CHAPTER X.

THE THIRD COALITION.

II.

On his way to Paris from Vienna, Napoleon stopped at Munich for the wedding of his stepson, Eugene Beauharnais, with the Princess Augusta, daughter of King Maximilian I of Bavaria (Jan. 14, 1806). The Hereditary Prince Charles of Baden, who was to have married this princess, became the husband of Josephine’s niece, Stephanie. Napoleon had extorted a reluctant consent to these marriages from the south-German Princes, as he wished to bind them more closely to him; and he did not hesitate to remind them that it was not for their own sakes, but as part of the French system, that they had received new lands and titles. A marriage was also arranged between his youngest brother, Jerome, and the only daughter of Frederick, King of Würtemberg. But Jerome was already married; the Pope had scruples about granting a divorce; and the marriage was deferred for eighteen months.

Haugwitz arrived at Paris a few days after Napoleon, to obtain his assent to the Berlin revision of the Treaty of Vienna. The moment was ill chosen. The change of ministry in England had opened fresh pros­pects to the Emperor, and he was glad that the Prussian Court—“very false and very stupid”, as he described it to Joseph—had not ratified the treaty as it stood. He wrote to Talleyrand (February 4): “If Mr Fox is really at the Foreign Office, we cannot cede Hanover to Prussia, except as part of a general arrangement which will secure us against the fear of a continuation of hostilities”. Talleyrand was to take care, therefore, in dealing with Haugwitz, to leave Napoleon free either to make peace with England, or to conclude a new treaty with Prussia on a broader basis. No immediate overtures came from Fox; so the latter course was chosen. The concessions asked for by the Prussian Government were brushed aside. When Haugwitz urged that Ansbach was the cradle of the Hohenzollerns, he was told that there is no need of a cradle when one is grown up. A new treaty was signed at Paris on February 15, 1806, in substitution for the Treaty of Vienna. Prussia was to annex and occupy Hanover at once, and to close the Elbe, the Weser, and the Ems to British commerce. The alliance between Prussia and France was no longer described as “offensive”, but they guaranteed each other’s territory; and the Prussian guarantee extended to the changes which might be made at Naples, to the newly-formed States of Germany, and to the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. The two Powers were to make common cause in any war which would affect these guarantees. In other respects the Vienna stipulations were renewed, except that the rectification of the Baireuth boundary was cancelled.

The new treaty was more onerous and more distasteful to Frederick William than the old one, but it was accepted and ratified at Berlin on February 24. A few smooth words from Talleyrand, while Napoleon was at Munich, had made the Prussian Government so sanguine of his assent to the changes which it desired, that the greater part of the army had been placed on a peace footing at the end of January. On the French side everything was ready for war, and there was practically no alternative to acceptance. Hanover was already occupied by Prussian troops; and at the end of March it was formally annexed, and its harbours were closed to British vessels. “It is the lowest of all degrada­tions,” said Heinrich von Bülow, “to steal at another man’s bidding”. Fox denounced the conduct of Prussia as “a compound of everything that is contemptible in servility with everything that is odious in rapacity”. The British Minister was recalled from Berlin; the Prussian harbours were blockaded; and some hundreds of Prussian ships were seized. The King of Sweden joined in the work of blockade, and held Lauenburg on behalf of George III. His troops were driven out, but the Prussians forbore to press him hard because of the Tsar.

What Alexander would say to the new treaty was the question which most disturbed Frederick William. He had sent the Duke of Brunswick to St Petersburg in January to explain his occupation of Hanover, and to give assurances that he would not help France against Russia in any war on the Eastern Question. He had no sooner ratified the Treaty of Paris, which bound him to do so, than he made a fresh appeal to the Tsar, who had no wish to drive Prussia into the arms of France, and lent a friendly ear to the explanations offered. Alexander proposed an exchange of secret declarations; Prussia should bind herself not to take part in any attack on Russia, and to obtain the evacuation of Germany by the French troops within three months; while Russia undertook to come to the aid of Prussia if France should attack her. The King jumped at this proposal; and a secret declaration was drawn up by Hardenberg and sent to St Petersburg.

A dual ministry was the appropriate instrument of the double-faced policy of Prussia at this time. Hardenberg had been denounced in the Moniteur as a traitor in English pay; and the French envoy, Laforest, was forbidden to have any dealings with him. In April it was found advisable that he should ostensibly hand over the charge of foreign affairs to Haugwitz, and retire to his estates. But, while Haugwitz transacted all business with France, Hardenberg continued to act as the King’s adviser in the secret dealings with Russia, communicating with him through the Queen. Queen Louisa, already beloved for her charm and goodness, now began to display the patriotism and courage which have made her memorable She used her influence on the side of the growing party which was indignant at Prussian subservience to France, and at the head of which was Prince Louis Ferdinand, “the Prussian Alcibiades”, a nephew of the great Frederick.

Meanwhile Napoleon was building up his system. In southern Italy the French troops met with little resistance. They entered Naples on February 15, 1806, and Joseph Bonaparte organised an administration. At the end of March he was declared King of the Two Sicilies, without forfeiture of his rights in France. Gaeta held out, and the peasants of Calabria rose in insurrection on behalf of Ferdinand; but the rest of the country submitted. Venetia, Istria, and Dalmatia were annexed to the kingdom of Italy, which was required to make some small cessions for the benefit of Napoleon’s sisters, Élise and Pauline. Two months afterwards he made his brother Louis King of Holland (June 5). He had paved the way for this subversion of a republican government more than two centuries old by appointing a Grand Pensionary, Schimmelpenninck, in March, 1805. All power had been concentrated in the hands of this official, who came to be regarded by the Dutch as a French prefect, charged to extort money from them. The change, therefore, was not unwelcome in Holland. Caroline Bonaparte and her husband, Murat, were established in the grand-duchy of Berg, formed out of the duchy of that name ceded by Bavaria in exchange for Ansbach and the eastern part of the duchy of Cleves.

While providing for the members of his family, Napoleon reckoned on making use of them as instruments of his policy. “I recognise no relatives but those who serve me”, he said; and he discarded the recalcitrant Lucien. The other brothers, though more submissive, were not content with the status of satellites, and did not perceive the width of the interval between Napoleon and themselves. On his part harsh language went along with much indulgence. It was his habit to snub and scold. In May, 1807, he wrote to Joseph, “I am not ill pleased with Louis”; yet, a few weeks before, he had been telling Louis that he should regard him as his inveterate enemy if he did not cancel a decree reestablishing nobility in Holland. Louis was a conscientious man, with bad health and low spirits. He identified himself with his subjects, and tried to protect them from his brother’s rapacity. The differences began almost at once, which ended in his abdication in 1810.

Napoleon proceeded to reward his principal officers in such a way as to bind up their fortunes with his. He was well aware (as Pasquier says) that nothing isolated lasts long, and sought props for his throne from old and new France alike. He made Berthier Prince of Neuchatel. He created titular duchies in the newly acquired countries—twelve in Venetia, four in Naples, four in Lucca, Parma, and Piacenza—and conferred them on marshals and ministers. The new dukes were not allowed to interfere in administration, but they received one-fifteenth of the revenue of their duchies for their personal use. Benevento and Ponte Corvo, papal enclaves in the kingdom of Naples, were bestowed as prin­cipalities on Talleyrand and Bernadotte. Counts and barons of the new Empire were also to be created; and, to provide funds for endowing them, Napoleon appropriated domain-land in Italy to the value of 34,000,000 francs, and imposed a fixed charge on the public revenues. Jacobins might shake their heads, but he knew that a few years of equality had not eradicated the love of honours and distinctions, and he hoped to rally the old aristocracy to the new Empire.

In the spring of 1806 Napoleon addressed himself to the reconstitu­tion of Germany, which had been long in his mind, but had been only partially accomplished after Lunéville. The territory which Austria had been obliged to cede had been assigned to other German Princes and to the kingdom of Italy; it had not been added to France. Her profit was to be found in the realisation of the aims of Richelieu and Mazarin, the destruction of Germany as an unit. Napoleon’s plan was to dissolve the Empire, and to form a Confederation of the Rhine, from which the two great Powers, Austria and Prussia, should be excluded. The principal States in this new Confederation owed much to him, and would be obliged to lean on him for support. The smaller Princes, who had habitually looked to Austria, were to be swept away with some few exceptions. The treaty constituting the Confederation was drawn up by Talleyrand, and was ratified at Saint-Cloud on July 19.

The affairs of the Confederation were to be managed by a Diet at Frankfort, consisting of a College of Kings and a College of Princes. The former was composed of the Kings of Bavaria and Würtemberg, with the Grand Dukes of Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, and Berg. Its president was Dalberg, formerly Archbishop of Mainz, now of Ratisbon. and Arch-Chancellor of the Empire, who was established with a suzerainty of his own at Frankfort, and received the title of Prince Primate. A well-meaning but weak man, he dreamed of a western Germany, the ally but not the vassal of the Emperor of the West. As Archbishop of Mainz he had been useful in the secularisations of 1802, and was the only ecclesiastical elector who survived them; and he now again proved himself a serviceable tool. The minor members of the Confederation, nine in number, formed the College of Princes under the presidency of the Duke of Nassau. Rectifications of frontier were arranged between the several members, and they renounced all claims to one another’s territory. The secularisations of 1803 were followed up by wholesale mediatisation. The dukes, counts, and knights who were not admitted to membership lost their sovereign rights, and were absorbed in the States recognised; but they retained their other feudal rights and their patrimonies. Ratisbon and the free city of Nürnberg fell to Bavaria, as Augsburg had fallen already. Provision was made for the adhesion of other German Princes outside the boundaries of the Confederation. Napoleon was declared Protector; and an alliance was made between the Confederation and the French Empire, binding each to help the other in any Continental war. The contingents of the several States were fixed, the total amounting to 63,000 men, about eight per thousand of their population.

On August 1,1806, the representatives of the several States announced at Ratisbon their separation from the German Empire; and the French envoy declared that Napoleon no longer recognised its existence. Five days afterwards Francis II resigned the Imperial dignity, and became Francis I, Emperor of Austria. Thus, after an existence of more than a thousand years, the Holy Roman Empire came to an unlamented end.

Napoleon had thought it well to keep his army in Germany till these changes were accepted, and he had been furnished with a pretext for so doing. The harbour of Cattaro was ceded to him as part of Dalmatia; and he attached particular value to it as an inlet to the Balkan peninsula. He meant to get possession of Montenegro, come to an understanding with Ali Pasha of Janina, and so gain influence over the Sultan and counteract the policy of Russia. The Russians and Montenegrins were alarmed at the prospect of French troops at Cattaro; and, before their arrival, the Austrian officer who was in command there was persuaded to hand over the place to a Russian force from Corfu. The French army was. on the point of evacuating Austria when this news reached Napoleon. He sent orders at once that the troops should halt, and that Braunau should be reoccupied. He informed the Court of Vienna that hostilities would be resumed if it failed to put him in possession of Cattaro; if the Russians refused to give it up, Austrian troops must join with French troops in besieging it. Francis appealed to the Tsar, but Cattaro was not given up; and Napoleon had to content himself with seizing Ragusa. The Grand Army remained in Germany, living in canton­ments at the expense of the country, and distributed from Frankfort to the river Inn. Reinforcements had raised it to 170,000 men, and it could be readily assembled for a march either on Vienna or Berlin.

Shortly after Fox’s accession to office, a Frenchman came to him with a scheme for the assassination of Napoleon. Fox caused the man to be detained, and sent information of the design to Talleyrand. Napoleon accepted this as the overture which he had been looking for. Talleyrand sent a courteous acknowledgment, and, in a separate letter of the same date (March 5), called attention to the Emperor’s recent declaration to the Legislative Body, that he was ready to negotiate with England on the basis of the Treaty of Amiens. Fox replied that the King was equally desirous of a durable peace, but could only treat in concert with Russia. It was Napoleon’s rule to deal with his adversaries one at a time, and he would have nothing to do with joint negotiations. Neither side would give way; and there was a deadlock for some months. The Russian Government was loyally informed of what had taken place, but it had some misgivings. Its ambassador in London, Simon Woronzoff, wrote on March 31, “Fox wishes for peace at any price, and would abandon all his allies to obtain it”. Oubril was sent to Paris, nominally to make arrangements about prisoners, but really to discuss the question of Cattaro, and to look after Russian interests generally.

Some British subjects who had been detained in France since the rupture of the Peace of Amiens were released about this time; and among them was Lord Yarmouth (afterwards Marquis of Hertford), a personal friend of Fox. Talleyrand persuaded him, in June, to be the bearer of fresh propositions to England. “Hanover should make no difficulty”; and on other points Napoleon, as Yarmouth understood, was ready to negotiate on the basis of uti possidetis. England might keep what she had—Malta, the Cape, even Sicily. Holland and Switzerland should be independent, if the Emperor were met on other points. As for Russia, Talleyrand said that she was disposed to treat directly with France. Yarmouth brought back a letter from Fox, consenting to a pre­liminary discussion, while still maintaining that Russia must be a party to any treaty. By that time Talleyrand had changed his ground, and insisted on the surrender of Sicily as a sine qua non; and Yarmouth was told not to produce his powers till that demand was withdrawn (June 26).

To become master of the Mediterranean was the chief aim of Napoleon’s policy, as he told Joseph; and he pressed him to get pos­session of Sicily without delay. He was confident that 9000 French troops could force a landing and expel the English from the island (June 6). But the course of things in Italy did not bear out this view. A British force from Sicily, under Sir John Stuart, landed on the coast of Calabria; and on July 4 it defeated a French division under Reynier at Maida, the numbers on each side being about 5000. As Paul Louis Courier (then serving as an artillery officer in southern Italy) wrote:—“With our good troops, and with equal numbers, to be defeated and broken up in a few minutes—such a thing has not been seen since the Revolution”. The victory stimulated the Calabrian insurgents, but it was not followed up; and the surrender of Gaeta (July 18) made it necessary for the British to return to Sicily.

Oubril reached Paris on July 6. Napoleon had caused him to be delayed on the road in the hope of coming to terms with England before his arrival. This hope was disappointed, and the British and Russian envoys took counsel together; but Talleyrand soon found that Oubril was willing to keep secrets from his colleague, and was more yielding. Oubril was told that the retention of Cattaro would bring war upon Austria; and he knew that Alexander was personally anxious to prevent such a result, and was desirous of peace. By July 20 he was induced to sign a treaty, with which he at once set out for St Petersburg. Russia was to hand over Cattaro, and recognise Dalmatia as part of the kingdom of Italy; France would recognise the independence of Ragusa and of the Ionian Islands, and would withdraw her troops from Germany within three months. The two Powers guaranteed the independence and integrity of the Turkish Empire; they were to bring about peace between Prussia and Sweden, and to induce the King of Spain to cede the Balearic Islands to Ferdinand’s eldest son. On that condition the Tsar would recognise Joseph as King of the Two Sicilies. He would also use his good offices to bring about a maritime peace.

Napoleon had carried his point as to separate negotiations, and he hoped now to be able to force the hand of the British envoy. If the second treaty were signed, he could count on the ratification of both. Yarmouth was persuaded to produce his powers, and to discuss matters orally with Clarke, the French plenipotentiary. He “carefully forbore giving any written paper, or admitting even the possibility of any other basis than that of uti possidetis”; but he ascertained the French demands, and transmitted a draft treaty to London (printed in the Correspondance de Napoléon). Oubril’s treaty, however, had leaked out, and had caused indignation there, both by its terms and by the manner in which it had been brought about. To fall in with Russian wishes, Fox had, it is true, entertained the idea that Sicily might be exchanged for Dalmatia, Istria, and part of Venetia, but not for the Balearic Islands; and such exchange was not to be forced upon Ferdinand. The Government thought Yarmouth had gone rather too fast; they associated Lord Lauderdale with him as joint negotiator in August, and soon afterwards recalled him. Lauderdale at once took his stand on the uti possidetis, except as regards Hanover; while Clarke declared it could never have entered the Emperor’s mind to take that principle as a basis. Even Fox had come by this time to despair of peace. He wrote to his nephew, Lord Holland, “It is not Sicily, but the shuffling, insincere way in which they act, that shows me they are playing a false game”. But Fox was too ill to pay much attention to affairs; he died on September 13. His successor at the Foreign Office was Lord Howick (afterwards Earl Grey). The negotiations dragged on for two months, each side hoping that the course of events would turn to its advantage, and changing its tone accordingly; but there was no approach to agreement.

The draft treaty prepared at the end of July had included provisions for the restoration of Hanover to George III, and for the indemnification of Prussia for her cession of Cleves, Ansbach, and Neuchatel by other lands (Anhalt, Fulda, etc.) with an equivalent population. The Prussian eagle had turned vulture, Napoleon once said; and he thought little of making her disgorge her prey. Yarmouth had let Lucchesini know that Hanover had been offered to England; and the news reached Berlin on August 6, when Napoleon was claiming credit there for refusing to rob Prussia in order to make peace with England. The indignation which it caused was heightened by other circumstances. Murat had lately jostled the Prussians out of the districts of Essen, Werden, and Elten, which he claimed as part of the duchy of Cleves. There were rumours of other claims, and of the transfer of the Polish provinces to Russia, and of Pomerania to Sweden. When the treaty creating the Confederation of the Rhine was communicated to the Court of Berlin, the King of Prussia was invited to form a Northern Confederation and to style himself Emperor. He made proposals to Saxony, Hesse-Cassel, Mecklenburg, and the Hanse Towns; but the answers were unfavourable, and it was soon found that they were prompted from Paris. As there were no signs of organised opposition to the Confederation of the Rhine, Napoleon resolved to discourage that of the North. All these things convinced Frederick William that the Emperor meant to force war on him, or to render him incapable of resistance. He appealed to the Tsar, and decided (August 9) to mobilise part of his army, not with the intention of declaring war, but to guard Prussian interests. It was important to gain time; and, as Lucchesini had incurred Napoleon’s displeasure, a new ambassador, Knobelsdorff, replaced him at Paris.

Towards the end of August an incident occurred which stirred all Germans. A pamphlet had been circulated, entitled “Germany in her deep humiliation”. It was a forcible yet moderate appeal to Saxony and Prussia to save the German Empire on the brink of the abyss. It is said to have been written by an Ansbach official, but it bore no name of author or publisher. Palm, a bookseller of Nürnberg, had helped to circulate it; and, by Napoleon’s direction, he was tried by a military Court and shot (August 25). At Berlin the popular excitement became uncontrollable. A remonstrance was presented to the King early in September, calling upon him to dismiss Haugwitz and the Cabinet Secretaries, Beyme and Lombard, who were distrusted both at home and abroad. It was signed by Louis Ferdinand and other princes, by two generals and by Stein. The King refused, but he and his ministers were carried away by the war party, now strengthened by the news that Alexander had refused to ratify Oubril’s treaty.

There had been a change of ministry at St Petersburg. Czartoryski had resigned on June 17, and was succeeded by Baron Budberg, a Livonian, whose sympathies were with Prussia. Oubril was declared to have gone beyond his powers, and was disgraced. The Russian Government demanded that France should give up Dalmatia, guarantee Sicily to Ferdinand, and find some compensation for the King of Sardinia; and the British Government joined in these demands. Napoleon learnt the Tsar’s refusal on September 3. He had hitherto looked upon the stir in Prussia as mere effervescence, which might be left to subside. It now became more serious; and on the 5th he sent Berthier instructions to make arrangements for concentrating the army near Bamberg, if neces­sary, and to reconnoitre the roads to Berlin. He wrote to Frederick William inviting him to discontinue his military preparations (September 12). The French envoys at Berlin, Dresden, and Cassel were directed to intimate that neither Saxony nor Hesse must arm, and that the entry of Prussian troops into Saxony would be regarded as a declaration of war. But Prussian troops from Silesia had already entered Saxony; on the 10th they crossed the Elbe near Dresden, and the Saxon troops were mobilised to join them. The Elector of Hesse temporised, and eventually declared himself neutral.

Convinced that war was inevitable, the King left Berlin on the 21st for the head-quarters of his army at Naumburg; and on the 26th he sent an ultimatum to Paris, demanding the immediate withdrawal of the French armies beyond the Rhine, and the Emperor’s acquiescence in a Confederation of the North, to include all the States which did not belong to the Confederation of the Rhine. Napoleon had left Paris the day before; and the ultimatum was delivered to him at Bamberg on October 7, when the term allowed for reply to it had almost run out, and when the French troops were in fact passing the frontier of Baireuth. It was accompanied by a letter from Frederick William to Napoleon, which the latter described as “a sorry pamphlet”, showing how Prussia had cringed to France, and how ill she was requited.

The total number of men on which the Prussian Government reckoned was a quarter of a million, including Saxons and Hessians; but not half that number was actually available to meet the French. The Duke of Brunswick was named commander-in-chief; but his command was only nominal, as the King was present. Prussian tradition made this necessary, though Frederick William hated war and recognised that he had no gifts for it. Brunswick had distinguished himself in the Seven Years’ War under his uncle Ferdinand, and had been described by Frederick the Great as “ce héros dont l’esprit unit dès sa jeunesse le solide au brillant, l’ardeur à la sagesse”. He had many fine qualities, but he was more than seventy years of age, and wanting in decision. He was anxious about his duchy, and held Napoleon in awe. A French officer who had been sent to Dresden reported at the end of September: “The Duke of Brunswick does not wish for war; he is afraid of compromising his reputation; he is timid, slow, and irresolute”.

The Prussian officers generally were far from sharing the apprehen­sions of their commander They believed that the French were, after all, “the men of Rossbach,” and were no match for Prussian troops in open country. They were justly proud of the drill and discipline of their men, and had full confidence in the linear tactics with which Frederick had won his victories. These tactics, combined with a proper use of light infantry, afterwards served Wellington well enough in the Peninsula and at Waterloo. But the Prussian army was at a disadvantage in many ways. It had seen no war service for ten years. It was the King’s army, not the army of the nation, and had no reserves behind it. It had always been a heavy burden on the country, and of late years this burden had been less patiently borne; civil interests had prevailed, and military reforms had been rejected if they involved much expenditure. The muskets, says Clausewitz, were highly polished, but they were the worst in Europe. The officers were old; and cliques and jealousies were rife among them. Some believed in Prince Hohenlohe, others in Rüchel, both of whom possessed abundant self-confidence, and were comparatively young, Hohenlohe being sixty and Rüchel fifty-two.

Brunswick had proposed that the available forces should be assembled at Naumburg to form one army under his command. But he was over­ruled. It was decided that, on the left of the main army, there should be another army under Hohenlohe to cover Dresden, and on the right a separate corps under Rüchel to protect Cassel. The greater part of Hohenlohe’s army was afterwards brought over to the west of the Saale, to take part in an advance through the Thuringian Forest, by which it was hoped to surprise the French army in its cantonments and to cut it in two. But this offensive movement had to wait for the expiration of the term named in the Prussian ultimatum, and before that date (October 8) it was abandoned. The Prussian armies lay between Eisenach and Jena, with a few thousand men east of the Saale, guarding the points where that river was crossed by the roads to Leipzig and Dresden. The initiative was left to the French.

It was the intention of Napoleon to march straight on Berlin from the river Main, while threatening attack from the lower Rhine by way of Munster. He expected that the Prussians would remain on the defensive behind the Elbe waiting for the Russians, and was surprised to find them advancing to meet him. This gave him an opportunity of repeating the manoeuvre of Ulm. His plan, as he explained it to his brother Louis at the end of September, was to mass all his forces on his extreme right, leaving the country between Bamberg and the Rhine bare of troops. If the enemy should try to turn his left and cut his communications, he would throw them back upon the Rhine, which was guarded by a corps under Mortier at Mainz, and by Dutch troops under Louis at Wesel. If he were himself defeated, he should fall back on the Danube; but he had not much fear of defeat. The deployment of his forces would be so imposing and so rapid that the Prussians would probably hurry back to defend their capital.

By the evening of October 7 the Grand Army, numbering 160,000 men, was assembled on three main roads leading northward, with a front of about thirty miles. The 4th corps (Soult) was at Baireuth on the right, with the 6th corps (Ney) a day’s march behind it. The 1st corps (Bernadotte) and the bulk of the reserve cavalry under Murat were in the centre, about Kronach, with the 3rd corps (Davout) and the Guard behind them. On the left was the 5th corps (Lannes), a few miles south of Coburg, with the 7th (Augereau) in its rear. The south-German States had been called on for contingents, which amounted to 30,000 men; but they were left at first to guard the communications and to watch Austria, about whose course of action Napoleon was uneasy. He had been reassured to some extent by Archduke Ferdinand at Würzburg: and he told his ambassador at Vienna to throw out hints of his inclination towards an Austrian alliance.

The general advance of the French army began on the 8th; and the Prussian detachments on the upper Saale fell back before it. On the 9th Bernadotte’s leading troops overtook Tauenzien’s division at Schleiz, and drove it in disorder to Mittel-Pöllnitz, where there was another division of Hohenlohe’s army. To support these outlying troops Hohenlohe gave orders that the rest of his army should cross the Saale; but it was too late, and he was obliged to bring the two divisions over to the left bank of the Saale, leaving the roads to Dresden and Berlin open. In consequence of Hohenlohe’s first orders, Prince Louis, who commanded his advanced guard, marched to Saalfeld, and there encoun­tered the head of Lannes’ corps (October 10). He was killed in a cavalry engagement, in which six French squadrons proved more than a match for eight Prussian squadrons; and his division was routed.

Having satisfied himself that there was no large body of the enemy in his front or on his right, Napoleon drew the heads of his columns together and turned them towards the west. By the evening of the 12th the leading troops of three corps were on the Saale—Davout at Naumburg, Lannes at Jena, Augereau at Kahla. “If the enemy is at Erfurt”, the Emperor wrote next morning, “my plan is to march my army on Weimar, and attack on the 16th.” He wished to give time for his heavy cavalry to come up, but the enemy must not be allowed to escape; and the battle planned for the 16th was fought on the 14th.

There was much perturbation at the Prussian head-quarters when it became known that the French were at Naumburg, between the King and his capital, and in possession of the Prussian magazines. Scharnhorst, afterwards the reorganiser of the Prussian military system, was Brunswick’s chief of the staff. He urged that they should hold to their plan, and, if not attacked themselves, cross the Saale and fall upon the enemy’s flank and rear. Brunswick thought it better to retreat northward, to meet the reinforcements which were on their way from Magdeburg under Duke Eugene of Würtemberg; and his opinion prevailed. The King with the main army, 50,000 men, marched to Auerstädt on the 13th. Rüchel’s corps (15,000) was to follow. Hohenlohe, who had about 40,000 men, was to remain in his position near Jena for a day or two to cover the retreat, but was to act strictly on the defensive. Detachments amounting to more than 12,000 men had been sent through the Thuringian Forest to strike at the French communications, and were too far off to be recalled in time.

The Saale was fordable at several points near Jena; but the high and steep banks made it a difficult river to force. Open and level ground, however, was best suited to Prussian tactics; and Hohenlohe, instead of attempting to defend the town, drew back his left (Tauenzien’s division) to the highest part of the plateau north of it. On the afternoon of the 13th Lannes’ corps not only occupied Jena, but established itself on the Landgrafenberg, a corner of the plateau; and Napoleon himself bivouacked there that night with the Guard. Hohenlohe was restrained by his instructions from attacking the French, crowded as they were in a narrow space, with steep slopes behind them. He supposed that Napo­leon had gone northward to Naumburg with the greater part of the French army, and did not expect to be seriously attacked himself on the 14th. Napoleon, on the other hand, believed himself to be in presence of the main strength of the Prussians, and was not aware that Brunswick’s army had retreated. He had 55,000 men available on the morning of the 14th, and 95,000 by midday; and he had sent orders that Davout should march from Naumburg, and Bernadotte from Dornburg, to fall upon the left flank of the Prussians in the course of the afternoon.

With such odds against him, the utmost Hohenlohe could do was to hold his ground for a few hours and then follow the main army. For this it was essential that he should have his troops well in hand; but the Prussian divisions, including Rüchel’s, were scattered over twelve miles of country, and were beaten in succession. A thick mist hampered movements on both sides for some hours, but served Napoleon’s purpose, as it gave time for the troops in the rear to come up. By 10 a.m., when it cleared off, the French had gained possession of Vierzehnheiligen, the key of the plateau. Hohenlohe tried to recover it, but his tactics were not those of Frederick, who made use of columns for storming a village. Twenty Prussian battalions in two lines advanced en échelon, but, instead of pushing home their attack, they halted and engaged in musketry fire against the better-sheltered French skirmishers. Their endurance was at length exhausted, and they were falling back in confusion, when Rüchel’s corps tardily arrived from Weimar. In half-an-hour it was also put to flight; and by 6,p.m. Murat was in Weimar.

Napoleon’s victory at Jena was supplemented, and, as a tactical achievement, surpassed, by Davout’s victory at Auerstädt. Following his instructions, Davout set out for Apolda at 4 A.m.; and, on reaching Hassenhausen, his leading division met the advanced guard of Brunswick’s army on its way to Freiburg, where it was to pass the Unstrut. Having gained possession of Hassenhausen, Davout formed his troops to right and left of it as they came up. He had only 26,000 men; in infantry he was outnumbered by three to two, in cavalry by six to one, in guns by five to one. Yet he held his ground for five hours against repeated attacks, in one of which Brunswick was mortally wounded. Soon after midday the French found themselves able to take the offensive; and by half-past two Frederick William decided to retreat on Weimar and rejoin Hohenlohe. This decision turned a repulse into a rout. The retreating troops had to change direction in order to avoid French corps, and they soon learned what had happened at Jena. With the exception of a few battalions, the whole Prussian army dissolved, many of the men throwing away their arms.

The battle of Auerstädt showed how largely the French successes were due to the fighting qualities of the officers and men, apart from the leadership of the Emperor. Napoleon was incredulous when he received Davout’s report. “Your Marshal sees double”, he said roughly to the aide-de-camp who brought it; and though he gave much praise afterwards to the Marshal and his corps, he took care that the battle should figure in his bulletin as a mere episode of the battle of Jena. If great credit was due to Davout, blame might seem to attach to the strategy which left him to fight against such odds. This caused Napoleon to be the more severe on Bernadotte, who was at Naumburg on the night of the 13th, and might have accompanied Davout. In the orders for the 14th, which reached Davout at 3 a.m., it was stated : “If Marshal Bernadotte should be with you, you might march together; but the Emperor hopes that he will be in the position which he has indicated to him at Dornburg”. Bernadotte, on being shown these orders, decided to march to Dornburg, and cross the Saale there, though he knew there was a difficult defile. He heard heavy firing to south and to north of him, but he held on his way, and reached Apolda at 4 p.m., having played no part in either battle.

The streams of Prussian fugitives from Jena and Auerstädt flowed westward. Some of them made for Erfurt, where 10,000 men capitulated on the following night, including Marshal Möllendorf and the Prince of Orange. The main body turned towards the Harz country, to reach Magdeburg by a circuit. The King gave the chief command to Hohenlohe, and hurried on to Küstrin, where he was joined by the Queen, who had been with the army, but had fortunately left on the eve of the battles. By the 20th the wreck of the army was at Magdeburg; but Hohenlohe saw no hope of making a stand behind the Elbe, and decided to retire to Stettin. Soult’s corps, which had been marching sixteen miles a day for a fortnight, was a day’s march behind him; and Ney was following Soult. Fifty miles to the west was the Duke of Weimar, with the force which had been sent against the French communications.

While the Prussians and the corps pursuing them were describing an arc, Napoleon moved by the chord upon Berlin with the rest of his army. Bernadotte was sent towards Halle to intercept any defeated troops drifting in that direction; on October 17 he fell upon the corps commanded by Duke Eugene of Würtemberg, which was encamped there, and drove it in disorder across the Elbe. On the 20th Davout secured the bridge at Wittenberg; and on the 25th his corps marched through Berlin, as a reward for its behaviour at Auerstädt. Lannes had occupied Potsdam, and frightened the governor of Spandau citadel into surrender.

During these movements of the troops, Napoleon found time to deal with many other things. He had written a letter to the King of Prussia, proposing peace, two days before the battle of Jena, probably with the object of gaining time for his own combinations. To this letter the King replied from his first halting-place after the battle, asking for an armistice to allow of negotiations. The armistice was refused; but the King was invited to make propositions. Lucchesini had an interview with Duroc on the 22nd near Wittenberg, but he found Napoleon’s conditions too hard for acceptance. Prussia was to cede all her possessions west of the Elbe, except Magdeburg, to renounce her plans of federation with other German States, to renew her pledge of alliance against Russia, and to pay an indemnity of 100,000,000 francs.

The Emperor did not wish for a settlement while the tide of his success was in full flow. He went to Weimar the day after the battle of Jena, and was received by the Duchess. It suited him to express admiration for her spirit, and to overlook the part played by her husband, who was related to the Tsar. At the same time he was dictating bulletins which likened the Queen of Prussia to Armida, Helen, and Lady Hamilton. “In politics magnanimity is the mark of a simpleton”, he once said; but the pettiness of his conduct towards Queen Louisa, which drew remonstrances from Josephine, only served to endear her to the German people. The Duke of Brunswick, blinded at Auerstädt, was driven from his capital, to die at Altona a few weeks afterwards. He and the Prince of Orange were deprived of their duchies by a decree issued at Wittenberg on October 23, which also directed that possession should be taken of all Prussian territory between the Rhine and the Elbe.

The Elector of Hesse was the next victim. He had declared himself neutral, but he had mobilised 20,000 men, and his eldest son had been at the Prussian head-quarters. Napoleon wanted his land for the kingdom of Westphalia, which he was already planning; and he was resolved to get rid of a prince who had hitherto played off France against Prussia, and had tried “to fish from both banks”. Mortier was ordered to march on Cassel from Frankfort, and Louis from Wesel. On October 31, when Mortier was within a day’s march, the Elector was called upon to disarm, and to hand over his fortresses and war-material. He fled to Denmark, and tried to negotiate; but on November 4 his deposition was announced, much to the satisfaction of his people.

Very different was the treatment accorded to another Elector, Frederick Augustus of Saxony. Not only had he mobilised his troops, but they had fought side by side with the Prussians at Jena. They had, however, been unwilling allies, and were dissatisfied with their treatment. Saxony stood to Prussia much as Bavaria to Austria, and might equally be made to serve Napoleon’s purposes. He had issued a proclamation to the Saxon people on October 10, announcing that he had come to deliver them from Prussian domination. At Weimar he made a similar address to the Saxon officers who had been taken prisoners, and allowed them and their men to go home, on taking an oath never to bear arms against him in future. This led the Saxon division to separate itself from the Prussians. It marched into Saxon territory, and asked for an armistice, which was granted on condition that the Elector recalled his troops and remained at Dresden. To this he acceded on the 19th The King of Prussia, who was treating for peace without any regard to his ally, could not complain if that ally took the same course.

Saxony, however, did not escape all the penalties of her partnership with Prussia. Dresden was occupied by Bavarian troops, which, with other south-German contingents had been formed into a corps under Jerome, and had followed the Grand Army. The Saxon war-material and cavalry horses were appropriated to French use; and the country was temporarily placed under French administration. War contribu­tions amounting to 160,000,000 francs had been imposed on the several States of northern Germany on the day after Jena; and of this total 25,000,000 fell on Saxony. On December 11 a treaty was signed at Posen by which Saxony joined the Confederation of the Rhine, and was bound to furnish a contingent of 20,000 men, though only 6000 were exacted for the campaign then in progress. The Elector received the title of King. Weimar and the other small Saxon States were admitted to the Confederation two days afterwards.

On October 25, when the French entered Berlin, Hohenlohe was at Ruppin, forty miles N. W. of it; and his rear-guard, under Blücher, was a day’s march behind him. Napoleon sent Murat northward, followed by the corps of Lannes and Bernadotte, to intercept Hohenlohe. They forestalled him at Zehdenick; but, by sidling to his left, he succeeded in reaching Prenzlau on the 28th before Murat, and might have reached Stettin. Through the fatuity of his chief staff officer, Massenbach, who had been a bad adviser to him throughout, Hohenlohe was led to believe that he. was surrounded by overwhelming forces. The troops with him at Prenzlau, numbering 10,000 men, laid down their arms; and other surrenders soon followed. Stettin capitulated on the 29th. It was a respectable fortress with a garrison of 5000 men, but its governor was over eighty years of age; and the prevailing demoralisation made him yield to the summons of Lasalle, who had ridden forward with a brigade of Hussars to reconnoitre it.

Blücher, on learning of Hohenlohe’s surrender, turned round, and marched westward by Strelitz. He had about 10,000 men, a number which was doubled on the 30th by junction with the corps hitherto commanded by the Duke of Weimar. The Duke had given up the command on receiving the King’s assent to his retirement from the Prussian service, which Napoleon had made the condition of his retaining his duchy. Blücher, closely followed by Bernadotte and Soult, and by Murat, found himself unable to cross the Elbe, and was driven to take refuge in the free city of Lübeck. He was refused permission to cross the Danish frontier, so that he could retreat no further. The French attacked his positions on November 6, drove his troops back into the town, entered it along with them, and sacked it. Blucher had no alternative but to surrender next day. On the 8th Magdeburg capitulated to Ney. It had 24,000 men within its walls, including nineteen generals whose ages averaged 68 years, while Ney had only 16,000 men.

Blücher had hoped that, by drawing nearly 50,000 French troops a week’s march to the west, he would enable preparations to be made for defending the line of the Oder; but in this he was disappointed. There were not 20,000 men available behind that river. Küstrin followed the example of Stettin. It surrendered to Davout at the first threat of bombardment (November 1), though it was well armed and garrisoned and abundantly provisioned. The garrison sent boats to bring in the French troops, as the bridge had been burnt. The King and Queen had left it a week before, and had gone to Graudenz on the Vistula. In the middle of November they felt themselves unsafe even there, and retired towards Konigsberg.

Napoleon had told Louis (September 15) that the struggle with Prussia would not last long, and that success was certain, though he foresaw that it was perhaps the beginning of a new Coalition. Within a week of the outbreak of war the Prussian armies were in full flight; and by the end of the month they were practically annihilated. The world was astonished at such a catastrophe to a State which had been a military model for half a century; but clear-sighted admirers had predicted it. Mirabeau had said: “The Prussian monarchy is so con­stituted that it could not bear up under any calamity, not even under that which must come sooner or later, an incompetent government”. Catharine II had described it as built upon the sand; and Guibert had said that the Prussian military system must fall to pieces under a weak king. A succession of able and masterful rulers had raised the country to a rank to which its real strength did not entitle it; and only such men could maintain it there. In alliance with other Powers it could have done much; it might have turned the scale in 1805. It chose isolation, and found itself driven to fight single-handed against a Power for which it was no match.

Alexander had assured Frederick William that he would do his utmost to help him; and the King had asked (in September) for 60,000 men. Neither of them had supposed that the help would be so quickly needed, and that the Russians would become principals instead of auxiliaries. Two months had been allowed for them to come into the field. The Tsar had let himself be drawn by the adroit diplomacy of Sebastiani into a quarrel with Turkey; and on October 16 a Russian army of 80,000 men had been ordered to occupy the Danubian principalities. Napoleon was bound to take advantage of such an opportunity. He could not afford to give his enemies a respite of several months, and to forfeit the resources he might draw from Poland, though it was a terrible country for a winter campaign. The roads were not metalled, and turned to sloughs in bad weather; and the whole country became a swamp. There was nothing to arrest his advance to the Vistula; but he was in some doubt about the movements of the Russians, and wished to bring his army together again before he encountered them. Davout was told to advance cautiously to Posen, and thence towards Warsaw. He was to treat the Poles with great consideration, and encourage them to rise, but not to commit himself in writing. He was supported on his right by the south-German contingents under Jerome, which had moved on from Saxony into Silesia, and were employed in the reduction of Glogau, Breslau, and other fortresses, which made but a poor defence. Lannes was directed from Stettin upon Thorn; and Augereau followed in support of him. The Emperor himself remained at Berlin. He had entered it in state on October 27, after spending two days at Potsdam, where he had visited the tomb of Frederick the Great, and despoiled it of his sword and other memorials for the benefit of the Invalides. The fragments of the column which commemorated Rossbach had already been sent off to Paris. “I always admired Frederick II”, he afterwards said, “but I admire him twice as much since I have seen what kind of men they were with which he resisted Austrians, French, and Russians.” The population of Berlin received Napoleon, if not with enthusiasm (as the journals declared), at any rate with curiosity and apparent friendliness. The night before, at the opera (as is stated in Baron Percy’s Journal) “no one seemed to be thinking about his country, or pitying the Court, or troubling himself about the future; they were applauding the singing of Iphigenia, and still more the ballets, which were charming”. Prince Hatzfeldt, the acting governor of Berlin, had forbidden the removal of arms from the arsenal, and the destruction of bridges, lest the city should suffer for it; yet, on account of a letter written before the French arrived, Napoleon threatened to bring him before a court-martial and have him shot as a spy. He eventually spared the Prince at the entreaties of his wife, and took credit for clemency in so doing.

Negotiations for peace were resumed at Berlin. Frederick William sent General Zastrow as Lucchesini’s colleague; but no abatement of the French terms could be obtained. On November 6 the King held a council at Graudenz, and decided to accept the terms. But the stream of disaster which brought Prussia to this decision had already made Napoleon repent of them. Magdeburg was now in his hands, and he meant to keep it. The collapse of Prussia, and the want of spirit shown in every quarter, made him hold her cheap, whether as an ally or as an enemy. The alliance which he really desired, now as in 1805, was with Russia; and, if he continued at war with Prussia, he might use her as a lever to bring this about. He refused to grant an armistice, except on condition that his troops should occupy the country between the Oder and the Vistula; that Thorn, Graudenz, and Danzig, fortresses on the latter river, together with other places, should be handed over to him; and that the Russian troops should be sent home. Even to these terms the Prussian envoys agreed; and a convention was signed at Charlottenburg on November 16. The King, however, refused to ratify it. A despatch from St Petersburg had informed him that, if he stood fast to the alliance, the Tsar would recall his troops from Turkey and come to his assistance with 140,000 men; but, if he made peace, Alexander would take his own course without regard to him. This led the King to follow the advice of Stein at a council held at Osterode (Nov. 21), and to reject that of Haugwitz and others, who were in favour of ratification. Haugwitz retired; and the portfolio of Foreign Affairs was offered to Stein. He declined it, and suggested Hardenberg; but the King would not shut the door on peace by choosing a man so distasteful to Napoleon, and he appointed Zastrow. Lombard had been disgraced, but the other Cabinet-Councillor, Beyme, still held his post; and Stein once more urged, with the support of Rüchel and Hardenberg, that the Cabinet system should be abandoned. The King, though he remodelled the system, would not consent to its abolition; and Stein retired for a time from the Prussian service.

Frederick William had made overtures to Great Britain as soon as war with France was imminent. The Prussian ports were opened to British vessels; the British blockade was raised; and ministers were sent on each side to negotiate an alliance. Lord Morpeth reached the Prussian head-quarters at Weimar two days before the battle of Jena, but he was not given an opportunity of discussing the questions at issue. After the battle he made his way to Hamburg, and taking the view that his instructions were practically cancelled by the course of events, he returned to England at the end of the month. The Prussian minister, Jacobi, who arrived in Lon doh on October 10, was authorised to promise that Hanover should be restored at a general peace; but this fell short of what the British Government felt bound to demand; and the pre­parations for sending an expedition to Hanover, to cooperate with the Prussians, were stopped. According to Gentz, even Stein thought that Prussia should keep Hanover, though he disapproved the manner in which it had been acquired.

While the question was still unsettled, Mortier marched into Hanover, and, in the middle of November, took possession of Hamburg and the other Hanse Towns. Having given up all hope of making peace with England, Napoleon determined to wage vigorous war. Those who excluded him from the ocean should be excluded from the Continent, and he would dominate the sea by the land. He would hold on to his continental conquests till England restored her colonial conquests: “It is with my land armies, he told Louis, “that I mean to recover the Cape and Surinam”. On November 21 he issued his Berlin Decree, which declared the British Islands to be in a state of blockade, and prohibited all commerce or correspondence with them. British goods were to be confiscated wherever they were found, and British subjects imprisoned. “I have every reason to hope”, he wrote, “that this measure will deal a deadly blow to England”. Spain, Naples, Holland, and all his other allies were required to conform.

The Poles had long looked to French aid for the recovery of their independence; and the approach of the French armies filled them with hopes. These hopes Napoleon took care to encourage. He wrote to Fouché to send him Kosciuszko; and, when that high-minded patriot refused to head an insurrection without definite pledges from the Emperor, forged proclamations were issued in his name. Napoleon knew that to commit himself to the restoration of the Polish republic would not only hinder that alliance with the Tsar which he was aiming at, but would link the interests of Austria to those of Russia and Prussia. He was by no means easy about the intentions of Austria. The Corsican refugee, Pozzo di Borgo, the persistent enemy of the Corsican Emperor, was at Vienna on a mission from the Tsar, to bring about a fresh combination. A large army was gathering in Bohemia under Archduke Charles. Galicia at that time extended northward to the Bug, and came within a few miles of Warsaw. Napoleon sent assurances that he would not meddle with it, offering at the same time to give part of Silesia in exchange for it; but the offer was not accepted. Lannes and Davout warned him not to trust the Poles, who were divided by jealousies and party passions as of old. There was no doubt, however, that admirable fighting material was to be found among them; and the line taken by Napoleon was to declare that he should not proclaim the independence of the country until the Poles convinced him of their resolution and ability to maintain it, by putting at least 30,000 men in the field, organised and headed by the nobility. To meet the wastage of a winter campaign, he called for a fresh levy of 80,000 conscripts from France; and he demanded 14,000 men from Spain to form a corps of observation in Hanover.

The Russian forces available against the French consisted of 60,000 men under Bennigsen, and about 40,000 under Buxhöwden. Bennigsen’s army arrived on the Vistula in the middle of November, and occupied Warsaw; but Buxhöwden’s could not join it for another month. The Prussians could only contribute a corps of about 15,000 men, commanded by L’Estocq, who was placed under Bennigsen’s orders. On November 25 Napoleon left Berlin for Posen; and on the same day French and Russians came in contact thirty miles west of Warsaw. Bennigsen was not strong enough to stand his ground; he recrossed the Vistula and retreated up the river Narew to Ostrolenka. Murat entered Warsaw on November 28, to the delight of its inhabitants. The Vistula was encumbered with floating ice; and a fortnight elapsed before the bridges at Warsaw and Thorn could be restored. Napoleon remained at Posen till December 15, doubtful whether he should join his right wing at Warsaw, or his left, which was to cross at Thom. News that the Russians were in retreat led him to decide on the former; and he arrived at Warsaw on the 18th.

By that time the two Russian armies had united, and had advanced again; they were encamped behind the Wkra and the Narew, with head-quartern at Pultusk. Bennigsen was a Hanoverian, and Buxhöwden a Livonian, and they were not on good terms; so Marshal Kamenskoi, a veteran of the Turkish wars, and a genuine Russian, was appointed to command the whole, though he could neither ride nor see. Having thrown Davout’s corps across the Narew, Napoleon drove the Russians out of Czarnovo (Dec. 23), thereby turning their positions on the Wkra. A general advance of the French army followed. Ney and Bernadotte, who had passed the Vistula at Thorn, moved eastward, threatening the enemy’s right; Lannes, Davout, and Augereau moved northward from the lower part of the Narew; while Soult, crossing near Plock, formed a link between the right wing and the left. The whole army numbered about 120,000 infantry and 25,000 cavalry. The Russians drew back slowly as the French approached. Kamenskoi, having lost his head, ordered a retreat to the Russian frontier, and hurried on to Lomza.

On December 26 Lannes had a very severe action with Bennigsen’s troops at Pultusk, while Davout and Augereau were engaged at Golymin. At Pultusk the French were largely outnumbered; at Golymin the advantage of numbers was on their side; but in neither case could they claim much success. The Russians, however, continued their retreat up the Narew to Novogrod. Napoleon had hoped to cut them off, but the weather and the state of the roads made turning movements im­possible. The men sank to their knees, and the guns stuck fast; hardly any food was to be found in the deserted villages, and none could be transported. Napoleon had to be content with having driven the enemy halfway to Grodno, and taken a large number of cannon which they had left behind. He returned to Warsaw at the beginning of 1807, and the army was placed in cantonments Lannes on the Bug, Davout on the Narew, Soult north of Davout, and Augereau on the Vistula formed a semicircle covering Warsaw. Bernadotte’s corps was sent into East Prussia, to cover the investment of Danzig and Graudenz, and to threaten Königsberg; and Ney was to be at Mlava, to support either Bernadotte or Soult in case of need.

Napoleon reckoned on three months’ repose for his army, and hoped to make good its numbers and equipment before he took the field again in the spring. By that time he expected to have possession of all the fortresses west of the Vistula, and he ordered intrenchments to be thrown up to form bridge-heads on the Vistula and the Narew. He believed that the Russians stood in more need of rest than his own men; and he and his officers enjoyed themselves at Warsaw, feted and caressed by the Polish ladies, “the most agreeable in Europe.” Napoleon wrote to Joseph, “Ma santé n’à jamais été si bonne, tellement que je suis devenu plus galant que par le passé”. But before the end of January he was obliged to assemble his troops. Ney, on his own initiative, had followed L’Estocq’s corps to within thirty miles of Konigsberg, leaving a wide gap between his own corps and that of Soult. He was sharply reprimanded, and drew back his troops to their assigned position just in time to escape disaster.

Frederick William had urged the Russian commanders to take up a position which would protect East Prussia; and they had consented to do so. Alarmed by Ney’s approach, the King left Konigsberg for Memel (Jan. 6), and renewed his appeal. Bennigsen, who was chosen to replace Kamenskoi as commander-in-chief, collected his army at Biala on January 15, and set it in motion towards the lower Vistula. His object was, in the first place, to cover Konigsberg and drive back the French troops threatening it, and then to raise the blockade of Danzig, and secure good winter quarters. Brushing the rear of Ney’s corps as it fell back southward, the Russian columns were in the midst of Bernadotte’s cantonments before he had time to get his men together. He engaged their leading troops at Mohrungen on the 25th, and repulsed them; but he was obliged to raise the blockade of Graudenz, and to retreat to the southern border of East Prussia.

When Napoleon found that the Russian army was west of the Alle, he saw an opportunity of repeating the Jena manoeuvre. By a rapid advance northward from Warsaw he might place himself across the Russian line of communications. He marched with 75,000 men, and sent orders to Ney and Bernadotte, who had 34,000 men, to draw eastward and join him. The 5th corps remained behind to guard his rear, and to make head against the three divisions which Bennigsen had left to cover the Russian frontier, between the Bug and the Narew. Some instructions to Bernadotte, sent from Willenberg on January 31, fell into Bennigsen’s hands, and disclosed Napoleon’s plan. Bennigsen had been giving his men three days’ rest, and had just written to the King of Prussia that he believed the French would have to retire behind the Vistula. He immediately ordered his army to concentrate on Allenstein, but found Soult and Murat in possession there. He made a succession of night marches, hoping to cross the Alle further north; but the French kept level with him, and also hung upon his rear. At length, on February 7, he chose a position at Preussisch-Eylau, and offered battle. His army was becoming demoralised by forced marches in retreat, but he could count on his men’s stubbornness in fight; and a halt would enable L’Estocq’s corps, which Ney was trying to cut off, to rejoin the main body.

The country was open and undulating. It abounds in lakes, but they were frozen so hard that cavalry could manoeuvre over them; and everything was covered with snow. The Russian position was on high ground, strong against frontal attack but not well secured on the flanks. It was less than three miles in extent, and was held by 75,000 men The town of Eylau lies in a hollow about half-a-mile to the front; and the French gained possession of it on the evening of the 7th. The French forces in front of the Russian position on the morning of the 8th did not exceed 50,000 men. Augereau’s corps formed the centre, with one of Soult’s divisions on his right, and the other two on his left. The Guard and the heavy cavalry were in reserve. Davout was approaching the left flank of the Russians from Bartenstein with 17,000 men; and Ney’s corps was expected to come up on the other flank. Bernadotte was two days’ march behind, owing to the miscarriage of the orders sent him on January 31.

Napoleon wished to divert the enemy’s attention from Davout. He began the battle by the seizure of a mill near the Russian right, and then ordered Augereau’s corps forward. It advanced in a blinding snowstorm, and the leading brigades deployed; but, shattered by the fire of the Russian guns, and charged by cavalry, it was driven back in disorder with a loss of nearly half its strength. The Russians followed up their success by a counter-attack, which almost reached the church­yard where Napoleon had placed himself, before it was repulsed by the heavy cavalry. Meanwhile Davout was making progress, aided by Saint-Hilaire’s division of Soult’s corps. He stormed the Kreegeberge, on which the Russian left rested, and pushed on in rear of the position across the Friedland road. But his progress was arrested by the arrival of part of L’Estocq’s corps early in the afternoon. He was forced to give up half the ground he had won; and his exhausted troops would probably have been overwhelmed at nightfall, had not the approach of one of Ney’s brigades on the Russian right checked Bennigsen’s preparations.

Napoleon had failed for the first time in a pitched battle. The Russians had borne out what the historian of the Seven Years’ War said of them, “They cannot be defeated, they must be killed”. They had lost more than a third of their number, but the French loss was still greater. Napoleon wrote to Duroc in the course of that night that he might find it necessary to recross the Vistula. Next morning he learnt to his great relief that the Russians had retreated, and that he could claim a victory. Bennigsen fell back on Konigsberg, partly because his troops were in want of food and ammunition, partly from an erroneous belief that Bernadotte’s corps had come up; but he was much blamed by his own officers. The Emperor remained for a week near Eylau, to make good his claim to victory and allow of the removal of his wounded. He then drew back his troops into cantonments, not, as before, in Poland, but across East Prussia, behind the Passarge and the upper part of the Alle. Thorn became the base of the army; the head-quarters were at Osterode. The corps of Augereau had suffered so severely that it was broken up, and its units were transferred to other corps. Great pains were taken, then and afterwards, to minimise the French losses; and Napoleon professed to have exaggerated them in his bulletin, where he gave them as 1900 killed and 5700 wounded.

His experience at Eylau lowered his tone. A few days after the battle, he sent General Bertrand to Memel to persuade Frederick William to make a separate peace. He was willing to restore all Prussian terri­tory east of the Elbe, and he would not require Prussia to help him in a war with Russia. As for the Poles, he said, he attached no importance to them now that he knew them better. Zastrow favoured a separate peace, if the Tsar would consent, but Hardenberg, when consulted by the King, maintained that Napoleon was not to be trusted and that Prussia should hold fast to her ally; and his counsel prevailed. The Emperor then proposed an armistice for joint negotiations; but Alex­ander saw in this proposal evidence of the critical condition in which Napoleon found himself.

At the beginning of April, the Tsar went to Memel to stiffen the King’s purpose; and, by his influence, Zastrow was replaced by Hardenberg as Foreign Minister. By the end of the month Hardenberg was charged with the conduct of internal as well as external affairs, in order that there might be the unity of direction which was essential for vigorous prosecu­tion of the war. The Cabinet system came for a time to an end. The two sovereigns went together to the head-quarters of the allied army at Bartenstein; and the Convention which afterwards bore that name was signed (at Schippenbeil) on April 26. The two Powers bound themselves to do their utmost to drive the French out of Germany, and to create a German Confederation with a good military frontier. Neither Power was to make conquests on its own account; Prussia was to regain her old possessions or receive compensation for them. Offers were to be made to Austria, Great Britain, Sweden, and Denmark, in order to secure their assistance. The Italian Question was reserved for future settlement; but the crown of Italy was in any case to be separated from that of France; and something was to be done for the Kings of Sardinia and Naples and the Prince of Orange. Napoleon’s overtures were met by the proposal of a congress at Copenhagen.

Alexander recognised by this time that Russia, with all her powers of resistance, had not the offensive strength required for driving the French back to the Rhine. Prussia was powerless; and the mixture of promises and threats which had been applied to her in 1805 was now applied to Austria. Napoleon, on his side, was assiduous in his offers: he would fall in with the wishes of Austria about Turkey, or he would let her have part of Silesia. Proposals of alliance were coupled with hints of the alternative, an alliance between France and Russia; and this was a danger to which they were fully alive in Vienna. Stadion agreed with Archduke Charles in holding that war must be avoided, but he wished to have a voice in the final settlement, lest Austrian interests should be sacrificed. His policy was to hold out hopes to both sides, to find excuses for delay, and to offer mediation. This suited Napoleon, whose great object was to gain time. He assented in principle to the Austrian proposal of a congress at Prague, but claimed that Turkey should be admitted. Russia, Prussia, and Great Britain did not reject it, but desired to know, as a preliminary, on what basis the French Emperor was prepared to negotiate; and the correspondence was prolonged until events made it superfluous.

The strain upon Napoleon’s resources in the spring of 1807 was such as only he could have borne. To retire behind the Vistula would be a confession of failure which would strengthen his enemies; but to remain east of it was hardly possible. The country was exhausted; and he was short of transport and supplies. We find him pressing Talleyrand to send biscuits and brandy from Warsaw, and adding, “this matter is more important than all the negotiations in the world” (March 12). The French soldier, reduced to meat and potatoes, is described as lean, sad, and dreamy, filthy in his person, and cursing his fate. Many thousands of marauders were wandering in search of food. The cavalry, with half-starved horses, could do little to check the raids of the Cossacks, who cut off convoys and caused a general scare. The corps which had been left on the Narew held its own with difficulty.

The long line of communication across Germany was at many points open to attack by partisan corps, or by troops landed on the northern coast; and few men could be spared to guard it. Mortier had invested Stralsund at the end of January, but he was called away to besiege Kolberg; and the small force which he left behind was driven across the Peene by the Swedes at the beginning of April. Alarm spread to Stettin and Berlin; but Mortier marched back to Stralsund and succeeded in bringing the Swedes to an armistice. Napoleon’s instructions were to treat them well, and to distinguish between the Swedish people and their king. The Prussian Government had proposed that a British force should be sent to Stralsund, to cooperate with Swedes and Prussians. It might have done much both to hamper the French and to encourage the Allies; but the Grenville Ministry was not disposed to furnish either auxiliaries or subsidies. Lord Hutchinson, who had been sent to the Prussian head-quarters at the beginning of the year, wrote and spoke in a strain of “mingled despair and contempt” about the allied armies and their prospects. He signed a treaty of peace with Prussia (January 28); but it was not ratified for some months. The resources of Great Britain were devoted to expeditions to Egypt and South America, in pursuit of purely British interests, to the great discontent of the Continental Powers.

The change of ministry (March 25) which brought Canning to the Foreign Office led to a change of tone; and the substitution of Harden- berg for Zastrow made relations more cordial. Ratifications of the treaty of peace were exchanged on April 30; and, on June 27, Great Britain acceded to the Convention of Bartenstein, undertaking to pay a subsidy of £1,000,000 to Prussia in the course of the year. She had promised a few days before to subsidise 16,000 Swedes, and to send 20,000 British and Hanoverian troops to Stralsund, to be under the orders of Gustavus, but removable for employment elsewhere. But the change had come too late. Neither men nor transports were available when the Tories came into office; and Lord Cathcart arrived at Rügen with 8,000 Hanoverians, the first instalment of the expedition, on July 16, a week after peace had been signed at Tilsit.

Danzig, even more than Stralsund, threatened Napoleon’s security on the Vistula; and he resolved to make himself master of it before con­cluding any armistice based on the status quo. Accessible from the sea and along the coast, and so well covered by inundations that it could only be attacked from the west, it was not an easy place to take. It had a garrison of 14,000 men; and the siege-corps, which consisted mainly of Germans and Poles under the command of Lefebvre, was at no time more than 25,000. The place was partially invested on March 11, but the French batteries did not open fire till April 24; and it held out for another month. The defence compared favourably with that of other Prussian fortresses; and the governor, Kalckreuth, reaped laurels from it, though personally he showed little skill or vigour.

At the beginning of April Napoleon shifted his head-quarters to Finkenstein, to be nearer to Thorn and Danzig. There he received the ambassadors of the Shah and the Sultan, and formed schemes for attacking Russia from the south. The Turks were to be joined by Marmont with his Dalmatian corps, and were to march into Podolia, where Massena, who was now commanding the 5th corps on the Narew, would meet them. But the Porte did not relish plans which would bring French troops into Ottoman territory; and the Turkish ambassador pleaded want of instructions. The treaty with Persia was signed on May 4; and French officers were sent to Teheran to instruct the Persians in the art of war.

At the same time Napoleon was drawing troops from all quarters to strengthen his own army. Provisional regiments of conscripts were hurried across Germany; and a new levy of 80,000 men (or boys) was ordered in France. It was the third levy within twelve months, and was made a year and a half before the legal date. He was warned that he was cutting his corn before it was ripe; but he replied that young men of eighteen were perfectly fit for home defence, and he made a promise (which was not kept) that they should not be sent out of France. Early in June he had 210,000 men in first line, on the Vistula and the Narew, and 100,000 in second line, including garrisons. The Allies had also been reinforced, but could not muster more than 130,000 men.

The capture of Danzig had given Napoleon a new base, and had furnished timely supplies of corn, wine, and money. Being no longer tethered by a siege, he planned a general advance for June 10. To his surprise and satisfaction, Bennigsen anticipated him. The Russian general had been passive throughout the siege of Danzig, with the exception of an ineffectual “promenade”, meant to assist a force sent from Konigsberg to relieve that fortress. He now took the offensive when there was least reason for it, and tried to cut off Ney’s corps, which was quartered near Guttstadt, in advance of the general line. Ney, however, extricated his troops and fell back to the Passarge; and Bennigsen, finding that the whole French army was approaching, retreated to Heilsberg, where he had intrenched positions on both sides of the Alle. The positions on the left bank were attacked on June 10, but the Russians held them with their usual tenacity. The French lost heavily, and made no permanent impression. Napoleon did not renew the action next morning. He waited for all his troops to come up, and moved them round the Russian right, barring the road to Konigsberg, and interposing himself between the Russian army and L’Estocq’s corps.

On the night of the 11th Bennigsen withdrew from his position, and retreated down the right bank of the Alle. At Friedland, on the morning of the 14tn, he found himself in presence of a single French corps, a new corps which had been formed for Lannes, who had given up his old one (the 5th) on account of ill-health. Napoleon had directed Murat on Konigsberg, with the corps of Soult and Davout, and was at Eylau with the rest of the army. Bennigsen had fought Lannes at Pultusk six months before, and had repulsed him, but had not made the most of his success. He now saw an opportunity of overwhelming him, and brought nearly the whole of his army across the river. But Lannes, favoured by woods, and reinforced from time to time, held his ground. By 5 p.m. the Emperor had brought up the corps of Ney, Mortier, and Victor (vice Bernadotte), and had nearly 90,000 men on the field, while the Russians were under 50,000. The Russian left, under Bagration, was separated from the right by a ravine, and the ground behind it was cramped between this ravine and the Alle. Leaving Mortier to hold the right in check, Napoleon launched the rest of his troops against Bagration and drove him back through this narrow belt, where the French artillery made havoc of the Russian masses, and across the river. The town was set on fire and the bridges were burnt. The right wing, retreating too late, escaped with difficulty by fords lower down. The Russians lost more than 15,000 men, killed and wounded, the French about half as many.

It was a decisive victory, worthy of the anniversary of Marengo. The pursuit was not close, and the Russian army soon found shelter behind the Pregel; but it was in such a state that Bennigsen wrote to the Tsar begging him to treat for peace, in order to gain time for its reorganisation. Believing himself unable to hold the line of the Pregel, Bennigsen continued his retreat, ordering L’Estocq’s corps to join him. It left Konigsberg, which it was preparing to defend, and succeeded in overtaking the main force, after a narrow escape from being cut off. By the 19th the combined army had crossed the Niemen at Tilsit; but it left many thousands of stragglers behind.

Alexander was at Olitta, inspecting a fresh corps brought up by Prince Lobanoff, when he received Bennigsen’s report. Frederick William had gone to Memel with Hardenberg; and the Tsar had assured the latter, when they parted on the 13th, that he did not mean to yield to the cry for peace which had been growing for some time past at the Russian head-quarters. But he was overborne by the emergency, and without waiting to consult his ally he authorised Bennigsen to ask for an armistice. Lobanoff was sent to act as envoy. He presented himself at the French outposts on June 18, a day destined to win other associations eight years afterwards. Napoleon demanded the surrender of Graudenz and of Kolberg, where Gneisenau had been showing an activity and resource which made its defence memorable. The Grand Duke Constantine, who brought Napoleon’s terms to Alexander, urged him to accept them on account of the temper of the army, and even reminded him of his father’s fate. The Tsar could not dispose of Prussian fortresses, or issue orders for their surrender ; but this point was waived, and on the 21st an armistice was agreed upon between the French and Russians. Four or five days were granted to the Prussians to allow of their accession to it.

On the same day Alexander and Frederick William met again at Schawli. “Saw Budberg and found the political system completely changed”, was Hardenberg’s entry in his diary. Alexander had decided, not only to make peace, but to ally himself with France. This volte-face was caused, as Budberg explained, by the conduct of the Austrian and British Governments, which had left him to bear the whole burden of the war. He had been greatly irritated by the refusal of the Grenville Ministry to guarantee a Russian loan of six millions, and by the ground given for it, that if the two countries fell out Russia might not keep faith as to payments. He had repeatedly asked, but to no purpose, that a British expedition should be sent to the north coast of Germany; and he knew that England was altogether opposed to his designs upon Turkey. He had nothing to gain by the war, and he was told that he was sacrificing his country for Prussia. For the Prussians his officers entertained even greater contempt than they had felt for the Austrians in 1805. Frederick William was bitterly aggrieved at the Tsar’s de­sertion of him, but he could only submit; and his own past conduct gave him small right to complain.

Alexander made rapid progress on his new tack. He sent Lobanoff to Tilsit to propose a personal interview, which Napoleon conceded with some affectation of indifference. It took place on June 25, on a raft moored in the Niemen. The two Emperors discussed their future relations tête-à-tête for three hours, while the King of Prussia waited in the rain on the river bank to learn his fate. As a concession to Alexander, Napoleon granted an armistice to Prussia without surrender of the fortresses; and it was signed on that day. Nothing else is positively known of what took place. There was another meeting next day at which Frederick William was present. Napoleon treated him with marked neglect, and described him as “un homme entièrement borné, sans caractère, et sans moyens”.

The bases having been settled by the two monarchs, the details of the negotiations were left to the diplomatists; but Napoleon would not let Hardenberg take any part in them, and Prussia was represented by Goltz and Kalckreuth. At the instance of the latter, Queen Louisa was induced to come from Memel to Tilsit. Napoleon wished to meet her, and, after Eylau, had expressed his regret by Bertrand for “ the manner in which she had been spoken of.” She was led to hope that, by passing over her own wrongs, she might win back Magdeburg for her country; but, though Napoleon admired her, he yielded nothing to her.

The treaty of peace between France and Prussia was signed at Tilsit on July 9. Prussia was deprived of all her territory west of the Elbe, of the Polish provinces which she had annexed in 1793, and even of the southern part of West Prussia, acquired in 1772. Kottbus was assigned to Saxony, of which it was an enclave. Danzig, with a radius of ten miles round it, was made a free city under the joint protectorate of Prussia and Saxony. By these surrenders Prussia lost nearly half her area and population, the latter being reduced to less than five millions. She was required to recognise Napoleon’s new creations, and to take common action with France and Russia against England. The treaty was supplemented by a convention (signed at Konigsberg, July 12) respecting the withdrawal of the French troops from what remained of Prussia. This was to be completed by October 1, with some exceptions, but only upon payment of what was due to France for outstanding war contributions. The amount was not specified, and was not settled till long afterwards. Napoleon was well aware that the money, or security for it, could not be found; and that this condition would enable him to keep 100,000 men in Prussia at her expense so long as he wished.

The treaty of peace between France and Russia had already been signed (July 7). It made mention of the several cessions of Prussian territory, and put on record that it was only out of regard for the Tsar that Frederick William received back part of his country. Napoleon had, in fact, thrown out the suggestion that Prussia should be expunged, and that the Vistula should be the dividing line between the two Empires. The treaty also stated Napoleon’s intentions as to the disposal of the ceded territory. The provinces west of the Elbe were to be included, with Hesse, in a new kingdom of Westphalia, for his brother Jerome. The Polish provinces were to form the duchy of Warsaw, under the rule of the King of Saxony, except the district of Bialystok, which was given to Russia. Alexander recognised these arrangements, as well as those which Napoleon had made previously in Germany and Italy. He gave up Cattaro and the Ionian Islands, and promised to recognise Joseph as King of Sicily, if Ferdinand were indemnified by the Balearic Islands or Crete. He accepted Napoleon’s mediation for peace between Russia and Turkey, while Napoleon accepted him as mediator between France and Great Britain.

The treaty of peace was supplemented by a secret treaty of alliance signed on the same day. It provided that France and Russia should help one another with all their forces, or with so much as might be agreed upon, in any war against an European Power, and should not make peace separately. If England should reject the mediation of Russia, or not make peace by November 1, recognising the equality of all flags on the seas, and restoring, in exchange for Hanover, all conquests made by her since 1805, the Emperor of Russia should give her one month’s notice of his intention to make common cause with France. In that case, Denmark, Sweden, Portugal, and Austria would be summoned to make war upon England; and if Sweden refused, Denmark would be called on to join in hostilities against her. If Turkey should decline French mediation, or if peace were not made within three months, France would make common cause with Russia against the Porte; and the two Powers would come to an understanding for the liberation of all the European provinces from the Ottoman yoke, with the exception of Roumelia and Constantinople. The deposition and death of the Sultan Selim, which occurred on May 29, 1807, did something to cover the shamelessness of this abandonment of the Turks.

Ratifications were exchanged on July 9; and the two Emperors parted well pleased with themselves and with each other. Alexander had discovered at their first meeting that “Bonaparte, with all his genius, had his weak side—vanity.” He played upon it so successfully that he himself won some of the praise which he bestowed. Each sovereign believed himself to have secured an instrument to serve his own purposes.

CHAPTER XI.

THE NAPOLEONIC EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT.