During the night, the rumbling of wagons warned Marmont’s scouts that the enemy were retreating;[360] and the Emperor, coming up at break of day, ordered that Marshal and St. Cyr to press directly on their rear, while Murat pursued the fugitives along the Freiburg road further to the west.  The outcome of these two days of fighting was most serious for the allies.  They lost 35,000 men in killed, wounded and prisoners—­a natural result of their neglect to seize Fortune’s bounteous favours on the 25th; a result, too, of Napoleon’s rapid movements and unerring sagacity in profiting by the tactical blunders of his foes.

It was the last of his great victories.  And even here the golden fruit which he hoped to cull crumbled to bitter dust in his grasp.  As has been pointed out, he had charged General Vandamme, one of the sternest fighters in the French army, to undertake with 38,000 men a task which he himself had previously hoped to achieve with more than double that number.  This was to seize Pirna and the plateau to the west, which commands the three roads leading towards Teplitz in Bohemia.  The best of these roads crosses the Erzgebirge by way of Nollendorf and the gorge leading down to Kulm, the other by the Zinnwald pass, while between them is a third and yet more difficult track.  Vandamme was to take up a position west or south-west of Pirna so as to cut off the retreat of the foe.

Accordingly, he set out from Stolpen at dawn of the 26th, and on the next two days fought his way far round the rear of the allied Grand Army.  A Russian force of 14,000 men, led by the young Prince Eugene of Wuertemberg and Count Ostermann, sought in vain to stop his progress:  though roughly handled on the 28th by the French, the Muscovites disengaged themselves, fell back ever fighting to the Nollendorf pass, and took up a strong position behind the village of Kulm.  There they received timely support from the forces of the Czar and Frederick William, who, after crossing by the Zinnwald pass, heard the firing on the east and divined the gravity of the crisis.  Unless they kept Vandamme at bay, the Grand Army could with difficulty struggle through into Bohemia.  But now, with the supports hastily sent him, Ostermann finally beat back Vandamme’s utmost efforts.  The defenders little knew what favours Fortune had in store.

A Prussian corps under Kleist was slowly plodding up the middle of the three defiles, when, at noonday of the 29th, an order came from the King to hurry over the ridge and turn east to the support of Ostermann.  This was impossible:  the defile was choked with wagons and artillery:  but one of Kleist’s staff-officers proposed the daring plan of plunging at once into cross tracks and cutting into Vandamme’s rear.  This novel and romantic design was carried out.  While, then, the French general was showering his blows against the allies below Kulm, the Prussians swarmed down from the heights of Nollendorf on his