The War of Wars (117 page)

Even so, the battle was far from lost: he had the stronger position, and his allies were continually squabbling over tactics and fighting on a far wider front, always vulnerable to a dividing French thrust. Thus began the greatest battle up till then in the history of the world, which was to decide the fate of a continent.

On 16 October the ‘Battle of the Nations’ began, which was to last
three days. Unlike previous battles, it was not one of dash and heroism, but one of great attrition and carnage, ultimately decided by sheer force of numbers and firepower, as well as an appalling military mistake which was to foreshadow the terrible slaughter of the First World War.

The battle began in the early morning with an attack by Schwarzenberg’s army in the south, under murderous fire from a hundred French guns. The French reacted effectively after initial setbacks. Napoleon planned to send Augereau in with a flanking force on the allied left. However to his surprise a well co-ordinated attack was launched by Blücher from the north, and he delayed a counter-attack in the south until he could be sure his northern defences were holding.

There Murat was fighting valiantly and even contemplated a counter-attack, but reinforcements were too late arriving and a party of the German cavalry refused to move. Just after midday Napoleon ordered his men to the south, followed by Murat’s cavalry. They pushed back the Austrians, but Russian reinforcements prevented this retreat turning into a rout. The fighting had resulted in a stalemate on both fronts, with allied losses at around 30,000 to the French 20,000.

By the following day Bernadotte and Bennigsen were in place with their armies and the French were outnumbered two to one, 160,000 to 320,000. Napoleon waited for his own reinforcements, staging no decisive push through allies lines. The following day the huge encircling allied army attacked at ten o’clock. Six major attacks were launched, pushing the French back in the north in spite of an intense defence. At around five o’clock, after remorseless fighting, the Army of Saxony and Würtemberg defected to the allies, handing over its forty guns and opening up a huge gap in the French lines. This permitted an enemy advance to half a mile from Leipzig.

Napoleon was now given the news that there were only 16,000 rounds of ammunition left, which made resistance the next day impossible. He decided to retreat to the ammunition depot at Erfurt at 2 a.m. on the morning of the 19th. This proved a textbook operation at first, with the bulk of his army crossing the sole remaining bridge across the river while the rearguard under Oudinot kept up a stubborn resistance in hand-to-hand street fighting.

These efforts were not to be rewarded: a corporal, misunderstanding
his orders, blew up the bridge while thousands of French soldiers were still in the town. A military catastrophe of the first order followed. Napoleon said bitterly:

The Emperor had ordered the engineers to mine the great bridge between Leipzig and Lindenau so as to blow it up at the last moment; part of the army was still on the further side with 80 guns and a train of several hundred wagons. The head of column of this part of the army, on seeing the bridge blow up, supposed it had fallen into the power of the enemy. A cry of dismay went up from the ranks: ‘The enemy are in our rear; the bridge is cut!’ The unfortunate men broke their ranks and sought all means of escape. The Duke of Taranto swam across; Count Lauriston, less lucky, was drowned; Prince Poniatowski, on a spirited horse, plunged in and was never seen again. It is impossible as yet to estimate the loss involved by this unfortunate accident, but the disorder it has caused in the army has completely altered the appearance of things. The victorious French army will reach Erfurt with all the appearance of a defeated army. The enemy, shaken by the battles of the 16th and 18th, have taken heart owing to the disaster of the 19th and have assumed a victorious attitude. I could see clearly enough the fatal hour coming! My star was growing paler; I felt the reins slipping from my fingers; and I could do nothing. Only a thunderstroke could save us. I had, therefore, to fight it out; and day by day, by this or that fatality, our chances were becoming more slender!

The magnitude of the disaster was immediately apparent to him: he displayed a rare lack of his usual ability to rebound in a declaration a few days later. ‘I went too far. I have made mistakes. Fortune has turned her back on me these last two years; but she’s a woman, and will change . . . I only hope the Allies will burn down two or three of my good cities of France; it would give me a million soldiers. I would offer them battle, I would beat them, and I would drive them at a tap of a drum all the way back to the Vistula.’

Oudinot fought on but had to surrender and swam to safety across the Vistula. It was a catastrophe on an unprecedented scale. The French
lost some 40,000 killed and wounded and 30,000 prisoners taken in Leipzig, as well as more than 390 guns. Other French garrisons, such as Dresden and Danzig, soon fell, with the loss of a further 90,000 men.

The news soon arrived that on 6 October Wellington’s army had crossed the French border – the first of his enemies to invade the country. Blücher and Schwarzenberg led a two-pronged advance across Germany to the Rhine. A force of Germans and Austrians tried to intercept Napoleon near Frankfurt but were mauled. Even so, only 70,000 French soldiers crossed the river, with 40,000 stragglers disconsolately behind them.

Napoleon’s domination of Europe was shattered beyond repair. He had lost Prussia and the German states; revolts were flaring in Italy and the Low Countries. The Iberian Peninsula was already lost. He had been the victim again of overconfidence, of his belief that attack was the best form of defence. It had been a close-run thing. Leipzig might well have gone the other way. Even so, such was the strength of combined British, Austrian, Russian and Prussian forces that it seems inconceivable he could have re-established his old empire, even if the French had won the battle.

Yet, extraordinarily, there remained still two slender chances of survival: first, the allies were divided about the wisdom of invading France; second, the French might fight to defend their native soil. There was some ground for each of these hopes. Meeting in Frankfurt in November, the Prussians and the Russians favoured an immediate invasion of France; the Austrians instead wanted to restore France’s ‘natural boundaries’ along the Rhine; the British too initially favoured this position, among them the Duke of Wellington even as his army inched up into France.

Blücher argued belligerently: ‘We must go to Paris. Napoleon has paid his visits to all the capitals of Europe. Shall we be less polite?’ The contrary argument was made by Austria, which feared that Russia would seek to dominate all of Europe; the British too were uneasy about Russian intentions and believed the French would act as a counterweight, properly boxed in, provided that they could be prised out of the Low Countries.

Metternich was able to offer these terms to Napoleon in November. At first he prevaricated, then accepted the offer. But by then Castlereagh had come to the conclusion that France would never cede the Low Countries; in addition both he and Metternich decided that France must be given no time to regroup its forces, in spite of the winter conditions. The invasion of France must proceed at once.

Napoleon was thus thrown on to his last hope: that of rallying the French people against the foreign invaders. But even the French, at last, had had enough of their Emperor. On his return to Paris he found a new spirit of independence among the very institutions he had set up to rubberstamp his rule. The senate still supported him, but the chamber dared to criticize him for continuing the war by an overwhelming vote of 229 votes to 31.

He responded in typically dictatorial manner by sweeping away the legislature: ‘You are not the representatives of the nation. The true representative of the nation is myself. France has more need of me than I have need of France.’ However it reflected the growing anger not just of the bourgeoisie but of the wealthy and the peasantry, Napoleon’s other traditional power base, who had lost sons and husbands in his wars. They had suffered years of economic disruption and trade embargoes, and now faced the prospect of outright invasion, as well as the lawlessness of brigands and bands of desperate penniless soldiers roaming the countryside. After years of sacrifice and suffering, their only reward was defeat.

This resentment through all ranks of French society did not trouble the Emperor unduly: he ruled through force and repression and maintained a formidable police apparatus. But it hampered his efforts to rally the French people against his external enemies; and if he could not protect France, his sole remaining claim to legitimacy as the embodiment of France’s greatness and national independence was lost. As long as he had been successful, he had retained the loyalty of the army. Should he fail, his only remaining props – nationalism and brute force – would be gone.

He declared in November:

The alarms and apprehension at Paris amuse me; I thought you capable of facing the truth. I shall defeat the enemy quicker than you
think. My presence is too much needed with the army at this moment for me to leave it. When it is necessary I shall come to Paris . . . One year ago all Europe was marching with us; now all Europe is marching against us. The reason is that the opinion of the world is governed either by France or by England. We should therefore have everything to fear were it not for the courage and power of the nation. Posterity will declare that the great and critical events that face us were not superior to France or to me.

He embarked on a furious conscription drive, calling up pensioners, gendarmes, foresters, customs officers and young teenagers to build up an army of 110,000 men, far short of the 960,000 he demanded. He printed money to finance this, destroying French national solvency.

By now, though, even some of his most loyal supporters were convinced that the end was in sight. Victor abandoned Strasbourg and Nancy. Then, in January, came the unkindest cut of all: Murat, one of his greatest commanders and hero of countless cavalry charges, although a relentless schemer and persistent critic of Napoleon, signed a treaty with Metternich under which, in return for being allowed to keep the throne of Naples, he would wage war upon the most loyal of all Napoleon’s proconsuls, Eugène de Beauharnais, in northern Italy. The latter was himself offered the crown of Italy by Metternich, but honourably, and perhaps stupidly, declined.

Murat has been much denounced for his perfidy; yet he was a competent administrator and may have even believed his decision to be in the best interests of Napoleon. Napoleon’s fury towards him is well documented. He commented icily, ‘The conduct of the King of Naples and that of the Queen is quite unspeakable. I hope to live long enough to avenge for myself and for France such an outrage and such horrible ingratitude.’

Meanwhile he still entertained hopes of victory or a diplomatic settlement, instructing the faithful yet frank Caulaincourt to go to Austria in January:

I doubt whether the Allies are acting in good faith, and whether England wants peace; I do, but only solid and honourable. You must
listen, observe. It is not certain that they will let you reach headquarters; the Russians and English will want to prevent our coming to an explanation and understanding with the Emperor of Austria. You must try to get the views of the Allies, and to let me know what you find out daily, so that I may be able to draw up instructions for you, instructions for which I have no data at present. Do they want to reduce France to her old frontiers? Italy is untouched, and the Viceroy has a good army. In another week I shall have collected enough men to fight several battles, even before the arrival of my troops from, Spain. The pillaging of the Cossacks will drive the inhabitants to arms and double our numbers. If the nation supports me the enemy are on the road to ruin. If Fortune betrays me my resolve is taken, I am not wedded to the throne. I shall abase neither the nation nor myself by accepting shameful terms. The thing is to know what Metternich wants. It is not the interest of Austria to push things to extremes; one step more and the leading role will escape her.

Even the weak-willed, incompetent and lecturing Joseph threatened to leave him. Napoleon, desperate to avoid this further blow to his prestige, tried to conciliate him:

My Brother:

I have received your letter. It is too full of subtleties to fit my present situation. Here is the question in two words. France is invaded; Europe is all in arms against France, but especially against me. You are no longer King of Spain. What will you do? Will you, as a French prince, support my throne? If so you must say so, write me a straightforward letter that I can publish, receive the officials, and display zeal for my cause and for that of the King of Rome, good-will towards the Regency of the Empress. Can you not bring yourself to this? Haven’t you enough good sense to do this? Otherwise you must retire quietly to a château forty leagues from Paris. If I survive, you can live there quietly. If I die, you will be assassinated or arrested. You will be useless to me, to the family, to your daughters, to France, but you will be doing no harm and will not embarrass me. Decide at once, choose your path.

To appease Joseph he offered him the post of governor of Paris, a truly disastrous position for the man who had already done so much to lose Spain. Napoleon declared defiantly: ‘No preparations are to be made for abandoning Paris; if necessary we must be buried under its ruins.’ He ordered the Pope to be bundled out of France, to propitiate him. He was ‘to be dropped like a shell’ in Rome.

It is impossible not to admire Napoleon in this, the grimmest hour of his career, with his back to the wall. The once ferociously energetic, unstoppably dominant and brilliant young man who had taken power had by 1810 become plump, indolent, indecisive, domesticated and surrounded by an adoring and fawning host of sycophants in a classic example of the corruption induced by power, had gone on to make the disastrous mistake of not intervening personally in Spain, had waged the Russian campaign with a mixture of incompetence and pride and then committed the cardinal folly of allowing his army to be trapped at Leipzig. But he was now a man transformed and rejuvenated.