The Washington herald., 1914-09-20

! ing the sovereiEns had lost 1900 men
killed and wounded and 1900 taken pris-
oners, while Napoleon's loss was 10000
But the allied army was only beaten;
fought to conquer a few acres of ground.
but to conquer an army.
And the victor OF Dresden. tired. wet
and bedraggIed. stopped to dry and rest
himself rather than complete his victor
With his cooked hat dissolved into
shapeless mass and hanging over his
ears. he mounted his horse at ( o'clock
and trotted into the town followed by q
long train Of captives thirteen standards
Of his Hapsburg father-in-law. and twen-
ty-stX captured cannon. The water drip
ped from the skirts and sleeves of his
gray coat as he entered the palace, where
the King OF Saxony embraced him and
congratulated him on one OF the most
notable successes Of his career. He had
brought up 10000 almost exhausted
troops, crossed a river in the face of
$4,000 enemies and put them to flight.
But while he slept the allies made good
their escape The rumble of their wag
ons on retreat was heard through the
night. and when, at dawn. he rode to
the hill where the sovereigns had stood
the day before, their hosts had vanished
toward the Bohemian mountains.
Death of Moreau.
Only a dog had been left behind. and
his collar. inscribed Il am Gen. Moreau's
dog" is preserved among the keepsakes
Of Dresden. Napoleon himself had all
but pointed the gun that brought down
the dogs master. when in the midst of
the battle he had seen a party of horse
men on the hill and, remarking There
must be some little generals there" had
ordered his battery to fire upon them.
Had he been facing his old enemy on the
dueling ground. he could not have drawn
a deadlier aim than the battery drew on
MoTeau, who was with the Gar in the
center Of the group. The returned exile
was even then giving Alexander some
military advice. when the shot struck
him and shattered both legs. After he
had been carried TO q peasants cottage
on a litter formed of Cossacks' pixies
and the surgeons came, Moreau simply
called for a cigar and he calmly smoked
while his legs were amputated. In the
same tranquil spirit he bore the agony
Of the retreat in a jolting vehicle. and
persisted until the end in debating the
future course OF the campaign. Only
the day before he died he wrote to his
wife: AT the battle Of Dresden, three
days ago, I had both legs carried of by
a cannon ball. That scoundrel Bonaparte
is always fortunate"
Not often does q soldier who dies in
arms against his flag and his country re-
ceive a monument. But not only was
Moreau's body sent to ST. Petersburg by
ors in the Roman Catholic Church at the
Russian capital, but his memory was
honored also on the spot where he fell.
There Is cenotaph on the hill where
Napoleon's gunners brought him down.
Over it the green ivy climbs to decorate
the sculptured helmet and saber on the
top while three oaks mount guard about
the memorial stone and all around an
oet field smiles above the battle-fur-
rowed ground. Across Moreau Strasse
and down in the valley. the cabbages in |
the little gardens OF the city poor grow
m hA # - foNI
seemingly hardly more than a mile away. |
the castle tower and the church beIfry |
OF the Kings palace rise in the midst OF |
the city by the Elbe, whose murmur as
cends today even as the cheers for Ma |
poleon rolled up the height on an Au-
gust morning and spread despair among |
the allies.
a Crowd of Disasters.
Although. as Wellington conceded. Ma
poleon's presence on a field still was
equal to 1000 soldiers, he had lost the |
ubiquity OF his youth, when he seemed |
to have the power to be everywhere at
once. With his victory at Dresden, he |
had won three great battles on German |
soil in four months but he was losing |
every battle that he left his generals to |
fight for him.
Bernadotte's army had whipped Mar
shal Oudinot and was to follow up that
of Marshal Ney. Biucher had stolen out
of the Silesfan Businesses as soon as Ma
poleon left his front and given Marshal
Macdonald a hard thrashinEE while the
beaten sovereigns in their flight, sur
rounded and overwhelmed Vandamme,
who had been charged to stop them in
the defiles of the Bohemian frontier, took
his sword and sent him to Russia
The victory OF Dresden was set at
naught in the first month Of the new
campaign. Napoleon's lieutenants having
lost $4,000 men and 800 guns, while 5000
sick and wounded crowded his hospitals.
Those heavy losses could be repaired
only by borrowing from the future, and
he called to his eolors 900 boys, who
were not due to give military service un-
til 1915.
While he continued week after week to
cling to the worthless ground he had won
at Dresden, the three allied armies moved