In reality, the ultimate defeat of Napoleon had never been in doubt; even if Wellington, as seemed not unlikely at more than one point, had been driven from the battlefield before Blücher and his Prussians arrived, Napoleon would have been vanquished in the end by sheer weight of Allied numbers. A large army led by the Austrians was encamped on the eastern bank of the Rhine further south, and a huge Russian force was marching westward, having already reached Germany