Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, 1769-1821 -- Elba and the Hundred Days, 1814-1815; Waterloo, Battle of, Waterloo, Belgium, 1815
At the moment of the landing of NAPOLEON on the French shore, the
only force in the Netherlands consisted, in addition to the native
troops, of a weak Anglo-Hanoverian Corps, under the command of His
Royal Highness the Prince of ORANGE; but the zeal, energy, and activity
displayed by the Government of Great Britain, in engrafting upon this
nucleus a powerful Army, amounting at the commencement of hostilities,
to about 100,000 combatants, notwithstanding the impediments and delays
occasioned by the absence of a considerable portion of its troops in
America, were truly surprising. At the same time, the extraordinary
supply of subsidies furnished by the British Parliament, without which
not one of the Armies of the Allied Sovereigns could have commenced
operations, and by means of which England thus become the great lever
whereby the whole of Europe was set in motion towards the attainment
of the one common object, was admirably illustrative of the bold,
decided, and straightforward policy of the most determined, the most
indefatigable, and the most consistent, enemy of NAPOLEON.
Within the same period, the Prussian forces, originally limited to
a corps of 30,000 men, under General Count KLEIST VON NOLLENDORF,
occupying the Prussian territories bounded by the Rhine, the Meuse,
and the Moselle, were augmented to an effective Army of 116,000
combatants, with all the rapidity and energy which a keen sense of the
wrongs and miseries their country had endured under the ruthless sway
of their inveterate foe, and a salutary dread of a repetition of such
infliction, could not fail to inspire.
Great Britain and Prussia thus occupied the post of honour, and formed
the vanguard of the mighty masses which Europe was pouring forth to
seal the doom of the NAPOLEON dynasty.
* * * * *
A Russian Army, under Field Marshal Count BARCLAY DE TOLLY, amounting
to 167,000 men, was rapidly traversing the whole of Germany, in three
main Columns: of which the Right, commanded by General DOCHTEROW,
advanced by Kalisch, Torgau, Leipzig, Erfurt, Hanau, Frankfort, and
Hochheim, towards Mayence; the Centre, commanded by General Baron
SACKEN, advanced by Breslau, Dresden, Zwickau, Baireuth, Nuremberg,
Aschaffenburg, Dieburg, and Gross Gerau, towards Oppenheim; while the
Left Column, commanded by General Count LANGERON, took its direction
along the line of Prague, Aube, Adelsheim, Neckar, and Heidelberg,
towards Mannheim. The heads of the Columns reached the Middle Rhine,
when hostilities were on the point of breaking out upon the Belgian
frontier. The intimation to these troops of another Campaign in France,
and of a probable reoccupation of Paris, had imparted new life and
vigour to the spirit of inveterate hatred and insatiable revenge which
they had so thoroughly imbibed against the French; and which had so
invariably marked their career since the memorable burning of MOSCOW.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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