defense of the city; but learning that sixty thousand Austrians had been sent over the Elbe to take on its flank any French army sent after Blücher, he ordered the young guard to Bautzen for the reinforcement of Macdonald. Thereupon Schwarzenberg, on the fourteenth, made a feint to advance. On the fifteenth Napoleon replied by a countermove on Pirna, where pontoons were thrown over the river to establish connection with Macdonald. On the sixteenth Napoleon reconnoitered, on the seventeenth there was a skirmish, and on the eighteenth there were again a push and counterpush. These movements convinced Napoleon that Schwarzenberg was really on the defensive, and he returned to Dresden, determined to let feint and counter-feint, the "system of hither and thither," as he called it, go on until the golden opportunity for a crushing blow should be offered. Blücher meantime had turned again on Macdonald, who was now on the heights of Fischbach with Poniatowski on his right. Mortier was again at Pirna; Victor, Saint-Cyr, and Lobau were guarding the mountain passes from Bohemia.

This was virtually the situation of a month previous to the battle. Schwarzenberg might feel that he had prevented the invasion of Austria; Napoleon, that he had regained his strong defensive. While the victory of Dresden had gone for nothing, yet this situation was nevertheless a double triumph for Napoleon. Ney, in obedience to orders, had advanced on the fifth. Bernadotte lay at Jüterbog, his right being westerly at Dennewitz, under Tauenzien. Bertrand was to make a demonstration on the sixth against the latter, so that behind this movement the rest of the army should pass by unnoticed. But Ney started three hours late, so that the skirmish between Tauenzien and Bertrand lasted long enough to give the alarm to Bülow, who hurried in, attacked Reynier's division, and turned the affair into a general engagement. At first the advantage was with the Prussians; then Ney, at an opportune moment, began to throw in Oudinot's corps—a move which seemed likely to decide the struggle in favor of the French. But Borstell, who had been Bülow's lieutenant at Grossbeeren, brought up his men in disobedience to Bernadotte's orders, and threw them into the thickest of the conflict. Hitherto the Saxons had been fighting gallantly on the French side; soon they began to waver, and now, falling back, they took up many of Oudinot's men in their flight. The Prussians poured into the gap left by the Saxons, and when Bernadotte came up with his Swedes and Russians the battle was over. Ney was driven into Torgau, with a loss of fifteen thousand men, besides eighty guns and four hundred train-wagons. The Prussians lost about nine thousand killed and wounded.

This affair concentrated into one movement the moral effects of all the minor defeats, an influence which far outweighed the importance of Dresden. The French still fought superbly in Napoleon's presence, but only then, for they were heartily sick of the war. Nor was this all: the Bavarians and Saxons were coming to feel that their obligations to France had been fully discharged. They were infected with the same national spirit which made heroes of the Prussians. These, to be sure, were defending their homes and firesides; but seeing the great French generals successively defeated, and that largely by their own efforts, they were animated to fresh exertions by their victories; even the reserves and the home guard displayed the heroism of veterans. On September seventh Ney wrote to Napoleon: "Your left flank is exhausted—take heed; I think it is time to leave the Elbe and withdraw to the Saale"; and his opinion was that of all the division commanders. Throughout the country-side partizans were seizing the supply-trains; Davout had found his Dutch and Flemings to be mediocre soldiers, unfit at crucial moments to take the offensive; the army had shrunk to about two hundred and fifty thousand men all told; straggling was increasing, and the country was virtually devastated. To this last fact the plain people, sufferers as they were, remained in their larger patriotism amazingly indifferent: the "hither-and-thither" system tickled their fancy, and they dubbed Napoleon the "Bautzen Messenger-boy." Uneasiness pervaded every French encampment; on the other side timidity was replaced by courage, dissension by unity.

This transformation of German society seemed further to entangle the political threads which had already debased the quality of Napoleon's strategy. Technically no fault can be found with his prompt changes of plan to meet emergencies, or with the details of movements which led to his prolonged inaction. Yet, largely considered, the result was disastrous. The great medical specialist refrains from the immediate treatment of a sickly organ until the general health is sufficiently recuperated to assure success; the medicaster makes a direct attack on evident disease. Napoleon conceived a great general plan for concentrating about Dresden to recuperate his forces; but when Blücher prepared to advance he grew impatient, saw only his immediate trouble, and ordered Macdonald to make a grand dash. Driving in the hostile outposts to Förstgen, he then spent a whole day hesitating whether to go on or to turn westward and disperse another detachment of his ubiquitous foe, which, as he heard from Ney, had bridged the Elbe at the mouth of the Black Elster. It was the twenty-third before he turned back to do neither, but to secure needed rest on the left bank of the Elbe. But if Napoleon's own definition of a truly great man be accurate,—namely, one who can command the situations he creates,—he was himself no longer great. The enemy not only had bridges over the Elbe at the mouth of the Elster, but at Acken and Rosslau. The left bank was as untenable for the French as the right, and it was of stern necessity that the various detachments of the army were called in to hold a line far westward, to the north of Leipsic. Oudinot, restored to partial favor, was left to keep the rear at Dresden with part of the young guard. On October first it was learned that Schwarzenberg was manœuvering on the left to surround the invaders if possible by the south, and that Blücher, with like aim, was moving to the north. It was evident that the allies had formed a great resolution, and Napoleon confessed to Marmont that his "game of chess was becoming confused."

The fact was, the Emperor's diplomacy had far outstripped the general's strategy. It was blazoned abroad that on September twenty-seventh a hundred and sixty thousand new conscripts from the class of 1815, with a hundred and twenty thousand from the arrears of the seven previous classes, would be assembled at the military depots in France. Boys like these had won Lützen, Bautzen, and Dresden, and a large minority would be able-bodied men, late in maturing, perhaps, but strong. With this preliminary blare of trumpets, a letter for the Emperor Francis was sent to General Bubna. The bearer was instructed to say that Napoleon would make great sacrifices both for Austria and Prussia if only he could get a hearing. It was too late: already, on September ninth, the three powers had concluded an offensive and defensive alliance for the purpose of liberating the Rhenish princes, of making sovereign and independent the states of southern and western Germany, and of restoring both Prussia and Austria to their limits of 1805. This was the treaty which beguiled Bavaria from the French alliance, and made the German contingents in the French armies, the Saxons among the rest, wild for emancipation from a hated service. It explained the notification previously received from the King of Bavaria, who, in return for the recognition of his complete autonomy, formally joined the coalition on October eighth, with an army of thirty-six thousand