Stein and
Sir R. Wilson and refused to treat, thus putting Napoleon in a
dilemma. His plans were always made on the basis of immediate success,
and the course to be adopted in case of failure was not considered.
Again he hesitated, with the result that when at last he resolved to
retire from Moscow, the winter, coming earlier than usual, upset his
calculations, and the miseries of that terrible retreat followed. He
left Moscow on October 18th, and, reaching the Beresina with but
12,000 men, was joined there by Oudinot and Victor, who had been
holding the line of the Dwina, with 18,000. His passage of the river
was opposed, but he succeeded in crossing, and on December 6th the
miserable remnant of the Grand Army reached Vilna. Macdonald, Reynier,
and Schwarzenberg, with 100,000 men, on the Polish frontier and in the
Baltic provinces, were safe; but this was the whole available remnant
of the 600,000 with which the campaign commenced.

All Europe now united against him. The French armies were discouraged,
and the allies enthusiastic; but the latter had difficulties to
contend with from their heterogeneous composition and diversity of
interests. The campaign opened with varying fortune. A blow at Berlin
was parried by Buelow at Gross Beeren on August 23d. Napoleon himself
forced Bluecher back to the Katzbach, but had to retire again to defend
Dresden from the Austrians; and his lieutenant, Macdonald, was
defeated in the battle of the Katzbach on August 26th. Napoleon
inflicted a crushing defeat on the Austrians before Dresden on the
27th, but, while preparing to cut off their retreat, was disturbed by
the news of Gross-Beeren and the Katzbach and by sudden illness, and
at Kulm lost Vandamme with 20,000 men. September was spent in
fruitless marches, and toward the end of the month the allies began
their converging march on their preconcerted rendezvous at Leipsic. At
the same time the Confederation of the Rhine began to dissolve. The
kingdom of Westphalia was upset on October 1st, and on the 8th
Bavaria joined Austria. The toils were closing round Napoleon, and
between October 14th and 19th he was crushed in that battle of the
Titans at Leipsic, and, brushing aside the Bavarians, who tried to
stop him at Haynau, on November 1st, led back the remnant of his army,
some 70,000 strong, across the Rhine at Mainz.

The allies now made overtures for peace on the basis of natural
frontiers, which would have left France the fruits