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Napoleon's disasters in Russia, in 1812, were imputed by his admirers to the elements; his reverses in Germany, in 1813, were attributed by them to treachery: and even those two calamitous years had been signalised by his victories at Borodino, at Lutzen, at Bautzen, at Dresden, and at Hanau.
M. de la Tour says they can bring 60,000 or 90,000 men into the field, if Genoa is guarded for them by a fleet; but Genoa would require 14,000 men. On that place they must retreat. The Spaniards seem to be going on well. They mean not to be empressés with their recognition, but are advised not to be the last. There have been insurrections at Hanau, Swerin, and I know not where else.
Baffled in an attempt to reinforce the weak garrison of Hanau, which it was highly important to the Swedes to gain, he crossed the Maine, near Seligenstadt, and took the direction of the Bergstrasse, to protect the Palatinate from the conqueror. Tilly, however, was not the sole enemy whom Gustavus Adolphus met in Franconia, and drove before him.
The copse in which the duel was to take place was a quarter of a mile from Hanau. Sanin and Pantaleone arrived there first, as the latter had predicted; they gave orders for the carriage to remain outside the wood, and they plunged into the shade of the rather thick and close-growing trees. They had to wait about an hour.
Famine being urgent, discipline is not possible, nor existence itself. For a week longer, George, rather in obstinate hope than with any reasonable plan or exertion, still tries it; finds, after repeated Councils of War, that he will have to give it up, and go back to Hanau where his living is.
He delighted in producing Latin quotations, and an hour before his death, the poor lad, having noticed that almost all the trees in the forest of Hanau were beeches, whose branches stretched out to make a sort of roof, had thought it a suitable occasion to declaim one of Virgil's eclogues, beginning: "Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi..."
He found his army, amounting to about forty thousand men, in danger of starving; he received intelligence that a reinforcement of twelve thousand Hanoverians and Hessians had reached Hanau; and he resolved to march thither, both with a view to effect the junction, and to procure provisions for his forces. With this view he decamped on the twenty-sixth day of June.
As we stumbled along in this swampy place, we came to a narrow-gauge railway, which we gladly followed until we saw we were coming to a city. This we afterwards knew to be the city of Hanau. Just in the gray dawn, we left the track and took refuge in a thick bush, where we spent the day. This was October 5th. Our first work was to change our socks, spreading the ones we took off on a tree to dry.
The French were compelled to commence their retreat, and by the destruction of a bridge their rear-guard was cut off, and made prisoners. They fell back towards the Rhine, and found the Bavarian army posted at Hanau to intercept them. The Bavarians were, however, defeated, and the French army reached the Rhine.
The question has been asked; Who saved the French army on the Beresina and at Hanau? The Guard, it is true. But, outside of the picked corps, what was the French army then? Droves, not troops. Abnormal times, abnormal deeds. The Beresina, Hanau, prove nothing to-day.
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