n the campaign by a mighty blow dealt at Bluecher, and then to lead
a great force through the Lusatian defiles into Bohemia and drive the
allies before him towards Vienna.

But what did he presume that the allied forces in Bohemia would be
doing while he overwhelmed Bluecher in Silesia? Would not Dresden and
his communications with France be left open to their blows? He decided
to run this risk. He had 100,000 men among the Lusatian hills between
Bautzen and Zittau. St. Cyr's corps was strongly posted at Pirna and
the small fortress of Koenigstein, while his light troops watched the
passes north of Teplitz and Karlsbad. If the allies sought to invade
Saxony, they would, so Napoleon thought, try to force the Zittau road,
which presented few natural difficulties. If they threatened Dresden
by the passages further west, Vandamme would march from near Zittau to
reinforce St. Cyr, or, if need be, the Emperor himself would hurry
back from Silesia with his Guards. If the enemy invaded Bavaria,
Napoleon wished them _bon voyage_: they would soon come back faster
than they went; for, in that case, he would pour his columns down from
Zittau towards Prague and Vienna. The thought that he might for a time
be cut off from France troubled him not: "400,000 men," he said,
"resting on a system of strongholds, on a river like the Elbe, are not
to be turned." In truth, he thought little about the Bohemian army. If
40,000 Russians had entered Bohemia, they would not reach Prague till
the 25th; so he wrote to St. Cyr On the 17th, the day when hostilities
could first begin; and he evidently believed that Dresden would be
safe till September. Its defence seemed assured by the skill of that
master of defensive warfare, St. Cyr, by the barrier of the Erz
Mountains, and still more by Austrian slowness.

Of this characteristic of theirs he cherished great hopes. Their
finances were in dire disorder; and Fouche, who had just returned from
a tour in the Hapsburg States, reported that the best way of striking
at that Power would be "to affect its paper currency, on which all its
armaments depend."[346] And truly if the transport of a great army
over a mountain range had depended solely on the almost bankrupt
exchequer at Vienna, Dresden would have been safe until Michaelmas;
but, beside the material aid brought by the Russians and Prussians
into Bohemia, England also gave her financial support. In pursuance of
the secret article agreed on at Reiche