Bluecher with
his German troops was advancing up the Moselle to Nancy; Schwarzenberg
with the Austrians crossed the Rhine to the south at Basel and Neu
Breisach; Bernadotte in the Netherlands was welding Swedes, Dutch, and
Prussians into a northern army. Meanwhile, the great defeat which
Wellington with his allied army of British, Spaniards, and Portuguese,
had inflicted upon the French at Vittoria (21 June, 1813) had for the
last time driven King Joseph from Madrid and in effect cleared the
whole Iberian peninsula of Napoleon's soldiers. The British general had
then gradually fought his way through the Pyrenees so that in the
spring of 1814 a fourth victorious allied army in the neighborhood of
Toulouse threatened Napoleon from the south. An Austrian army, which
was then operating in Venetia and Lombardy, menaced France from yet a
fifth direction.
Against such overwhelming odds, Napoleon displayed throughout the
desperate months of February and March, 1814, the same remarkable
genius, the same indomitable will, as had characterized his earliest
campaigns.
Pages:
1185
1186
1187
1188
1189
1190
1191
1192
1193
1194
1195
1196
1197
1198
1199
1200
1201
1202
1203
1204
1205
1206
1207
1208
1209