Napoleon's Letters To Josephine Part 63

_June 30th.--Convention at Dresden. Napoleon accepts the mediation of Austria; armistice prolonged to August 10th._

_July 1st._--Soult sent to take chief command in Spain.

_July 10th._--Alliance between France and Denmark.

_July 12th.--Congress of Prague. Austria, Prussia, and Russia decide that Germany must be independent, and the French Empire bounded by the Rhine and the Alps; "but to reign over 36,000,000 men did not appear to Napoleon a sufficiently great destiny"_ (Montgaillard). _Congress breaks up July 28th._

_July 26th._--Moreau arrives from U.S., and lands at Gothenburg.

_July 31st._--Soult attacks Anglo-Spanish army near Roncesvalles in order to succour Pampeluna. Is repulsed, with loss of 8000 men.

_August 12th._--Austria notifies its adhesion to the Allies.

_August 15th.--Jomini, the Swiss tactician, turns traitor and escapes to the Allies. He advises them of Napoleon's plans to seize Berlin and relieve Dantzic [see letter to Ney, No. 19,714, 20,006, and especially 20,360 (August 12th) in_ Correspondence].

_On August 16th Napoleon writes to Cambaceres: "Jomini, Ney's chief of staff, has deserted. It is he who published some volumes on the campaigns and who has been in the pay of Russia for a long time. He has yielded to corruption. He is a soldier of little value, yet he is a writer who has grasped some of the sound principles of war."_

_August 17th.--Renewal of hostilities in Germany. Napoleon's army, 280,000, of whom half recruits who had never seen a battle; the Allies 520,000, excluding militia. In his counter-manifesto to Austria, dated Bautzen, Napoleon declares "Austria, the enemy of France, and cloaking her ambition under the mask of a mediation, complicated everything.... But Austria, our avowed foe, is in a truer guise, and one perfectly obvious. Europe is therefore much nearer peace; there is one complication the less."_

_August 18th._--Suchet, having blown up fortifications of Tarragona, evacuates Valentia.

_August 21st._--Opening of the campaign in Italy. Eugene, with 50,000 men, commands the Franco-Italian army.

_August 23rd._--Combats of Gross-Beeren and Ahrensdorf, near Berlin. Bernadotte defeats Oudinot with loss of 1500 men and 20 guns. Berlin is preserved to the Allies. Oudinot replaced by Ney.

Lauriston defeats Army of Silesia at Goldberg with heavy loss.

_August 26th-27th.--Battle of Dresden.--Napoleon marches a hundred miles in seventy hours to the rescue. With less than 100,000 men he defeats the Allied Army of 180,000 under Schwartzenberg, Wittgenstein, and Kleist. Austrians lose 20,000 prisoners and 60 guns. Moreau is mortally wounded (dies September 1st)._ Combat of the Katzbach, in Silesia. Blucher defeats Macdonald with heavy loss, who loses 10,000 to 12,000 men in his retreat.

_August 30th._--Combat of Kulm. Vandamme enveloped in Bohemia, and surrenders with 12,000 men.

_August 31st._--Combat of Irun. Soult attacks Wellington to save San Sebastian, but is repulsed. Graham storms San Sebastian.

_September 6th._--Combat of Dennewitz (near Berlin). Ney routed by Bulow and Bernadotte; loses his artillery, baggage, and 12,000 men.

_September 10th_--Americans capture the English flotilla on Lake Erie.

_September 12th._--Combat of Villafranca (near Barcelona). Suchet defeats English General Bentinck.

_October 7th._--Wellington crosses the Bida.s.soa into France. "It is on the frontier of France itself that ends the enterprise of Napoleon on Spain. The Spaniards have given the first conception of a people's war versus a war of professionals. For it would be a mistake to think that the battles of Salamanca (July 22nd, 1812) and Vittoria (June 21st, 1813) forced the French to abandon the Peninsula.... It was the daily losses, the destruction of man by man, the drops of French blood falling one by one, which in five years aggregated a death-roll of 150,000 men. As to the English, they appeared in this war only as they do in every world-crisis, to gather, in the midst of general desolation, the fruits of their policy, and to consolidate their plans of maritime despotism, of exclusive commerce" (Montgaillard).

_October 15th._--Bavarian army secedes and joins the Austrians.

_October 16th-19th.--Battles of Leipsic._ _Allied army_ 330,000 men (_Schwartzenberg_, _Bernadotte_, _Blucher_, _Beningsen_), _Napoleon_ 175,000. _Twenty-six battalions and ten squadrons of Saxon and Wurtemberg men leave Napoleon and turn their guns against the French. Napoleon is not defeated, but determines to retreat. The rearguard (20,000 men) and 200 cannon taken.

Poniatowski drowned; Reynier and Lauriston captured._

_October 20th._--Blucher made Field-Marshal.

_October 23rd._--French army reach Erfurt.

_October 30th.--Combat of Hanau. Napoleon defeats Wrede with heavy loss._

_October 31st._--Combat and capture of Ba.s.sano by Eugene. English capture Pampeluna.

_November 2nd.--Napoleon arrives at Mayence (where typhus carries off 40,000 French), and is_

_November 9th.--At St. Cloud._

_November 10th._--Wellington defeats Soult at St. Jean de Luz.

_November 11th._--Surrender of Dresden by Gouvion St. Cyr; its French soldiers to return under parole to France. Austrians refuse to ratify the convention, and 1700 officers and 23,000 men remain prisoners of war.

_November 14th.--Napoleon addresses the Senate: "All Europe marched with us a year ago; all Europe marches against us to-day.

That is because the world's opinion is directed either by France or England."_

_November 15th._--Eugene defeats Austrians at Caldiero.

Senatus-Consultus puts 300,000 conscripts at disposal of government.

_November 24th._--Capture of Amsterdam by Prussian General Bulow.

_December 1st._--Allies declare at Frankfort that they are at war with the Emperor and not with France.

_December 2nd._--Bulow occupies Utrecht. Holland secedes from the French Empire.

_December 5th._--Capture of Lubeck by the Swedes, and surrender of Stettin (7000 prisoners), Zamosk (December 22nd), Modlin (December 25th), and Torgau (December 26th, with 10,000 men).

_December 8th-13th._--Soult defends the pa.s.sage of the Nive--costly to both sides. Murat (now hostile to Napoleon) enters Ancona.

_December 9th-10th._--French evacuate Breda.

_December 11th.--Treaty of Valencay between Napoleon and his prisoner Ferdinand VII., who is to reign over Spain, but not to cede Minorca or Ceuta (now in their power} to the English._

_December 15th._--Denmark secedes from French alliance.

_December 21st._--Allies, 100,000 strong, cross the Rhine in ten divisions (Bale to Schaffhausen). Jomini is said to have contributed to this violation of Swiss territory.

_December 24th._--Final evacuation of Holland by the French.

_December 28th._--Austrians capture Ragusa.

_December 31st.--Napoleon, having trouble with his Commons, dissolves the Corps Legislatif._ Austrians capture Geneva. Blucher crosses the Rhine at Mannheim and Coblentz. Exclusive of Landwehr and levies en ma.s.se, there are now a million trained men in arms against Napoleon.

1814.

"The Allied Powers having proclaimed that the Emperor Napoleon was the sole obstacle to the re-establishment of the Peace of Europe, the Emperor Napoleon, faithful to his oath, declares that he renounces, for himself and his heirs, the thrones of France and Italy, and that there is no personal sacrifice, even that of life itself, that he will not be ready to make for the sake of France."--(_Act of Abdication._)