Vandamme at Kulm, with some 10,000 men, neutralised Napoleon's victory at Dresden, and his enemies were increased by Austrian diplomacy. The treaty of Teplitz, concluded on September 9, and accepted by Great Britain on October 3, committed the allies to the complete independence of the several German states. On the 10th Bavaria renounced the French alliance, and on October 8, by the treaty of Ried, she engaged to join the allies with 36,000 men, in return for a promise that she should suffer no diminution of territory. On the 7th the northern and Silesian armies had united west of the Elbe; Napoleon, who had quitted Dresden on the 6th and vainly attempted to engage the separate northern army, arrived at Leipzig on the 14th. But it was now too late. On the 16th the allied armies, which had concentrated on Leipzig, compelled him to stand at bay, and to risk all upon the fortunes of a single battle. This battle, lasting three days, was not only one of the greatest but one of the most decisive recorded in modern history, for it finally crippled the warlike power of Napoleon, and inevitably determined the issue of the campaigns yet to be fought in 1814 and 1815. It would appear that Napoleon had under his command about 250,000 men, and that he lost at least 50,000 in killed and wounded on the field. The allied forces were much larger numerically, and their losses fully equalled those of the French. But their victory was crushing. One of its immediate results was that Napoleon was forced to abandon Saxony, and with it the French cause in Germany. The French garrisons were reduced one by one. Of the fortresses east of the Rhine, Hamburg, Kehl, Magdeburg, and Wesel alone held out until the conclusion of peace in 1814. The general rising of Central Europe against French domination which followed the battle of Leipzig extended itself to Holland. The French were expelled in the middle of November, and on December 2 the Prince of Orange was proclaimed sovereign prince of the Netherlands. On the 29th the Swiss diet voted the restoration of the old constitution. The confederation of the Rhine was practically dissolved, but in Italy Napoleon's viceroy, Eugène Beauharnais, after falling back before the Austrian army, was able to hold the line of the Adige. On November 9 it was decided to offer peace to Napoleon on condition of the surrender of all French conquests beyond the Rhine, the Alps, and the Pyrenees. These terms represented the policy of Metternich. The Earl of Aberdeen consented to them on behalf of Great Britain and Nesselrode on behalf of Russia, but they were not accepted by Napoleon before the date by which an answer was required, and the war proceeded. On December 31 the Prussians under Blücher crossed the Rhine near Coblenz and opened a new campaign. [Pageheading: _AMERICAN SUCCESSES._]