Napoleon's Letters to Josephine, 1796-1812
prisoners and nearly all their cannon (150).
_November 29th.--Napoleon writes Maret he has heard nothing of
France or Spain for fifteen days._
_December 3rd._--Twenty-ninth bulletin dated Malodeczna, fifty
miles west of Borisow.
_December 5th.--Napoleon reaches Smorgoni, and starts for
France._
_December 10th._--Murat, left in command, evacuates Wilna. French
retreat in utter rout; "It is not General Kutusoff who routed the
French, it is General Morosow" (the frost), said the Russians.
_December 14th.--Napoleon reaches Dresden, and_
_December 18th.--Paris._
_December 19th._--Evacuation of Kovno and passage of the Niemen.
_December 20th.--Napoleon welcomed by the Senate in a speech by
the naturalist Lacepede: "The absence of your Majesty, sire, is
always a national calamity."_
_December 30th._--Defection of the Prussian General York and
Convention of Taurogen, near Tilsit, between Russia and Prussia.
This defection is the signal for the uprising of Germany from the
Oder to the Rhine, from the Baltic to the Julienne Alps.
1813.
_January 5th._--Konigsberg occupied by the Russians.
_January 13th._--Senatus Consultus calls up 250,000 conscripts.
_January 22nd._--Americans defeated at Frenchtown, near Detroit,
and lose 1200 men.
_January 25th.--Concordat at Fontainebleau between Napoleon and
Pope Pius VII., with advantageous terms for the Papacy. The Pope,
however, soon breaks faith._
_January 28th.--Murat deserts the French army for Naples, and
leaves Posen. "Your husband is very brave on the battlefield, but
he is weaker than a woman or a monk when he is not face to face
with an enemy. He has no moral courage"_ (_Napoleon to his sister
Caroline, January 24, 1813._ Brotonne, 1032). _Replaced by Eugene
(Napoleon's letter dated January 22nd)._
_February 1st._--Proclamation of Louis XVIII. to the French people
(dated London).
_February 8th._--Warsaw surrenders to Russia.
_February 10th._--Proclamation of Emperor Alexander calling on the
people of Germany to shake off the yoke of "one man."
_February 28th._--Sixth Continental Coalition against France.
Treaty signed between Russia and Prussia at Kalisch.
_March 3rd._--New treaty between England and Sweden at Stockholm:
Sweden to receive a subsidy of a million sterling and the island
of Guadaloupe in return for supporting the Coalition with 30,000
men.
_March 4th._--Cossacks occupy Berlin. Madison inaugurated
President U.S.A.
_March 9th._--Eugene removes his headquarters to Leipsic.
_March 12th._--French evacuate Hamburg.
_March 21st._--Russians and Prussians take new town of Dresden.
_April 1st._--France declares war on Prussia.
_April 10th._--_Death of Lagrange, mathematician_; _greatly bemoaned
by Napoleon, who considered his death as a "presentiment"_
(D'Abrantes).
_April 14th._--Swedish army lands in Germany.
_April 15th.--Napoleon leaves Paris; arrives Erfurt (April 25th)._
Americans take Mobile.
_April 16th._--Thorn (garrisoned by 900 Bavarians) surrenders to
the Russians. Fort York (now Toronto) and
_April 27th._--Upper Canada taken by the Americans.
_May 1st._--Death of the Abbe Delille, poet. Opening of campaign.
French forces scattered in Germany, 166,000 men; Allies' forces
ready for action, 225,000 men. Marshal Bessieres killed by a
cannon-ball at Poserna.
_May 2nd.--Napoleon with 90,000 men defeats Prussians and Russians
at Lutzen (Gross-Goerschen) with 110,000; French loss, 10,000.
Battle won_ _chiefly by French artillery. Emperor of Russia and
King of Prussia present._
_May 8th.--Napoleon and the French reoccupy Dresden._
_May 18th._--Eugene reaches Milan, and enrols an Italian army
47,000 strong.
_May 19th-21st.--Combats of Konigswartha, Bautzen, Hochkirch,
Wuerschen. Napoleon defeats Prussians and Russians; French loss,
12,000; Allies, 20,000._
_May 23rd.--Duroc (shot on May 22nd) dies. "Duroc," said the
Emperor, "there is another life. It is there you will go to await
me, and there we shall meet again some day."_
_May 27th._--Americans capture Fort George (Lake Ontario) and
_May 29th._--Defeat English at Sackett's Harbour.
_May 30th._--French re-enter Hamburg and
_June 1st._--Occupy Breslau. British frigate _Shannon_ captures
_Chesapeake_ in fifteen minutes outside Boston harbour.
_June 4th.--Armistice of Plesswitz, between Napoleon and the
Allies._
_June 6th._--Americans (3500) surprised at Burlington Heights by
700 British.
_June 15th.--Siege of Tarragona raised by Suchet; English
re-embark, leaving their artillery. "If I had had two marshals
such as Suchet, I should not only have conquered Spain, but I
should have kept it"_ (_Napoleon in_ Campan's Memoirs).
_June 21st._--Battle of Vittoria; total rout of the French under
Marshal Jourdan and King Joseph. In retreat the army is much more
harassed by the guerillas than by the English.
_June 23rd._--Admiral Cockburn defeated at Craney Island by
Americans.
_June 24th._--Five hundred Americans surrender to two hundred
Canadians at Beaver's Dams.
_June 25th._--Combat of Tolosa. Foy stops the advance of the
English right wing.
_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 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.
_October 30th.--Combat of Hanau. Napoleon defeats Wrede with heavy
loss._
_October 31st._--Combat and capture of Bassano 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 passage of the Nive--costly
to both sides. Murat (now hostile to Napoleon) enters Ancona.