novel
The Invasion of France in 1814
Erckmann-Chatrian, 1889
Named on the page for Battle of Bautzen.
draft Matched to the battle automatically; not yet reviewed.
Passages that name the battle; the whole book is at Project Gutenberg.
20–21 May 1813
Battle of Bautzen
CHAPTER III
"Anything different!" exclaimed the sergeant. "Everything was different! Formerly, if you have gone through the war in Germany, you ought to remember that, after one or two victories, it was over: the people received you well; one drank the little white wines, and ate sauerkraut and ham with the townsfolk; one danced with the buxom wives. The husbands and grandpapas laughed heartily, and when the regiment left, everybody cried. But this time, after Lutzen and Bautzen, instead of feeling kindly, the people regarded us with diabolical faces; we could get nothing out of them but by force; one could have fancied one's self in Spain or Vendee. I do not know what stuff they had in their heads against us. Better had we only been French, had we not had Saxons and other allies, who only awaited the moment to spring at our throats: we should then have pulled through all the same, one against five! But the allies--don't talk to me of the allies! Why, at Leipzig, the 18th of October last, in the hottest part of the battle, our allies turned against us and shot at us from behind; those were our good friends the Saxons. A week later, our former friends the Bavarians came and threw themselves across our retreat: we had to pass over them at Hanau. The day after, near Frankfort, another column of good friends presented themselves, and we had to crush them. The more one kills, the more they come! Here we are now this side of the Rhine. Well, there are decidedly more of these good friends marching from Moscow. Ah! if we could have foreseen it after Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, Wagram!"
CHAPTER IX
They all drank with a melancholy air; but the old "rikevir," entering the hearts of these brave people quickly enlivened them. Gaspard, stronger than he had appeared at first, began to relate the terrible battles of Bautzen, Lutzen, Leipzig, and Hanau, where the conscripts had fought like tried soldiers, winning victory after victory, till traitors began to appear.
Public domain. Text from Project Gutenberg.