Читать книгу Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Various - Страница 16

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The first four years of the present century were a lull before a tempest. These years covered on our side of the sea the administration of the elder Adams. In Europe they corresponded to the period of the transformation of the Consulate into the French Umpire. This change was rapidly and easily effected. The star of Napoleon emerged from the chaos and the cloud and rose rapidly to the zenith. But the mood of the age was war, war. Could Europe in these first years have foreseen the awful struggles that were just before, then Europe might well have shuddered.

Now it was that the ascendancy of the Corsican brought in a reign of violence and blood. Napoleon became the trampler of vineyards. His armies made Europe into mire. England—agreeing at Amiens not to fight—fought. Pitt, now in the last year of his life, used all of his resources to bring about a league against France. He persuaded Alexander of Russia, Francis of Austria, and Gustavus of Sweden—all easy dupes of a greater than themselves—to make a new coalition. He tried to induce Frederick William of Prussia to join his fortunes with the rest; but the last-named monarch was for the time restrained by the weakness of prudence. The agents of Napoleon held out to the king suggestions of the restoration of Hanover to Prussia. But Austria and Russia and Sweden pressed forward confidently to overthrow the new French Empire. That Empire, they said, should not see the end of the first year of its creation!

The Austrians were first in the field. The Russians, under Kutusoff, came on into Pomerania from the east. Out of Sweden, with a large army, came down Gustavus, the Don Quixote of the north, to crush Bernadotte, who held Hanover. Napoleon for his part sprang forth for the campaign of Austerlitz, perhaps the most brilliant military episode in the history of mankind. With incredible facility he threw forward to the Rhine an army of 180,000 men. His policy was—as always—to overcome the allies in detail.

On the twenty-fourth of September, the Emperor left Paris. The Empress and Talleyrand went with him as far as Strasburg. On the second of October, hostilities began at Guntzburg. Four days afterward the French army crossed the Danube. On the eighth of the month, Murat won the battle of Wertingen, capturing Count Auffenberg, with 2000 prisoners. On the tenth the French had Augsburg, and on the twelfth, Munich. On the fourteenth Soult triumphed at Memingen, capturing a corps of 6000 Austrians; and on the same day Ney literally overran the territory which was soon to become his Duchy of Elchingen. Napoleon out-generaled the main division of the enemy at Ulm. The Austrians, under General Mack, 33,000 strong, were cooped up in the town and, on the seventeenth of October, forced to capitulate. Eight field-marshals and generals, including the Prince Lichtenstein and Generals Klenau and Fresnel, were made prisoners. "Soldiers of the Grand Army," said Napoleon, "we have finished the campaign in a fortnight!"

On the day of the capitulation of Ulm, Massena in Italy drove back the army of the Archduke Charles. The Austrians to this date, in a period of twenty days, had lost by battle and capture fully fifty thousand men! On the twenty-seventh of October, the French army crossed the Inn. Saltzburg and Braunau were taken. In Italy, Massena, on the thirtieth, won the battle of Caldiero, and took 5000 prisoners. The French closed toward the Austrian capital. On the thirteenth of November, Napoleon, having obtained possession of the bridges of the Danube, entered Vienna. He established himself in the imperial palace of Schonbrunn. The Austrian Empire and the Holy Roman Empire—which was its shadowy penumbra—seemed to vanish like ghosts before him.

Out of Pomerania into Moravia, to the plain of Olmutz, the great Russian army under the Czar and Kutusoff, came roaring. There they were united with a heavy division of the Austrians, under the Emperor Francis. The latter had fled from his capital, and staked his last fortunes on a battle in the field. The allied army was 80,000 strong. Napoleon, with 60,000 men, commanded by Soult, Lannes, Murat and Bernadotte, advanced rapidly from the direction of Vienna, as far as Brunn, and there awaited the onset.

Just beyond this town, at Austerlitz, the French were arranged in a semicircle, with the convex front toward the allies, who occupied the outer arc on a range of heights. Such was the situation on the night of December 1, 1805. The morrow will be the first anniversary of our coronation in Notre Dame—a glorious day for battle!

With the morning of the second, Napoleon could scarcely restrain his ardor. The enthusiasm of the army knew no bounds. On the night before, the Emperor, in his gray coat, had gone the circle of the camps, and the soldiers, extemporizing straw torches to light the way, ran before him. Looking eagerly through the gray dawn, he saw the enemy badly arranged, or moving dangerously in broken masses under the cover of a Moravian fog. Presently the fog lifted, and the sun burst out in splendor. The onset of the French was irresistible. The allied centre was pierced. The Austrian and Russian emperors with their armies were sent flying in utter rout and panic from the field. Thirty thousand Russians and Austrians were killed, wounded and taken. Alexander barely escaped capture. Before sunset the Third Coalition was broken into fragments and blown away. At the conference between Napoleon and Francis, two days afterward, at the Mill of Sar-Uschitz, some of the French officers overheard the father of Maria Louisa lie to her future husband, thus: "I promise not to fight you any more."