Throughout the night after the victory at Dresden, Napoleon believed that the enemy would return again to battle on the morrow. This is conclusively shown by the notes which he made for Berthier during the evening. These were based on the stated hypothesis that the enemy was not really in retreat, but would on the morrow by a great battle strive to retrieve his failure. But the Emperor was altogether mistaken. To be sure, the council of the disheartened allies debated far into the small hours whether an advantageous stand could not still be made on the heights of Dippoldiswalde, but the decision was adverse because the coalition army was sadly shattered, having lost a third of its numbers. Crippled on its left and threatened on its rear, it began next morning to retreat in fair order toward the Ore Mountains, and so continued until it became known that Vandamme was directly in the path, when a large proportion of the troops literally took to the hills, and retreat became flight. Then first, at four in the afternoon, Napoleon began to realize what had actually occurred. And what did he do? Having ridden almost to Pirna before taking measures of any kind to reap the fruits of victory, he there issued orders for the single corps of Vandamme, slightly reinforced, to begin the pursuit! Thereupon, leaving directions for Mortier to hold Pirna, he entered a carriage and drove quietly back to Dresden!
These are the almost incredible facts: no terrific onslaught after the first night, no well-ordered pursuit after the second, a mere pretense of seizing the advantage on the third day! In fact, Napoleon, having set his plan in operation at the very beginning of the battle, sank, to all outward appearances, into a state of lassitude, the only sign of alert interest he displayed throughout the conflict being shown when he was told that Moreau had been mortally wounded. The cause may have been physical or it may have been moral, but it was probably a political miscalculation. If we may believe Captain Coignet, the talk of the staff on the night of the twenty-seventh revealed a perfect knowledge of the enemy's rout; they knew that the retreat of their opponents had been precipitate, and they had credible information of disordered bands seen hurrying through byways or rushing headlong through mountain defiles. Yet for all this, they were thoroughly discontented, and the burden of their conversation was execration of the Emperor. "He's a -------- who will ruin us all," was the repeated malediction. If we may believe Napoleon himself, he had a violent attack of vomiting near Pirna, and was compelled to leave everything on that fateful day to others. This is possible, but unlikely; the day before, though listless, he was well enough to chat and take snuff as he stood in a redoubt observing the course of events through his field-glass; the day after he was perfectly well, and exercised unusual self-control when tidings of serious import were brought from the north. The sequel goes to show that neither his own sickness nor the bad temper of the army sufficiently accounts for Napoleon's unmilitary conduct on the twenty-eighth; it appears, on the contrary, as if he refrained of set purpose from annihilating the Austrian army in order to reknit the Austrian alliance and destroy the coalition. This he never was willing to admit; but no man likes to confess himself a dupe.
