After losing 500,000 soldiers in Russia during 1812, Napoleon quickly rebuilt his army in early 1813 to stop the pursuing Russians in Germany. His strategic situation took an unfavorable turn after Prussia broke its alliance with him and joined the Russians and British to form the Sixth Coalition. With Austria choosing to remain neutral, the Allies hoped to achieve a victory to convince Vienna to join the Coalition. Although the Allies took the offensive against his raw conscripts, Napoleon remained the master of operations. He drove the Allied army over 200 miles eastward in one month, earning important yet indecisive victories at Lützen and Bautzen. With the Allied army pinned against the Oder River in eastern Silesia, Napoleon agreed to an armistice brokered by the Austrians. Both sides used the time to build up massive forces and to woe Austria but Napoleon’s intransigence drove them to join the Coalition. After the armistice expired on 17 August, Napoleon won his only victory in the campaign at Dresden on 27 August. For the first time in the history of the coalition wars, the Allies had a plan of operations that Napoleon could not overcome. For the next six weeks, he chased phantoms, exhausting his troops, and grinding his army into the ground while the Allies defeated his subordinates in Silesia, Bohemia, and Saxony. Finally, tired of running after an elusive enemy, Napoleon allowed himself to be surrounded in the city of Leipzig in the hope of finally waging and winning a decisive battle. The contest started on 16 October and ended with Napoleon commencing the retreat to France with a battered army on 19 October. Germany was lost.

In the weeks following Napoleon’s monumental defeat at the battle of Leipzig, Coalition forces failed to catch his army as it retreated through Germany and across the Rhine River. Regardless, the Allies decided to launch a comprehensive invasion of France from the North Sea to Switzerland. In late November 40,000 Prussian, British, and Russian troops invaded Holland. One month later, 200,000 Allied soldiers crossed the Upper Rhine to invade Alsace, Switzerland, and Franche-Comté. Shortly after, on New Year’s Day, an additional 75,000 men crossed the Middle Rhine and drove through Lorraine toward the fortress of Metz. By the end of January, Holland and Belgium had fallen, and two Allied armies stood at the Marne and Aube Rivers ready to march on Paris. This circumstance forced Bonaparte to leave his capital and finally assume personal command of the army. After ferocious fighting in February, Napoleon made a daring gamble. To threaten the Coalition’s lifeline across the Rhine, he decided to maneuver against the rear of the main Allied army in the hope of forcing it to withdraw from France. With the French emperor between them and the Rhine River, the Allies took advantage of the open roads to reach Paris. The city surrendered on 31 March. Six days later, Napoleon abdicated unconditionally.

In 1815 Napoleon made a last desperate attempt to persuade Europe to accept him rather than the Bourbons as ruler of France. When Britain, Austria, Russia and Prussia agreed to invade France to remove him he chose the last possible moment to attack the British and Prussians in Belgium, hoping to separate them and capture Brussels without fighting or defeat each in turn. He achieved sufficient surprise to come close to success on 16 June, but his plans required a smoother-running machine than his army provided: poor staff-work, distrust, weary cynicism and some treachery undermined French efforts and the encounters at Quatre Bras and Ligny ended in a draw and a narrow victory. On 17 June Napoleon failed to crush Wellington before the weather intervened to ruin his pursuit. Wellington withdrew his army skilfully to a chosen position where Blücher promised to join him. Napoleon underestimated the dogged determination of his enemies to support each other and the Prussians outmarched Grouchy to arrive in time to transform Wellington’s well-organised, stubborn and brave defence at Waterloo into a crushing victory. After this catastrophic defeat Napoleon had again to abdicate.