Prussian territory for the King of Saxony, the partition of the Duchy of
Warsaw and for Hamburg and Trieste. He told Caulaincourt he had to
insist on this for, if he acquiesced in Metternich's terms, it would simply
encourage the Allies to demand even more. The deeply disillusioned
Caulaincourt commented: 'The cause of our disappointments is in the
refusal to make timely concessions, and it will end by ruining us
completely.'
On I I August, true to her word, Austria declared war on France. The
previous month Sweden, under Bernadotte, had joined in, animated by
his hatred for Bonaparte. The Czar had made strenuous efforts to get him
on the Allied side and, in an ironic gloss on Ia ronde de !'amour, even
offered him as bride the very sister he had refused Napoleon- provided,
of course, Bernadotte got rid of Desiree. The Allies could draw on
enormous fo rces. Apart from Sweden's 40,ooo, Prussia was contributing
I6o,ooo, Russia I84,ooo and Austria I27,ooo. Half a million men were
ready to march and there was an estimated 350,000 more in the
recruitment pipeline. There would be four separate Allied forces: the
I Io,ooo Army of the North (Swedes and Russians) under Bernadotte,
based on Berlin; the 95,000-strong Army of Silesia under Blucher at
Breslau; the Russian so-called Army of Poland with a new commander,
Bennigsen, the veteran ofEylau, and the main striking force, the 23o,ooo
strong Army of Bohemia (Austrians, Prussians and Russians) based on
the upper Elbe, under the command of the Austrian Schwarzenberg.
Czar Alexander insisted that the Austrian be the Allied Commander
in-Chief, in preference to the more obvious choice, Blucher; he thought
he could dominate the Austrian but knew that the fiery Prussian would
simply ignore him. The three allies, wary of taking on Bonaparte at
anything like equal odds, had agreed on a Fabian strategy of attrition. If
Napoleon threatened any of their armies, it was to retreat while the others
manoeuvred to cut his communications. Relying on favourable elements
of space and time, they would gradually wear the French down by
avoiding battle with the Emperor while defeating his marshals.
On paper Napoleon could oppose these 8oo,ooo Allies with 68o,ooo of
his own, raised by titanic efforts. Most of these were raw and ill-trained
recruits but go% were French and the officer problem was easing,
though the shortage of horses always remained his Achilles' heel. His
strategy for the renewed campaign was to await the enemy at Dresden
with his main force of 250,000 in seven corps, while I2o,ooo men in four
infantry corps under Oudinot would advance on Berlin to deal with
Bernadotte and the Army of the North; Davout's XIII Corps would
defend Hamburg and the lower Elbe.
marcin
(Marcin)
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