HKB
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 Cambacérès: "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. Eugène, 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 Bidassoa 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.