VIII. CHAP. important one-lay here, that the victories of the Allies had drawn them away from their resources and their reinforcements, while the defeats of the French had brought them nearer to theirs. 1813. 56. Force and position of at Bautzen. On the evening of May 12th, the headquarters of the Allies were at Bautzen. Lord Cathcart and Sir Charles the Allies Stewart were in attendance on the sovereigns to whom they May 12-18, respectively were accredited, and, along with Sir Robert Wilson, were present in the whole of the important operations which followed, so that we have the immense advantage of authentic narratives regarding them, from the highest functionaries, entirely worthy of credit, and possessing the best sources of information. Their army was, on the 16th, reinforced by 15,000 Russians, under Barclay de Tolly, who had been let loose by the capitulation of Thorn, but this addition did not do more than make up the loss sustained in the battle of Lützen, and the entire force present under arms did not at the very utmost exceed 80,000 men. Indeed, Sir George Cathcart estimated the effective force of Allied combatants under arms in the field, at 70,000. The Allied sovereigns, after much deliberation, had made choice of a position about two miles in the rear of the line of the Spree, near Bautzen, extending along rising ground, and having the left in the woody recesses of the Bohemian Mountains, where it could not be turned; the right, which was in the plain, was secured by several villages, ponds, and enclosures; while the front was covered by a swampy rivulet fringed by osier and alder trees, affording good cover to light troops, and offering considerable obstacles to the passage of cavalry and artillery. The French Emperor, seeing that the Allies had obviously chosen their ground to make a stand, halted his advance during the 13th and four following days, awaiting the closing up of his corps; i. 94-96; and during this interval the Allies strengthened their position in several places by field-works, and repaired and 1 Lond. 38, 39; Cath cart, 143, 144; Thiers, Wilson, ii. 26, 27. armed an old field-redoubt on the summit of a hill,' origin ally constructed by the great Frederick a little before the CHAP. battle of Hochkirchen. VIII. 1813. 57. Advance and of the army. Marshal Macdonald first came up in front of this formidable position, having Oudinot on his right, who rested on the wooded Bohemian hills, forming the support of the composition Allied left. To the left he was soon supported by Mar- French mont, who again was in line with Bertrand with an Italian and Würtemberg as well as a French division. Napoleon no sooner heard that a general battle was imminent than he ordered up Ney and Lauriston, supported by Reynier from Torgau and Luckau, with orders to move on Hoyerswerda on the flank and rear of the Allied position, with their united force, mustering 60,000 combatants. Victor was 1 Cathcart, left before Wittenberg as a standing menace to Berlin ; 144 ; with that exception, his whole disposable force, including 540-543. the Old and Young Guard, was directed on Bautzen.1 Thiers, xv. Napoleon was just setting out for the army, on the 58. evening of the 16th, when M. Bubna arrived at his head- Napoleon's quarters at Dresden, with the proposals of mediation the Austrian by Austria, and an autograph letter from the Emperor proposals. Francis to his son-in-law. The French Emperor received the Austrian envoy in the coldest manner, and broke out into one of his violent fits of passion against what he called the perfidy of the Imperial Court. Without being deterred by these declamations, M. Bubna quietly drew the Emperor's letter to Napoleon from his portfolio and read it entire. This letter, which bore the proof of sincerity on its face, produced a great impression on Napoleon, without, however, altering in one iota his preconceived determination to make no concessions. He listened calmly, however, to the terms suggested, which, to spare his pride, were not stated as conditions which he was to accept, but as suggestions of what his reason might approve. When Bubna was done, he replied that the Grand Duchy of Warsaw had perished at Moscow, so there was no need to say anything on that subject. He professed himself willing, to the surprise of M. de Bubna, to admit deputies from CHAP. VIII. 1813. the Spanish insurgents to the conference. He expressed, however, the greatest repugnance to making any conces sions which might tend to the restoration or reconstitution of Prussia, alleging it would amount to a reward for perfidy which it was too much to expect from him; objected decidedly to the renunciation of the title of Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine, as a concession which, without making any real change on the balance of power, could be insisted on only for the purpose of humiSir Chas. liating him; and insisted the Hanse towns must be Lord Castle- retained till a general peace, to be exchanged against 26, 1813; the French colonies in the hands of England. The con551, 552. ference, which lasted two hours, broke up without any definite conclusion being arrived at.1 Stewart to reagh, May Thiers, xv. 59. This opening of a pacific intercourse with Austria by Opening of no means diverted Napoleon from his main design, which gotiation was to open a direct negotiation with the Emperor of France and Russia. To effect this, he adroitly made use of M. de a direct ne between Russia. Bubna, who wrote a letter to Count Stadion, the envoy of Austria to the Russian headquarters, corrected by the Emperor himself, in which he said that the French Emperor, noways intoxicated by his recent success, was willing to agree to a suspension of arms, and a congress at Prague. in order to put a stop to the effusion of blood; and that. with that view, he was ready instantly to send commis sioners to the advanced posts to negotiate the terms of a suspension of hostilities. M. de Bubna was so much imposed upon by the apparently pacific disposition of the French Emperor, that he fell at once into the snare, and wrote to M. de Stadion that, to all appearance, the mission proposed by Napoleon would be the forerunner of a general peace. Napoleon announced in this letter, that he was about to make choice of M. de Caulaincourt to be his commissioner at the Russian headquarters, as he knew that he would be agreeable to his Imperial Majesty, and this was done with the full consent of M. de Bubna. Having thus put matters ostensibly in a pacific train both with Austria and Russia, VIII. Stewart to the French Emperor, having first given the necessary orders CHAP. for arming and securing the têtes-de-pont over the Elbe, and provided accommodation for the immense multitude 1813. of wounded who were expected to be refluent on the next 1 Sir Chas. few days to the Saxon capital, set out in person, preceded Lord Castleby his Guard, on the evening of the 18th, for Bautzen, reagh, May where he arrived on the morning of the 19th, and imme- MS.; diately mounted on horseback, and began reconnoitring 552-554. the enemy's position.1 28, 1813, Thiers, xv. 60. Königswar defeat of May 18. Before this the Allies had gained an advantage over part of Bertrand's corps in the neighbourhood of Königs- Combat of wartha on the evening of the 18th. How careful soever tha, and the French Emperor had been to conceal the march of the the French. left wing under Ney to turn the right flank of the enemy, he had been unable to prevent some accounts of it from reaching the Allied headquarters. Having received this intelligence, and learning that Ney's advanced column under Lauriston, and a division of Bertrand's corps detached to communicate with him from the main army, were not properly supported, they conceived the design of surprising them, which was immediately put in practice, and attended with entire success. For this purpose, a force of 20,000 men, consisting of the corps Barclay de Tolly and D'York, was put under the command of the former general, and set out at nightfall on the 18th. Barclay fell in with Bertrand's detached division, consisting of 9000 Italians, near Königswartha, and after a sharp action totally defeated them, with the loss of 2000 men and six guns, of whom 1000, including three generals of division, were made prisoners. They were only saved from total destruction by the opportune arrival of General Kellermann, son of the Duke of Valmy, with Ney's cavalry, who extricated them by a vigorous charge. At the same time, the remainder of the corps under D'York came into collision with the advanced-guard of Ney, under Lauriston, 20,000 strong, which was advancing near Weissig. A fierce conflict ensued, in which the Prussian cavalry CHAP. VIII. 1813. 1 Lond. 39, made several brilliant charges, and both parties sustained a loss of nearly 2000 men, without any decisive advantage being gained by either. The combat continued with 40; Cath varied success till eleven at night on the 19th, when 148; Thiers, Barclay, finding himself decidedly overmatched by the 559; Odel, hourly-increasing masses of the enemy, withdrew with his i. 108. 109. corps to the lines of Bautzen.1 cart, 147, xv. 557 61. of the field Sir Charles Stewart. The French, on the same day, made an attack on the Description village of Bautzen, occupied by Milaradowitch with of battle by 13,000 men, as well as the high ground on its left, but they were gallantly repulsed by the Russians, aided by part of Kleist's corps, which came up to its support. It was not intended, however, to hold the town or the course of the Spree when seriously attacked by the enemy, but only to throw an impediment in the way of his advance. Sir Charles Stewart has left the following graphic description of the ground on which the army was posted, which was in many places extremely strong: "Some commanding heights, on which batteries had been constructed near the village of Teukowitz, separated from the chain of mountains by streams and marshy ground, formed the defence of the left of the position. They were occupied by Wittgenstein's and Milaradowitch's of corps Russians. Beyond, and in front of it, the advanced-guards of these corps occupied several heights, on which batteries had been erected. The line then extended to the right, through villages which were strongly intrenched, crossing at right angles the great roads leading from Bautzen to Hochkirch and Gorlitz; thence in front of the village of Burchwitz, to three or four conical hills of considerable elevation, which rise abruptly, and were crowned with artillery, as was the high ridge of Kreckwitz, which adjoined them. These heights formed the right of the Allied position, which was extremely strong. The ground in the centre was flat and favourable for cavalry, except in a few places where it was intersected by water-courses and marshes. Earthworks, however, had been constructed, to |