Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Bookremain, of 8000 wooden ones 500. Over 20,000 sick and wounded burnt in their beds. Fire lasts till September 20th. _September 18th._--Russian Army of the Danube under Admiral Tschitchagow joins the Army of Reserve. _September 26th._--Russian troops from Finland disembark at Riga. _September 30th.--Napoleon finds a copy of Treaty of Bucharest at Moscow._ _October 11th._--Admiral Tschitchagow with 36,000 men reaches Bresc, on the Bug, threatening the French communications with Warsaw. _October 17th-19th._--Second combat of Polotsk. Wittgenstein again defeated by St. Cyr, who is wounded. _October 18th._--Combat of Winkowo; Kutusoff defeats Murat. Americans defeated at Queenston Heights, on the Niagara, and lose 900 men. _October 19th._--Commencement of the Retreat from Moscow. _October 22nd._--Burgos captured by Wellington. _October 23rd._--Conspiracy of Malet at Paris; Cambacérès to the rescue. Evacuation of Moscow by Mortier after forty days' occupation. The French army now retreating has only half its original strength, and the best cavalry regiments boast only 100 horses. _October 24th.--Battle of Malo-Jaroslavitz. Eugène with 17,000_ _men defeats Kutusoff with 60,000; but Napoleon finds the enemy too strong and too tenacious to risk the fertile Kaluga route._ _November 3rd._--Battle of Wiazma. Rearguard action, in which Ney and Eugène are distinguished. _November 9th.--Napoleon reaches Smolensk and hears of Malet conspiracy._ _November 14th._--Evacuation of Smolensk. _November 16th._--Russian Army (of the Danube) takes Minsk, and cuts off the French from the Niemen. _November 16th-19th._--Combat of Krasnoi, twenty-five miles west of Smolensk. Kutusoff with 30,000 horse and 70,000 foot tries to stop the French, who have only 25,000 effective combatants. Magnificent fighting by Ney with his rearguard of 6000. _November 21st._--Russians seize at Borizow the bridges over the Beresina, which are _November 23rd._--Retaken by Oudinot. _November 26th-28th._--French cross the Beresina, but lose 20,000 prisoners and nearly all their cannon (150). _November 29th.--Napoleon writes Maret he has heard nothing of France or Spain for fifteen days._ _December 3rd._--Twenty-ninth bulletin dated Malodeczna, fifty miles west of Borisow. _December 5th.--Napoleon reaches Smorgoni, and starts for France._ _December 10th._--Murat, left in command, evacuates Wilna. French retreat in utter rout; "It is not General Kutusoff who routed the French, it is General Morosow" (the frost), said the Russians. _December 14th.--Napoleon reaches Dresden, and_ _December 18th.--Paris._ _December 19th._--Evacuation of Kovno and passage of the Niemen. _December 20th.--Napoleon welcomed by the Senate in a speech by the naturalist Lacépède: "The absence of your Majesty, sire, is always a national calamity."_ _December 30th._--Defection of the Prussian General York and Convention of Taurogen, near Tilsit, between Russia and Prussia. This defection is the signal for the uprising of Germany from the Oder to the Rhine, from the Baltic to the Julienne Alps. 1813. _January 5th._--Konigsberg occupied by the Russians. _January 13th._--Senatus Consultus calls up 250,000 conscripts. _January 22nd._--Americans defeated at Frenchtown, near Detroit, and lose 1200 men. _January 25th.--Concordat at Fontainebleau between Napoleon and Pope Pius VII., with advantageous terms for the Papacy. The Pope, however, soon breaks faith._ _January 28th.--Murat deserts the French army for Naples, and leaves Posen. "Your husband is very brave on the battlefield, but he is weaker than a woman or a monk when he is not face to face with an enemy. He has no moral courage"_ (_Napoleon to his sister Caroline, January 24, 1813._ Brotonne, 1032). _Replaced by Eugène (Napoleon's letter dated January 22nd)._ _February 1st._--Proclamation of Louis XVIII. to the French people (dated London). _February 8th._--Warsaw surrenders to Russia. _February 10th._--Proclamation of Emperor Alexander calling on the people of Germany to shake off the yoke of "one man." _February 28th._--Sixth Continental Coalition against France. Treaty signed between Russia and Prussia at Kalisch. _March 3rd._--New treaty between England and Sweden at Stockholm: Sweden to receive a subsidy of a million sterling and the island of Guadaloupe in return for supporting the Coalition with 30,000 men. _March 4th._--Cossacks occupy Berlin. Madison inaugurated President U.S.A. _March 9th._--Eugène removes his headquarters to Leipsic. _March 12th._--French evacuate Hamburg. _March 21st._--Russians and Prussians take new town of Dresden. _April 1st._--France declares war on Prussia. _April 10th._--_Death of Lagrange, mathematician_; _greatly bemoaned by Napoleon, who considered his death as a "presentiment"_ (D'Abrantès). _April 14th._--Swedish army lands in Germany. _April 15th.--Napoleon leaves Paris; arrives Erfurt (April 25th)._ Americans take Mobile. _April 16th._--Thorn (garrisoned by 900 Bavarians) surrenders to the Russians. Fort York (now Toronto) and _April 27th._--Upper Canada taken by the Americans. _May 1st._--Death of the Abbé Delille, poet. Opening of campaign. French forces scattered in Germany, 166,000 men; Allies' forces ready for action, 225,000 men. Marshal Bessières killed by a cannon-ball at Poserna. _May 2nd.--Napoleon with 90,000 men defeats Prussians and Russians at Lutzen (Gross-Goerschen) with 110,000; French loss, 10,000. Battle won_ _chiefly by French artillery. Emperor of Russia and King of Prussia present._ _May 8th.--Napoleon and the French reoccupy Dresden._ _May 18th._--Eugène reaches Milan, and enrols an Italian army 47,000 strong. _May 19th-21st.--Combats of Konigswartha, Bautzen, Hochkirch, Würschen. Napoleon defeats Prussians and Russians; French loss, 12,000; Allies, 20,000._ _May 23rd.--Duroc (shot on May 22nd) dies. "Duroc," said the Emperor, "there is another life. It is there you will go to await me, and there we shall meet again some day."_ _May 27th._--Americans capture Fort George (Lake Ontario) and _May 29th._--Defeat English at Sackett's Harbour. _May 30th._--French re-enter Hamburg and _June 1st._--Occupy Breslau. British frigate _Shannon_ captures _Chesapeake_ in fifteen minutes outside Boston harbour. _June 4th.--Armistice of Plesswitz, between Napoleon and the Allies._ _June 6th._--Americans (3500) surprised at Burlington Heights by 700 British. _June 15th.--Siege of Tarragona raised by Suchet; English re-embark, leaving their artillery. "If I had had two marshals such as Suchet, I should not only have conquered Spain, but I should have kept it"_ (_Napoleon in_ Campan's Memoirs). _June 21st._--Battle of Vittoria; total rout of the French under Marshal Jourdan and King Joseph. In retreat the army is much more harassed by the guerillas th |