114] ANNUAL REGISTER, 1813, 



CHAPTER XII. 



Retreat of the French from IVilna. — The Emperor of Russia's Procla- 

 mation.— Capture of Kovnio.— Losses of the French to that Period. — 

 D* Yorclts convention. — Koningsberg ana other Places taken by the 



Russians, "who cross the Vistula Situation of Prussia.— The King 



retires to Breslau, and calls upon his Subjects to arm. — The Austrians 

 abandon their Posts on the Narexv, and the Russia7is enter Warsaw. — 

 Pillau surrendered, and Dantzic and Thorn invested. — Austrians con- 

 dude a Truce. — Saxons pursued. — Proposed Mediation of the King of 

 Prussia. — His Treaty o/' Alliance ivith the Russian Emperor. — King 

 of Saxony quits Dresden. — The French evacuate Berlin. — Morand 

 withdraws from Swedish Pomerania. — Russians enter Hamburg.-— 

 Hanseatic Legion formed. — British take possession of Cuxhaven.— 

 Affair of Bremer-lee.— Russians cross the Elbe.— Morand* s Corps 

 destroyed. — Distribution of the allied Armies.— Thorn surrenders. — 

 France. — Napoleon's Preparations, — Concordat. — Expose. — Napoleon 

 sets out for the Army. — Position of the different Forces. — Battle of 

 Lutzen.-King of Saxony joins the French. — French cross the Elbe.— 

 Battles of Bautzen and Wurtschen. — Allies retreat towards the Oder. 



—An Action of Cavalry. — Breslau entered by Lauriston Affairs in 



the North,— Treaty between Sweden and England. — Hamburg occu- 

 pied by the Russians, Danes, and Swedes.-'Recovered by the French. 

 Von Hess's Address to the Burgher Guard. — Napoleon proposes an 

 Armistice. — Accepted.— Demarkation of Limits. — Napoleon's Decree 

 from the Field of Wurtchen. 



THE close of the last year wit- 

 nessed the dreadful scenes of 

 the recoil upon the French of their 

 invasion of the Russian empire; 

 whilst, amid the rigours of a nor- 

 thern winter, pursued by an irri- 

 tated and continually augmenting 

 foe, harassed on every side by bands 

 of hardy and active Cossacks, they 

 were retracing their steps west- 

 ward. The main army reached 

 Wilna in the beginning of De- 

 cember 1812, where they were de- 

 serted by Napoleon, who hastened 

 back to Paris, delegating the chief 



command to the king of Naples- 

 From this capital of Lithuania they 

 soon after broke up, leaving be- 

 hind them a great number of can« 

 non and large magazines ; and on 

 the 12th, Field Marshal Kutusoff| 

 established his head-quarters in that I 

 city. On the same day the Em- 

 peror Alexander issued a procla- • 

 mation, in which, after stating the 

 necessity of keeping up bis forces 

 to an establishment adequate to 

 the circumstances of the time, he 

 ordered a general levy of eight 

 men in every five hundred through- 



