Gebhard Lcberecht Von Blucher, prince of Wahlstadt, Prussian field marshal, born at Rostock, in Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Dec. 16, 1742, died at Krieblowitz, in Silesia, Sept. 12, 1819. He was sent, while a boy, to the island of Ri'igen, and there, in 1756, secretly enlisted in a regiment of Swedish hussars as ensign, to serve against Frederick II. of Prussia. Made prisoner in the campaign of 1760, he was, after a year's captivity, and after he had obtained his dismissal from the Swedish service, prevailed upon to enter the Prussian army. In 1771 he was appointed senior captain of cavalry. In 1778 Capt. Von Jagersfeld, a natural son of the margrave of Schwedt, being appointed in his stead to the vacant post of major, Blucher wrote to Frederick: "Sire, Jagersfeld, who possesses no merit but that of being the son of the margrave of Schwedt, has been preferred to me. I beg your majesty to grant my discharge." In reply Frederick ordered him to be shut up in prison until he would retract his request; but as he remained obstinate for nearly a year, the king complied with his petition in a note to this effect: "Capt. Von Blucher may go to the devil." He now retired to Silesia, married, became a farmer, acquired a small estate in Pomerania, and, after the death of Frederick II., reentered his former regiment as major, on the express condition of his appointment being dated back to 1779. Some months later his wife died.

Having participated in the bloodless invasion of Holland, he was appointed lieutenant colonel in 1788, and in 1790 colonel. In 1793 he distinguished himself during the campaign in the Palatinate against republican France as a leader of light cavalry, and in May, 1794, after the victorious affair of Kirrweiler, was promoted to the rank of major general. While incessantly alarming the French by bold coups de main and successful enterprises, he never neglected keeping the headquarters supplied with the best information as to the hostile movements. His diary, written during this campaign, and published in 1796 by Count Goltz, his adjutant, is considered, despite its illiterate style, a classical work on vanguard service. After the peace of Basel he married again. Frederick William III. appointed him in 1801 lieutenant general, in which quality he occupied, and administered as governor, Erfurt, Muhlhausen, and Munster. In 1805 a small corps of observation was collected under him at Bayreuth. In 1806 he led the Prussian vanguard at the battle of Auerstadt (Oct. 14). His charge was, however, broken by the terrible fire of Davoust's artillery, and his proposal to renew it with fresh forces and the whole of the cavalry was rejected by the king of Prussia. After the double defeat at Auerstadt and Jena, he retired down the Elbe, picking up the remnants of different corps, which swelled his army to about 25,000 men.

His retreat to Liibeck, before the united forces of Soult, Berna-dotte, and Murat, forms one of the few honorable episodes in that epoch of German warfare. Since Lubeck was a neutral territory, his making the streets of that open town the theatre of a desperate fight, which exposed it to a three days' sack on the part of the French soldiery, afforded the subject of passionate censure; but under existing circumstances the important thing was to give the German people one example, at least, of stanch resistance. Thrown out of Lubeck, he had to capitulate in the plain of Ratkow, Nov. 7, on the express condition that the cause of his surrender should be stated in writing to be "want of ammunition and provisions." Liberated on his word of honor, he repaired to Hamburg, there, in company with his sons, to kill time by card-playing, smoking, and drinking. Being exchanged for Gen. Victor, he was appointed governor general of Pomerania; but one of the secret articles of the alliance concluded, Feb. 24, 1812, by Prussia with Napoleon, stipulated for Bliicher's discharge from service, like that of Scharnhorst and other distinguished Prussian patriots.

To soothe this official disgrace, the king secretly bestowed upon him the handsome estate of Kunzendorf in Silesia. During the period of transition between the peace of Tilsit and the German war of independence, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, the chiefs of the Tugendbund, desiring to extemporize a popular hero, had chosen Blucher. In propagating his fame among the masses, they had succeeded so well, that when Frederick William III. called the Prussians to arms by the proclamation of March 17, 1813, they were strong enough to impose him upon the king as the general-in-chief of the Prussian army. In the well contested, but for the allies unfortunate, battles of Liitzen and Bautzen he acted under Wittgenstein, the commander of the Russian army. During the retreat of the allied armies from Bautzen to Schweidnitz, he lay in ambush at Haynau, from which he fell with his cavalry on the French advanced guard under Maison, who in this affair lost 1,500 men and 11 guns. Through this surprise Bliicher raised the spirit of the Prussian army, and made Napoleon very cautious in pursuit. - Bliicher's command of an independent army dates from the expiration of the truce of Trachenberg, Aug. 10, 1818. The allied sovereigns had then divided their forces into three armies: the army of the north under Bernadotte, stationed along the lower Elbe; the main army, advancing through Bohemia; and the Silesian army, with Blu-cher as its commander-in-chief, supported by Gneisenau as the chief of his staff, and Muffling as his quartermaster general.

These two men, attached to him in the same quality until the peace of 1815, supplied all his strategical plans. Bliicher himself, as Muffling says, "understood nothing of the strategical conduct of a war; so little indeed, that when a plan was laid before him for approval, even relating to some unimportant operation, he could not form any clear idea of it, or judge whether it was good or bad." Like many of Napoleon's marshals, he was unable to read the maps. The Silesian army was composed of three corps cParmee: 40,000 Russians, under Count Langeron; 16,-000 men under Baron von Sacken; and a Prussian corps of 40,000 men under Gen. York. Bliicher's position was extremely difficult at the head of this heterogeneous army. Langeron, who had already held independent commands, and demurred to serving under a foreign general, was moreover aware that Bliicher had received secret orders to limit himself to the defensive, but was altogether ignorant that the latter, in an interview on Aug. 11 with Barclay de Tolly at Reichenbach, had extorted the permission to act according to circumstances.

Hence Langeron thought himself justified in disobeying orders whenever the general-in-chief seemed to him to swerve from the preconcerted plan, and in this mutinous conduct he was strongly supported by Gen. York. The danger arising from this state of things became more and more threatening, when the battle on the Katzbach secured Blu-cher that hold on his army which guided it to the gates of Paris. Marshal Macdonald, charged by Napoleon to drive the Silesian army back into the interior of Silesia, began the battle by attacking, Aug. 26, Bliicher's outposts, stationed from Prausnitz to Kraitsch, where the Neisse flows into the Katzbach. The so-called battle on the Katzbach consisted in fact of four different actions, the first of which, the dislodging by a bayonet attack from a plateau behind a ridge on the right bank of the Neisse of about eight French battalions, which constituted hardly one tenth of the hostile force, led to results quite out of proportion to its original importance, in consequence of i the fugitives from the plateau not being col-lected at Niederkrain, and left behind the Katzbach at Kraitsch, in which case their flight would have had no influence whatever on the rest of the French army; in consequence of different defeats inflicted at nightfall upon the enemy by Sacken's and Langeron's corps stationed on the left bank of the Neisse; in consequence of Marshal Macdonald, who commanded in person on the left bank, and had defended himself weakly till 7 o'clock in the evening against Langeron's attack, marching his troops at once after sunset to Goldberg, in such a state of exhaustion that they could no longer fight, and must fall into the enemy's hand; and, lastly, in consequence of the state of the season, violent rains swelling the otherwise insignificant streams the fugitive French had to traverse - the Neisse, the Katzbach, the Deichsei, and the Bober - to rapid torrents, and making the roads almost impracticable.

Thus it occurred, that with the aid of the country militia in the mountains on the left flank of the Silesian army, the battle on the Katzbach, insignificant in itself, resulted in tho capture of 18,000 prisoners, above 100 pieces of artillery, and more than 800 ammunition, hospital, and baggage wagons. After the bat-the Bliicher did everything to instigate his forces to exert their utmost strength in the pursuit of the enemy, justly representing to them that "with some bodily exertion they might spare a new battle." On Sept. 3 he crossed the Neisse with his army, proceeding by Gorlitz to concentrate at Bautzen. By this move he saved the main army, which, routed at Dresden, Aug. 27, and forced to retreat be-hind the Erzgebirge, was now disengaged; Napoleon being compelled to advance with re-enforcements toward Bautzen, there to take up the army defeated on the Katzbach, and to offer battle to the Silesian army. During his stay in the E. corner of Saxony, Blucher, by a series of retreats and advances, always shunned battle when offered by Napoleon, but always engaged when encountering single detachments of the French army. On Sept. 22, 23, and 24 he exe-cuted a flank march on the right of the enemy, advancing by forced marches to the lower Elbe, in the vicinity of the army of the north.

On Oct. 2 he bridged the Elbe at Elster with pontoons, and on the morning of the 3d his army defiled. This movement, not only bold, but even hazardous, inasmuch as he complete-ly abandoned his lines of communication, was necessitated by supreme political reasons, and led finally to the battle of Leipsio, which but for Blucher the slow and over-cautious grand army would never have risked. The army of the north, of which Bernadotte was the commander-in-chief, was about 90,000 strong, and it was of the utmost importance that it should advance on Saxony. By means of the close connection which he maintained with Billow and Wintzingerode, the commanders of the Prussian and Russian corps forming part of the army of the north, Blucher believed that he had Obtained convincing proofs of Bernadotte's coquetting with the French, and of the impossibility of inciting him to any activity so long as he remained alone on a separate theatre of war. Billow and Wintzingerode declared themselves ready to act in spite of Bernadotte, but to do so they wanted the support of 100,-000 men.

Hence Bluchcr's resolution to venture upon his Hank inarch, in which he persisted despite the orders he had received from the sovereigns to draw near to them on the left, toward Bohemia. He was not to be diverted from his purpose through the obstacles which Bernadotte systematically threw in his way, even after the crossing of the Elbe by the Sile-sian army. Before leaving Bautzen he had despatched a confidential officer to Bernadotte, to inform him that, since the army of the north was too weak to operate alone on the left bank of the Elbe, he would come with the Silesian army, and cross at Elster on Oct. 3; he therefore invited him to cross the Elbe at the same time, and to advance with him toward Leipsic. Bernadotte not heeding this message, and the enemy occupying Wartenburg opposite Elster, Blucher first dislodged the latter, and then, to protect himself in case Napoleon should fall upon him with his whole strength, began establishing an intrenched encampment from Wartenburg to Bleddin. Thence he pushed forward toward the Mulde. On Oct. 7, in an interview with Bernadotte, it was arranged that both armies should march upon Leipsic. On the 9th, while the Silesian army was preparing for this march, Bernadotte, on the news of Napoleon's advance on the road from Meissen, insisted upon retreating behind the Elbe, and only consented to remain on its left bank on condition that Bluicher would resolve to cross the Saale in concert with him, in order to take up a position behind that river.

Although by this movement the Silesian army lost anew its line of communication, Blucher consented, since otherwise the army of the north would have been effectually lost for the allies. On Oct. 10 the whole Silesian army stood united with the army of the north on the left hank of the Mulde, the bridges over which were destroyed. Bernadotte now declared a retreat upon Bernburg to have become necessary, and Blucher, with the single view of preventing him from crossing the right bank of the Elbe, yielded again on the condition that Bernadotte should cross the Saale at Wettin and take up a position there. On the 11th. when his columns were just crossing the high road from Magdeburg to Halle, Blucher being informed that, in spite of his positive promise. Bernadotte had constructed no bridge at Wet-tin, resolved upon following that high road in forced marches. Napoleon, seeing that the northern and Silesian armies avoided accepting battle, which he had offered them by concentrating at Duben, and knowing that they could not avoid it without retreating across the Elbe - being at the same time aware that he had but four days left before he must meet the main army, and thus be placed between two tires - undertook a march on the right bank of the Elbe toward Wittenberg, in order by this simulated movement to draw the northern and Silesian armies across the Elbe, and then strike a rapid blow on the main army.

Bernadotte indeed, anxious for his lines of cornmunicatior. with Sweden, gave his army orders to cross without delay to the right bank of the Elbe, by a bridge constructed at Aken, while on the same day, Oct. 13, he informed Blucher that the emperor Alexander had, for certain important reasons, put him (Blucher) under his orders. He consequently requested him to follow his movements on the right bank of the Elbe with the Silesian army, with the least possible delay. Had Blucher shown less resolution or this occasion and followed the army of the north, the campaign would have been lost, since the Silesian and northern armies, amounting together to nearly 200,000 men, would not have been present at the battle of Leipsic. He wrote in reply to Bernadotte that, according to all his information, Napoleon had no intention whatever of removing the theatre of war to the right bank of the Elbe, but only intended to lead them astray. At the same time he conjured Bernadotte to give up his intended movement across the Elbe. Having, meanwhile, again and again solicited the main army to push forward upon Leipsic, and offered to meet it there, he received at last, Oct. 15, the long expected invitation.

He immediately advanced toward Leipsic, while Bernadotte retreated toward the Petersberg. On his march from Halle to Leipsic, Oct. 16, Blucher routed at Mockern the 6th corps of the French army under Marmont, in a hotly contested battle, in which he captured 54 pieces of artillery. Without delay he sent accounts of the issue of this battle to Bernadotte, who was not present on the first day of the battle of Leipsic. On its second day, Oct. 17, Blucher dislodged the enemy from the right bank of the Parthe, with the exception of some houses and intrenchments near the Halle gate. On the 18th, at daybreak, he had a conference at Brachenfeld with Bernadotte, who declared he could not attack on the left bank of the Parthe unless Blucher gave him for that day 30,000 men of the Silesian army. Keeping the interest of the whole exclusively in view, Blucher consented without hesitation, but on the condition of remaining himself with these 30,000 men, and thus securing their vigorous cooperation in the attack. After the final victory of Oct. 19, and during the whole of Napoleon's retreat from Leipsic to the Rhine, Bliicher iilone gave him an earnest pursuit.

While, on Oct. 19, the generals in command met the sovereigns in the market place of Leipsic, and precious time was spent in mutual compliments, his Silesian army was already marching in pursuit of the enemy to Lutzen. On his march from Lutzen to Weissenfels, Prince William of Prussia overtook him, to deliver to him the commission of a Prussian field marshal. The allied sovereigns had allowed Napoleon to gain a start which could never be recovered; but from Eisenach onward Blucher found himself every afternoon in the room which Napoleon had left in the morning. When about bo march upon Cologne, there to cross the Rhine, he was recalled and ordered to blockade Mentz on its left bank; his rapid pursuit as far as the Rhine having broken up the confederation of the Rhine, and disengaged its troops from the French divisions in which they were still enrolled. While the headquarters of the Silesian army was established at Hochst, the main army marched up the upper Rhine. Thus ended the campaign of 1813, the success of which was entirely due to Blucher's bold enterprise and iron energy. - The allies were divided as to the plan of operations now to be followed; the one party proposing to stay on the Rhine, and there to take up a defensive position; the other to cross the Rhine and march upon Paris. After much wavering on the part of the sovereigns, Bliicher and his friends prevailed, and the resolution was adopted to advance upon Paris in a concentric movement, the main army being to start from Switzerland, Biilow from Holland, and Bliicher, with the Silesian army, from the middle Rhine. For the new campaign, three additional corps were made over to Bliicher, viz., Kleist's, the elector of Hesse's, and the duke of Saxe-Coburg's. Leaving part of Langeron's corps to invest Mentz, and the new reinforcements to follow as a second division, Blucher crossed the Rhine Jan. 1, 1814, at three points, at Mannheim, Caub, and Cob-lentz, drove Marmont beyond the Vosges and the Saar, posted York's corps between the fortresses of the Moselle, and with a force of 28,000 men, consisting of Sacken's corps and a division of Langeron's, proceeded by Vaucouleurs and Joinville to Brienne, in order to effect his junction with the main army by his left.

At Brienne, Jan. 29, he was attacked by Napoleon, whose forces mustered about 40,000, while York's corps was still detached from the Silesian army, and the main army, 110,000 strong, had only reached Chaumont. Blucher had consequently to face the greatly superior forces of Napoleon, but the latter neither attacked him with his usual vigor, nor hindered his retreat to Trannes, save by some cavalry skirmishes. Having taken possession of Brienne, placed part of his troops in its vicinity, and occupied Dienville, La Rothiere, and Chaumenil, with three different corps, Napoleon would on Jan. 30 have been able to fall upon Blucher with superior numbers, as the latter was still awaiting his re-enforcements. Napoleon, however, kept up a passive attitude, while the main army was concentrating by Bar-sur-Aube, and detachments of it were strengthening Blucher's right flank. The emperor's inactivity is explained by the negotiations of the peace congress of Chatil-lon, which he had contrived to start, and by which he expected to gain time. In fact, after the junction of the Silesian with the main army had been effected, the diplomatic party insisted that during the deliberations of this congress the war should be carried on as a feint only.

Prince Schwarzenberg sent an officer to Blucher to procure his acquiescence, but Blucher dismissed him with this answer: "We must go to Paris. Napoleon has paid his visits to all the capitals of Europe; should we be less polite? In short, he must descend from the throne, and until he is hurled from it we shall have no rest." He urged the great advantages of the allies attacking Napoleon near Brienne, before he could bring up the remainder of his troops, and offered to make the attack himself, if he were only strengthened in York's absence. The consideration that the army could not subsist in the barren valley of the Aube, and must retreat if it did not attack, caused his advice to prevail. The battle was decided upon, but Prince Schwarzenberg, commander-in-chief of the main army, instead of bearing upon the enemy with the united force at hand, only lent Blucher the corps of the crown prince of Wurtemberg (40,000 men), that of Gyulay (12,-000), and that of Wrede (12,000), Napoleon on his part neither knew nor suspected anything of the arrival of the main army. When about 1 o'clock, Feb. 1, it was announced to him that Bliicher was advancing, he would not believe it.

Having made sure of the fact, he mounted his horse with the idea of avoiding the battle, and gave Berthier orders to this effect. When, however, between Old Brienne and Rothiere, he reached the young guard, who had got under arms on hearing the approaching cannonade, he was received with such enthusiasm that he thought fit to improve the opportunity, and exclaimed, "L'ar tillerie en avant! ' Thus, about 4 o'clock, the affair of La Rothiere commenced in earnest. At the first reverse, however, Napoleon no longer took any personal part in the battle. His infantry having thrown itself into the village of La Rothiere, the combat was long and obstinate, and Blucher was even obliged to bring up his reserve. The French were not dislodged from the village till 11 o'clock at night, when Napoleon ordered the retreat of his army, which had lost 4,000 or 5,000 men in killed and wounded, 2,500 prisoners, and about 50 cannon. If the allies, then only six days' march from Paris, had vigorously pushed on, Napoleon must have succumbed before their immensely superior numbers; but the sovereigns, still apprehensive of cutting Napoleon off from making his peace at the congress of Chatillon, allowed Prince Schwarzenberg to seize upon every pretext for shunning a decisive action.

While Napoleon ordered Marmont to return on the right bank of the Aube toward liamerupt, and himself retired by a flank march upon Troyes, the allied army split into two armies, the main army advancing slowly upon Troyes, and the Silesian army marching to the Maine, where Blucher knew he would find York, besides part of Langeron's and Kleist's corps, so that his aggregate forces would be swelled to about 50,000 men. The plan was for him to pursue Marshal Macdonald, who had meanwhile appeared on the lower Marne, to Paris, while Schwarzenberg was to keep in check the French main army on the Seine. Napoleon, however, seeing that the allies did not know how to use their victory, and sure of returning to the Seine before the main army could have advanced far in the direction of Paris, resolved to fall upon the weaker Silesian army. Consequently, he left 20,000 men under Victor and Oudinot in face of the 100,000 men of the main army, advanced with 40,000 men, the corps of Mortier and Ney, in the direction of the Marne, took up Marmont's corps at Nogcnt, and on Feb. 9 arrived with these united forces at Sezanne. Meanwhile Blucher had proceeded by St. Ouen and Sompuis on the road leading to Paris, and on Feb. 9 established his headquarters at the little town of Vertus. The disposition of his forces was this: about 10,000 men at his headquarters; 18,000, under York, posted between Dormans and Chateau-Thierry, in pursuit of Macdonald, who was already on the great post road leading to Paris from Epernay; 30,000 under Sacken, between Montmirail and La Ferte-sous-Jouarre, destined to prevent the intended junction of Sebastiani's cavalry with Macdonald, and to cut off the passage of the latter at La Ferte-sous-Jouarre; the Russian general Olzuvieff cantoned with 5,000 men at Champaubert. This faulty distribution, by which the Silesian army was drawn up in a very extended position en echelon, resulted from the contradictory motives which actuated Blucher, or rather his military advisers, Gneisenau and Muffling. On the one hand, he desired to cut off Macdonald, and prevent his junction with Sebastiani's cavalry; on the other hand, to take up the corps of Kleist and Kaptzevitch, who were advancing from Chalons, and expected to unite with him on the 9th and 10th. The one motive kept him back, the other pushed him on.

On Feb. 9 Napoleon fell upon Olzuvieff at Champaubert, and routed him. Blucher, with Kleist and Kaptzevitch, who had meanwhile arrived, but without the greater part of their cavalry, advanced against Marmont, despatched by Napoleon, and followed him in his retreat upon La Fere Champenoise, but, on the news of Olzuvieff's discomfiture, returned in the same night with his two corps to Bergeres, there to cover the road to Chalons. After a successful combat on the 10th, Sacken had driven Macdonald across the Marne at Trilport, but, hearing on the night of the same day of Napoleon's march to Champaubert, hastened back on the 11th toward Montmirail. Before reaching it, he was at Vieils Maisons obliged to form against the emperor, coming from Montmirail to meet him. Beaten with great loss before York could unite with him, the two generals effected their junction at Viffort, and retreated Feb. 12 to Chateau-Thierry, where York had to stand a very damaging rear-guard engagement, and withdrew thence to Oulchy-la-Ville. Having ordered Mortier to pursue York and Sacken on the road of Fismes, Napoleon remained on the 13th at Chateau-Thierry. Uncertain as to the whereabout of York and Sacken and the success of their engagements, Blucher had from Bergeres, during the 11th and 12th, quietly watched Marmont posted opposite him at Etoges. When informed on the 13th of the defeat of his generals, and supposing Napoleon to have moved off' in search of the main army, he gave way to the temptation of striking a parting blow upon Marmont, whom he considered Napoleon's rear guard.

Advancing on Champaubert, he pushed Marmont to Montmirail, where the latter was joined on the 14th by Napoleon, who now turned against Blucher, met him at noon at Vauchamps, 20,000 strong, but almost without cavalry, attacked him, turned his columns with cavalry, and threw him back with great loss on Champaubert. During its retreat from the latter place, the Silesian army might have reached fitoges before it grew dark, without any considerable loss, if Blucher had not taken pleasure in the deliberate slowness of the retrograde movement. Thus he was attacked during the whole of his march, and one detachment of his forces, the division of Prince Augustus of Prussia, was again beset from the side streets of fitoges, on its passage through that town. About midnight Blucher reached his camp at Bergeres, broke up after some hours' rest for Chalons, and arrived there about noon, Feb. 15. At this place he was joined by York's and Sacken's forces on the 16th and 17th. The different affairs at Champaubert, Montmirail, Chateau-Thierry, Vauchamps, and Etoges had cost him 15,000 men and 27 guns.

Leaving Marmont and Mortier to front Blucher, Napoleon with Ney returned in forced marches to the Seine, where Schwarzenberg had driven back Victor and Oudinot, who had retreated across the Yeres, and there taken up 12,000 men under Macdonald, and some reenlorcements from Spain. On the 16th they were surprised by the sudden arrival of Napoleon, followed on the 17th by his troops. After his junction with the marshals he hastened against Schwarzenberg, whom he found posted in an extended triangle, having for its summits Nogent, Monte-reau, and Sens. The generals under his command, Wittgenstein, Wrede, and the crown prince of Wiirtemberg, being successively attacked and routed by Napoleon, Prince Schwarzenberg retreated toward Troyes and sent word to Blucher to join him, so that they might in concert give battle on the Seine. Blucher, strengthened by new reinforcements, immediately followed this call, entered Mery Feb. 21, and waited there the whole of the 22d for the dispositions of the promised battle. He learned in the evening that an application for a truce had been made to Napoleon, through Prince Liechtenstein, who had met with a flat refusal.

Instantly despatching a confidential officer to Troyes, he conjured Prince Schwarzenberg to give battle, and even offered to give it alone if the main army would only form a reserve; but Schwarzenberg, still more frightened by the news that Augereau had driven Gen. Bubna back into Switzerland, had already ordered the retreat upon Langres. Blucher understood at once that a retreat upon Langres would lead to a retreat beyond the Rhine; and, in order to draw Napoleon off from the pursuit of the dispirited main army, resolved upon again marching straight in the direction of Paris, toward the Marne, where he could now expect to assemble an army of 100,000 men, Wintzingerode having arrived with about 25,000 men in the vicinity of Rheims, Biilow at Laon with 16,000 men, the remainder of Kleist's corps being expected from Erfurt, and the rest of Langeron's corps, under St. Priest, from Mentz. It was this second separation of Blucher from the main army that turned the scale against Napoleon. If the latter had followed the retreating main army instead of the advancing Silesian one. the campaign would have been lost for the allies.

The passage of the Aube before Napoleon had followed him, the only difficult point in Blucher's advance, he effected by constructing a pontoon bridge at Anglure on Feb. 24. Napoleon, commanding Oudinot and Mac-donald, with about 25,000 men, to follow the main army, left Herbisse on the 26th, together with Ney and Victor, in pursuit of the Silesian army. On the advice sent by Blucher that the main army had now but the two marshals before it, Schwarzenberg stopped his retreat, turned round upon Oudinot and Macdonald, and beat them on the 27th and 28th. It was Blucher's intention to concentrate his army at some point as near as possible to Paris. Mar-mont with his troops was still posted at Sezanne, while Mortier was at Chateau-Thierry. On Blucher's advance, Marmont retreated, and united on the 26th with Mortier at La Ferte-sous-Jouarre, thence to retire with the latter upon Meaux. Blucher's attempt during two days to cross the Ourcq, and with a strongly advanced front to force the two marshals to battle, having failed, he was now obliged to march on the right bank of that river.

He reached Oulchy-le-Chateau on March 2, learned in the morning of the 3d the capitulation of Soissons, which had been effected by Bulow and Wintzingerode, and in the course of the same day crossed the Aisne and concentrated his whole army at Soissons. Napoleon, who had crossed the Marne at La Ferte-sous-Jouarre, two forced marches behind Blucher, advanced in the direction of Chateau-Thierry and Fismes, and, having passed the Vesle, crossed the Aisne at Berry-au-Bac, March 6, after the recapture of Rheims by a detachment of his army. Blucher originally intended to offer battle behind the Aisne on Napoleon's passage of that river, and had drawn up his troops for that purpose. When he became aware that Napoleon took the direction of Fismes and Berry-au-Bac, in order to pass the Silesian army by the left, he decided upon attacking him from Craonne on the flank, in an oblique position, immediately after his debouching from Berry-au-Bac, so that Napoleon would have been forced to give battle with a defile in his rear.

Having already posted his forces, with the right wing on the Aisne, with the left on the Lette, half way from Soissons to Craonne, he resigned this excellent plan on making sure that Napoleon had on the 6th been allowed by Wintzingerode to pass Berry-au-Bac unmolested, and had even pushed a detachment on the road to Laon. He now thought it necessary to accept no decisive battle except at Laon. To delay Napoleon, who by Corbeny, on the causeway from Rheims, could reach Laon as soon as the Silesian army from Craonne, Bliicher posted the corps of Vorontzoff between the Aisne and the Lette, on the strong plateau of Craonne, while he despatched 10,000 horse under Wintzingerode, to push on by Fetieux toward Corbeny, with the order to fall upon the right flank and rear of Napoleon as soon as the latter should be engaged in attacking Vorontzoff. Wintzingerode failing to execute the manoeuvre intrusted to him, Napoleon drove Vorontzoff from the plateau on the 7th, but himself lost 8,000 men, while Vorontzoff escaped with the loss of 4,700, and proved able to effect his retreat in good order. On the 8th Bliicher had concentrated his troops at Laon, where the battle must decide the fate of both armies.

Apart from his numerical superiority, the vast plain before Laon was peculiarly adapted for deploying the 20,000 horse of the Silesian army, while Laon itself, situated on the plateau of a detached hill, which has on every side a fall of 12 to 30 degrees, and at the foot of which lie four villages, offered great advantages for the defence as well as the attack. On that day the left French wing, led by Napoleon himself, was repulsed, while the right wing, under Marmont, surprised in its bivouacs at nightfall, was so completely worsted that the marshal could not bring his troops to a halt before reaching Fismes. Napoleon, completely isolated with his wing, numbering 35,000 men only, and cooped up in a bad position, must have yielded before far superior numbers flushed with victory. But on the following morning a fever attack and an inflammation of the eyes disabled Blucher, while Napoleon yet remained in a provocatory attitude, in the same position, which so far intimidated the men who now directed the operations that they not only stopped the advance of their own troops which had already begun, but allowed Napoleon to quietly retire at nightfall to Soissons. Still the battle of Laon had broken his forces, physically and morally.

He tried in vain by the sudden capture on March 13 of Rheims, which had fallen into the hands of St. Priest, to restore himself. So fully was his situation now understood, that when he advanced on the 17th and 18th on Arcis-sur-Aube, against the main army, Schwarzenberg himself dared to stand and accept battle, which lasted through the 20th and 21st. When Napoleon broke it off, the man army followed him up to Vitry, and united in his rear with the Silesian army. In his despair Napoleon took a last refuge in a retreat upon St. Dizier, pretending thus to endanger with his handful of men the enormous army of the allies, by cutting off its main line of communication and retreat between Langres and Chaumont; a movement replied to on the part of the allies by their onward march to Paris. On March 30 took place the battle before Paris, in which the Silesian army stormed Montmartre. Though Blucher had not recovered since the battle of Laon, he still appeared in the battle for a short time, on horseback, with a shade over his eyes; but after the capitulation of Paris he laid down his command, the pretext being his sickness, and the real cause the clashing of his open-mouthed hatred against the French with the diplomatic attitude which the allied sovereigns thought fit to exhibit.

Thus he entered Paris, March 31, in the capacity of a private individual. During the whole campaign of 1814, he alone among the allied army represented the principle of the offensive. By the battle of La Rothiere he baffled the Chatillon pacificators; by his resolution at Mery he saved the allies from a ruinous retreat; and by the battle of Laon he decided the first capitulation of Paris. - After the first peace of Paris he accompanied the emperor Alexander and King Frederick William of Prussia on their visit to England, where he was feted as the hero of the day. All the military orders of Europe were showered upon him; the king of Prussia created for him the order of the iron cross; the prince regent of England gave him his portrait, and the university of Oxford the academical degree of LL. D. In 1815 he again decided the final campaign against Napoleon. After the disastroua battle of Ligny, June 16, though now 73 years of age, he prevailed upon his routed army to form anew and march on the heels of their victor, so as to be able to appear in the evening of June 18 on the battlefield of Waterloo, an exploit unprecedented in the history of war. (See Waterloo.) His pursuit of the French fugitives from Waterloo to Paris possesses one parallel only, in Napoleon's equally remarkable pursuit of the Prussians from Jena to Stettin. He now entered Paris at the head of his army, and even had Muffling, his quartermaster general, installed as the military governor general of Paris. He insisted upon Napoleon's being shot, the bridge of Jena blown up, and the restitution to their original owners of the treasures plundered by the French in the different capitals of Europe. The first wish was baffled by Wellington, and the second by the allied sovereigns, while the last was realized.

He remained at Paris three months, very frequently attending the gambling tables for rouge-et-noir. On the anniversary of the battle on the Katzbach he paid a visit to Rostock, his native place, where the inhabitants united to raise a public monument in his honor. On the occurrence of his death, the whole Prussian army went into mourning for eight days. - Le vieux diable, as he was nicknamed by Napoleon, "Marshal Forwards," as he was styled by the Russians of the Silesian army, was essentially a general of cavalry. In this specialty he excelled, because it required tactical acquirements only, but no strategical knowledge. Participating to the highest degree in the popular hatred against Napoleon and the French, he was popular with the multitude for his plebeian passions, his gross common sense, the vulgarity of his manners, and the coarseness of his speech, to which, however, he knew on fit occasions how to impart a touch of fiery eloquence. He was the model of a soldier. Setting an example as the bravest in battle and the most indefatigable in exertion; exercising a fascinating influence on the common soldier; joining to his rash bravery a sagacious appreciation of the ground, a quick resolution in difficult situations, stubbornness in defence equal to his energy in the attack, with sufficient intelligence to find for himself the right course in simpler combinations, and to rely upon Gneisenau in those which were more intricate, he was the true general for the military operations of 1813-'15, which bore the character half of regular and half of insurrectionary warfare.

The biography of Blucher has been written by Varnhagen von Ense (Berlin, 1843), Bieske (1862), and Scherr (2 vols., Leip-sic, 1862).