to make the most of it and break off the action, in accordance with the
general policy. It was the other two Emperors who insisted on a battle
then and there.
All afternoon of 26 August the Allies tried to blast their way into
Dresden, but the French held firm. At 5.30 Napoleon launched a
counterattack and regained all the ground lost during the day. That night
he brought up reinforcements. Both sides planned to go over on to the
attack on the morrow. The Allies intended a mass assault in the centre,
leaving the flanks weak, but it was there that Napoleon hoped for a
double envelopment, using Victor on the left and the Young Guard on
the right. He was confident that his centre, fortified by trenches and
redoubts full of cannon, was impregnable.
Fierce fighting went on all day on the 27th. Although the Allied wing�
resisted strenuously, the French flank attack succeeded. The problems
came in the centre where the French were hard put to it to hold their
own. Napoleon expected a decisive third day of fighting, but the Allies
had taken such a mauling (losing 38,ooo casualties to the French ro,ooo),
that they had lost heart. In a dramatic role reversal, the previously
circumspect Czar found himself vainly arguing at a council of war for
perseverance, but the unexpectedly unpliant Austrians overruled him. By
dawn on the 28th the French were left in possession of the field and
Napoleon could claim yet another points victory which essentially solved
nothing. Moreover, the Emperor's health was again giving cause for
concern. At the height of the fighting on the 27th, drenched with rain and
shivering with fever, he had to return to the town and lie down.
Conspiracy theorists believe that an attempt was made to poison the
Emperor at this time, and some claim he was absent fr om the field at the
precise time when his presence could have ensured a knock-out victory.
Any momentary euphoria was soon dissolved by bad news from all the
other fr onts. Oudinot had been defeated at Grossberen on the road to
Berlin and MacDonald had lost r 5,ooo men and one hundred guns in a
defeat by Blucher at Katzbach. Vandamme and I Corps, harrying
Schwarzenberg were heavily defeated at Toplitz by the Russians and
Prussians under Ostermann and Kleist. This was sheer bad luck. The
enemy suddenly turned at bay to face I Corps and, just as Vandamme
engaged them, another enemy column which had lost its way suddenly
blundered into his rear. With I3,ooo casualties I Corps was all but wiped
out. This showed that the Allies' strategy was correct and that Marmont
had been a true prophet. Napoleon should never have split his forces and
never have entrusted these delicate operations to his lesser marshals.
After Dresden Napoleon had two choices: march on Prague or Berlin.
marcin
(Marcin)
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