and Russians, while Bernadotte, in command of a mixed
army, consisting mainly of Swedes, Prussians and Russians, but including
3,000 British troops and 25,000 Hanoverians under Walmoden, operated
against him from the north. These three armies were eventually able to
join hands, while Davout's army, the French armies in Italy and Illyria,
and 170,000 French troops in various German fortresses were unable to
render effective aid in the struggle. On August 26-27 Napoleon himself
won the last of his great victories at Dresden over the main army of the
allies, while his lieutenants were defeated by the northern army at
Grossbeeren on August 23, and again at Dennewitz on September 6, and by
the Silesian army at the Katzbach on August 26. The capitulation of
Vandamme at Kulm, with some 10,000 men, neutralised Napoleon's victory
at Dresden, and his enemies were increased by Austrian diplomacy. The
treaty of Teplitz, concluded on September 9, and accepted by Great
Britain on October 3, committed the allies to the complete independence
of the several German states. On the 10th Bavaria renounced the French
alliance, and on October 8, by the treaty of Ried, she engaged to join
the allies with 36,000 men, in return for a promise that she should
suffer no diminution of territory. On the 7th the northern and Silesian
armies had united west of the Elbe; Napoleon, who had quitted Dresden on
the 6th and vainly attempted to engage the separate northern army,
arrived at Leipzig on the 14th. But it was now too late.

On the 16th the allied armies, which had concentrated on Leipzig,
compelled him to stand at bay, and to risk all upon the fortunes of a
single battle. This battle, lasting three days, was not only one of the
greatest but one of the most decisive recorded in modern history, for it
finally crippled the warlike power of Napoleon, and inevitably
determined the issue of the campaigns yet to be fought in 1814 and 1815.
It would appear that Napoleon had under his command about 250,000 men,
and that he lost at least 50,000 in killed and wounded on the field. The
allied forces were much larger numerically, and their losses fully
equalled those of the French. But their victory was crushing. One of its
immediate results was that Napoleon was forced to abandon Saxony, and
with it the French cause in Germany. The French garrisons were reduced
one by one. Of the fortresses east of the Rhine, Hamburg, Kehl,
Magdeburg, and Wesel alone held out