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in the art of war, his inspiration. I have a suspicion, moreover, that my earliest acquaintance with the monarch was through the ci-devant Ritt-meister; for I fell, while of tender age, among tales and legends, and think that my historical reading can have extended little, if at all, beyond the outlines of English history, when I made acquaintance with many a romancer's dreams. That by the way. Round this spot it seems that Napoleon's guard bivouacked on the night of May 1, 1813, his army being then on its march to the Elbe, by Leipzig. The Allied army were at this time close to his line of advance, and meditating a stroke which he little expected. Having contrived to conceal their position from him till next day, they, soon after noon, fell upon his extended columns in a very masterly way, taking him by surprise and at great disadvantage. If the execution of their attack could have equalled its conception, they would have then and there finished the campaign. But the valour and steadiness of the French troops, and the skill of the French Emperor, were sufficient to ward off a disaster which at one time was imminent. The villages of Great and Little Görschen, of Kaja, Rahno, and Eisdorf, all a little to the south of Lützen, were held by the French with extreme tenacity and valour, or, if lost for a time, were recovered again by desperate efforts. Had these little points of vantage been lost, and the French been forced past them on to the open plain, the Cossacks and other splendid cavalry (in which the Allies were rich) would speedily have wrought complete destruction, for the French were weak in that arm. As it was, the villages, by supreme efforts, were held until Napoleon could in some sort concentrate his army on the point where he was attacked. He lost more men

than the enemy, but by nightfall he was in greater force near Lützen than they. The opposing forces remained till next day on the field; and during the night the cavalry of the Allies made an incursion on the weary French, by which the Emperor was nearly captured. In the morning the Allies, finding themselves overmatched, retreated, without being molested. The war was transferred to the Elbe, and the plains of Leipzig were left in peace until October, when they heard the sound of cannon again.

Lützen is properly described as one of the most brilliant of Napoleon's victories; and this because it was his generalship alone which prevented it from being a defeat. He, being in a great strait, by a wonderful intuition penetrated the enemy's plan, brought up all the force which he had in hand to make good the key of his position, and contrived to hold his ground until more of his divisions, arriving from distant points, made him of superior strength to the Allies, and the latter found it necessary to retreat. But though his abilities thus saved him from disaster, the affair reflected little credit on his prudence, and showed that he was no longer to have the initiative in war as of old. The action was planned by the Allies, not by him. They lay for many hours quite close to his line of march without his knowledge of their design or of their exact position. They assailed him when his divisions, being on the march, were extended over thirty miles of country from Weissenfels to Leipzig; and they went very near, indeed, to cutting his army in two. victory was nothing like those stunning overthrows by which he had once been accustomed to paralyse his foes. The Allies retired fighting, without the least disorder, and without the loss of a gun or a

His

waggon, and Napoleon did not at once pursue them. He had lost the power of controlling the campaign and of driving his adversary before him, either because his qualities and his troops had deteriorated, or because his opponents had gained a new proficiency in the art of war. But the more that he ought to have been impressed by these considerations, the more incautious and wilful did he become. He was possessed by the idea of punishing Prussia for joining Russia. He blustered most unadvisedly about destroying Berlin, and making Frederick William's realm a desert; and while he was uttering threats like these, calculated to excite war to the knife against him if anything could do so, he was endeavouring to detach separate States from the alliance which frowned so darkly on his fortunes. He should have forborne to threaten, or else saved himself the trouble of negotiating.

But all lessons, as we know, were lost upon him; and although he did not cease to win battles, he ceased to win decisive ones, and his fortunes steadily deteriorated. Bad news came from Spain and Germany; and at length Austria, feeling that he had fallen low enough to warrant her in hazarding another stroke for independence, threw her sword into the scale against him. His old renown, and the dread which he had universally inspired, would have enabled him at any time in this summer to make reasonable terms, by which he would have gained time to reorganise his power, if he could gain nothing else. But opportunity after opportunity was lost; negotiation after negotiation came to nought; he was even mad enough to personally insult Prince Metternich at a time when the retention of the Austrian alliance was of the utmost moment to him; and the autumn saw him once more on the

plains around Leipzig, his chance of retreat to the Rhine without ruinous damage hanging on the issue of a battle wherein his troops would be matched against equal numbers, a far stronger cavalry, and an opposing force whose physical and moral condition was superior to theirs: and yet, standing in this jeopardy, his mind was set upon aggression and vengeance, and making the nobles of Prussia beg their bread! So have I seen an old mastiff whose teeth had been ground down by work and time unable to comprehend that he was no longer the champion that he had been, and challenging and fighting with the avidity of old days, but getting only defeats from younger and better-armed foes.

It was during the months which elapsed between the two battles of Lützen and Leipzig fought by Napoleon on these plains, that the poet Körner was brought by stealth wounded into the latter town. His regiment had been treacherously attacked by the French during an armistice, and he, unarmed, had been cut down. It was a dangerous act then to harbour a soldier of the Allied armies in a Saxon town; nevertheless, a humane and patriotic medical man in the suburbs of Leipzig received Körner into his house, and attended to him until he recovered. The poet then returned to his regiment, and served but a short time longer before he received another and a fatal wound. He was slain during the unsuccessful attack made by the Allied army on Dresden in August.

In the last-named city, before the grammar-school in the GeorgsPlatz, stands his statue, wherein the artist has endeavoured to glorify the poet and the soldier; and so, in my opinion, has produced an unsatisfactory effect. A military poet does not usually take his MS. with

him when he charges the enemy, nor wear his panoply when he is composing or reciting his verses. But our sculptured Körner, grasping his sword with one hand-and a warlike figure in all respects but one, carries a literary roll in the other hand. The statuary in one effort can seize but a single epoch in the life of a man, and should confine himself to that. Körner never immortalised himself as a soldier; and though he fell bravely fighting, as hundreds of other Germans did, he did not by that means earn his statue. The homage is undoubtedly paid to the memory of the patriotic poet, and it would have been well, I think, if Herr Hähnel had remembered this, and spared us the spurs and other articles of war.

I think that it is supposed by most of those who have written of the battle of Leipzig that the town at the time of the battle was fortified. This is a mistake. It was in the days of the Seven Years' War surrounded by a continuous enceinte, strengthened by some outworks; but immediately after that war the levelling of the ramparts commenced. They were removed very gradually, the last curtain-that in front of Schiller Strasse-having disappeared before the middle of the present century. Therefore, in 1813 Leipzig was not fortified in the sense of being in a condition to stand a siege. Any town may be defended by street and house fighting, and this was the sort of resistance that was made to the Allied forces when they broke into Leipzig on the 19th October. No doubt the portions of the old enceinte and outworks then existing helped the French rearguard a little in their resistance; but the whole assault was an affair of only an hour or two. If the walls had been continuous they might have kept

the conquerors, or a large portion of them, back for some days, and materially retarded the pursuit.

The Leipzigers have taken pains to mark by a column each of the principal points in the battles, so that a stranger, after a short survey of the ground, finds his comprehension of the awful struggle pretty clear, if he happens to have read a good account of the order of events.

The great plain of Leipzig extends in every direction from the town as far as the eye can reach. Except by the rivers that flow through it, it is very little broken even in these days of railways and quarries. In 1813, it was probably, in a general sense, unbroken; and the fullest advantage was in that year taken of its extent for fighting purposes; for round the town, there was not a point of the compass where the battle of 16th to 19th October did not reach. The principal struggle-where the generals-in-chief on both sides were present, and where the great body of the forces was engaged-occurred to the south-east of Leipzig on the 16th and 18th. To the northeast, Marshal Ney opposed Blucher's and Bernadotte's corps. The Allied forces, as the victory inclined to their side, extended towards each other, and finally touched, thus stretching over more than a halfcircle from north-west to southwest by the east. On the west, by Lindenau, a corps of Austrians ceaselessly endeavoured to drive General Bertrand's corps off the main road to Erfurth. Thus was Leipzig literally "encompassed with armies." It is impossible to conceive that "glorious war," as a spectacle, could be more grandly presented; and if there were in Leipzig at the time any spectator whose affections and possessions were untouched by the war, he must have enjoyed scenes of un

equalled magnificence on those efforts, and incline him to treat on autumn days.

"By heaven! it is a splendid sight to see, (For one who hath no friend, no brother

there),

Their rival scarfs of mixed embroidery,
Their various arms that glitter in the

air!

What gallant war- hounds rouse them

from their lair,

And gnash their fangs, loud yelling for the prey?

All join the chase, but few the triumph share;

The Grave shall bear the chiefest prize

away,

And Havoc scarce for joy can number their array."

terms favourable to the French. A tremendous action had been fought; Napoleon's position was worse than it had been before; he knew that reinforcements for the enemy were at hand, and yet he would decide neither to retreat nor to make pro

vision for his retreat on a future day. It is so difficult to perceive on what reasonable expectation, or even on what chance, of advantage he resolved to fight again in front of Leipzig, that we are compelled to ascribe the second battle to mere pride and wilfulness. Undoubtedly the same kind of obstinacy had succeeded with Napoleon many times before, but those times were very different from 1813. His method of making war took Europe by surprise in his early days; his own abilities, and the fighting condition of his troops, were superior to what was to be found on the other side, that he might always be said to have a fair chance of success even when things ap

Spite of the magnitude and extent of the order of battle, you realise its general features very readily. There is a village about four miles to the south-east, named Liebervolkwitz, which represents about the centre of the French position of the 16th. An arc drawn through this village, with Leipzig as a centre, and extending from the river on the right, to the ground in front of Halzhausen village on the left, would pass through the posi-parently were against him. tion of the troops handled by Napoleon in person. Of course, the position of the Allies fronted this. It was about the villages right and left of Liebervolkwitz that the tremendous struggles took place which make up the first day's battle of Leipzig, so far as the main armies were concerned. Napoleon's position from which he ordered the battle on that day, is marked by a pillar south-west of the village of Probstheida; and Probstheida is almost on the straight line, and about half-way, between Leipzig and Liebervolkwitz.

Furious as it was, the struggle of the 16th was indecisive, and a drawn battle was to Napoleon as bad as a defeat; for the object to be gained by fighting at all was to deliver a blow that might seriously discomfit the enemy, paralyse his

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His

justification, then, for running great
hazards was in his undoubted moral
superiority. But things were sadly
changed now.
The Allied army
was certainly commanded with as
much ability as the French; the
Allies were encouraged to renewed
exertions by the glorious impression
which they had made on the foe
on the 16th; they were provisioned
by a proper commissariat, properly
sheltered in their camp, and want-
ed for nothing that soldiers in the
field can have; while the French,
having plundered and devoured all
the goods and victual of Leipzig
and the surrounding country, and
having no magazine of their own
within reach to draw upon, could
turn the day's rest which they got
on the 17th to small account.
Buonaparte was certainly demented
and devoted to destruction.

He

might yet have shown a sufficient front to make good his retreat with what was left to him. But he chose to risk everything upon the bare chance of beating tomorrow that enemy to whom he had yielded ground yesterday-an enemy in many ways strengthened since then; and he paid dearly for his choice!

The main armies did not engage on the 17th; and one may suppose, not unreasonably, that both sides were willing enough to take a little breathing-time after their exertions of the day before. The reasons respectively assigned for the pause are, on the part of the French Emperor, that he hoped for an answer to proposals which he had made to Austria the night before, tempting her to withdraw from the alliance; on the part of the Allies, that their reinforcements, which they knew to be at hand, did not come up till afternoon of the 17th, when it was too late to begin fighting. There was a severe cavalry combat away to the north-east on the 17th; but, except for this, it was a day of comparative rest. Napoleon used it to distribute his troops in a fresh position. He contracted his arc of defence, drawing his forces nearer to Leipzig, and made all the preparation in his power for the mortal agony of the 18th. Probstheida, which had before been his own station in rear of his army, he now made his most advanced point of defence. His right, still resting on the river, was at Connewitz; but his left was able to stretch further north than before, being formed on the circumference of a smaller circle. Thus he covered Leipzig and his only way of retreat more effectually. His own station with his reserves was at the tobaccomill on the Thonberg. It is now marked by a pillar, the mill having been removed. He had yielded two miles of ground in thus changing

his position, and brought the war close to the suburbs. Such a din of battle, such a pounding of firearms as Leipzig heard next day, had never been heard in the world before. A spectator inside it-let him look which way he might from a steeple, monument, or point of vantage-saw embattled hosts in deadly strife. From nine in the morning until the fall of night the carnage continued. The whole of Napoleon's action in this encounter may be described as vainly beating himself to pieces against a foe as obstinate and as wary as himself, and in far better fighting trim than he was. In vain he launched his masses of men on point after point of the enemy's line, endeavouring to break it. He yielded rather than gained ground; and the firmness and superiority of the Allies were so marked, that the Saxons and Würtemburgers who, against their inclinations, had been combating on the French side, went over on the field to the other, and turned their arms against him.

After a time it became so certain that the day must end in the retreat, or attempted retreat, of the French, that Schwarzenberg, the generalissimo of the Allied forces, got his men on the great field south-east of Leipzig as much as possible into shelter, protecting them by a furious and most powerful cannonade. The fire of the guns was sufficient to baffle the desperate attacks which Napoleon still persisted in making, for the Allied artillery was now superior to his both in numbers and position. And he was soon obliged to direct his attention to a part of the field farther north, where his troops were being forced back almost to the gates of Leipzig. Though the fighting was most desperate in this northern direction, nothing that the French. Emperor could do sufficed to check the enemy; and when night fell, his position had become quite un

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