h by the armistice. His conscripts
profited immensely by the training of those nine weeks: his forces now
threatened Austria on the side of Bavaria and Illyria, as well as from
the newly intrenched camp south of Dresden: his cavalry was
re-recovering its old efficiency: Murat, in answer to his imperious
summons, ended his long vacillations and joined the army at Dresden on
August 14th.

Above all, the French now firmly held that great military barrier, the
River Elbe. Napoleon's obstinacy during the armistice was undoubtedly
fed by his boundless confidence in the strength of his military
position. In vain did his Marshals remind him that he was dangerously
far from France; that, if Austria drew the sword, she could cut him
off from the Rhine, and that the Saale, or even the Rhine itself,
would be a safer line of defence.--Ten battles lost, he retorted,
would scarcely force him to that last step. True, he now exposed his
line of communications with France; but if the art of war consisted in
never running any risk, glory would be the prize of mediocre minds. He
must have a complete triumph. The question was not of abandoning this
or that province: his political superiority was at stake. At Marengo,
Austerlitz, and Wagram, he was in greater danger. His forces now were
not _in the air_; they rested on the Elbe, on its fortresses, and on
Erfurt. Dresden was the pivot on which all his movements turned. His
enemies were spread out on a circumference stretching from Prague to
Berlin, while he was at the centre; and, operating on interior and
therefore shorter lines, he could outmarch and outmanoeuvre them.
"_But_," he concluded, "_where I am not my lieutenants must wait for
me without trusting anything to chance_. The allies cannot long act
together on lines so extended, and can I not reasonably hope sooner or
later to catch them in some false move? If they venture between my
fortified lines of the Elbe and the Rhine, I will enter Bohemia and
thus take them in the rear."[343]

The plan promised much. The central intrenched camps of Dresden and
Pirna, together with the fortresses of Koenigstein above, and of Torgau
below, the Saxon capital, gave great strategic advantages. The corps
of St. Cyr at Koenigstein and those of Vandamme, Poniatowski, and
Victor further to the east, watched the defiles leading from Bohemia.
The corps of Macdonald, Lauriston, Ney, and Marmont held in check
Bluecher's army of Silesia. On Napoleon's left