stened precipitately to save the Saxon capital. The army arrived
breathless. The allies were already assaulting the suburbs; and, had
Napoleon come one hour later, Dresden would have been in their power.
Owing to the unexpected appearance of so prodigious a force, and still
more to physical accidents, the grand enterprise of the allies
miscarried. The battle of Dresden terminated to their disadvantage, but
their primary object was attained. Napoleon's force was divided into
three great armies. Should any of them sustain a defeat, all Saxony to
the right of the Elbe would be lost to him. The engagements of Jauer,
Grossbeeren, and Dennewitz, proved disastrous to the French generals,
and Lusatia and the right bank of the Elbe were soon in the hands of the
allies. All the attempts to penetrate to Prague and Berlin ended in the
discomfiture and annihilation of whole French corps. Oudinot, Ney,
Regnier, Bertrand, and the terrible Vandamme, were in succession so
totally defeated, that it was not possible even for the French
reporters, with all their address, to cloak their disasters. The allies
every where acted offensively. Saxony, surrounded by Silesia, Bohemia,
and Brandenburg, was now, from its situation, likely to become, earlier
or later, the grave of the French armies: the allies had every where the
choice of their operations; they were neither to be turned nor broken
through. It was evident that the long and obstinate continuance of
Napoleon at Dresden could not fail to prove ruinous to him. Of what
service could the Elbe be to him, when Bohemia, the key to that river,
was in the hands of his opponents? These had it in their power to turn
his flank as far as the Saale, without hazard or any great impediment,
as the event actually proved. Napoleon was cooped up in a narrow space,
where in time, even without being defeated, he would have been in danger
of starving with his army. Dresden was to him, in some respects, what
Wilna had been in 1812. Leipzig, an open place, was now of far greater
importance to him than Minsk was then. How easily might he have lost it,
as the allies were advancing in considerable force upon that place! It
was not lost, to be sure; but the communication between Dresden and
Leipzig, and Leipzig and Erfurt, was, if not cut off, at least
interrupted; his supplies became more and more precarious, and a large
garrison, which it was deemed necessary to reinforce with strong
detachments from the main arm