The Tide Turns against Napoleon 507strategy of winning the temporary allegiance, or at least neutrality, of one of
the other four European powers had failed.
In August 1813, Napoleon defeated the allies at Dresden, but then learned
that Bavaria had seceded from the Confederation of the Rhine and joined
the coalition against France. In October, his troops outnumbered two to one,
Napoleon suffered a major defeat at Leipzig (in the Battle of the Nations)
and retreated across the Rhine River into France. His armies, ever more
filled with reluctant, raw recruits, lacked adequate supplies. An insurrection
in the Netherlands followed by an allied invasion restored the prince of
Orange to authority there. Austrian troops defeated a French army in north
ern Italy. The duke of Wellington’s English forces drove the French armies
from Spain and back across the Pyrenees. Forced to fight on French soil for
the first time, Napoleon’s discouraged armies were greeted with hostility
when they tried to live off the land as they had abroad. Opponents of
Napoleon, including some for whom a Bourbon restoration seemed a possi
bility, now spoke more openly in France.
Early in 1814, the allies proposed peace (perhaps insincerely, assuming
the French emperor would refuse) if Napoleon would accept France’s nat
ural frontiers of the Rhine River, the Alps, and the Pyrenees. Napoleon
stalled. An allied army of 200,000 moved into eastern France. In Paris, the
Legislative Body approved a document that amounted to a denunciation of
the emperor, though it never reached the public. Even Napoleon’s normally
dutiful older brother Joseph encouraged the members of the Council of
State to sign a petition calling for peace.
The allies were determined not to stop until they had captured Paris. After
overcoming stiff French resistance, the main allied force swept into the
(Left) Arthur Wellesley, the duke of Wellington. (Right) Charles Maurice de