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Updated: May 20, 2025
In 1813, Buonaparte turned suddenly from Dresden twice against Bluecher, to say nothing of his incursion into Bohemia from Upper Lusatia, and both times without in the least attaining his object. They were blows in the air which only cost him time and force, and might have placed him in a dangerous position in Dresden.
That same night Mueffling informed Bluecher by letter that the Anglo-Dutch army had occupied the position named, wherein to fight next day; and Bluecher's loyal answer was that Buelow's corps at daybreak should march by way of St. Lambert to strike the French right; that Pirch's would follow in support; and that the other two would stand in readiness.
The great allied army, amounting to a hundred and fifty thousand men, under Schwartzenberg, advanced by Switzerland; the army of Silesia, of a hundred and thirty thousand, under Bluecher, by Frankfort; and that of the north, of a hundred thousand men, under Bernadotte, had seized on Holland and entered Belgium.
To have done so would have caused the failure of all his dispositions, for then the battle of Ligny would not have been fought, and Bluecher would have had to make Wavre the concentration-point for his army.
Later in the evening came a letter from Bluecher announcing the concentration of the Prussian army to occupy the Ligny fighting position, in which disposition Wellington acquiesced; but, still uncertain of Napoleon's true line of attack his conviction being, as is well known, that Napoleon should have moved on the British right he would not definitely fix the point of ultimate concentration of his army until he should receive intelligence from Mons.
General Mueffling was insulted for having spoken of "Saxon hounds." Bluecher even was compelled secretly to take his departure. The Saxon troops were, however, reduced to obedience by superior numbers of Prussians, and their colors were burned. The whole corps was about to be decimated, when Colonel Romer came forward and demanded that the sentence of death should be first executed on him.
The English had entered Bordeaux, where a party had declared for the Bourbon family; the Austrians occupied Lyons; the Belgian army had joined the remnant of that of Bluecher, which re-appeared on Napoleon's rear. Defection now entered his own family, and Murat had just followed, in Italy, the example of Bernadotte, by joining the coalition.
So, no risk of waiting may be taken, in face of the danger of a chance shot at long range. It was a chance shot which struck the Lion's feed tank and disabled her and kept the cat squadron from doing to the other German cruisers what they had done to the Bluecher. "And the noise of it to you aloft, spotting the shots?" I suggested. "It must have been a lonely place in such a tornado." "Yes.
Wellington assembled an army of more than 100,000 British, Dutch, and Germans, and planned to cooeperate with 120,000 Prussians under Bluecher near Brussels. The Austrian army under Schwarzenberg neared the Rhine. Russia and Germany were alive with marching columns. To oppose these forces Napoleon raised an army of 200,000 men, and on 12 June, 1815, quitted Paris for the Belgian frontier.
Because Bluecher, although weaker than Schwartzenberg, was, on account of his enterprising spirit, the more important adversary; in him, therefore, lay the centre of attraction which drew the others along in the same direction.
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