Disputes about the armistice had given that enterprising leader the excuse for entering the neutral zone before its expiration; and he had had sharp affairs with Macdonald and Ney near Loewenberg on the River Bober.

Napoleon hurried up with his Guards, eager to catch Bluecher;[349] the French were now 140,000 strong, while the allies had barely 95,000 at hand.
But the Prussian veteran, usually as daring as a lion, was now wily as a fox.

Under cover of stiff outpost affairs, he skilfully withdrew to the south-east, hoping to lure the French into the depths of Silesia and so give time to Schwarzenberg to seize Dresden.
[Illustration: CAMPAIGN OF 1813] But Napoleon was not to be drawn further afield.

Seeing that his foes could not be forced to a pitched battle, he intrusted the command to Macdonald, and rapidly withdrew with Ney and his Guard towards Goerlitz; for he now saw the possible danger to Dresden if Schwarzenberg struck home.

If, however, that leader remained on the defensive, the Emperor determined to fall back on what had all along been his second plan, and make a rush through the Lusatian defiles on Prague.[350] But a despatch from St.Cyr, which reached him at Goerlitz late at night on the 23rd, showed that Dresden was in serious danger from the gathering masses of the allies.