Dresden was the pivot on which all his movements turned.

His enemies were spread out on a circumference stretching from Prague to Berlin, while he was at the centre; and, operating on interior and therefore shorter lines, he could outmarch and outmanoeuvre them.
"_But_," he concluded, "_where I am not my lieutenants must wait for me without trusting anything to chance_.

The allies cannot long act together on lines so extended, and can I not reasonably hope sooner or later to catch them in some false move?
If they venture between my fortified lines of the Elbe and the Rhine, I will enter Bohemia and thus take them in the rear."[343] The plan promised much.

The central intrenched camps of Dresden and Pirna, together with the fortresses of Koenigstein above, and of Torgau below, the Saxon capital, gave great strategic advantages.

The corps of St.Cyr at Koenigstein and those of Vandamme, Poniatowski, and Victor further to the east, watched the defiles leading from Bohemia.
The corps of Macdonald, Lauriston, Ney, and Marmont held in check Bluecher's army of Silesia.