Editing Battle of Dresden (section)

==Prelude==
On 16 August, Napoleon had sent [[Marshal of France|Marshal]] [[Laurent Gouvion Saint-Cyr|Saint-Cyr's]] corps to fortify and hold Dresden in order to hinder coalition movements and to serve as a possible base for his own manoeuvres. He planned to strike against the interior lines of his enemies and defeat them in detail, before they could combine their full strength. He had a field army of 442,810 men and 1,284 guns in 559 [[battalion]]s and 395 squadrons against Coalition field forces totaling 512,113 men in 556 battalions, 572 squadrons and 68 [[Cossack]] regiments, and 1,380 guns.{{sfn|Maude|1908|pp=148,156}}

The Coalition avoided battle with Napoleon himself, choosing to attack his subordinate commanders as per the [[Trachenberg Plan]]. On 23 August, at the [[Battle of Grossbeeren]], south of Berlin, [[Charles XIV John of Sweden|Crown Prince Charles]] of Sweden (formerly French Marshal Bernadotte, Napoleon's own Marshal) defeated his old comrade [[Nicolas Oudinot|Marshal Oudinot]]. On 26 August, Prussian Marshal [[Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher|Blücher]] crushed [[Étienne-Jacques-Joseph-Alexandre MacDonald|Marshal MacDonald]]'s army at the [[Battle of Katzbach]].