before Wellington 
 could support him, and perhaps even before the whole 
 Prussian army had been concentrated. 
 
 Napoleon's orders were that his army should move 
 to the attack on June 15th, at 3 a.m. But, unfor- 
 tunately for him, Vandamme, whose corps lay in 
 front of the central column, did not receive this order. 
 Gerard's corps, on the right, was delayed both by the 
 fact that his divisions had not been properly closed 
 up the evening before and by the desertion on the 
 march of General Bourmont who was leading the 
 advance. Reille's corps, which led the left wing, 
 moved off in good time, and D'Erlon followed slowly r 
 behind him. 
 
 Ziethen, in a most skilful manner, took good 
 advantage of the opportunities which the French 
 passage of the Sambre afforded him. He succeeded 
 in not only seriously delaying the enemy's advance 
 but in safely withdrawing his own corps in admirable 
 order and with little loss considering the over- 
 whelming force opposed to him and the ability of its 
 leader. He made one serious mistake, however, in 
 not destroying the bridges over the Sambre at 
 Marchiennes, Charleroi and at Chatelet. 
 
 During the afternoon of this day, the 15th, Ney 
 joined the Emperor near Charleroi, probably about 
 5 p.m. Having only received his orders at the last 
 
152 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 moment, he had hurried forward with no staff but one 
 aide-de-camp. Napoleon at once assigned him the 
 command of the left wing of the army, consisting of 
 Reille's and D'Erlon's corps, and ordered him to push 
 the enemy along the Quatre Bras road. Whether he 
 did or did not order Ney to seize Quatre Bras that 
 night is a much disputed point. At any rate, riding 
 forward towards it at a brisk pace, Ney overtook the 
 leading troops of his command at a moment when 
 Reille, having already cleared the road of the re- 
 treating Prussians who fell back eastwards, was 
 moving upon Gosselies. 
 
 Pushing on with Bachelu's division and Pire's 
 cavalry Ney found the village of Frasnes occupied 
 by Wellington's outposts, which upon his approach 
 fell back towards Quatre Bras. Not being able in 
 the darkness of the evening to make out the strength 
 of the troops holding the last-named place, Ney 
 restricted his operations for that day to the occupation 
 of Frasnes by Bachelu's infantry and some cavalry in 
 support. Of the remainder of Reille's corps, Girard's 
 division was in pursuit of the Prussians who had, as 
 already mentioned, gone off in an easterly direction, 
 and its two remaining infantry divisions were still in 
 rear of Gosselies. D'Erlon's corps, moving in rear of 
 Reille, had been much more delayed — indeed part of 
 it was still south of the Sambre. The small detach- 
 ments of Wellington's army which the French had 
 actually encountered had been moved backwards 
 without the Duke's orders and contrary to his wishes, 
 by their own commander Prince Bernhard of Saxe- 
 Weimar. Though Napoleon was not yet aware of it 
 
THE HUNDRED DAYS. 153 
 
 Blucher had ordered all his three other army corps to 
 support that of Ziethen. Of these, Biilow's corps at 
 Liege had been seriously delayed by a mistake in the 
 nature of the orders sent to it. 
 
 It will thus be seen that what Napoleon wished and 
 had calculated on had so far been realised : namely, 
 that whilst Wellington's army had been very slow in 
 its movements, Blucher, with his usual impetuosity, 
 was hurrying forward with only three of his army 
 corps to the very locality where Napoleon wished to 
 fight him. Although, according to Napoleon's ex- 
 plicit orders, the whole of his army was to have been 
 north of the Sambre before noon, some 35,000 French 
 soldiers slept that night on the other side of that 
 river. But on the whole, despite these and some 
 other vexatious delays, Napoleon had good reason to 
 be well satisfied with the result of the operations on 
 June 15th. 
 
 Before noon of the following day, the 16th, three 
 Prussian army corps were gathered on what is now 
 known as the famous battlefield of Ligny, and about 
 noon Blucher received a letter which Wellington had 
 despatched at 10.30 a.m. from the heights north of 
 Frasnes, that is, about a couple of miles south of 
 Quatre Bras. This letter, unknown to the earlier 
 historians of the campaign and only unearthed from 
 the Prussian archives in 1876, has been since then the 
 subject of much controversy both in Germany and in 
 England. I have not space to discuss it here or 
 even to give the contents in full. Suffice it to say 
 that, as stated already, it mentioned the positions 
 which the Duke then believed were occupied by his 
 
154 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 still widely disseminated army. It went on to give 
 Prince Blucher every reason to hope that a large 
 portion at least of the English army would be able to 
 arrive in time to actually support the Prussians at 
 Ligny. That if unable to do so, Wellington would at 
 least effect so powerful a diversion in their favour 
 that Napoleon would be unable to employ against 
 them more than a moiety of his army. Wellington, 
 an English gentleman of the highest type, was wholly 
 and absolutely incapable of anything bordering on 
 untruth or deceit in dealing with his Allies, and 
 without any doubt whatever believed unqualifiedly in 
 all that he stated in this letter. He must therefore 
 have been misled by his inefficient staff in this 
 matter. 
 
 Following his letter, the Duke at i p.m. had him- 
 self a conversation with Blucher. The nature of that 
 conversation is very uncertain in many respects and 
 its character is variously recorded by different writers. 
 It is safer therefore to assume that both these leaders 
 planned and acted under the impression that the 
 statements contained in this letter were actually 
 correct. Under that impression they arranged for 
 the direction in which the English army should move 
 to support Blucher at Ligny. Wellington either 
 made a conditional promise to come to Blucher's aid 
 provided he was not himself attacked, or he simply 
 made arrangements for the intended movement. It 
 is evident that at the time he supposed nearly the 
 whole of the French army was being directed against 
 the Prussians, for he had written from Frasnes that 
 he saw few French troops in that direction. It is a 
 
THE HUNDRED DAYS. 155 
 
 noteworthy fact that having conferred with Blucher 
 and examined his dispositions at Ligny and seen all 
 he could of the French army there, he predicted 
 Blucher's defeat. 
 
 Blucher had originally arranged for the concentra- 
 tion of his army in the neighbourhood of Sombreffe, 
 but he had done so at a time when he fully expected 
 he could assemble all his four army corps there in 
 line of battle and when he counted also upon re- 
 ceiving considerable assistance from Wellington. This 
 expectation of support was increased by the receipt 
 of Wellington's letter about noon on the 16th. But 
 it is simply preposterous to assert that Blucher fought 
 at Ligny because, of that letter or of any promise 
 made to him by Wellington that day, no matter what 
 may have passed between the two generals at Ligny, 
 because when Wellington was there, at I p.m., the 
 French columns were already actually advancing to 
 the attack. Blucher's decision to fight must therefore 
 have been arrived at long before. 
 
 Though the whole story of this letter has been 
 sprung upon us lately, I dwell upon the question it 
 raises because it is one that very closely concerns our 
 national honour. The positions which Wellington's 
 letter specified as then occupied by his troops had not 
 been reached by all of them when he wrote it, and in 
 several cases they were not reached for many hours 
 later. In fact, there was no prospect whatever that 
 Wellington could afford Blucher the support he hoped 
 for at Ligny. Gneisenau, already suspicious of the 
 English commander, was naturally affected in his 
 after conduct of the campaign by the doubts of 
 
156 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 Wellington's honesty occasioned by this letter and the 
 Prussian defeat at Ligny. He carried to his grave 
 the suspicion that our great Duke had deliberately 
 deceived Prince Blucher in order to make him fight 
 at Ligny so that the English army — unduly scattered 
 — might have time to concentrate. The publication 
 of Gneisenau's life, some years after the discovery of 
 this important letter, gave rise for a time in some 
 quarters of Germany to a bitter feeling on the subject. 
 For my purpose here it is more important to note, as 
 will be seen presently, that these circumstances nearly 
 tvrecked the prospects of the Allies by their influence 
 on the mind of the man who at the moment practically 
 directed the strategy of Blucher's army. 
 
 How it happened that Wellington was so mis- 
 informed of the actual points which his army had 
 reached when he wrote this letter we can only con- 
 jecture. The orders he gave for the concentration of 
 his army were probably sent out by his staff later 
 than he supposed ; the messengers who took those 
 orders were certainly longer in delivering them than 
 had been calculated upon ; his staff — not of his own 
 choosing — were probably disposed to take an opti- 
 mistic view of the positions reached by the troops 
 when they framed the statement for him upon the 
 strength of which he wrote to Blucher. 
 
 It is interesting to turn from this discussion, where 
 we have to grope about for probabilities without any 
 certainty as to facts, to review the strange chain of 
 chances which prevented Napoleon from gaining the 
 full or even anything approaching the full benefit 
 from the position he had gained for his army on 
 
THE HUNDRED DAYS. 
 
 '57 
 
 the 15th. He had succeeded beyond all reasonable 
 expectations in placing it where he was able to deal 
 with Blucher whilst one-fourth of the Prussian force 
 was distant and beyond all chance of taking part in 
 the battle and before Wellington could support 
 his Ally. 
 
 In the first place the French army had not closed 
 up to its front by the evening of the 15 th, as ordered 
 by Napoleon. Without doubt the men were some- 
 what overdone by their immense exertions of the few 
 previous days and they wanted rest. But the delay 
 on the part of D'Erlon, who had been ordered to 
 close on Reille's Corps, is unaccountable, and it is 
 hardly possible to excuse that general for it, even 
 though his troops were weary and had to work over 
 bad roads much cut up by the corps immediately in 
 front of them. On the other hand all experienced 
 soldiers are well aware of the delays inseparable from 
 marches undertaken under these circumstances. 
 
 Ney, who was in command of both Reille's and 
 D'Erlon's army corps, had spent about an hour and a 
 half on the evening of the 15th with Napoleon at 
 Charleroi, and returned to Gosselies about 2 a.m. on the 
 1 6th without any positive orders from the Emperor 
 for that day's operations. During the early morning 
 those French who had bivouacked south of the 
 Sambre crossed that river at Charleroi and Chatelet. 
 At 8 a.m. on the 16th Soult, the Chief of the 
 Imperial Staff, informed Ney that Kellerman's 
 corps of cavalry had been ordered to join his com- 
 mand and at the same time asked him for news as 
 to whether D'Erlon's corps had yet closed up, and 
 
158 THE DECLIXE AXD FALL OF XAPOLEOX. 
 
 what was the position of D'Erlon and of Reillc, and 
 also of the enemy. 
 
 Napoleon was far from well at this time. When he 
 returned from the front to Charleroi on the evening of 
 the 15th he was overwhelmed with fatigue and threw 
 himself on his bed exhausted. On the following 
 
 SOULT. 
 
 morning, when every moment of daylight was of the 
 utmost consequence, we have it on good authority 
 that he was prostrated with languor and unable to 
 attend to any business. It was daylight on June 16th 
 shortly after 3 a.m., but yet no movement in advance 
 was made until near 1 1 a.m. Between seven and 
 eight hours were thus lost to Napoleon during which 
 
THE HUNDRED DAYS. 159 
 
 Blucher was enabled to perfect his arrangements for 
 the coming battle at Ligny. The two French wings 
 were each waiting for the other to move. Napoleon, 
 not very correctly informed as to the possible 
 strength of the Prussians, and whom as late as about 
 8 or 9 o'clock a.m. he estimated at only 40,000 men, 
 was anxious to have Ney's troops well forward on the 
 Quatre Bras road, and to get his own columns, 
 designed for an attack on Blucher, well closed up 
 before they engaged. He informed Ney that as soon 
 as he had brushed aside the Prussians then before him 
 he would march to join Ney with the Reserve and 
 push on with him to Brussels. Ney, however, and 
 Reille also held back for some time owing to the 
 reports they received from Girard, who had been 
 watching the Prussians all the morning as they formed 
 for battle near Ligny. The movements of the French 
 Left on the Charleroi-Brussels road were consequently 
 slower than Napoleon had a right to expect, so that 
 it was not until 2 p.m. that Ney, with only two out of 
 the four divisions of Reille's corps and Pire's cavalry, 
 assailed the Dutch-Belgian troops at Quatre Bras. 
 Prince Jerome's division did not arrive until an hour 
 later, and Girard's division, engaged in watching the 
 Prussians, as already stated, became eventually 
 involved in the battle of Ligny. This appears to 
 have been entirely the result of Ney's and Reille's 
 action, as they wished to retain Girard near the 
 Prussians to protect their own right flank during their 
 advance upon Quatre Bras. 
 
 Had Napoleon set his troops in motion at 5 or 
 even 6 a.m. on the 16th, the result of the day's 
 
i6o 
 
 THE DECLIXE AXD FALL OF XAPOLFOX. 
 
 fighting must have been very different. At a time 
 when evcrj- hour was worth a reinforcement of 10,000 
 men, he allowed at least seven hours of daylight to 
 
 JEROME. 
 
 slip by to little purpose. As it was, this delay gave 
 Wellington time to reach Quatre Bras again about 
 2.30 p.m., and before the Dutch-Belgian division there 
 
THE HUNDRED DAYS. 161 
 
 had been completely crushed by the superior numbers 
 and especially by the better fighting quality of the 
 French soldiers engaged. About an hour later 
 Picton's division arrived, and from that time on 
 successive reinforcements of English troops came 
 up. This gave Wellington a continuously increasing 
 advantage over the cavaky and three unsupported 
 divisions of Reille's corps, then in action, until at last 
 he was able in the evening to assume the offensive 
 and drive Ney back. Strange occurrences had 
 deprived not only Ney but both wings of the 
 French army of any help from D'Erlon whose corps 
 all through the day seemed to have worked only 
 mischief for Napoleon. 
 
 The corps of Vandamme and Gerard had been 
 assigned to Grouchy, just as those of Reille and 
 D'Erlon had been placed under Ney's command. 
 Early in the morning Napoleon ordered Grouchy to 
 attack the Prussians in front of him, intending, for 
 the day at least, to support him with the remainder 
 of the army which he held in his own hands as a 
 Reserve. As soon as the Prussians had been 
 crushed it was Napoleon's intention to transfer that 
 Reserve to his left wing and then force his own way 
 to Brussels. 
 
 About 2 p.m. Napoleon sent an order to Ney 
 directing him, with the corps of D'Erlon and Reille 
 and the cavalry attached to him, to drive the English 
 from Quatre Bras and then sweep round in rear of 
 the Prussians whilst Grouchy attacked them in front 
 at 2.30 p.m. When at 3.15 p.m. the strength of the 
 Prussian army had become more evident this order 
 
 M 
 
162 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 was reiterated. Upon reaching the headquarters of 
 D'Erlon's corps, as it was approaching Frasnes, the 
 aide-de-camp who carried this last-mentioned despatch 
 took upon himself the responsibility of turning it off 
 at once towards the right wing, thus completely 
 misinterpreting the nature of Napoleon's order and 
 sending D'Erlon and his corps into a false position 
 as regarded the general scheme of advance. About 
 6.30 p.m. D'Erlon's corps reached the outskirts of the 
 field of Ligny to the serious alarm' of Vandamme 
 who took it to be a portion of Wellington's army that 
 had somehow broken through the French line and 
 was about to fall on his rear. He reported this to 
 Napoleon. The moment was critical for the Emperor 
 was in the act of preparing for the final attack of his 
 Guard upon the Prussians. This alarm compelled 
 him to postpone the attack, and it was not until 
 7.30 p.m., when he had obtained correct information, 
 that he ordered the movement to be resumed. Thus 
 another precious hour of daylight was lost. In the 
 meantime Ney, horrified at the absence of the very 
 troops that had been placed at his disposal to 
 carry out Napoleon's plan of attack, despatched a 
 peremptory order to D'Erlon to return forthwith. 
 This order only reached D'Erlon as he was de- 
 ploying to take part in the battle then raging at 
 Ligny. His men were tired after their long day's 
 march and it took a long time to reform column of 
 route and join Marshal Ney. It was late in the 
 evening when he did so and not until Wellington 
 had had time to defeat Ney who had done his best 
 to effect with three divisions what Napoleon in- 
 
THE HUNDRED DAYS. 163 
 
 tended he should have attempted with eight. This 
 is a good illustration of the mishaps which abound 
 in war. 
 
 Before night fell Napoleon had broken the Prussian 
 centre and, driving the wings apart had gained a com- 
 plete but by no means a crushing victory at Ligny, It 
 is obvious that the whole character of the results of the 
 day's operations had been changed by the loss of the 
 services of D'Erlon's corps and by the misuse of 
 Girard's division. So late were all Wellington's 
 arrangements for the concentration of his army that 
 had Ney's two corps been concentrated as early as 
 Napoleon intended, and as they well might have been, 
 they could easily have seized Quatre Bras and brushed 
 aside the few Allied troops that were then alone 
 available in that quarter. How certain this is may be 
 estimated from the fact that the Duke in his official 
 report states that he was attacked at Quatre Bras by 
 the whole of both D'Erlon's and Reille's two corps— 
 that is by nearer three times than twice as many 
 infantry as he was actually engaged with. Had 
 D'Erlon and Girard been with Ney early in the day 
 Wellington must have been driven away from Quatre 
 Bras by 4 or 5 p.m. D'Erlon would then have had 
 time to have arrived by the main road in the rear of 
 Blucher just as he was receiving his final blow from 
 Napoleon in the gloaming of the evening. Had all 
 this taken place as Napoleon intended it is hardly too 
 much to say that both Ziethen's and Pirck's corps, 
 which formed Blucher's right wing, must have been 
 destroyed and in all probability the headquarters 
 staff, including Prince Blucher and General Gneisenau, 
 
 M 2 
 
164 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 would have been captured. As it was, the following 
 morning Thielmann told Biilow that he believed it 
 was Blucher's intention to make for the Rhine vid 
 St. Trond. Had this retreat been decided on there 
 would have been no Battle of Waterloo, for certainly 
 Wellington would not have fought there without 
 a positive promise of Prussian support. He would 
 have fallen back upon the coast abandoning Brussels 
 to its fate. Had this been the result of Ligny 
 the campaign might have ended in glorious triumph 
 for Napoleon ; from that misfortune Europe was 
 saved by the heroic public spirit of Prince Blucher, 
 the most patriotic, noble and chivalrous of gallant 
 soldiers. 
 
 In the final charge Blucher was unhorsed, wounded, 
 and supposed to have been taken prisoner. For the 
 moment the command devolved on Gneisenau, his 
 chief of the staff. Standing on a hillock surrounded 
 by the generals and staff of the only two corps 
 with which he could communicate for the moment, 
 Gneisenau gave what became the decisive order of the 
 campaign. He ordered the retreat upon Wavre, 
 thereby abandoning his direct lines of communication 
 through both Namur and Liege. Until recently it 
 was always assumed that in giving this order he 
 designed to prepare the way for that junction with 
 Wellington which two days afterwards decided the 
 issue of the campaign. His late biographer, however, 
 has made it known that his original order was for a 
 retreat on Tilly which he subsequently changed to 
 Wavre when he found that Tilly was not marked on 
 their working maps. It would therefore seem that 
 
THE HUNDRED DAYS. 165 
 
 Wavre was named as the general direction, that is 
 northwards, which the retreating columns were to 
 take. In fact, in no other direction could he hope to 
 safely reunite the two separated wings of the Prussian 
 army. Moreover, in moving upon Wavre he did not 
 abandon his possible retreat on the Rhine, for, as a 
 matter of fact he did at once re-establish his main line 
 of communications with his base through St. Trond on 
 Maestricht. The retreat of the two corps, those of 
 Thielmann and Biilow, then with the Prussian head- 
 quarters was carried that evening just far enough to 
 relieve them for the time of all pressure from the 
 French. The following morning all the four Prussian 
 corps resumed their march towards Wavre and so 
 ended the battle of Ligny. 
 
 Napoleon's plan for the battle of Ligny was quite 
 in his best style but the mode in which it was executed 
 was unworthy of his reputation. He must be held 
 responsible for the delays which so long deferred the 
 opening attack and which subsequently postponed 
 the final blow until darkness had set in. Some of 
 those who are dazzled by the " Napoleonic Legend " 
 may possibly traverse this conclusion, but few indeed 
 can hold him blameless for having failed to follow up 
 the defeated Prussians at once in order to complete 
 their rout. Instead of pursuing them with every 
 available man he allowed them to effect their retreat 
 without molestation. Grouchy, though a very second- 
 rate commander, wished to follow them ; but, as 
 Napoleon, who had left the field without issuing any 
 orders, was ill and asleep at Fleuras and as no one 
 dared to waken him this much-abused marshal could 
 
t66 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 do nothing. The object of the battle was to com- 
 pletely overwhelm Blucher and prevent his junction 
 with Wellington. But Napoleon by abandoning all 
 pursuit of the Prussians when he had defeated them 
 failed to reap that great object from the battle, 
 
( if>7 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 WATERLOO. 
 
 EARLY in the morning of June 17th, Wellington, who 
 had gone back to sleep at Genappe after his success 
 at Quatre Bras, rode to the field of his previous day's 
 battle. The Prussian messenger sent to inform him of 
 Blucher's defeat had been wounded, so he first learnt 
 the news from his own staff. Upon his arrival at 
 Quatre Bras, finding that there was no serious move- 
 ment on the part of the French in that direction, he 
 made dispositions to fall back at his own leisure and 
 when he deemed it necessary to do so. At 9 a.m. an 
 officer from Blucher arrived to tell him that the 
 Prussian army was gathering at Wavre. In reply 
 Wellington said he would stand and fight south of 
 the forest of Soignes, near Mont St. Jean, if Blucher 
 would support him by one, or as some accounts have 
 it, by two Prussian Army Corps. It was not until 
 late at night that Blucher was in a position to send 
 Wellington an answer, for the Prussian artillery trains 
 only reached Wavre at 5 p.m. and it was not until 
 11.30 p.m. that Bulow reported the arrival of his corps 
 at Diont le Mont It was not, therefore, until after 
 
168 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 that hour and after Muffling had reported to Blucher 
 that the English army was in position at Mont 
 St. Jean, that Blucher sent Wellington the assurance 
 of Prussian support. Bluchers despatch assured 
 Wellington that Billow's corps would march at day- 
 break for St. Lambert, that Pirch's corps would 
 support Biilow and that the other two corps would be 
 held in readiness to move. At what hour this despatch 
 reached Muffling we do not know, but as the bearer 
 of it must have travelled by night over ten miles of 
 bad road, its contents can hardly have been communi- 
 cated to the Duke much before 3 a.m. on the 18th. 
 As for Napoleon, he was so prostrated from the 
 exertions of the day that he went to bed as soon 
 as the battle of Ligny was over and was in such an 
 exhausted condition that no one would venture on 
 rousing him to ask for orders. The next morning it 
 was the same : he could not be roused to active work 
 at this critical moment when rapid decision was 
 essential to success. 
 
 The morning of the 17th was passed in inactivity by 
 both wings of the French army. Pajol indeed, with 
 a force of light cavalry, had started early, in pursuit of 
 Blucher, but as he took the road to Namur and made 
 some chance and deceptive captures on it, his reports 
 only tended to mislead the Emperor as to the direction 
 of the Prussian retreat. Ney, by some strange care- 
 lessness, had not been informed of the result of the 
 battle of Ligny. He was thoroughly out of humour 
 because he had been deprived of D'Erlon's corps on 
 the previous day, and he made no attempt to beat up 
 the English at Quatre Bras. Napoleon, apparently 
 
THE FIELD OF WATERLOO. 
 
170 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 taking for granted that the English must now retreat, 
 spent the morning in talking politics. Some time was 
 of course required to reorganise the regiments that 
 had been engaged, and to refill the men's cartouches 
 and the artillery ammunition waggons. But Napoleon 
 allowed the delays to run on till midday, at which 
 hour he at last despatched Grouchy, with the corps of 
 Vandamme and Gerard and the cavalry of Pajol and 
 Excelmans, in pursuit of the Prussians by the 
 Gembloux road. It was not until 2 p.m. that 
 Grouchy was able to march, and when he did, torrents 
 of rain so impeded the movement that he did not 
 reach Gembloux until late in the evening. Though 
 fit to command a Division in action he was quite 
 unequal to the task now imposed upon him. The 
 verbal orders he received from Napoleon were to 
 overtake the retreating Prussians and keep them in 
 view wherever they went. At this time all the 
 evidence pointed to Namur as the direction of their 
 retreat. These orders were hardly spoken when 
 reports from his cavalry informed the Emperor that 
 at 9 a.m. a force of some 20,000 Prussians had been 
 seen at Gembloux. He accordingly sent a written 
 order to Grouchy desiring him from Gembloux to 
 explore in the Namur and Maestricht direction. He 
 added however these words : " It is important to 
 penetrate what the enemy intend to do : whether they 
 are separating themselves from the English, or 
 whether they still intend to unite in order to cover 
 Brussels and Liege trying the chances of another 
 battle." It will be seen that he gave Grouchy no 
 instructions to interpose in any event between him 
 
WATERLOO. 171 
 
 and the Prussians. To complete first the stoiy of 
 Grouchy for the 17th : upon reaching Gembloux he 
 ascertained that some of the Prussians had taken the 
 road to Wavre and some were, as he thought, moving 
 on Maestricht. In reporting his proceedings to 
 Napoleon he said : " If the mass of the Prussians is 
 retiring on Wavre I shall follow in that direction in 
 order to prevent them reaching Brussels and in order 
 to separate them from Wellington." In accordance 
 with this intention he issued orders for the move- 
 ment on Wavre the following day, the memorable 
 June 1 8th. When Napoleon had issued his orders to 
 Grouchy on the 17th he at once started for Marbais 
 with the Guard, Lobau's Corps and the Reserve 
 Cavalry, in order to support Ney's attack upon the 
 English at Quatre Bras. During the morning he had 
 repeatedly ordered Ney to make this attack ; but, 
 perhaps from ill-temper about his defeat the previous 
 day, that general made no movement until 1 p.m., when 
 he saw Napoleon approaching. The force collected by 
 Wellington at Quatre Bras, amounting to 45,000 men, 
 began to fall back on Mont St. Jean about 10 a.m. 
 on the 17th. The movement was leisurely and 
 admirably carried out under the Duke's personal 
 direction, and by the time that Ney actually began to 
 move against him Wellington's cavalry alone remained 
 on the position. By 2 p.m. the pursuit was retarded by 
 the same torrential rain that had burst upon Grouchy's 
 columns as he was setting out for Gembloux. With 
 the exception of an insignificant skirmish at Genappe 
 and such artillery fire as the French could bring to 
 bear upon our retreating cavalry, nothing of interest 
 
172 
 
 THE ni'.CIJXE AXD FALL OF XAPOLEOX. 
 
 marked this movement upon Mont St. Jean. Save 
 for a detachment of 1 8,000 men, whom the Duke 
 kept at Hal, being still anxious about his right, all 
 
 WELLINGTON. 
 
 his army was at last concentrated on what was to 
 become the glorious battle-ground of the morrow. 
 The French, toiling along over heavy, muddy roads 
 
WATERLOO. 173 
 
 during the evening and night of the 17th, did not get 
 fully into position until very late that night or early 
 the next morning. 
 
 As already stated, it is certain that Wellington had 
 no intention of accepting battle on the 18th unless he 
 was quite sure of Prussian assistance. On the other 
 hand, we now know that he cannot have received any 
 letter giving him a specific promise of such support 
 until about 3 a.m. that morning — that is to say, at an 
 hour when, if he meant to retreat, his arrangements for 
 that operation ought to have been begun. It is diffi- 
 cult to understand his action according to the current 
 history, but reports of conversations attributed to the 
 •Duke of Wellington in after years, from more than 
 one quarter, have given rise to the following story : 
 that late in the evening of the 17th he rode over to 
 see Blucher and satisfied himself of the Prince's ability 
 and intention to support him if he stood to fight on 
 the 1 8th south of the forest of Soignes. The latest 
 American historian of these events, Mr. Ropes in his 
 very careful book, and using materials published by 
 Colonel Maurice in his intensely interesting articles 
 on Waterloo in the United Service Magazine, declares 
 his belief in the story of this ride. There is no doubt 
 that it would explain many things which it is other- 
 wise difficult to understand. I am not, however, 
 myself prepared to adopt it without some further 
 proof, although, on the whole, the balance of evidence 
 seems rather in its favour. As further evidence for 
 or against it ought to be somewhere in existence, it 
 would be a great service to historical truth as regards 
 this ever interesting campaign, if those who could 
 
174 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 throw light on the matter would publish what they 
 know. 
 
 In any case, by 10 a.m. of the 18th instant the 
 head of Billow's corps had reached St. Lambert and 
 Wellington was aware of the fact. The whole of his 
 corps did not however reach that village until the 
 battle of Waterloo was far advanced. But Wellington 
 did not know that Gneisenau, full of anxiety for the 
 position in which the Prussian army would be if the 
 English retreated and Blucher were to find Napoleon 
 in front whilst Grouchy attacked him in rear, had 
 ordered Btilow not to advance beyond St. Lambert 
 until it was quite evident that Wellington meant 
 really to fight it out at Waterloo and that the battle 
 was fairly engaged. Whilst this storm was gathering 
 on his flank Napoleon allowed himself to be delayed 
 in making his attack upon the English army by the 
 state of the ground which made all movements 
 difficult, especially for artillery. At 10 a.m. he sent 
 off a letter to Grouchy approving of his movement on 
 Wavre " in order to approach us." The fact is that at 
 this time neither Napoleon nor Grouchy dreamed of 
 Bluchers bold and public-spirited movement, with 
 all its risks, from Wavre to Waterloo. Their 
 only dream of a junction by the Prussians with 
 Wellington's army was in the direction of Brussels. 
 On the other hand, in the original orders sent to 
 Grouchy he had been directed to post detachments of 
 cavalry to keep up communication with headquarters, 
 and General Marbot tells us in his delightful memoirs 
 that by Napoleon's orders he had established cavalry 
 connection between the Imperial headquarters and 
 
WATERLOO. 175 
 
 the Dyle at Mouster and Ottignies. Had Grouchy 
 carried out his orders on this point, his messengers 
 must have encountered Marbot's horsemen at those 
 villages. It was not till 1 p.m. that Napoleon received 
 information of Bulow's arrival at St. Lambert with 
 the head of his column ; seeing that an attack upon 
 his right flank was thus imminent, he sent at once to 
 tell' Grouchy, but the news reached that officer too 
 late to affect his movements. 
 
 Before this, about 11.30 a.m., Napoleon had ordered 
 the great battle to begin on which he must have felt 
 his whole future depended. He directed Reille with 
 his corps to attack Hougoumont as a diversion to his 
 principle attack by D'Erlon's corps upon Wellington's 
 left centre and centre at the village of Mont St. Jean. 
 
 The forces now standing face to face were not very 
 unequal numerically except in guns. After his losses 
 at Ligny and Quatre Bras, and without Grouchy 
 whom he had detached to look after the Prussians, 
 Napoleon was still able to bring into this new field of 
 battle nearly 49,000 foot, 15,700 horse, and 246 guns. 
 On the other hand, not counting the detachment of 
 18,000 men at Hal, Wellington had at Waterloo over 
 49,000 foot, 12,000 horse and 156 guns. Of the 
 infantry, however, only 15,000 were English, and of 
 the cavalry not quite half. His motley heterogeneous 
 army was no more by itself a match for the French 
 army in front of it in Wellington's judgment than it 
 was in that of Napoleon: 
 
 The battle of Waterloo, as a detailed study of war, 
 can only be described in greater space than I can 
 here afford it. On the whole the facts concerning its 
 
176 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 many stirring episodes and heroic phases are much 
 better known and more clearly established than they 
 are about the other matters on which I have touched. 
 I can only attempt to briefly summarise them here. 
 
 Reille's attack upon Hougoumont was badly exe- 
 cuted, and he wasted the full strength of his corps 
 upon it during nearly the whole day. To prepare the 
 main attack by D'Erlon upon Wellington's centre 
 Napoleon, out of his proportionately immense strength 
 in artillery, pushed forward a battery of 78 guns 
 within 600 yards of the crest-line of the English 
 position. Up to 1.30 p.m. their fire was maintained 
 without any reply from Wellington, his artillery being 
 expressly ordered not to fire on the French batteries, 
 but only on their columns as they advanced to the 
 attack. The greater part of the British foot were well 
 screened by the nature of the ground ; but Bylandt's 
 Dutch-Belgian Brigade was in front of the crest and 
 much exposed. When D'Erlon's corps advanced in 
 four huge columns, with the left thrown forward, this 
 brigade fairly bolted. But when this unwieldy mass 
 of French reached the crest it was utterly unable to 
 deploy under the withering fire of artillery and small 
 arms with which it was received. Charged with the 
 bayonet by Picton's division whilst it was in hopeless 
 confusion, and finally by Ponsonby's and Somerset's 
 cavalry, it was sent reeling back with the loss of two 
 eagles and numerous prisoners. The English horse- 
 men pressing on their success too far were roughly 
 handled. About 3 p.m., when D'Erlon's corps was 
 thus severely shaken and whilst Reille was still 
 busily occupied with trying to capture Hougoumont 
 
WATERLOO. 177 
 
 and Lobau's corps, with which Napoleon had meant 
 to support Reille, had been turned off eastward to 
 oppose the advancing Prussians, Ney sent to ask the 
 Emperor for the support of a cavalry division. From 
 the French lines at this time it looked as if the whole 
 of the English position had been abandoned, for all 
 Wellington's troops had quietly fallen back to their 
 former stations behind the crest-line. To the French 
 cavalry it seemed as if they had only to push forward 
 and reap the fruits of a victory already won. When, 
 therefore, this small body of cavalry, demanded by 
 Ney, moved to the front the whole of the remaining 
 French cavalry also dashed forward, either misunder- 
 standing Napoleon's orders or without any orders at 
 all ; but in any case the movement was unchecked 
 by the Emperor who was probably at the moment 
 absorbed by the danger then threatening his right. 
 How the splendid courage and wild career of these 
 French horsemen broke upon the English squares is 
 a well-known, an oft-told story. Not only one cavalry 
 division but four were thus shattered. Nevertheless 
 the infantry and artillery fire told severely upon these 
 British squares during the intervals between the 
 cavalry charges. As the day wore on Napoleon 
 found himself obliged to support Lobau in his en- 
 deavours to keep back the Prussians, first with the 
 Young Guard and then with three more battalions, 
 and with five batteries in all. Before 7 p.m. these 
 had cleared the Prussians out of Planchenoit which 
 had been taken from Lobau an hour before. As soon 
 as Napoleon had quite satisfied himself that the 
 Prussian attack on his right flank had been repulsed 
 
 N 
 
178 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 and believing, as his previous information had given 
 him to understand that this attack had been made 
 by Bulow's corps only, he turned to again direct the 
 battle against Wellington. 
 
 There is much discrepancy as to the hour when La 
 Haye Sainte was captured. General Kennedy on 
 the English side and Colonel Heymes, Ney's aide- 
 de-camp, on that of the French put the hour at 
 6 p.m. — that is, towards the end of the period of the 
 French cavalry charges. Others put it as early as 
 4 p.m. There is, however, one piece of evidence 
 about which there can be little dispute : it is the copy 
 of a letter from Lieutenant Graeme of the Hanoverian 
 service who took part in the defence of that place, a 
 letter which has appeared in Siborne's recently 
 published "Waterloo Letters" (p. 409). In it he 
 mentions that when he was retreating from La Haye 
 Sainte " all the army was formed in squares." It is 
 clear, therefore, that the place fell during the period 
 of the cavalry charges. The whole story of the 
 defence and its details shows that it must have been 
 towards evening that the French carried it. Owing 
 to the length of the struggle for its possession and 
 the neglect to provide a postern, the defenders were 
 at last left without any ammunition. The denseness 
 of the fog and smoke prevented any but those who 
 were on the spot from seeing what was going on 
 there ; and, taking all the evidence we have on this 
 point I am led to think that 6 p.m. must have been 
 about the hour when La Haye Sainte fell. In fact 
 the French took advantage of the circumstance that 
 their cavalry were at the moment occupying the 
 
WA TERLOO. 
 
 179 
 
 attention of Wellington and his army to renew 
 and push home their direct attack upon this rather 
 isolated outpost. Having once carried it they filled 
 it with sharp-shooters. These made a neighbouring 
 knoll untenable and enabled the French artillery to 
 bring so heavy a fire upon a portion of the English 
 position as to compel a square, composed of the 30th 
 and 73rd regiments, to withdraw to a bank in rear, 
 more or less in confusion. At the same moment 
 some Brunswickers near this spot were driven back, 
 and the consequence was a dangerous gap in the line 
 of battle. It was a critical moment and if fresh 
 French troops could have been immediately thrown 
 into the gap it is practically certain that the English 
 front must have been broken. Wellington met the 
 danger with admirable coolness and skill. The 
 arrival just at this juncture of one of Ziethen's 
 brigades on his left released Vivian's and Vandeleur's 
 brigades of horsemen and they were at once thrown 
 into the gap. By the time that Napoleon was able to 
 turn his attention from the Prussian attack at 
 Planchenoit to this final attack upon the British who 
 stood between him and Brussels, Wellington had 
 thoroughly reformed his fighting line and Ziethen 
 was within close supporting distance of him, while 
 Pirch was closing up in support of Biilow for a 
 renewed attack on Napoleon's right. 
 
 It was under these circumstances that the final 
 attack by the Imperial Guard was made. It was 
 preceded by a vigorous attack from two of D'Erlon's 
 divisions on the English left which attack was main- 
 tained as long as the Guard attack continued. Only 
 
 N 2 
 
i8o THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 eight out of the twenty-four battalions of which the 
 Guard consisted had been available for this final effort. 
 Each attacking battalion was in a column of double 
 companies and the whole advanced in echelon from 
 the right. They moved diagonally across the front 
 towards Wellington's right centre, and as they neared 
 the British line they appear to have broken into two 
 masses. The mass on the French right was received 
 with a tremendous volley from the English Guards 
 under Lord Saltoun and then charged. The leading 
 French battalion, at least, was driven back in con- 
 fusion and pursued ; but the effect of this check to 
 the leading column of the echelon was to bring up 
 the other columns nearly into line with it. Saltoun's 
 Guards, therefore, finding themselves for the moment 
 threatened in flank by this seemingly fresh body, fell 
 back to their old position. But as this new column 
 advanced it in turn lent a flank to Adams' brigade, to' 
 which the 52nd— now the Oxfordshire Light Infantry 
 under Colborne (Lord Seaton) belonged. Seizing 
 the opportunity that able soldier poured in a tre- 
 mendous volley at close range into the flank of the 
 Imperial Guard. The column halted and endeavoured 
 to front this unexpected attack, but Colborne, sup- 
 ported by the remainder of Adams' Brigade, charged 
 the French whilst still in confusion, and the result 
 was a complete rout. Wellington at once sent the 
 cavalry brigades of Vivian and Vandeleur in pursuit. 
 Almost at the same moment the main body of 
 Ziethen's corps arrived, forcing itself in between the 
 right of D'Erlon in his attack on the English left and 
 the left of Lobau's corps in its contest with the 
 
WA TERLOO. 
 
 Prussians under Blilow. Ziethen thus turned both 
 those French corps. The Duke seized the moment 
 to order the general advance of his whole line. 
 Despite the heroic efforts made by many splendid 
 French soldiers, the rout soon became a mere sauve 
 qui pent. 
 
 Whilst Napoleon's destruction was thus being 
 accomplished at Waterloo, Grouchy had become 
 involved in a simple rearguard action with Theilmann 
 at Wavre. At a spot which has been very skilfully 
 identified by Mr. Ropes as a certain house in Sart- 
 les'-Walhains, Grouchy, when at breakfast, first heard 
 the cannonade at Waterloo. He was urged by Gerard 
 and Vandamme to march towards the battle which 
 the sound indicated to be taking place near Plan- 
 chenoit. But still hoping that by the occupation of 
 Wavre he would be able to prevent the Prussians 
 from joining Wellington, Grouchy determined to 
 carry out his orders from Napoleon and push on for 
 that place. The result of that decision was disastrous 
 to Napoleon, as Grouchy's whole force, amounting to 
 over 30,000 men with ninety-six guns, was through- 
 out this eventful day as entirely useless to Napoleon 
 as if it had not existed. M. Thiers, with the excessive 
 and Unscrupulous partisanship which characterises 
 his Napoleonic epic, most unfairly throws upon 
 Grouchy the blame for the final overthrow of his 
 hero. Space does not allow me to enlarge upon this 
 interesting and much disputed point. Mr. Ropes 
 urges very forcibly that the words I have already 
 quoted from Soult's written order of the 17th left. 
 Grouchy properly no choice but to march on-the 18th 
 
tS2 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 by the bridges of Mouster and Ottignies to join 
 Napoleon. This is, however, to assume that the 
 Prussian move to join Wellington, as it was actually 
 made, was one that might and ought fairly to have 
 been anticipated by a rather commonplace general. 
 But as a matter of fact, until I p.m. on the 18th there 
 is nothing to show that Napoleon himself anticipated 
 any such move on the part of Blucher. Even at that 
 hour he thought it was only Biilow's corps that had 
 marched against his right. No one can be better 
 aware, no one can be prouder than I am, of the 
 magnificent courage and steadiness of the British 
 soldier at Waterloo ; but when every allowance is 
 made for it the honest historian must admit that it 
 was the splendid audacity of this Prussian move upon 
 St. Lambert and the French right, due to the 
 personal loyalty of Prince Blucher to Wellington and 
 in opposition to the strategic views of Gneisenau, that 
 determined the fate of Napoleon's army at Waterloo. 
 It is certain that Napoleon for the greater part of the 
 1 8th did expect Grouchy to march upon those bridges 
 over the River Lasnes, but it was a move that only a 
 far greater soldier than Grouchy and one ready to 
 incur a vast responsibility, would have ventured upon. 
 According to our present knowledge of the real posi- 
 tion there can be no doubt that Grouchy ought to 
 have disregarded his orders and moved with all speed 
 towards the sound of the guns. By doing so he might 
 have so occupied the Prussians as to gain for his 
 master sufficient time to achieve a victory at Waterloo. 
 But it was not to be so. The French army was so 
 hopelessly beaten and Wellington's victory was so 
 
WATERLOO. 183 
 
 complete that it was beyond even Napoleon's powers 
 to recover from it. Grouchy indeed successfully led 
 back into France the force under his command, but 
 there was no army existing there that could hope to 
 meet the host of invaders then ready to pour in over 
 her frontiers. How Napoleon at length surrendered 
 himself as a fugitive on board an English man-of-war 
 and was ultimately deported to the beautiful and 
 healthy Island of St. Helena, where he died nearly six 
 years afterwards, is familiar to every English child. 
 
 Looking back now over the eventful period of " the 
 hundred days," we are struck by the same features 
 we have remarked in the previous campaigns I have 
 here discussed. Was ever a man's personal ascen- 
 dency more wonderfully displayed than it was by 
 the fact that Napoleon, who disembarked in France 
 almost alone and as a fugitive from his little island 
 realm, was able in a few weeks to overturn with- 
 out shedding blood the whole organised power of 
 France under its legitimate king ? But all throughout 
 this his last campaign the ascendency he exercised 
 over the Allies, compelling them to conform to his 
 initiative, is not less remarkable than the narrowness 
 by which he missed crushing them. What would 
 have been the end of this extraordinary marl had not 
 D'Erlon's corps been wasted as it was on June 16th ? 
 With a little more vigour in the French cavalry 
 reconnaissances of the 17th, what would have been 
 the fate of the Prussian army if Napoleon had at once 
 discovered its actual situation ? I do not see how any 
 one who closely follows the story of this four days' 
 Campaign, as it is now known to us, can doubt that 
 
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 Ney, D'Erlon, Grouchy, and several others of Napo- 
 leon's subordinates failed to serve their old master 
 with the vigour and enthusiastic zeal of former years. 
 They as well as Europe generally were alike weary 
 of him. But as to himself, suffering as he certainly 
 was both in mind and body and by no means in any 
 way the man to command victory as he had done in 
 his early career, it is still round him and his initiative 
 we find centred all that was most brilliant on the 
 French side in this campaign. And yet there can be 
 now no doubt that over him was cast a weariness and 
 a lethargy, the result of ill-health, which weakened him 
 and exercised an unfortunate spell over his actions. 
 
 Had Napoleon never made this bold attempt to 
 seize again the throne of France, something would 
 have been wanting to the dramatic interest and com- 
 pleteness of his'' fall. Nevertheless this Waterloo 
 campaign is a thing apart, for Napoleon had in reality 
 fallen before it began. As said by his eulogistic 
 historian M. Thiers, who will see no fault in him as a 
 general, his reign, attempted despite France as much 
 as despite Europe, had become for the future im- 
 possible even before the campaign began. 
 
 To the preachers of Napoleonism, the final failure 
 and overthrow of their idol was the result of a malig- 
 nant destiny which influenced the elements as well as 
 it did the conduct of subordinates who had formerly 
 been his able assistants. They base their conclusions 
 upon the statements, absolutely untruthful on some of 
 the most important points, dictated by Napoleon at 
 St. Helena. His narrative of the events of this 
 campaign is admirable as a romance ;' its one great 
 
WATERLOO. 185 
 
 object was to make the world believe the lie which 
 runs through it— I mean that he was himself infallible 
 as a leader and in no way responsible for that terrible 
 defeat the very name of which still rankles in the 
 breast of Frenchmen. As far as France was con- 
 cerned he was successful in this object ; even so 
 famous a national historian as M. Thiers has lent his 
 great literary power to flatter the national vanity of 
 his countrymen by throwing the blame of Napoleon's 
 failure upon Grouchy, and in so doing has rendered 
 that untruth immortal. At this moment the story of 
 Waterloo as told by Thiers is firmly believed in by 
 the great bulk of the French nation, and it is rare to 
 find a Frenchman, no matter how anti-Napoleonic or 
 how republican he may be in feeling, who does not 
 believe that Waterloo was lost because Grouchy 
 failed or refused to obey orders. Indeed, many of the 
 uneducated still believe that he was bribed by England 
 to play the traitor's part towards his old master. And 
 so has been written in France the history of even the 
 early part of this century ! 
 
 The military critic who minutely examines Napo- 
 leon's proceedings during this campaign discovers so 
 much to find fault with that it is only possible to 
 account for his shortcomings by believing that they 
 were due to the mysteriously recurring malady re- 
 ferred to already several times in these pages. The 
 evidence corroborating this view is, to my mind, 
 irrefutable. This disease, from which he had long 
 suffered more or less and which had been the cause 
 of so much disaster to him both in Russia and at the 
 battle of Dresden, now attacked him oftener and with; 
 
1S6 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 greater virulence. When under its influence he was 
 incapable of all useful mental or bodily exertion, had 
 great difficulty in keeping awake, and his drawn 
 features and dull expression bespoke both physical 
 pain and mental depression. His strength, no longer 
 what it was ten years before, had been seriously over- 
 strained by fifteen hours of daily work and worry 
 during his anxious stay in Paris. But when not under 
 the influence of this disease his fine intellect was as 
 clear, his fertility of resource as marvellous, his genius 
 as brilliant and his conceptions as grand as ever. 
 Seated in his cabinet he could plan and devise as of 
 yore, with almost unerring wisdom and keen apprecia- 
 tion of what was necessary for success. He could still 
 grasp the position with all his former insight. But 
 the anguish of his late failures in the field had not 
 only seriously affected his health but had robbed 
 him largely of that self-confidence which is so 
 necessary for any great and continued success in war. 
 He was no longer the thin, sleek, active little man 
 he had been at Rivoli. His now bloated face, large 
 stomach and fat and rounded legs bespoke a man 
 unfitted for hard work on horseback. His unwieldy 
 body no longer obeyed his behests as formerly. He 
 was already old for his forty-seven years, and from 
 being the most self-contained self-reliant and peremp- 
 tory of leaders he had now to some marked extent 
 already fallen into the garrulity of the greybeard, and 
 was prone to ask opinions from those to whom he 
 had been wont to issue orders. 
 
 I have thus dwelt upon the state of Napoleon's 
 health in what I may term the last act of his 
 
WATERLOO. 187 
 
 curiously histrionic career, because I believe it to 
 have been the primary cause of his final overthrow 
 at Waterloo. The more I study his grandly con- 
 ceived plan of campaign for 181 5 the more convinced 
 I am that the overwhelming defeat in which it ended 
 was primarily the result of bodily disease and the 
 failure of mental power which resulted from it at 
 supreme moments when rapid and energetic decision 
 was imperatively necessary for success. Had he been 
 able to bring the mental and bodily energy of his 
 early career to bear upon the great plan he had 
 conceived for the destruction of Wellington and 
 Blucher in Belgium, judging of what those com- 
 manders would have done by what they did do, I 
 believe the cautious Englishman would at least have 
 had to retreat in haste for the purpose of re-embarking 
 at Ostend, whilst the fiery and impetuous Prussian 
 would have been almost destroyed at Ligny and only 
 too glad to place the Rhine between the remnants of 
 his beaten army and the victor of Jena. 
 
 In no other way can I satisfactorily account for the 
 valuable hours squandered by Napoleon or the care- 
 less faultiness of many of his most important orders 
 during this campaign. Nor can I otherwise explain 
 to myself how two armies situated as were those of 
 Wellington and Blucher on June 14th 15th and 16th 
 were allowed to escape during the two following days 
 from the destruction with which Napoleon's most 
 ably devised scheme of operations ought to have 
 overwhelmed them. His fatigued and lethargic con- 
 dition on the early morning of the 17th accounts for 
 the many hours of daylight that were trifled away and 
 
188 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 were then uselessly squandered. Grouchy, anxious 
 to begin the pursuit, strove to see Napoleon at day- 
 break, but was not admitted to his presence until 
 8 a.m., and even then it was impossible to elicit any 
 definite instructions from him. Indeed, as a matter 
 of fact, no orders were issued until noon, Grouchy 
 receiving his verbally about I p.m. — a delay which 
 enabled Blucher to reach Waterloo in time the 
 following day to give the French their final despatch 
 there. Well indeed may Vandamme have said to 
 those around him : " The Napoleon whom we have 
 known exists no more, — our yesterday's (the 16th) 
 success will have no result." I believe it was not so 
 much the deep condition of the country after the 
 heavy rain as a recurrence of this fatal malady on 
 the morning of Waterloo, added of course to the 
 fact that he did not expect Blucher's arrival on 
 the field of battle that day, which caused him to 
 begin the action so late and so purposelessly to 
 throw away hours which might have been employed 
 in destroying Wellington before the Prussians could 
 arrive. We know that during the progress of the 
 battle itself he remained seated for hours motionless 
 at a table placed for him in the open, often asleep 
 with his head resting upon his arms ; that also when 
 flying beaten from the field he suffered so much from 
 drowsiness it was with difficulty his attendants pre- 
 vented him from tumbling from his horse. During 
 the progress of the battle he was little on horseback, 
 for riding caused him pain. He was thus debarred 
 from seeing for himself much of the Prussian advance 
 upon ;Planchenoit, and consequently did not fully 
 
WATERLOO. 
 
 realise what the dangers of his position were as early 
 as he should have done had he been able to ride 
 rapidly from point to point upon the field of battle 
 to obtain information for himself. Indeed, it is to 
 this cause only we can attribute the fact that he 
 began this battle without having himself previously 
 reconnoitred or examined Wellington's position, re- 
 lying on General Haxo's report upon it. 
 
 Napoleon's character is a puzzle to most men and 
 the composition of his brain is difficult to analyse. 
 He had no real appreciation of what was beautiful 
 in nature, felt little of the true poetry of life, and 
 cared nothing for what we regard as virtue ; but all 
 we know of what he said or wrote regarding history 
 in which he had no part, or about those who made it, 
 or regarding the science of government, and the insti- 
 tutions and general machinery which keep civilised 
 states going, displays wisdom and liberality. He 
 thoroughly understood the minds and hearts of men, 
 especially of Frenchmen, and was fully alive to those 
 influences which form and mould the human cha- 
 racter to make the individual either good or bad, and 
 which, in doing so, make nations either great or little. 
 
 He knew full well how thoroughly he had satisfied 
 French aspirations after military glory, but he could 
 not have foreseen that what he did, together with the 
 renown of his name, would have enabled a nephew 
 in the next generation to bring about another Bona- 
 partist Empire. If he be now conscious of what takes 
 place on earth, how much the poignant remembrance 
 of Waterloo must be salved by the knowledge (I 
 judge from current French literature) that all which 
 
190 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 Frenchmen care most still to remember of the past 
 is directly connected with his immortal name ! It 
 was he who gave France the foremost position in 
 Europe — a position the like of which no one nation 
 before or since has ever occupied, and before which 
 all European nations, England excepted, had humbly 
 bent the knee. He found France in the throes of 
 a foul, sanguinary revolution with all its horribly 
 legalised crimes of murder and robbery, and from 
 it, by his genius for government, he evolved order 
 joined with progress. The fascination which in life he 
 personally exercised over his own followers we often 
 feel ourselves, even now, when we contemplate his 
 soaring genius and attempt to measure his greatness. 
 
 For the part of the heroic conqueror, in which 
 character he wished to be for ever remembered, death 
 upon the battlefield was a necessity. Leonidas the 
 Spartan, Epaminondas the Theban, Turenne the 
 Frenchman, Wolfe and Moore the Englishmen, and 
 above all of our national heroes the great Nelson, — 
 all had fallen upon the field of their glory and their 
 fame. Upon many remarkable occasions Napoleon 
 showed his contempt of danger and how recklessly he 
 could expose his own body when his doing so was 
 calculated to help him to success. He knew how to 
 win the imagination of Frenchmen and how with 
 French armies to conquer ; but he did not know how 
 to die a heroV^eath. Why, oh why did he not end 
 his days with those gallant souls who, when everything 
 was lost, tried in his cause on the evening of that ap- 
 palling overthrow to stem the overwhelming current 
 of pursuit ? Why did he not die with those who died 
 
' ATERLOO. 
 
 for him upon that most eventful day of his life ? But 
 as a patriot how little worth)- was he of all the 
 
 NAPOLEON AT ST. 
 
 Helena (trom\a contemporary\drawiiig). 
 
 reverence and devoted love bestowed upon him by his 
 brave, faithful and loyal army ! It is as natural to die 
 
192 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 as to be born and it can matter little whether you 
 fall like a soldier on the field of battle when young 
 and vigorous, or " sicken years away " to die in your 
 bed. If the average of human life were a hundred 
 instead of thirty-three this question might be of some 
 general importance ; but it is not so. Bonaparte's 
 march through the world was marked by the blood- 
 trail of tens of thousands of gallant soldiers who, had 
 it not been for his inordinate personal ambition, might 
 have lived for years longer. Yet it is not for this 
 reason or because he wasted upon horrible war the 
 means of national prosperity and of individual enjoy- 
 ment that men specially loathe his memory. It is 
 because his whole career, from childhood to the day 
 of his death, was one great untruth, and was made up 
 of deceit, treachery, and the most appalling and selfish 
 indifference to the feelings and wants of others — was, 
 in fact, one great unholy deception. Even his most 
 ardent admirers must freely admit that the great 
 cause of Righteousness and of Peace never gained 
 anything at his hands. A studied and finished actor 
 in all his relations with men and women, he assumed 
 at times an apparent kindly interest in the fate of 
 those about him. He could even cleverly pretend a 
 feeling of generous and magnanimous impulse when 
 he thought it would pay him to do so. Throughout 
 life he was always playing to an audience whether it 
 were . to his army by stirring general orders, or to 
 France by lying bulletins, or to the world, present and 
 to come, by his childish conduct at St. Helena and by 
 the fictions he concocted there. The instrument he 
 played upon was man, and no other human being has 
 
WATERLOO. 193 
 
 ever understood its gamut better or how to call forth 
 its strong tones or to get more effect out of it. He 
 knew the springs that moved man's moral machinery, 
 especially the emotional side of humanity, and above 
 all things the Frenchman's love of high-flown, melting 
 sentiment. He was thus able to endear himself to 
 France and especially to her splendid soldiers who 
 loved him with a love the like of which we only find 
 in the devotion with which the Tenth Legion loved 
 Caesar. 
 
 The name of this pre-eminently bad man fills a 
 space in the world's history far greater than that 
 occupied by all the men of action, all the thinkers, 
 poets or writers of every age. Yet this man, who is 
 still regarded by myriads as the greatest of human 
 beings, failed in the mission he had set himself to 
 accomplish — was even beaten at his own special trade 
 ■ — was declared an outlaw by all Europe, and died in 
 prison. The public career of no great leader of men 
 teaches us so painful a moral lesson upon the mockery 
 of all earthly ambition, whilst the story of his private 
 life indeed proclaims "how little are the Great." He 
 died as he had lived, untruthful to the last. " Mene 
 Mene, Tekel, Upharsin. God hath numbered thy 
 kingdom, and finished it. Thou art weighed in the 
 balances, and aft found wanting." So wrote the finger 
 on the wall abbut the proud King of Babylon. It 
 might with equal truth have been written of him 
 whose overthrow at Waterloo is thus described in 
 verse : — 
 
 " Since he miscalled the morning star, 
 Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far." 
 
 O 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Adams' brigade at Waterloo, 180 
 
 Alexander, Czar, 7, 8, 109; army for, 14, 17; Napoleon's misconcep- 
 tion of his character, 29, 30 ; with Schwarzenberg's army in 
 Bohemia, 55 
 
 Allemant, Marshals Marmont and Mortier driven back upon, 1 14 
 
 Allied armies in Germany, August 11, 1813, 54, 55 
 
 march of Paris, 1814, 113-118 
 
 in Waterloo campaign, 140-145 
 
 Arches, Napoleon hemmed in at, by the Allied Armies, 109, m 
 
 Areola, bridge of, Bonaparte at, 1 1 
 
 Augereau, Marshal, 10, 86, 88, 100 
 
 Austria ; forces of, for the invasion of Russia, 9, 38, 39 ; assumes a 
 position of armed neutrality, 40, 51, 72; and Italy, 99, 100 
 
 Bachelu's Infantry division, 152 
 
 Bagration, army of, 22 
 
 Bale, column under Schwarzenberg at, 93 
 
 Barclay de Tolly's policy of cautious retreat, 18, 20, 21, 24, 25, 27;' 
 
 junction with the armies of Bagration at Smolensk, 22 
 Bar-sur-Aube, Marmont's corps falls back upon, 83 
 Bautzen, the Allies at, 46 ; battle of, 47-49 
 Bavarians, Napoleon and the, 69, 70 ; secession of, 99 
 Beauharnais, Prince Eugene de, 35, 38, 40, 86-88 
 Beaumont, Napoleon's headquarters at, 148 
 Belgium, Blucher's army in, 134, 135 
 Bellegrade, Austrian troops under, 88 
 Bennigsen, Russian army under, 69 
 Beresford at Bordeaux, 1 10 
 
 Beresina, the ; Napoleon's retreating army at, 33 
 Berlin, Bernadotte's army at, 54, 55 
 
 O 2 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Bernadotte ; his army at Berlin, 54, 55 ; defeats French corps under 
 Oudinot at Gross Beeren, 65, 66 ; defeats Ney at Dennewitz, 67 ; 
 sends two corps to support Blucher's march on Paris, 100 
 
 Bernhard, Prince of Saxe- Weimar, 152 
 
 Berthier, Napoleon's Chief-of-Staff, 117 
 
 Blucher, Prince ; Prussian army attacked by Ney at Bautzen, 48, 50 ; 
 army under, in Silesia, 54-56, 58, 61 ; defeats French corps under 
 Macdonald, 66, 67 ; Napoleon's repeated efforts to crush, 68, 69 ; 
 column under, at Coblentz, 93 ; character of, 96 ; his march for 
 Paris, 97-102 ; takes Soissons, 101, 102 ; battle of Laon, 104-106; 
 army under, in Belgium, 134, 135, 140-142 ; inaccurate despatch 
 of, 138 ; Napoleon's attack on June 15, 151— 153 ; battle of Ligny, 
 153-163; wounded, 164; promises to support Wellington at 
 Waterloo, 167, 168, 173 
 
 Bohemia, Schwarzenberg's army in, 54, 55 
 
 Bonaparte, Jerome, 159, 160 
 
 , Joseph, defends Paris, no, in, 114; evacuates the 
 
 city, 115 
 
 , Lucien, 130 
 
 , Napoleon, see Napoleon. 
 
 , Victor, 41, 58, 83, 99 
 
 Borodino, battle of, between Napoleon and Kutusof, 27-29 
 
 Bourbons, the restoration of the, 119, 127, 133 
 
 Bourmont, General, 151 
 
 Brienne, indecisive action at, 98 
 
 Biilow, Prussian corps under, IOO-I02, 141, 153, 164, 165, 174, 175, 
 179 
 
 Campaign of 1813; Napoleon's scheme, 57, 58; account of, 37-74 
 
 of 1814, 6; the only defensive one waged by Napoleon, 
 
 81-92 ; disposition of his army, 83, 86; defends Paris against the 
 Allies, 94-119; desertion of his generals, 118-120; Napoleon's 
 strategy in, 125-6; composition of his army, 126, 127 
 
 of 1815 ; the hundred days, 128-193 
 
 Campo Formio, Treaty of, 3 
 
 Catalonia, French troops under Suchet in, 86, 89 
 
 Caulincourt, 129 
 
 Chalons, 112, 113 ; Victor's corps falls back upon, 83 
 
 Champ- Aubert, Russians destroyed at, 98 
 
 Character, Napoleon a bad judge of, 30 
 
 Charleroi, 148, 149 
 
 Charenton, Marshals Marmont and Mortier at, 114 
 
INDEX. 197 
 
 Chaumont seized by Napoleon's cavalry, 1 15 
 
 Coblentz, Blucher at, 93 
 
 Coburg, Napoleon's army at, 40 
 
 Colborne (Lord Seaton), 180 
 
 Compans, General, 112, 115 
 
 Conscription, the, in France, 1814, 9, 10, 84 
 
 " Continental system," designed for the purpose of destroying the 
 
 commercial prosperity of England, 7-9 ; the inexpediency and 
 
 unwisdom of, 84, 85 
 Craonne, Woronsoff defeated, 104 
 
 . DANZIG, French garrison at, 55 
 Davoust, Marshal, 10, 40, 148 ; captures Hamburg, 47 
 Dennewitz, Ney defeated by Bernadotte at, 67 
 D'Erlon's corps, 148, 151, 152, 157, 161-163, 175, 176, 179 
 Desaix, Marshal, 10 
 Doulevent, Napoleon at, 116 
 Dresden ; pageant of, May 1812, 13 ; Napoleon's triumphant entry 
 
 into, 46, 47 ; battles round, in 1813, 61, 62, 67 
 Drissa, Russian camp at, 20 
 
 Elba, Napoleon sent to, 121-125 ; escape from, 128 
 
 Elbe, French fortresses on the, 38, 70, 86 
 
 England, Napoleon's "Continental system" and, 7, 8; national debt 
 
 during the invasion of Russia, 1812, 9 ; the Peninsula War, 53, 54 ; 
 
 the " Hundred Days," 128-193 
 Epernay, Napoleon marches to, 108 
 Erfurth, Napoleon's army at, 40 
 Excelsman, cavalry of, 170 
 
 Fere-Champenoise, Marshal Marmont defeated at, 114 
 
 Ferte-sous-Jouarre, 101 
 
 Finland, army of, 30 
 
 Fontainbleau, Napoleon at, 117, 119 
 
 Fortifications, absence of, in Paris, 1814, 1 15 
 
 France, condition of, in 1814, 76, 77 ; enormous taxes in, 84 ; the 
 conscription in, 9, 10, 84 ; manifesto issued to people of, by the 
 Allies in 1814,93; reconquered in 1815 without bloodshed, 132, 
 133 ; attack of Imperial Guard at Waterloo, 179, 180 
 
 Francis, Emperor, 40, 75, 88, 125 ; at Dresden, 13; with Schwarzen- 
 berg's army in Bohemia, 55 ; flees to Dijon, 113 
 
 Frankfort, the Allied Armies at, 75 
 
 Frasnes, village of, 152 
 
198 INDEX. 
 
 Gembloux, Grouchy at, 170, 171 
 
 Genappe, skirmish at, 171 
 
 Generals, Napoleon's, 10, 25, 37, 52, 117 ; inefficiency of, 42 ; treason 
 
 of, 118, 119; force Napoleon to abdicate, 119-121 
 Gerard's corps of French troops destroyed by Bernadotte, 65 ; at 
 
 Waterloo, 148, 149, 151, 159, 161, 163, 170, 181 
 Germany, Napoleon's new army in, 43 ; account of the 1813 campaign 
 
 i n > 43-74 
 Globokoe, 21 
 Gneisenau, Count, and the Prussian Short-Service System, 52 ; advises 
 
 Blucher, 96, 163 ; friction with Wellington, 136, 137, 155, 156 ; 
 
 orders the retreat upon Wavre, 164, 165 ; 174, 182' 
 Gotha, Napoleon's army at, 40 
 
 Graeme, Lieutenant, and the fall of La Haye Sainte, 178, 1 79 
 "Grand Army," for the invasion of Russia, 14, 27, 28; losses from 
 
 sickness and desertion, 24 ; disastrous retreat from Moscow, 31- 
 
 36 ; remains of, at Smorgoni, 33, 37, 38, 40 
 Gross Beeren, Bernadotte defeats Oudinot at, 65, 66 
 Grouchy, Marshal, 10, 140, 165 ; at Gembloux, 170, 171 ; movement 
 
 on Wavre, 174, 181, 182; retreat to France, 183 
 Guard, Imperial, at Waterloo, attack of, 179, 180 
 Guignes, Napoleon at, 99 
 
 Hamburg, captured by Davoust, 47 ; French garrison at, 55 
 
 Hamley, Sir E., on the campaign of 1814, 91 
 
 Heymes, Colonel, 178 
 
 Hill, Lord, corps of, 142 
 
 Holland joins the coalition against Napoleon in 1814, 93 
 
 Horses, want of, during the invasion of Russia, 21, 33 
 
 Hougoumont, attack upon, 175, 176 
 
 ITALY; Viceroy of, at Dresden, 13 ; troops from, join the remains of 
 the " Grand Army," 35 ; Austria and, 99, 100 
 
 Katzbach, the, Macdonald's army defeated by Blucher at, 66 
 
 Kellerman's corps of cavalry, 157 
 
 Kennedy, General, 178 
 
 Kovno, Napoleon's " Grand Army " at, 17 ; remains of, 33 ; bravery of 
 
 Marshal Ney at, 34 
 Kulm, Vandamme's defeat at, 62-66 
 Kutusof, General, battle with Napoleon at Borodino, 27, 30 ; falls a 
 
 victim to fever, 44 
 
INDEX. 199 
 
 La Have Sainte, fall of, 178, 179 
 
 La Rothiere, Napoleon's defeat at, 98 
 
 La Vendee, 1 10 
 
 Laon, Bulow at, 101 ; battle of, 104-106 
 
 Leipzig, Napoleon's advance on, 44, 46 ; falls back on, 69 ; battle of, 
 
 69, 70 
 Louis XVIIL, 128, 131, 133 
 Ligny, battle of 153-163, 165 
 Lithuania, Polish province of, 18 
 Loban's corps of French troops, 148, 171, 177 
 Lutzen, battle of, 45, 46, 49 
 
 MACDONALD, French corps under, 57, 61, 83, 99, 108; defeated by 
 
 Blucher, 66, 67. 
 Madgeburg, remains of " Grand Army " at, 40 
 Marbot, General, 174, 175 
 Marmont, Marshal ; corps of, falls back upon Bar-sur-Aube, 83 ; 
 
 pursues Blucher, 98 ; attacked by Blucher, 101 ; defeated at the 
 
 battle of Laon, 104, 105; retreat to Paris 114-119; desertion of 
 
 Napoleon, 119, 120 
 Massena, General, at Torres Vedras, 27 
 Mayence, Napoleon and the Bavarians at, 70 
 Metternich, and Schwarzenberg's movements, 96, 99, loo; flees to 
 
 Dijon, 113 
 Military system of every great European Power in 1813, 43 
 Money, General, in command of the National Guard at Paris, 115 
 Mont St. Jean, 167; Wellington's forces fall back on, 171 ; attacked 
 
 by Napoleon, 175 
 Moreau, General, surrenders Soissons, 101, 102 
 Mormant, the Allies surprised at, 99 
 Mortier, Marshal, French corps under, 83, 98, III, 1 14, 116; at 
 
 Soissons, 101, 102. 
 Moscow, distance from Smolensk, 26 ; entered by Napoleon, 29 ; 
 
 capture of, 20, 27 ; Napoleon's disastrous retreat from, 31-36 
 Muffling, Baron, and Blucher, 96 ; and Wellington, 137-139, 167, 168 
 Murat, Marshal, 10, 26, 33, 37, 62 
 
 NAPOLEON, subject to periodic attacks of a mysterious malady, 1-3, 28, 
 29, 65, 74, 147, 148, 158, 159, 165, 168, 184-186 ; one of the 
 greatest figures in history, 5 ; at Dresden in May 1812, 13 ; 
 diplomatic difficulties, 14 ; plan of attack at Borodino, 28 ; a bad 
 judge of character, 30 ; returns to France, [33 ; his invasion of 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Russia ends in disastrous failure, 36 ; creation and organisation of 
 a new army in Paris in 1813, 40-43 ; the peace negotiations at 
 Prague, one of the most fatal mistakes made by, 51-53 ; army in 
 August 1813, 55 ; scheme of campaign, 57, 58 ; rapid march to 
 Dresden, 61, 67 ; and Vandamme, 65 ; efforts to secure the earliest 
 and best intelligence of an enemy in time of war, 67, 68 ; repeated 
 efforts to overwhelm Blucher, 68, 69 ; composition of his armies 
 in 1812 and 1813, 71; mistakes made by, in 1813, 72, 73; his 
 critical position at the opening of 18 14, 75-80; return to Paris for 
 fresh troops, 80 ; the nine weeks' campaign of 1814, the only 
 defensive one waged by, 81-92 ; disposition of his army in 1814, 
 83, 86 ; the unwisdom and inexpediency of his " Continental 
 system," 84, 85 ; defends his capital against the Allies in 1814, 
 94-119; rapid movements of, 106, 107; his project disclosed by 
 an intercepted despatch, 112; desertion of his generals, 11 8-1 20; 
 sent to island of Elba, 121-125 ; his strategy in the 1814 campaign, 
 125-127 ; escapes from Elba, 128 ; re-enters Paris, 129, 134 ; 
 promulgates a form of Constitution, 130-132 ; prepares for the 
 Waterloo campaign, 134, 135 ; mistakes made by, in 1815, 138, 
 139; his army, 140; plan of campaign, 144-149; attack on the 
 Prussians, 151-153 ; battle of Ligny, 153-163 ; battle of Waterloo, 
 175-183 ; sent to St. Helena, 183 ; overthrow at Waterloo 
 attributed to illness, 185-188 ; character of, 189-193 
 
 Nelson, victory at Trafalgar, 135 
 
 Ney, Marshall, 10 ; at the battle of Borodino, 29 ; bravery of, at Kovno, 
 34, 35 ; captures Torgau, 47 ; attack on the Allied Armies, 47, 
 48, 63 ; defeated by Bernadotte at Dennewitz, 77 ; his corps falls 
 back upon Verdun, 83; joins Napoleon in 1815, 128; joins 
 Napoleon near Charleroi, 151, 157; attack on Quatre Bras, 152, 
 159-164, 168, 171, 177, 178 
 
 Niemen River, "Grand Army" collected for the invasion of Russia, 14; 
 passage of the, 17, 18 ; Marshal Ney covers the retreat across, 34 
 
 Oder, fortresses on the, 38, 70, 72 
 Orange, Prince of, corps of, 142 
 Orleans, Napoleon and, 1 17 
 Orleans, Duke of, 133 
 
 Orthez, Soult beaten by Wellington at, no 
 
 Oudinot, French corps under, 57, 83, 99, 108 ; defeated by Berna- 
 dotte, 65 
 Ourousoff, Russians under, 98 
 
 Pajol, cavalry of, 168, 170 
 
INDEX. 201 
 
 Paris, Napoleon organises a new army in 1813, 40-43 ; returns to, in 
 1814, for fresh levies, 80; his defence of, in 1814, 94-119; 
 Napoleon's return to, from Elba, 128, 129 
 
 Peninsular War, the, 53, 54, 88, 89 
 
 Picton's division at Waterloo, 176 
 
 Piedmont, Napoleon's troops from, 87 
 
 Pirch, Prussian corps under, 141, 163, 179 
 
 Pire's cavalry corps, 152, 159 
 
 Planchenoit, Prussian attack at, 179, 181 
 
 Polish question, Napoleon and the, 19, 20 
 
 Poniatowski, French corps under, 58 
 
 Ponsonby 's cavalry at Waterloo, 176 
 
 Prague, peace negotiations at, 51, 52 
 
 Prussia, King of, at Dresden, 13 ; with Schwarzenberg's army in 
 Bohemia, 55 
 
 , forces of, for the invasion of Russia, 9, 38, 39; swept of 
 
 horses, 21 ; declares against Napoleon, 40 ; army attacked by Ney 
 at Bautzen, 48, 50; effect of the peace negotiations at Prague on, 
 SI.S2 
 Quatre Bras, battle at, 149, 150, 159, 160-163, 171 
 
 Reille's corps, 148, 151, 152, 157, 159, 168 ; attack upon Hougou- 
 
 mont, 175, 176 
 Rheims, General Priest takes, 107 ; recaptured by Napoleon, 107, 108 
 Rhine, Napoleon's army driven towards the, 70, 75, 82 ; the Allies 
 
 cross the, 93 
 Ropes, Mr., articles on Waterloo, 173, 181 
 Russia ; invasion of, in 1812 : an appalling failure, 5-7, 36 ; military 
 
 forces required for, 9 ; Napoleon's ' ' Grand Army " collected on 
 
 the Niemen, 14, 17, 71 ; and Poland, 19, 20; want of horses, 21 ; 
 
 fighting near Smolensk, 24, 25 ; battle of Borodino, 27-29 ; 
 
 Moscow entered, 29 ; Napoleon's disastrous retreat from Moscow, 
 
 31-36 ; battle of Lutzen, 45 ; army attacked by Ney at Bautzen, 
 
 49> 5° > peace negotiations at Prague, 51, 52 
 Russians at Champ-Aubert, destroyed by Napoleon, 98 
 
 SAALFELD, Napoleon's army at, 40 
 
 Sacken, corps under, 98 
 
 St. Cyr, Marshal, 10, 58; holds Dresden, 61, 62 
 
 St. Dizier, Napoleon at, 113, 116 
 
 St. Helena, Napoleon sent to, 183, 191 
 
 St. Lambert, Billow's corps at, 174, 175, 182 
 
INDEX. 
 
 St. Priest, corps of, loo, IOI ; takes Rheims, 107 ; defeated by 
 
 Napoleon, 107, 108 
 Saltoun, Lord, 180 
 
 Saxon contingent at the battle of Leipzig, 69 
 Saxony, secession of, 99 ; King of, at Dresden, 1 3, 46 
 Scharnhorst and the Prussian Short-Service System, 52 
 Schwarzenberg, Austrian army under, 38, 39 ; in Bohemia, 54-56 ; 
 column under, at Bale in 1814, 93 ; a timid strategist, 95, move- 
 ments of, towards Paris, 96-99, 107-116 ; Metternich and, 96, 99, 
 
 100 ; attacked by Napoleon, 107-109 
 Seaton, Lord, 180 
 
 Secret societies at work in Central Europe, 1813, 49, 52 
 
 Segur, Count de, 148 
 
 Silesia, Blucher's army in, 54-56 
 
 Smolensk, 17, 18, 22, 23 ; fighting near, 24, 25, 47 ; return march 
 
 upon, 31, 33 
 Smorgoni, Napoleon leaves his army at, 33, 37, 38 
 Soissons, Wintzingerode's corps at, 100 ; town recaptured by Mortier, 
 
 101 ; surrenders to Blucher, 162, 103 
 Somerset's cavalry at Waterloo, 176 
 Soude-Sainte-Croix, battle at, 113, 114 
 
 Soult and Wellington in the Peninsula, 86, 89, 95 ; defeated at Orthez, 
 no; army shattered at Toulouse, 122; chief of Imperial Staff, 
 157, 181 
 Spain, Wellington's victories in, 53, 54 ; Napoleon's army in, 88, 89 
 Stein, and the Prussian Short-Service System, 52 ; able statesmanship 
 
 of, 92 
 Suchet, French troops held by, in Catalonia, 86, 89 
 Swedish army with Bernadotte at Berlin, 55 
 Switzerland joins the coalition against Napoleon in 1814, 93 
 
 Talleyrand summons the Allies to Paris, 116 ; and the restoration of 
 
 the Bourbons, 119 
 Tchichagof, army of, 30 
 
 Thielmann, Prussian corps under, 141, 164, 165, 181 
 Thiers, M., the historian, on Moreau's surrender, 102, 103 ; on the 1814 
 
 campaign, 122, 126 ; on the overthrow of Napoleon, 181, 184, 185 
 Tilsit, alliance hatched at, 8 
 Torgau, Ney's capture of, 47 
 Toulouse, Wellington advances on, 1 10 ; Soult's army shattered at, by 
 
 Wellington, 122 
 Trafalgar, Nelson's victory at, 135 
 
INDEX. 203 
 
 Treaty of Campo Formio, 3 
 Troyes, Napoleon at, 101 
 Turenne's battle at Entzheim, 63, 64 
 Tuscany, Napoleon's troops from, 87 
 
 UXBRIDGE, Lord, cavalry under, 142 
 
 Vandamme, Marshal, 10, 58, 61, 181, 188 ; defeated at Kulm, 62-65 
 
 Vandamme's corps, 148, 151, 161, 162, 170 
 
 Vandeleur's cavalry brigades at Waterloo, 179, 1 80 
 
 Vauchamp, Blucher at, 98 
 
 Verdun, Ney's corps falls back upon, 83 
 
 Vienna, Congress of, 127 
 
 Vistula, fortresses on the, 38, 70, 72 
 
 Vittoria, battle of, 54, 88, 89 
 
 Vivian's cavalry brigade at Waterloo, 179, 180 
 
 Waterloo campaign, full story of, yet to be written, 135 ; the French 
 army, 140 ; armies of the Allies, 140-143 ; Napoleon's plans for, 
 144-149; account of the battle, 175-183 
 
 Wavre, retreat upon, 164-166, 174, 181 
 
 Weimar, Napoleon's army at, 40 
 
 Wellington, Duke of : defeat of Massena at Torres Vedras, 27 ; and 
 Napoleon's power in Europe at the beginning of 1812, 39; the 
 Peninsular War, 53, 54, 88, 89 ; threatens Paris from the south, 
 76, 89; defeats Soult at Orthez, no; shatters Soult's army at 
 Toulouse, 122 ; army of, in Flanders, 134, 135, 142, 143 ; friction 
 with Count Gneisenau, 136-138 ; letter despatched by, to Blucher, 
 153, 154; attacked at Quatre Bras, 160-165 ; battle of Waterloo, 
 
 '75-183 
 Wilna entered by Napoleon, 18, 19; departure from, 20; .distance of 
 
 Borodino from, 27 ; remains of the " Grand Army " at, 33 
 Wintzingerode's corps at Soissons, 100-102; sent to St. Dizier, 113; 
 
 cavalry of, defeated by Napoleon, 116 
 Witepsk, Napoleon at, 20, 22, 23 
 
 Wittgenstein, Russian general, 44 ; battle of Lutzen, 45, 50 
 Woronzoff, corps of, 100 ; defeated at Craonne, 104 
 Wurtemberg, contingent at the battle of Leipzig, 69 ; secession of, 99 
 
 YORK, General, Prussian army under, 38, 39 ; column in Silesia, 56 
 
 ZlETHEN, Prussian corps under, 141, 151, 163 ; at Waterloo, 179-181 
 
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