Dresden

Our visit to Dresden was the first, but not the last, disappointment of this guided tour of Napoleon in Germany. There was, of course, a major battle fought at Dresden. But no attempt was made to explore that battle. Instead our time in Dresden was considered a “free day”. In my opinion this is always a cop out. Who wants a “free day” when they have paid a lot of money for a guided tour. Our guide and coach disappeared for the day, and we later discovered that they had gone to do a recce of Bautzen, the next battlefield we were to visit.

We had done a lot of preparation for this visit, and had studied the battle of Dresden on 27 August 1813. We were aware of the main phases of the battle, and in particular of the importance of the Great Garden, which was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting.

We took a guided bus tour of the city and arranged to leave the bus at the garden. The garden is still a feature of the city, but the whole area has now been developed leaving no suggestion of the original battlefield. We spent a couple of hours exploring surrounding area, but to be honest there was nothing to suggest that it had ever been the scene of a major battle.

The garden itself has been completely rebuilt, and is similar to any park in any major city. It is a pleasant place to spend an hour walking around, but there was no sign or recognition we could find to suggest that it had been the scene of a major battle.

Dresden is the capital of Saxony and has its share of impressive buildings. It also has a military museum, which we visited. Most of it was devoted to WWI. We found the same in the excellent military museum in Vienna. The Germans seem to ignore WWII. We were very disappointed not to find anything about the Napoleonic period.

All in all Dresden was a disappointment for anyone interested in the Napoleonic period. When we visited in 1999 it was also a depressing city with large sections of typical eastern European social housing and still much bomb damage from WWII.