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by John Holland Rose

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Title: The Life of Napoleon I (Volume 2 of 2)

Author: John Holland Rose

Release Date: December 7, 2004 [EBook #14290]

Language: English

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  LONDON: G. BELL & SONS, LIMITED,
  PORTUGAL STREET, KINGSWAY, W.C.
  CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL & CO.
  NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.
  BOMBAY: A.H. WHEELER & CO.





  THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON I



  INCLUDING NEW MATERIALS FROM THE BRITISH OFFICIAL RECORDS




  BY

  JOHN HOLLAND ROSE, LITT.D. LATE SCHOLAR OF CHRIST'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE




    "Let my son often read and reflect on history: this is the only
    true philosophy."--_Napoleon's last Instructions for the King of
    Rome_.





  VOL. II





  LONDON G. BELL AND SONS, LTD 1910
  POST 8VO EDITION,
  ILLUSTRATED



  First Published, December 1901.
  Second Edition, revised, March 1902.
  Third Edition, revised, January 1903.
  Fourth Edition, revised,September 1907.
  Reprinted, January 1910.


  CROWN 8VO EDITION
  First Published, September 1904.
  Reprinted, October 1907;
  July 1910.






  CONTENTS



  CHAPTER
     XXII. ULM AND TRAFALGAR
    XXIII. AUSTERLITZ
     XXIV. PRUSSIA AND THE NEW CHARLEMAGNE
      XXV. THE FALL OF PRUSSIA
     XXVI. THE CONTINENTAL SYSTEM: FRIEDLAND
    XXVII. TILSIT
   XXVIII. THE SPANISH RISING
     XXIX. ERFURT
      XXX. NAPOLEON AND AUSTRIA
     XXXI. THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT
    XXXII. THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN
   XXXIII. THE FIRST SAXON CAMPAIGN
    XXXIV. VITTORIA AND THE ARMISTICE
     XXXV. DRESDEN AND LEIPZIG
    XXXVI. FROM THE RHINE TO THE SEINE
   XXXVII. THE FIRST ABDICATION
  XXXVIII. ELBA AND PARIS
    XXXIX. LIGNY AND QUATRE BRAS
       XL. WATERLOO
      XLI. FROM THE ELYSÉE TO ST. HELENA
     XLII. CLOSING YEARS

           APPENDIX I: LIST OF THE CHIEF APPOINTMENTS
             AND DIGNITIES BESTOWED BY NAPOLEON

           APPENDIX II: THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO

           INDEX


MAPS AND PLANS

  BATTLE OF ULM
  BATTLE OF AUSTERLITZ
  BATTLE OF JENA
  BATTLE OF FRIEDLAND
  BATTLE OF WAGRAM
  CENTRAL EUROPE AFTER 1810
  CAMPAIGN IN RUSSIA
  BATTLE OF VITTORIA
  THE CAMPAIGN OF 1813
  BATTLE OF DRESDEN
  BATTLE OF LEIPZIG
  THE CAMPAIGN OF 1814                              _to face_
  PLAN OF THE WATERLOO CAMPAIGN
  BATTLE OF LIGNY
  BATTLE OF WATERLOO, about 11 o'clock a.m.    _to face_
  ST. HELENA









  THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON I

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER XXII

ULM AND TRAFALGAR


"Napoleon is the only man in Europe that knows the value of
time."--Czartoryski.


Before describing the Continental campaign which shattered the old
European system to its base, it will be well to take a brief glance at
the events which precipitated the war of the Third Coalition. Even at
the time of Napoleon's rupture with England, his highhanded conduct
towards the Italian Republic, Holland, Switzerland, and in regard to
the Secularizations in Germany, had exposed him to the hostility of
Russia, Sweden, and Austria; but as yet it took the form of secret
resentment. The last-named Power, under the Ministry of Count Cobenzl,
had relapsed into a tame and undignified policy, which the Swedish
Ambassador at Vienna described as "one of fear and hope--fear of the
power of France, and hope to obtain favours from her."[1] At Berlin,
Frederick William clung nervously to neutrality, even though the
French occupation of Hanover was a threat to Prussia's influence in
North Germany. The Czar Alexander was, at present, wrapt up in home
affairs; and the only monarch who as yet ventured to show his dislike
of the First Consul was the King of Sweden. In the autumn of 1803
Gustavus IV. defiantly refused Napoleon's proposals for a
Franco-Swedish alliance, baited though they were with the offer of
Norway as an eventual prize for Sweden, and a subsidy for every
Swedish warship serving against England. And it was not the dislike of
a proud nature to receive money which prompted his refusal; for
Gustavus, while in Germany, hinted to Drake that he desired to have
pecuniary help from England for the defence of his province of
Pomerania.[2]

But a doughtier champion of European independence was soon to enter
the field. The earlier feelings of respect and admiration which the
young Czar had cherished towards Napoleon were already overclouded,
when the news of the execution of the Duc d'Enghien at once roused a
storm of passion in his breast. The chivalrous protection which he
loved to extend to smaller States, the guarantee of the Germanic
system which the Treaty of Teschen had vested in him, above all, his
horror at the crime, led him to offer an emphatic protest. The Russian
Court at once went into mourning, and Alexander expressed both to the
German Diet and to the French Government his indignation at the
outrage. It was ever Napoleon's habit to return blow with blow; and he
now instructed Talleyrand to reply that in the D'Enghien affair he had
acted solely on the defensive, and that Russia's complaint "led him to
ask if, at the time when England was compassing the assassination of
Paul I., the authors of the plot had been known to be one league
beyond the [Russian] frontiers, every effort would not have been made
to have them seized?" Never has a poisoned dart been more deftly sped
at the weak spot of an enemy's armour. The Czar, ever haunted by the
thought of his complicity in a parricidal plot, was deeply wounded by
this malicious taunt, and all the more so because, as the death of
Paul had been officially ascribed to a fit, the insult could not be
flung back.[3] The only reply was to break off all diplomatic
relations with Napoleon; and this took place in the summer of 1804.[4]

Yet war was not to break out for more than a year. This delay was due
to several causes. Austria could not be moved from her posture of
timid neutrality. In fact, Francis II. and Cobenzl saw in Napoleon's
need of a recognition of his new imperial title a means of assuring a
corresponding change of title for the Hapsburg Dominions. Francis had
long been weary of the hollow dignity of Elective Emperor of the Holy
Roman Empire. The faded pageantry of Ratisbon and Frankfurt was all
that remained of the glories of the realm of Charlemagne: the medley
of States which owned him as elected lord cared not for the decrees of
this ghostly realm; and Goethe might well place in the mouth of his
jovial toper, in the cellar scene of "Faust," the words:

                    "Dankt Gott mit jedem Morgen
  Dass Ihr nicht braucht für's Röm'sche Reich zu sorgen!"

In that bargaining and burglarious age, was it not better to build a
more lasting habitation than this venerable ruin? Would not the
hereditary dominions form a more lasting shelter from the storm? Such
were doubtless the thoughts that prompted the assumption of the title
of Hereditary Emperor of Austria (August 11th, 1804). The
letter-patent, in which this change was announced, cited as parallels
"the example of the Imperial Court of Russia in the last century and
of the new sovereign of France." Both references gave umbrage to
Alexander, who saw no parallel between the assumption of the title of
Emperor by Peter the Great and the game of follow-the-leader played by
Francis to Napoleon.[5]

Prussian complaisance to the French Emperor was at this time to be
expected. Frederick William III. reigned over 10,000,000 subjects; he
could marshal 248,000 of the best trained troops in Europe, and his
revenue was more fruitful than that of the great Frederick. Yet the
effective power of Prussia had sadly waned; for her policy was now
marked by an enervating indecision. In the autumn of 1804, however,
the Prussian King was for a time spurred into action by the news that
Sir George Rumbold, British envoy at Hamburg, had been seized on the
night of October 24th, by French troops, and carried off to Paris.
This aggression upon the Circle of Lower Saxony, of which Frederick
William was Director, aroused lively indignation at Berlin; and the
King at once wrote to Napoleon a request for the envoy's liberation as
a proof of his "friendship and high consideration ...a seal on the past
and a pledge for the future."

To this appeal Napoleon returned a soothing answer that Sir George
would at once be released, though England was ever violating the
rights of neutrals, and her agents were conspiring against his life.
The Emperor, in fact, saw that he had taken a false step, which might
throw Prussia into the arms of England and Russia. For this latter
Power had already (May, 1804) offered her armed help to the Court of
Berlin in case the French should violate any other German
territory.[6] But the King was easily soothed; and when, in the
following spring, Napoleon sent seven Golden Eagles of the Legion of
Honour to the Court of Berlin, seven Black Eagles of the renowned
Prussian Order were sent in return--an occurrence which led Gustavus
IV. to return his Order of the Black Eagle with the remark that he
could not recognize "Napoleon and his like" as comrades in an Order of
Chivalry and Religion.[7] Napoleon's aim was achieved: Prussia was
sundered from any league in which Gustavus IV. was a prominent member.

Thus, the chief steps in the formation of the Third Coalition were
taken by Sweden, England, and Russia. Early in 1804 Gustavus proposed
a League of the Powers; and, on the advent of the Pitt Ministry to
office, overtures began to pass between St. Petersburg and London for
an alliance. Important proposals were made by Pitt and our Foreign
Minister, the Earl of Harrowby, in a note of June 26th, 1804, in which
hopes were expressed that Russia, England, Austria, Sweden, and if
possible Prussia, might be drawn together.[8] Alexander and
Czartoryski were already debating the advantages of an alliance with
England. Their aims were certainly noble. International law and the
rights of the weak States bordering on France were to be championed,
and it was suggested by Czartoryski that disputes should be settled,
not by force, but by arbitration.[9]

The statement of these exalted ideas was intrusted to a special envoy
to London, M. Novossiltzoff, who propounded to Pitt the scheme of a
European polity where the States should be independent and enjoy
institutions "founded on the sacred rights of humanity." With this aim
in view, the Czar desired to curb the power of Napoleon, bring back
France to her old limits, and assure the peace of Europe on a firm
basis, namely on the principle of the _balance of power_. Pitt and
Lord Harrowby having agreed to these proposals, details were discussed
at the close of 1804. None of the allies were, in any case, to make a
separate peace; and England (said M. Novossiltzoff) must not only use
her own troops, but grant subsidies to enable the Powers to set on
foot effective forces.

This last sentence claims special notice, as it disposes of the
well-worn phrase, that the Third Coalition was _built up_ by Pitt's
gold. On the contrary, Russia was the first to set forth the need of
English subsidies, which Pitt was by no means eager to supply. The
phrase used by French historians is doubtless correct in so far as
English gold enabled our allies to arm efficiently; but it is wholly
false if it implies that the Third Coalition was merely trumped up by
our money, and that the Russian, Austrian, and Swedish Governments
were so many automatic machines which, if jogged with coins, would
instantly supply armies to the ready money purchaser. This is
practically the notion still prevalent on the Continent; and it is
clearly traceable to the endless diatribes against Pitt's gold with
which Napoleon seasoned his bulletins, and to the caricatures which he
_ordered to be drawn_. The following was his direction to his Minister
of Police, Fouché: "Have caricatures made--an Englishman purse in
hand, _entreating the various Powers to take his money. This is the
real direction to give the whole business._" How well he knew mankind:
he rightly counted on its gullibility where pictures were concerned;
and the direction which he thus gave to public opinion bids fair to
persist, in spite of every exposure of the trickery.[10]

But, to return to the plans of the allies, Holland, Switzerland, and
Italy were to be liberated from their "enslavement to France," and
strengthened so as to provide barriers to future aggressions: the King
of Sardinia was to be restored to his mainland possessions, and
receive in addition the Ligurian, or Genoese, Republic.[11]

On all essential topics the British Government was in full accord with
the views of the Czar, and Pitt insisted on the need of a system of
international law which should guarantee the Continent against further
rapacious acts. But Europe was not destined to find peace on these
principles until after ten years of desolating war.

Various causes hindered the formation of this league. On January 2nd,
1805, Napoleon sent to George III. an offer of peace; and those
persons who did not see that this was a device for discovering the
course of negotiations believed that he ardently desired it. We now
know that the offer was despatched a week after he had ordered
Missiessy to ravage the British West Indies.[12] And, doubtless, his
object was attained when George III. replied in the speech from the
throne (January 15th) that he could not entertain the proposal without
reference to the Powers with whom he was then engaged in confidential
intercourse, and especially the Emperor of Russia. Yet the British
Government discussed with the Czar the basis for a future pacification
of Europe; and the mission of Novossiltzoff at midsummer to Berlin, on
his way to Paris, was the answer, albeit a belated one, to Napoleon's
New Year's pacific appeal. We shall now see why this delay occurred,
and what acts of the French Emperor finally dispelled all hopes of
peace.

The delay was due to differences between Russia and England respecting
Malta and our maritime code. The Czar insisted on our relinquishing
Malta and relaxing the rigours of the right of search for deserters
from our navy. To this the Pitt Ministry demurred, seeing that Malta
was our only means of protecting the Mediterranean States, and our
only security against French aggressions in the Levant, while the
right of searching neutral vessels was necessary to prevent the
enfeebling of our navy.[13] Negotiations were nearly broken off even
after a treaty between the two Powers had been brought to the final
stage on April 11th, 1805; but in July (after the Czar had recorded
his solemn protest against our keeping Malta) it was ratified, and
formed the basis for the Third Coalition. The aims of the allies were
to bring about the expulsion of French troops from North Germany; to
assure the independence of the Republics of Holland and Switzerland;
and to reinstate the King of Sardinia in Piedmont. Half a million of
men were to be set in motion, besides the forces of Great Britain; and
the latter Power, as a set-off to her lack of troops, agreed to
subsidize her allies to the extent of; £1,250,000 a year for every
100,000 men actually employed in the war. It was further stipulated
that a European Congress at the close of the war should endeavour to
fix more surely the principles of the Law of Nations and establish a
federative system. Above all, the allies bound themselves not to
hinder the popular wish in France respecting the form of government--a
clause which deprived the war of the Third Coalition of that
monarchical character which had pervaded the league of 1793 and, to a
less extent, that of 1799.[14]

What was the attitude of Napoleon towards this league? He certainly
took little pains to conciliate the Czar. In fact, his actions towards
Russia were almost openly provocative. Thus, while fully aware of the
interest which Alexander felt in the restoration of the King of
Sardinia, he sent the proposal that that unlucky King should receive
the Ionian Isles and Malta as indemnities for his losses, and that too
when Russia looked upon Corfu as her own. To this offer the Czar
deigned not a word in reply. Napoleon also sent an envoy to the Shah
of Persia with an offer of alliance, so as to check the advances of
Russia on the shores of the Caspian.[15]

On the other hand, he used every effort to allure Prussia, by secretly
offering her Hanover, and that too as early as the close of July.[16]
For a brief space, also, he took some pains to conciliate Austria.
This indeed was necessary: for the Court of Vienna had already
(November 6th, 1804) framed a secret agreement with Russia to make war
on Napoleon if he committed any new aggression in Italy or menaced any
part of the Turkish Empire.[17] Yet this act was really defensive.
Francis desired only to protect himself against Napoleon's ambition,
and, had he been treated with consideration, would doubtless have
clung to peace.

For a time Napoleon humoured that Court, even as regards the changes
now mooted in Italy. On January 1st, 1805, he wrote to Francis,
stating that he was about to proclaim Joseph Bonaparte King of Italy,
if the latter would renounce his claim to the crown of France, and so
keep the governments of France and Italy separate, as the Treaty of
Lunéville required; that this action would enfeeble his (Napoleon's)
power, but would carry its own recompense if it proved agreeable to
the Emperor Francis.

But it soon appeared that Joseph was by no means inclined to accept
the crown of Lombardy if it entailed the sacrifice of all hope of
succeeding to the French Empire. He had already demurred to _le vilain
titre de roi_, and on January 27th announced his final rejection of
the offer. Napoleon then proposed to Louis that he should hold that
crown in trust for his son; but the suggestion at once rekindled the
flames of jealousy which ever haunted Louis; and, after a violent
scene, the Emperor thrust his brother from the room.

Perhaps this anger was simulated. He once admitted that his rage only
mounted this high--pointing to his chin; and the refusals of his
brothers were certainly to be expected. However that may be, he now
resolved to assume that crown himself, appointing as Viceroy his
step-son, Eugène Beauharnais. True, he announced to the French Senate
that the realms of France and Italy would be kept separate: but
neither the Italian deputies, who had been summoned to Paris to vote
this dignity to their master, nor the servile Senate, nor the rulers
of Europe, were deceived. Thus, when in the early summer Napoleon
reviewed a large force that fought over again in mimic war the battle
of Marengo; when, amidst all the pomp and pageantry that art could
devise, he crowned himself in the cathedral of Milan with the iron
circlet of the old Lombard Kings, using the traditional formula: "God
gave it me, woe to him who touches it"; when, finally, he incorporated
the Ligurian Republic in the French Empire, Francis of Austria
reluctantly accepted the challenges thus threateningly cast down, and
began to arm.[18] The records of our Foreign Office show conclusively
that the Hapsburg ruler felt himself girt with difficulties: the
Austrian army was as yet ill organized: the reforms after which the
Archduke Charles had been striving were ill received by the military
clique; and the sole result had been to unsettle rather than
strengthen the army, and to break down the health of the Archduke.[19]
Yet the intention of Napoleon to treat Italy as a French province was
so insultingly paraded that Francis felt war to be inevitable, and
resolved to strike a blow while the French were still entangled in
their naval schemes. He knew well the dangers of war; he would have
eagerly welcomed any sign of really peaceful intentions at Paris; but
no signs were given; in fact, French agents were sent into Switzerland
to intrigue for a union of that land with France. Here again the pride
of the Hapsburgs was cut to the quick, and they disdained to submit to
humiliations such as were eating the heart out of the Prussian
monarchy.

The Czar, too, was far from eager for war. He had sent Novossiltzoff
to Berlin _en route_ for Paris, in the hope of coming to terms with
Napoleon, when the news of the annexation of Genoa ended the last
hopes of a compromise. "This man is insatiable," exclaimed Alexander;
"his ambition knows no bounds; he is a scourge of the world; he wants
war; well, he shall have it, and the sooner the better," The Czar at
once ordered all negotiations to be broken off. Novossiltzoff, on July
10th, declared to Baron Hardenberg, the successor of Haugwitz at the
Prussian Foreign Office, that Napoleon had now passed the utmost
limits of the Czar's patience; and he at once returned his French
passports. In forwarding them to the French ambassador at Berlin,
Hardenberg expressed the deep regret of the Prussian monarch at the
breakdown of this most salutary negotiation--a phrase which showed
that the patience of Berlin was nearly exhausted.[20]

Clearly, then, the Third Coalition was not cemented by English gold,
but by Napoleon's provocations. While England and Russia found great
difficulty in coming to an accord, and Austria was arming only from
fear, the least act of complaisance on his part would have unravelled
this ill-knit confederacy. But no such action was forthcoming. All his
letters written in North Italy after his coronation are puffed up with
incredible insolence. Along with hints to Eugène to base politics on
dissimulation and to seek only to be feared, we find letters to
Ministers at Paris scorning the idea that England and Russia can come
to terms, and asserting that the annexation of Genoa concerns England
alone; but if Austria wants to find a pretext for war, she may now
find it.

Then he hurries back to Fontainebleau, covering the distance from
Turin in eighty-five hours; and, after a brief sojourn at St. Cloud,
he reaches Boulogne. There, on August the 22nd, he hears that Austria
is continuing to arm: a few hours later comes the news that Villeneuve
has turned back to Cadiz. Fiercely and trenchantly he resolves this
fateful problem. He then sketches to Talleyrand the outlines of his
new policy. He will again press, and this time most earnestly, his
offer of Hanover to Prussia as the price of her effective alliance
against the new coalition. Perhaps this new alliance will strangle the
coalition at its birth; at any rate it will paralyze Austria.
Accordingly, he despatches to Berlin his favourite aide-de-camp,
General Duroc, to persuade the King that his alliance will save the
Continent from war.[21]

Meanwhile the Hapsburgs were completely deceived. They imagined
Napoleon to be wholly immersed in his naval enterprise, and
accordingly formed a plan of campaign, which, though admirable against
a weak and guileless foe, was fraught with danger if the python's
coils were ready for a spring. As a matter of fact, he was far better
prepared than Austria. As late as July 7th, the Court of Vienna had
informed the allies that its army would not be ready for four months;
yet the nervous anxiety of the Hapsburgs to be beforehand with
Napoleon led them to hurry on war: and on August 9th they secretly
gave their adhesion to the Russo-British alliance.

Then, too, by a strange fatuity, their move into Bavaria was to be
made with a force of only 59,000 men, while their chief masses, some
92,000 strong, were launched into Italy against the strongholds on the
Mincio. To guard the flanks of these armies, Austria had 34,000 men in
Tyrol; but, apart from raw recruits, there were fewer than 20,000
soldiers in the rest of that vast empire. In fact, the success of the
autumn campaign was known to depend on the help of the Russians, who
were expected to reach the banks of the Inn before the 20th of
October, while it was thought that the French could not possibly reach
the Danube till twenty days later.[22] It was intended, however, to
act most vigorously in Italy, and to wage a defensive campaign on the
Danube.

Such was the plan concocted at Vienna, mainly under the influence of
the Archduke Charles, who took the command of the army in Italy, while
that of the Danube was assigned to the Archduke Ferdinand and Mack,
the new Quarter-Master-General. This soldier had hitherto enjoyed a
great reputation in Austria, probably because he was the only general
who had suffered no great defeat. Amidst the disasters of 1797 he
seemed the only man able to retrieve the past, and to be shut out from
command by Thugut's insane jealousy of his "transcendent
abilities."[23] Brave he certainly was: but his mind was always swayed
by preconceived notions; he belonged to the school of "manoeuvre
strategists," of whom the Duke of Brunswick was the leader; and he now
began the campaign of 1805 with the fixed purpose of holding a
commanding military position. Such a position the Emperor Francis and
Mack had discovered in the weak fortress of Ulm and the line of the
River Iller. Towards these points of vantage the Austrians now began
to move.

The first thing was to gain over the Elector of Bavaria. The Court of
Vienna, seeking to persuade or compel that prince to join the
Coalition, made overtures (September 3rd to 6th) with which he dallied
for a day or two until an opportunity came of escaping to the fortress
of Würzburg. Mack thereupon crossed the River Inn and sought, but in
vain, to cut off the Bavarian troops from that stronghold.
Accordingly, the Austrian leader marched on to Ulm, where he arrived
in the middle of September; and, not satisfied with holding this
advanced position, he pushed on his outposts to the chief defiles of
the Black Forest, while other regiments held the valley of the River
Iller and strengthened the fortress of Memmingen. Doubtless this would
have been good strategy, had his forces been equal in numbers to those
of Napoleon. At that time the Black Forest was the only  physical barrier
between France and Southern Germany; the Rhine was then practically a
French river; and, only by holding the passes of that range could the
Austrians hope to screen Swabia from invasion on the side of Alsace.

[Illustration: BATTLE OF ULM]

But Mack forgot two essential facts. Until the Russians arrived, he
was too weak to hold so advanced a position in what was hostile
ground, now that Bavaria and the other South German States obeyed
Napoleon's summons to range themselves on his side. Further, he was
dangerously exposed on the north, as a glance at the map will show.
Ulm and the line of the Iller formed a strong defence against the
south-west: but on the north that position is singularly open: it can
be turned from the valleys of the Main, the Neckar, and the Altmühl,
all of which conduct an invader to the regions east of Ulm. Indeed, it
passes belief how even the Aulic Council could have ignored the
dangers of that position. Possibly the fact that Ulm had been stoutly
held by Kray in 1796 now induced them to overrate its present
importance; but at that time the fortified camp of Ulm was the central
knot of vast operations, whereas now it was but an advanced
outpost.[24] If Francis and his advisers were swayed by historical
reminiscences it is strange that they forgot the fate of Melas in
Piedmont. The real parallel had been provided, not by Kray, but by the
general who was cut off at Marengo. Indeed, in its broad outlines, the
campaign of Ulm resembles that of Marengo. Against foes who had thrust
their columns far from their base, Napoleon now, as in 1800,
determined to deal a crushing blow. On the part of the Austrians we
notice the same misplaced confidence, the same lack of timely news,
and the same inability to understand Napoleon's plan until his
dispositions are complete; while his strategy and tactics in 1805
recall to one's mind the masterly simplicity of design, the subtlety
and energy of execution, which led up to his triumph in the plains of
Piedmont.

Meanwhile the allies were dissipating their strength. A Russian corps,
acting from Corfu as a base, and an English expedition from Malta,
were jointly to attack St. Cyr in the south of Italy, raise the
country at his rear and compel him to surrender. This plan was left
helplessly flapping in the air by a convention which Napoleon imposed
on the Neapolitan ambassador. On September 21st Talleyrand induced
that envoy to guarantee the neutrality of the kingdom of Naples, all
belligerents being excluded from its domains. Consequently St. Cyr's
corps evacuated that land and brought a welcome reinforcement to
Masséna on the Mincio. Equally skilful was Napoleon's action as
regards Hanover. On that side also the allies planned a formidable
expedition. From the fortress of Stralsund in Swedish Pomerania, a
force of Russians and Swedes, which Gustavus burned to command, was to
march into Hanover, and, when strengthened by an Anglo-Hanoverian
corps, drive the French from the Low Countries. It is curious to
contrast the cumbrous negotiations concerning this expedition--the
quarrels about the command, the anxiety at the outset lest Villeneuve
should perhaps sail into the Baltic, the delays of the British War
Office, the remonstrances of the Czar, and the efforts to avert the
jealousy of Prussia--with the serene indifference of Napoleon as to
the whole affair. He knew full well that the war would not be decided
by diversions at the heel of Italy or on the banks of the Ems, but by
the shock of great masses of men on the Danube. He denuded Hanover of
French troops, except at its southern fortress of Hameln, so that he
could overwhelm the levies of Austria before the Russians came up. In
brief, while the Coalition sought, like a Briareus, to envelop him on
all sides, he prepared to deal a blow at its heart.

As the first part of the campaign depended almost entirely on problems
of time and space, it will be well to follow the chief movements of
the hostile forces somewhat closely. The Austrian plan aimed at
forestalling the French in the occupation of Swabia; and its apparent
success puffed up Mack with boundless confidence. At Ulm he threw up
extensive outworks to strengthen that obsolete fortress, extended his
lines to Memmingen far on the south, and trusted that the Muscovites
would come up long before the French eagles hovered above the sources
of the Danube. But at that time the Russian vanguard had not reached
Linz in Upper Austria, and not before October 10th did it appear on
the banks of the River Inn.[25]

Far from being the last to move, the French Emperor outstripped his
enemies in the speed of his preparations. Whereas the Austrians
believed he would not be able to reach the Danube in force before
November 10th, he intended to have 200,000 men in Germany by September
18th. But he knew not at first the full extent of his good fortune: it
did not occur to him that the Austrians would cross the Inn: all he
asks Talleyrand, on August 23rd, is that such news may appear in the
"Moniteur" as will gain him twenty days and give General Bertrand time
to win over Bavaria, while "I make my 200,000 men pirouette into
Germany." On August 29th the _Army of England_ became the _Grand
Army_, composed of seven corps, led by Bernadotte, Marmont, Davoust,
Soult, Lannes, Ney and Augereau. The cavalry was assigned to Murat;
while Bessières was in command of the Imperial Guard, now numbering
some 10,000 men.

Already the greater part of this vast array was beginning to move
inland; Davoust and Soult left some regiments, 30,000 strong, to guard
the flotilla, and Marmont detached 14,000 men to defend the coasts of
Holland; but the other corps on September 2nd began their march
Rhine-wards in almost their full strength. On that day Bernadotte
broke up his cantonments in Hanover, and began his march towards the
Main, on which so much was to turn. The Elector of Hesse-Cassel now
espoused Napoleon's cause. Thus, without meeting any opposition,
Bernadotte's columns reached Würzburg at the close of September; there
the Elector of Bavaria welcomed the Marshal and gave him the support
of his 20,000 troops; and at that stronghold he was also joined by
Marmont.

In order to mislead the Austrians, Napoleon remained up to September
23rd at St. Cloud or Paris; and during his stay appeared a _Senatus
Consultum_ ordering that, after January 1st, 1806, France should give
up its revolutionary calendar and revert to the Gregorian. He then set
out for Strassburg, as though the chief blows were to be dealt through
the passes of the Black Forest at the front of Mack's line of defence;
and, to encourage that general in this belief, Murat received orders
to show his horsemen in the passes held by Mack's outposts, but to
avoid any serious engagements. This would give time for the other
corps to creep up to the enemy's rear. Mack, meanwhile, had heard of
the forthcoming junction of the French and Bavarians at Würzburg, but
opined that it threatened Bohemia.[26]

Accordingly, he still clung to his lines, contenting himself with
sending a cavalry regiment to observe Bernadotte's movements; but
neither he nor his nominal chief, the Archduke Ferdinand, divined the
truth. Indeed, so far did they rely on the aid of the Russians as to
order back some regiments sent from Italy by the more sagacious
Archduke Charles; but 11,000 troops from Tyrol reached the Swabian
army. That force was now spread out so as to hold the bridges of the
Danube between Ingolstadt and Ulm; and on October 7th the Austrians
were disposed as follows: 18,000 men under Kienmayer were guarding
Ingolstadt, Neuburg, Donauwörth, Günzburg, and lesser points, while
Mack had about 35,000 men at Ulm and along the line of the Iller; the
arrival of other detachments brought the Austrian total to upwards of
70,000 men. Against this long scattered line Napoleon led greatly
superior forces.[27] The development of his plans proceeded apace.
Though Prussia had proclaimed her strict neutrality, he did not
scruple to violate it by sending Bernadotte's corps through her
principality of Ansbach, which lay in their path. He charged
Bernadotte to "offer many assurances favourable to Prussia, and
testify all possible affection and respect for her--and then rapidly
cross her land, asserting the impossibility of doing anything else."
Accordingly, that Marshal was lavish in his regrets and apologies, but
ordered his columns to defile past the battalions and squadrons of
Prussia, that were powerless to resent the outrage.[28]

The news of this trespass on Prussian territory reached the ears of
Frederick William at a critical time, when the Czar sent to Berlin a
kind of ultimatum, intimating that, even if Prussia deserted the cause
of European independence, Russian troops must nevertheless pass
through part of Prussian Poland. Stung by this note from his usually
passive demeanour, the King sent off an answer that such a step would
entail a Franco-Prussian alliance against the violators of his
territory, when the news came that Napoleon had actually done at
Ansbach what Alexander had announced his intention of doing in the
east. The revulsion of feeling was violent: for a short space the King
declared he would dismiss Duroc and make war on Napoleon for this
insult, but in the end he called a cabinet council and invited the
Czar to come to Berlin.[29]

While the Gallophil counsellors, Haugwitz and Lombard, were using all
their arts to hinder the Prusso-Russian understanding, the meshes were
being woven fast around Mack and the Archduke Ferdinand. Bernadotte's
corps, after making history in its march, was detached to the
south-east so as to hold in check the Russian vanguard, and to give
plenty of room to the troops that were to cut off Mack from Austria, a
move which may be compared with the march of Bonaparte to Milan before
he essayed the capture of Melas. Both steps bespeak his desire to have
ample space at his back before circling round his prey.

On October 6th the corps of Soult and Lannes, helped by Murat's
powerful cavalry, cut the Austrian lines on the Danube at Donauwörth,
and gained a firm footing on the right bank. Over the crossing thus
secured far in Mack's rear, the French poured in dense array, and
marched south and south-west towards the back of the Austrian
positions, while Ney's corps marched to seize the chief bridges over
the Danube.

A study of the processes of Mack's brain at this time is not without
interest. It shows the danger of intrusting the fate of an army to a
man who cannot weigh evidence. Mack was not ignorant of the course of
events, though his news generally came late. The mischief was that his
brain warped the news. On October 6th he wrote to Vienna that the
enemy seemed about to aim a blow at his communications: on October
7th, when he heard of the loss of Donauwörth, he described it as an
unfortunate event, which no one thought to be possible. The Archduke
now urged the need of an immediate retreat towards Munich, and marched
in an easterly direction on Günzburg: another Austrian division of
8,000 men moved on Wertingen, where, on October 8th, it was furiously
attacked by the troops of Murat and Lannes. At first the Imperialists
firmly kept their ranks; but the unequal contest closed with a hasty
flight, which left 2,000 men in the hands of the French Then Murat,
pressing on through the woods, cut off Mack's retreat to Augsburg. Yet
that general still took a cheerful view of his position. On that same
day he wrote from Günzburg that, as soon as the enemy had passed over
the Lech, he would cross the Danube and cut their communications at
Nördlingen. He wrote thus when Ney's corps was striving to seize the
Danube bridges below Ulm. If Mack were to march north-east against the
French communications it was of the utmost importance for him to hold
the chief of these bridges: but Ney speedily seized three of them, and
on the 9th was able to draw closer the toils around Ulm.

From his position at Augsburg the French Emperor now directed the
final operations; and, as before Marengo, he gave most heed to that
side by which he judged his enemy would strive to break through, in
this case towards Kempten and Tyrol. This would doubtless have been
Mack's safest course; for he was strong enough to brush aside Soult,
gain Tyrol, seal up its valleys against Napoleon, and carry
reinforcements to the Archduke Charles. But he was still intent on his
Nördlingen scheme, even after the loss of the Danube bridges exposed
his march thither to flank attacks from the four French corps now
south of the river. Nevertheless, Napoleon's miscalculation of Mack's
plans, or, as Thiers has striven to prove, a misunderstanding of his
orders by Murat, gave the Austrians a chance such as fortune rarely
bestows.[30]

In spite of Ney's protests, one of his divisions, that led by Dupont,
had been left alone to guard the northern bank of the Danube, a
position where it might have been overwhelmed by an enterprising foe.
What is more extraordinary, Dupont, with only 6,000 men, was charged
to advance on Ulm, and carry it by storm. On the 11th he accordingly
advanced against Mack's fortified camp north of that city. The
Austrians met him in force, and, despite the utmost heroism of his
troops, finally wrested the village of Hasslach from his grasp; later
in the day a cloud of their horsemen, swooping round his right wing,
cut up his tired troops, took 1,000 prisoners, and left 1,500 dead and
wounded on the field. Among the booty was found a despatch of Napoleon
ordering Dupont to carry Ulm by storm--which might have shown them
that the French Emperor believed that city to be all but deserted.[31]
In truth, Napoleon's miscalculation opened for Mack a path of safety;
and had he at once marched away to the north, the whole aspect of
affairs might have changed. The Russian vanguard was on the banks of
the Inn: all the French, except the relics of Dupont's division, were
south of the Danube, and a few vigorous blows at their communications
might have greatly embarrassed troops that had little artillery, light
stores of ammunition, and lived almost entirely on the produce of the
country. We may picture to ourselves the fierce blows that, in such a
case, Frederick the Great would have rained on his assailants as he
wheeled round on their rear and turned their turning movements. With
Frederick matched against Napoleon, the Lech and the Danube would have
witnessed a very cyclone of war.

But Mack was not Frederick: and he had to do with a foe who speedily
made good an error. On October 13th, when Mack seemed about to cut off
the French from the Main, he received news through Napoleon's spies
that the English had effected a landing at Boulogne, and a revolution
had broken out in France. The tidings found easy entrance into a brain
that had a strange bias towards pleasing falsities and rejected
disagreeable facts. At once he leaped to the conclusion that the moves
of Soult, Murat, Lannes, Marmont, and Ney round his rear were merely
desperate efforts to cut back a way to Alsace. He therefore held fast
to his lines, made only feeble efforts to clear the northern road, and
despatched reinforcements to Memmingen. The next day brought other
news; that Memmingen had been invested by Soult; that Ney by a
brilliant dash across the Danube at Elchingen had routed an Austrian
division there, and was threatening Ulm from the north-east; and that
the other French columns were advancing from the south-east. Yet Mack,
still viewing these facts in the twilight of his own fancies, pictured
them as the efforts of despair, not as the drawing in of the hunter's
toils.

He was now almost alone in his reading of events. The Archduke
Ferdinand, though nominally in supreme command, had hitherto deferred
to Mack's age and experience, as the Emperor Francis enjoined. But he
now urged the need of instantly marching away to the north with all
available forces. Still Mack clung to his notion that it was the
French who were in sore straits; and he forbade the evacuation of Ulm;
whereupon the Archduke, with Schwarzenberg, Kollowrath, Gyulai, and
all whose instincts or rank prompted and enabled them to defy the
madman's authority, assembled 1,500 horsemen and rode off by the
northern road. It was high time; for Ney, firmly established at
Elchingen, was pushing on his vanguard towards the doomed city: Murat
and Lannes were charged to support him on the north bank, while across
the river Marmont, and further south Soult, cut off the retreat on
Tyrol.

At last the scales fell from Mack's eyes. Even now he protested
against the mere mention of surrender. But again he was disappointed.
Ney stormed the Michaelsberg north of Ulm, a position on which the
Austrians had counted; and on October 17th the hapless commander
agreed to terms of capitulation, whereby his troops were to march out
and lay down their arms in six days' time, if an Austro-Russian army
able to raise the siege did not come on the scene. These conditions
were afterwards altered by the captor, who, wheedling his captive with
a few bland words, persuaded him to surrender on the 20th on condition
that Ney and his corps remained before Ulm until the 25th. This was
Mack's last offence against his country and his profession; his assent
to this wily compromise at once set free the other French corps for
offensive operations; and that too when every day was precious to
Austria, Russia, and Prussia.

On October 20th the French Emperor, with a brilliant staff, backed by
the solid wall of his Guard and flanked by eight columns of his
troops, received the homage of the vanquished. First came their
commander, who, bowed down by grief, handed his sword to the victor
with the words, "Here is the unfortunate Mack." Then there filed out
to the foot of the Michaelsberg 20,000 foot and 3,000 horse, who laid
down their arms before the Emperor, some with defiant rage, the most
part in stolid dejection, while others flung them away with every sign
of indecent joy.[32] As if the elements themselves conspired to
enhance the brilliance of Napoleon's triumph, the sun, which had been
obscured for days by storm-clouds and torrents of rain, now shone
brightly forth, bathing the scene in the mild radiance of autumn,
lighting up the French forces disposed on the slopes of that natural
amphitheatre, while it cast deep shadows from the long trail of the
vanquished beneath. The French were electrified by the sight: the
fatigues of their forced marches through the dusty heats of September,
and the slush, swamps, and torrents of the last few days were all
forgotten, and they hailed with jubilant shouts the chief whose
sagacity had planned and achieved a triumph hitherto unequalled in the
annals of war. "Our Emperor," said they, "has found out a new way of
making war: he no longer makes it with our arms, but with our
legs."[33]

Meanwhile the other Austrian detachments were being hunted down. Only
a few men escaped from Memmingen into Tyrol: the division, which, if
properly supported, might have cut a way through to Nördlingen three
days earlier, was now overwhelmed by the troops of Murat and Lannes;
out of 13,000 foot-soldiers very few escaped. Most of the horsemen
succeeded in joining the Archduke Ferdinand, on whose track Murat now
flung himself with untiring energy. The _beau sabreur_ swept through
part of Ansbach in pursuit, came up with Ferdinand near Nuremberg, and
defeated his squadrons, their chief, with about 1,700 horse and some
500 mounted artillerymen, finally reaching the shelter of the Bohemian
Mountains. All the rest of Mack's great array had been engulfed.

Thus closed the first scene of the War of the Third Coalition. Hasty
preparations, rash plans, and, above all, Mack's fatal ingenuity in
reading his notions into facts--these were the causes of a disaster
which ruined the chances of the allies. The Archduke Charles, who had
been foiled by Masséna's stubborn defence, was at once recalled from
Italy in order to cover Vienna; and, worst of all, the Court of Berlin
now delayed drawing the sword.

Yet, even amidst the unstinted boons that she showered on Napoleon by
land, Fortune rudely baffled him at sea. When he was hurrying from Ulm
towards the River Inn, to carry the war into Austria, he heard that
the French navy had been shattered. Trafalgar was fought the day after
Mack's army filed out of Ulm. The greatest sea-fight of the century
was the outcome of Napoleon's desire that his ships should carry
succour to his troops in Italy. For this voyage the Emperor was about
to substitute Admiral Rosily for Villeneuve: and the unfortunate
admiral, divining that resolve, sought by a bold stroke to retrieve
his fortunes. He put to sea, and Trafalgar was the result. It would be
superfluous to describe this last and most splendid of Nelson's
exploits; but a few words as to the bearing of this great victory on
the events of that time may not be out of place. It is certain that
Villeneuve at Trafalgar fought under more favourable conditions than
in the conflict of July 22nd. He had landed his very numerous sick,
his crews had been refreshed and reinforced, and, above all, the worst
of the Spanish ships had been replaced by seaworthy and serviceable
craft. Yet out of the thirty-three sail of the line, he lost eighteen
to an enemy that numbered only twenty-seven sail; and that fact alone
absolves him from the charge of cowardice in declining to face
Cornwallis and Calder in July with ships that were cumbered with sick
and badly needed refitting.

Then again: it is often stated that Trafalgar saved England from
invasion. To refute this error it is merely needful to remind the
reader that all immediate fear of invasion was over, when, at the
close of August, Napoleon wheeled the Grand Army against Austria. Not
until the Continent was conquered could the landing in Kent become
practicable. That opportunity occurred two years later, after Tilsit;
then, in truth, the United Kingdom was free from panic because
Trafalgar had practically destroyed the French navy. For these
islands, then, the benefits of Trafalgar were prospective. But, for
the British Empire, they were immediate. Every French, Dutch, and
Spanish colony that now fell into our hands was in great measure the
fruit of Nelson's victory, which heralded the second and vaster stage
of imperial growth.

Finally, the decisive advantage which Britain now gained over Napoleon
at sea compelled him, if he would realize the world-wide schemes ever
closest to his heart, to adopt the method of warfare against us which
he had all along contemplated as an effective alternative. As far back
as February, 1798, he pointed out that there were three ways of
attacking and ruining England, either a direct invasion, or a French
control of North Germany which would ruin British commerce, or an
expedition to the Indies. After Trafalgar the first of these
alternatives was impossible, and the last receded for a time into the
background. The second now took the first place in his thoughts; he
could only bring England to his feet and gain a world-empire by
shutting out her goods from the whole of the Continent, and thus
condemning her to industrial strangulation. In a word, Trafalgar
necessitated the adoption of the Continental System, which was built
up by the events now to be described.

    Note to the Third Edition.--An American critic has charged me with
    inconsistency in saying that the Third Coalition was not built up
    by English gold, because I state (p. 5) that the first advances
    were made by England to Russia. I ought to have used the phrase
    "the first _written_ proposals that I have found were made," etc.
    Czartoryski's "Memoirs" (vol. ii., chs. ii.-iii.), to which I
    referred my readers for details, show clearly that Alexander and
    his advisers looked on a rupture with France as inevitable, but
    wished to temporize for some three months or so, until certain
    matters were cleared up; they therefore cautiously sounded the
    position at Vienna and London. This passage from Czartoryski (vol.
    ii., ch. iii.) proves that Russia wanted the English alliance:

    "After the diplomatic rupture consequent upon the execution of the
    Duc d'Enghien, it became indispensable to come to an understanding
    with the only Power, except Russia, which thought herself strong
    enough to contend with France--to ascertain as thoroughly as
    possible what were her inclinations and designs, the principles of
    her policy, and those which she could be led to adopt in certain
    contingencies. It would have been a great advantage to obtain the
    concurrence in our views of so powerful a State as England, and to
    strive with her for the same objects; but for this it was
    necessary, not only to make sure of her present inclinations, but
    to weigh well the possibilities of the future after the death of
    George III. and the fall of the Pitt Ministry. We had to make
    England understand that the wish to fight Napoleon was not in
    itself sufficient to establish an indissoluble bond between her
    Government and that of St. Petersburg...."

    In "F.O.," Russia, No. 55, is a despatch of our ambassador at St.
    Petersburg, Admiral Warren, of June 30, 1804, in which he reports
    Czartoryski's concern at rumours of negotiations between England
    and France: "The prince [Czartoryski] remarked that he could not
    suppose, after what had passed between the two Courts, and the
    manner in which the Emperor [Alexander] had explained himself to
    England, and after the measures which Russia had since proposed,
    that Great Britain would make a peace at once by herself."

    Of these earlier negotiations I have found no trace; but obviously
    the first proposals for an alliance must have come from Russia.
    Sweden was the first to propose a monarchical league against
    Napoleon. (See my article in the "Revue Napoléonienne" for June,
    1902.)


       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER XXIII

AUSTERLITZ


After the capitulation of Ulm, the French Emperor marched against the
Russian army, which, as he told his troops, _English gold had brought
from the ends of the earth._ As is generally the case with coalitions,
neither of the allies was ready in time or sent its full quota. In
place of the 54,000 which Alexander had covenanted to send to
Austria's support, he sent as yet only 46,000; and of these 8,000 were
detached into Podolia in order to watch the warlike moves of the
Turks, whom the French had stirred up against the Muscovite.

But Alexander had another and weightier excuse for not denuding his
realm of troops, namely, the ambiguous policy of Prussia. Up to the
middle of October this great military Power clung to her somewhat
threatening neutrality, an attitude not unlike that of the
Scandinavian States, which, in 1691, remained deaf to the entreaties
of William of Orange to take up the cause of European freedom against
Louis XIV., and were dubbed the Third Party. It would seem, however,
that the Prussian King had some grounds for his conduct: he feared the
Polish influence which Czartoryski wielded over the Czar, and saw in
the Russian request for a right of way through Prussian Poland a
deep-laid scheme for the seizure of that territory. Indeed, the
letters of Czartoryski prove that such a plan was pressed forward, and
found much favour with the Czar, though at the last moment he
prudently shelved it.[34]

For a time the hesitations of Prussia were ended by Napoleon's
violation of Ansbach, and by Alexander's frank explanations at
Potsdam; but meanwhile the delays caused by Prussia's suspicions had
marred the Austrian plans. A week's grace granted by Napoleon, or a
week gained by the Russians on their actual marching time, would have
altered the whole situation in Bavaria--and Prussia would have drawn
the sword against France to avenge the insult at Ansbach.

On October 10th Hardenberg informed the Austrian ambassador,
Metternich, that Frederick William was on the point of declaring for
the allies. Nothing, however, was done until Alexander reached
Potsdam, and the first news that he received on his arrival (October
25th) was of the surrender of Ulm. Nevertheless, the influence of the
Czar checkmated the efforts of Haugwitz and the French party, and kept
that Government to its resolve, which on November 3rd took the form of
the Treaty of Potsdam between Russia, Austria, and Prussia. Frederick
William pledged himself to offer the armed mediation of Prussia, and,
if it were refused by Napoleon, to join the allies. The Prussian
demands were as follows: indemnities for the King of Sardinia in
Lombardy, Liguria, and Parma; the independence of Naples, Holland,
Germany, and Switzerland; and the Mincio as Austria's boundary in
Italy.[35]

An envoy was to offer these terms to Napoleon, and to bring back a
definite answer within one month from the time of his departure, and
in the meantime 180,000 Prussians prepared to threaten his flank and
rear. Alexander also secretly pledged himself to use his influence
with George III. to gain Hanover for Frederick William at the close of
the war, England meanwhile subsidizing Prussia and her Saxon allies on
the usual scale. The Czar afterwards accompanied the King and Queen to
the crypt of the Great Frederick, kissed the tomb, and, as he took his
leave of their majesties, cast a significant look at the altar.[36]

Did he fear the peace-loving tendencies of the King, or the treachery
of Haugwitz? It is difficult to see good faith in every detail of the
treaty. Apart from the strange assumption that England would subsidize
Prussia and also give up Hanover, the manner in which the armed
mediation was to be offered left several loopholes for escape. After
the surrender of Ulm, speedy and vigorous action was needed to restore
the balance; yet a month's delay was bargained for. Then, too,
Haugwitz, who was charged with this most important mission, deferred
his departure for ten days on the plea that Prussia's forces could not
be ready before the middle of December. Such was the statement of the
leisurely Duke of Brunswick; but it can scarcely be reconciled with
Frederick William's threat, a month earlier, of immediate war against
the Russians if they entered his lands. Yet now that monarch approved
of the delay. Haugwitz therefore did not set out till November 14th,
and by that time Napoleon was master of Vienna, and the allies were
falling back into Moravia.

We now turn to the scene of war. For the first time in modern history
the Hapsburg capital had fallen into the hands of a foreign foe.
Napoleon now installed himself at the stately palace of Schönbrunn,
while Francis was fleeing to Olmütz and the Archdukes Charles and John
were struggling in the defiles of the Alps to disengage themselves
from the vanguard of Masséna. The march of the French on Vienna, and
thence northwards to Brünn, led to only one incident of general
interest, namely, the filching away from the Austrians of the bridge
over the Danube to the north of Vienna. As it nears the city, that
great river spreads out into several channels, the largest being on
the north. The wooden bridge further up the river having been burnt by
the Russian rearguard, there remained only the bridge or bridges,
opposite the city, on the possession of which Napoleon set much store.
He therefore charged Murat and Lannes to secure them if possible.

Murat was smarting under the Emperor's displeasure for a rash advance
on Vienna which had wellnigh cost the existence of Mortier's corps on
the other bank. Indeed, only by the most resolute bravery did the
remnant of that corps hew its way through overwhelming numbers. Murat,
who should have kept closely in touch with Mortier by a flotilla of
boats, was eager to retrieve his fault, and, with Lannes, Bertrand,
and an officer of engineers, he now approached the first part of the
bridge as if for a parley during an informal armistice which had just
been discussed but not concluded. The French Marshals had disposed the
grenadiers of General Oudinot, a body of men as renowned as their
leader for fighting qualities, behind some thickets that spread along
the southern bank and partly screened the approach. The plank
barricade at the southern end was now thrown down, and the four
Frenchmen advanced. An Austrian mounted sentinel fired his carbine and
galloped away to the main bridge; thereupon the four men advanced,
called to the officer there in command as if for a parley, and stopped
him in the act of firing the gunpowder stored beneath the bridge, with
the assurance that an armistice was, or was about to be, concluded.

Reaching the northern end they repeated their tale, and claimed to see
the commander. While the defenders were hesitating, Oudinot's
grenadiers were rapidly marching forward. As soon as they were seen,
the Austrians prepared once more to fire the bridge. Again they were
implored to desist, as peace was as good as signed. But when the
grenadiers had reached the northern bank, the mask was dropped: fresh
troops were hurrying up and the chance of saving the bridge from their
grasp was now lost. By these means did Murat and Lannes secure an
undisputed passage to the northern bank, for which four years later
the French had desperately to fight. Napoleon was delighted at Murat's
exploit, which greatly furthered his pursuit of the allies, and he at
once restored that Marshal to high favour. But those who placed
gentlemanly conduct above the glamour of a trickster's success were
not slow, even then, to express their disapproval of this act of
perfidy.[37]

The prolonged retreat into Moravia, the unexpected feebleness of the
Hapsburg arms, and the lack of supplies weighed heavily on Alexander's
spirits, as is shown in his letter from Olmütz to the King of Prussia
on November 19th: "Our position is more than critical: we stand almost
alone against the French, who are close on our heels. As for the
Austrian army, it does not exist.... If your armies advance, the whole
position will alter at once."[38] A few days later, however, when
27,000 more Russians were at hand, including his Imperial Guard, the
Czar passed from the depths of depression to the heights of
confidence. The caution of his wary commander, Kutusoff, who urged a
Fabian policy of delay and retreat, now began to weary him. To retire
into northern Hungary seemed ignominious. And though Frederick William
held to his resolve of not drawing the sword before December 15th, and
by that time the Archduke Charles with a large army was expected below
Vienna, yet the susceptible young autocrat spurned the behests of
irksome prudence. In vain did Kutusoff and Schwarzenberg urge the need
of delay and retreat: Alexander gave more heed to the rash counsels of
his younger officers. An advance was ordered on Brünn, and a
successful cavalry skirmish at Wischau confirmed the Czar in his
change from the strategy of Fabius to that of Varro.

Napoleon, who was now at Brünn, had already divined this change in the
temper of his foe, and called back his men with the express purpose of
humouring Alexander's latest mood and tempting him on to a decisive
battle. He saw clearly the advantage of fighting at once. The renewed
offers of an armistice, which he received from the prudent Francis,
might alone have convinced him of this; and they came in time to give
him an argument, telling enough to daunt the Prussian envoy, who was
now drawing near to his headquarters.

After proceeding towards Vienna and being sent back to Brünn, Haugwitz
arrived there on November 29th.[39] Of the four hours' private
conference that ensued with Napoleon we have but scanty records, and
those by Haugwitz himself, who had every reason for warping the truth.
He states that he was received with icy coldness, and at once saw that
the least threat of hostile pressure by Prussia would drive Napoleon
to make a separate peace with Austria. But after the first hour the
Emperor appeared to thaw: he discussed the question of a Continental
peace and laid aside all resentment at Prussia's conduct: finally, he
gave a general assent to her proposals, on two conditions, namely,
that the allied force then in Hanover should not be allowed by Prussia
to invade Holland, and that the French garrison in the fortress of
Hameln, now compassed about by Prussians, should be provisioned. To
both of these requests Haugwitz assented, and pledged the word of his
King, an act of presumption which that monarch was to repudiate.

While exceeding his instructions on this side, Haugwitz did
practically nothing to advance the chief business of his mission.
Either his own fears, or the crafty mixture of threats and flattery
that cajoled so many envoys, led him to neglect the interests of
Prussia, and to play into the hands of the very man whose ambition he
was sent to check. After the interview, when the envoy had retired to
his lodging, Caulaincourt came up in haste to warn him that a battle
was imminent, that his personal safety might be endangered, and that
Napoleon requested him to repair to Vienna, where he might consult
with Talleyrand on affairs of State. Horses and an escort were ready,
and Haugwitz set out for that city, where he arrived on November 30th,
only to find that Talleyrand was strictly forbidden to do more than
entertain him with commonplaces. Thus, the all-important question as
to the action of Prussia's legions was again postponed, even when
150,000 Prussians and Saxons were ready to march against the French
communications.

Napoleon's letter of November 30th to Talleyrand reveals his secret
anxiety at this time. In truth, the crisis was terrible. With a
superior force in front, with the Archdukes Ferdinand and Charles
threatening to raise Bohemia and Hungary on his flanks, while two
Prussian armies were about to throw themselves on his rear, his
position was fully as serious as that of Hannibal before Cannæ, from
which the Carthaginian freed himself only by that staggering blow. Did
that example inspire the French Emperor, or did he take counsel from
his own boundless resources of brain and will? Certain it is that,
after a passing fit of discouragement, he braced himself for a final
effort, and staked all on the effect of one mighty stroke. In order to
hurry on the battle he feigned discouragement and withdrew his lines
from Austerlitz to the Goldbach. Already he had sent General Savary to
the Czar with proposals for a short truce.[40] The word truce now
spelt guile; its offer through Savary, whose hands were stained with
the blood of the Duc d'Enghien, was in itself an insult, and Alexander
gave that envoy the coolest reception. In return he sent Prince
Dolgoruki, the leader of the bellicose youths now high in favour, who
proudly declared to the French Emperor the wishes of his master for
the independence of Europe--adding among other things that Holland
must be free and have Belgium added to it.

This suggestion greatly amused Napoleon, who replied that Russia ought
now to think of her own advantages on the side of Turkey. The answer
convinced the Czar that Napoleon dreaded a conflict in his dangerously
advanced position. He knew not his antagonist's resources. Napoleon
had hurried up every available regiment. Bernadotte's corps was
recalled from the frontier of Bohemia; Friant's division of 4,000 men
was ordered up from Pressburg; and by forced marches it also was nigh
at hand on the night of December 1st, worn with fatigue after covering
an immense space in two days, but ready to do excellent service on the
morrow.[41] By this timely concentration Napoleon raised his forces to
a total of at least 73,000 men, while the enemy founded their plan on
the assumption that Napoleon had less than 50,000, and would scarcely
resist the onset of superior forces.

Their plan was rash, even for an army which numbered about 80,000 men.
The Austrian General Weyrother had convinced the Czar that an
energetic advance of his left wing, which rested on the southern spurs
of the Pratzenberg, would force back Napoleon's right, which was
ranged between the villages of Kobelnitz and Sokelnitz, and so roll up
his long line that stretched beyond Schlapanitz. This move, if
successful, would not only win the day, but decide the campaign, by
cutting off the French from their supplies coming from the south and
driving them into the exhausted lands around Olmütz. Such was
Weyrother's scheme, which enchanted the Czar and moved the fears of
the veteran Kutusoff: it was expounded to the Russian and Austrian
generals after midnight on December the 2nd. Strong in the great
central hill, the Pratzenberg, and the cover of its village at the
foot, the Czar had no fear for his centre: to his right or northern
wing he gave still less heed, as it rested firmly on villages and was
powerful in cavalry and artillery; but his left wing, comprising fully
two-fifths of the allied army, was expected easily to defeat
Napoleon's weak and scattered right, and so decide the day. Kutusoff
saw the peril of massing so great a force there and weakening the
centre, but sadly held his peace.

Napoleon had already divined their secret. In his order of battle he
took his troops into his confidence, telling them that, while the
enemy marched to turn his right, they would expose their flank to his
blows. To announce this beforehand was strangely bold, and it has been
thought that he had the plan from some traitor on the enemy's staff.
No proof of this has been given; and such an explanation seems
superfluous to those who have observed Napoleon's uncanny power of
fathoming his adversary's designs. The idea of withdrawing one wing in
order to tempt the foe unduly to prolong his line on that side, and
then to crush it at the centre, or sever it from the centre, is common
both to Castiglione and Austerlitz. It is true, the peculiarities of
the ground, the ardour of the Russian attack, and the vastness of the
operations lent to the present conflict a splendour and a horror which
Castiglione lacked. But the tactics which won both battles were
fundamentally the same.

He had studied the ground in front of Austerlitz; and the priceless
gift of strategic imagination revealed to him what a rash and showy
leader would be certain to do on that ground;[42] he tempted him to
it, and the announcement of the enemy's plan to the French soldiery
supplied the touch of good comradeship which insured their utmost
devotion on the morrow. At midnight, as he returned from visiting the
outposts, the soldiers greeted him with a weird illumination: by a
common impulse they tore down the straw from their rude shelters and
held aloft the burning wisps on long poles, dancing the while in
honour of the short gray-coated figure, and shouting, "It is the
anniversary of the coronation. Long live the Emperor." Thus was the
great day ushered in. The welkin glowed with this tribute of an army's
heroworship: the frost-laden clouds echoed back the multitudinous
acclaim; and the Russians, as they swung forward their left, surmised
that, after all, the French would stand their ground and fight, whilst
others saw in the flare a signal that Napoleon was once more about to
retreat.

December the 2nd may well be the most famous day of the Napoleonic
calendar: it was the day of his coronation, it was the day of
Austerlitz, and, a generation later, another Napoleon chose it for his
_coup d'état_. The "sun of Austerlitz," which the nephew then hailed,
looked down on a spectacle far different from that which he wished to
gild with borrowed splendour. Struggling dimly through dense banks of
mist, it shone on the faces of 73,000 Frenchmen resolved to conquer or
to die: it cast weird shadows before the gray columns of Russia and
the white-coats of Austria as they pressed in serried ranks towards
the frozen swamps of the Goldbach. At first the allies found little
opposition; and Kienmayer's horse cleared the French from Tellnitz and
the level ground beyond. But Friant's division, hurrying up from the
west, restored the fight and drove the first assailants from the
village. Others, however, were pressing on, twenty-nine battalions
strong, and not all the tenacious bravery of Davoust's soldiery
availed to hold that spot. Nor was it necessary. Napoleon's plan was
to let the allied left compromise itself on this side, while he rained
the decisive blows at its joint with the centre on the southern spur
of the Pratzenberg.

For this reason he reduced Davoust to defensive tactics, for which his
stubborn methodical genius eminently fitted him, until the French
centre had forced the Russians from the plateau. Opposite or near that
height he had posted the corps of Soult and Bernadotte, supporting
them with the grenadiers of Oudinot and the Imperial Guard.
Confronting these imposing forces was the Russian centre, weakened by
the heavy drafts sent towards Tellnitz, but strong in its position and
in the experience of its leader Kutusoff. Caution urged him to hold
back his men to the last moment, until the need of giving cohesion to
the turning movement led the Czar impatiently to order his advance.
Scarcely had the Russians descended beyond Pratzen when they were
exposed to a furious attack. Vandamme, noted even then as one of the
hardest hitters in the army, was leading his division of Soult's corps
up the northern slopes of the plateau; by a sidelong slant his men cut
off a detachment of Russians in the village, and, aided by the brigade
of Thiébault, swarmed up the hill at a speed which surprised and
unsteadied its defenders. Oudinot's grenadiers and the Imperial Guard
were ready to sustain Soult: but the men of his corps had the glory of
seizing the plateau and driving back the Russians. Yet these returned
to the charge. Alexander and Kutusoff saw the importance of the
heights, and brought up a great part of their reserves. Soon the
divisions of  Vandamme and St. Hilaire were borne back;
and it needed all the grand fighting powers of their troops to hold up
against the masses of howling Russians. For two hours the battle there
swayed to and fro; and Thiébault has censured Napoleon for the lack of
support, and Soult for his apathy, during this soldiers' battle.

[Illustration: BATTLE OF AUSTERLITZ]

But the Emperor was awaiting the development of events on the wings. A
sharp fight of all arms was raging on the plain further to the north.
There the allies at first gained ground, the Austrian horse well
maintaining its old fame: but the infantry of Lannes' corps, supported
by powerful artillery ranged on a small conical hill, speedily checked
their charges; the French horse, marshalled by Murat and Kellermann
somewhat after the fashion of the British cavalry at Waterloo, so as
to support the squares and dash through the intervals in pursuit, soon
made most effective charges upon the dense squadrons of the allies,
and finally a general advance of Lannes and Murat overthrew the
wavering lines opposite and chased them back towards the small town of
Austerlitz.

Thus by noon the lines of fighting swerved till they ranged along the
course of the Littawa stream, save where the allies had thrust forward
a long and apparently successful wedge beyond Tellnitz. The Czar saw
the danger of this almost isolated wing, and sought to keep touch with
it; but the defects of the allied plan were now painfully apparent.
Napoleon, having the interior lines, while his foes were scattered
over an irregular arc, could reinforce his hard-pressed right. There
Davoust was being slowly borne back, when the march of Duroc with part
of the Imperial Guard restored the balance on that side. The French
centre also was strengthened by the timely arrival of part of
Bernadotte's corps. That Marshal detached a division towards the
northern slopes of the plateau; for he divined that there his master
would need every man to deal the final blows.[43]

In truth, Alexander and Kutusoff were struggling hard to regain the
Pratzenberg. Four times did the Muscovites fling themselves on the
French centre, and not without some passing gleams of success. Here
occurred the most famous cavalry fight of the war. The Russian Guards,
mounted on superb horses, had cut up two of Vandamme's battalions,
when Rapp rode to their rescue with the chasseurs of the French
Imperial Guard. These choice bodies of horsemen met with a terrible
shock, which threw the Russians into disorder. Rallied by other
squadrons, these now overthrew their assailants and seemed about to
overpower them, when Bessières with the heavy cavalry of the Guard
fell on the flank of the Muscovite horse and drove their lines, horse
and foot, into the valley beyond.

Assured of his centre, Napoleon now launched Soult's corps down the
south-western spurs of the plateau upon the flank and rear of the
allied left: this unexpected onset was decisive: the French, sweeping
down the slopes with triumphant shouts, cut off several battalions on
the banks of the Goldbach, scattered others in headlong flight towards
Brünn, and drove the greater part down to the Lake of Tellnitz. Here
the troubles of the allies culminated. A few gained the narrow marshy
gap between the two lakes; but dense bodies found no means of escape
save the frozen surface of the upper lake. In some parts the ice bore
the weight of the fugitives; but where they thronged pell-mell, or
where it was cut up by the plunging fire of the French cannon on the
heights, crowds of men sank to destruction. The victors themselves
stood aghast at this spectacle; and, for the credit of human nature be
it said, many sought to save their drowning foes. Among others, the
youthful Marbot swam to a floe to help bring a Russian officer to
land, a chivalrous exploit which called forth the praise of Napoleon.
The Emperor brought this glorious day to a fitting close by visiting
the ground most thickly strewn with his wounded, and giving directions
for their treatment or removal. As if satisfied with the victory, he
gave little heed to the pursuit. In truth, never since Marlborough cut
the Franco-Bavarian army in twain at Blenheim, had there been a battle
so terrible in its finale, and so decisive in its results as this of
the three Emperors, which cost the allies 33,000 men and 186 cannon.

The Emperors Alexander and Francis fled eastwards into the night.
Between them there was now a tacit understanding that the campaign was
at an end. On that night Francis sent proposals for a truce; and in
two days' time Napoleon agreed to an armistice (signed on December
6th) on condition that Francis would send away the Russian army and
entirely exclude that of Prussia from his territories. A contribution
of 100,000,000 francs was also laid upon the Hapsburg dominions. On
the next day Alexander pledged himself to withdraw his army at once;
and Francis proceeded to treat for peace with Napoleon. This was an
infraction of the treaties of the Third Coalition, which prescribed
that no separate peace should be made.

Under the circumstances, the conduct of the Hapsburgs was pardonable:
but the seeming break-up of the coalition furnished the Court of
Berlin with a good reason for declining to bear the burden alone. It
was not Austerlitz that daunted Frederick William; for, after hearing
of that disaster, he wrote that he would be true to his pledge given
on November 3rd. But then, on the decisive day (December 15th), came
the news of the defection of Austria, the withdrawal of Alexander's
army, and the closing of the Hapsburg lands to a Prussian force. These
facts absolved Frederick William from his obligations to those Powers,
and allowed him with perfect good faith to keep his sword in the
scabbard. The change, it is true, sadly dulled the warlike ardour of
his army; but it could not be called desertion of Russia and
Austria.[44] The disgrace came later, when, on Christmas Day, Haugwitz
reached Berlin, and described to the King and Ministers his interview
with Napoleon in the palace of Schönbrunn, and the treaty which the
victor then and there offered to Prussia at the sword's point.

For most men a great victory such as Austerlitz would have brought a
brief spell of rest, especially after the ceaseless toils and
anxieties of the previous fortnight. Yet now, after ridding himself of
all fear of Austria, Napoleon at once used every device of his subtle
statecraft to dissolve the nascent coalition. And Fortune had willed
that, when flushed with triumph, he should have to deal with a
timorous time-server.

It is the curse of a policy of keeping up a dainty balance in a
hurricane that it unmans the balancer, until at last the peacemaker
resembles a juggler. A decade of compromise and evasion of
difficulties had enfeebled the spirit of Prussia, until the hardest
trial for her King was to take any step that could not be retraced. He
had often spoken "feelingly, if not energetically," of the
predicaments of his position between France, England, and Russia.[45]
And, as in the case of that other _bon père de famille_, Louis XVI.,
whom Nature framed for a farmhouse and Fate tossed into a revolution,
his lack of foresight and resolution took the heart out of his
advisers and turned statesmen into trimmers. Even before the news of
Austerlitz reached the ears of Talleyrand and Haugwitz at Vienna, the
bearer of Prussia's ultimatum was posing as the friend of France. On
all occasions he wore the cordon of the Legion of Honour; and while
the hosts of East and West were in the death-grapple on the
Pratzenberg, he strove to convince the French Foreign Minister that
the Prussians had entered Hanover only in order to keep the peace in
North Germany; that, as Russians had traversed Prussian territory, the
French would, of course, be equally free to do so; that Frederick
William objected to the descent of any English force in Hanover, which
belonged _de facto_ to France; and finally that the Treaty of Potsdam
was not a treaty at all, but merely a declaration with the "offer of
Prussia's good offices and of mediation, but without any mingling of
hostile intentions." Well might Talleyrand write to Napoleon: "I am
very satisfied with M. Haugwitz."[46]

Napoleon's victory over Prussian diplomacy was therefore won, even
before the lightning-stroke of Austerlitz blasted the Third Coalition.
Haugwitz began his conference with the victor at Schönbrunn on
December 13th, by offering Frederick William's congratulations on his
triumph at Austerlitz, to which the Emperor replied by a sarcastic
query whether, if the result of that battle had been different, he
would have spoken at all about the friendship of his master.[47] After
thus disconcerting the envoy and upbraiding him with the Treaty of
Potsdam, Napoleon unmasked his battery by offering Prussia the
Electorate of Hanover in return for the comparatively petty sacrifices
of Ansbach to Bavaria, and Cleves and Neufchâtel to France. For the
loss of these outlying districts Prussia could buy that long-coveted
land.[48] The envoy was dazzled by this glittering offer, and by
others that followed. The conqueror proposed an offensive and
defensive alliance, whereby France and Prussia mutually guaranteed
their lands along with prospective additions in Germany and Italy; and
the Court of Berlin was also to uphold the independence of Turkey.

Such were the terms that Napoleon peremptorily required Haugwitz to
sign within a few hours: and the bearer of Prussia's ultimatum on
December 15th signed this Treaty of Schönbrunn, which degraded the
would-be arbitress of Europe to her former position of well-fed
follower of France. This was the news which Haugwitz brought back to
his astonished King. His reception was of the coolest; for Frederick
William was an honest man, who sought peace, prosperity, and the
welfare of his people, and now saw himself confronted by the
alternative of war or national humiliation. In truth, every turn and
double of his course was now leading him deeper into the discredit and
ruin which will be described in the next chapter.

Leaving for the present that unhappy King amidst his increasing
perplexities, we return to the affairs of Austria. Mack's disaster
alone had cast that Government into the depths of despair, and we
learn from Lord Gower, our ambassador at St. Petersburg, that he had
seen copies of letters written by the Emperor Francis to Napoleon
"couched in terms of humility and submission unworthy of a great
monarch," to which the latter replied in a tone of superiority and
affected commiseration, and with a demand for the Hapsburg lands in
Venetia and Swabia.[49]

The same tone of whining dejection was kept up by Cobenzl and other
Austrian Ministers, even before Austerlitz, when Prussia was on the
point of drawing the sword; and they sent offers of peace, when it was
rather for their foe to sue for it. After that battle, and, still more
so, after signing the armistice of December 6th, they were at the
conqueror's mercy; and Napoleon knew it. After probing the inner
weakness of the Berlin Court, he now pressed with merciless severity
on the Hapsburgs. He proposed to tear away their Swabian and Tyrolese
lands and their share of the spoils of Venice. In vain did the
Austrian plenipotentiaries struggle against these harsh terms,
pleading for Tyrol and Dalmatia, and pointing out the impossibility of
raising 100,000,000 francs from territories ravaged by war. In vain
did they proffer a claim to Hanover for one of their Archdukes: though
Talleyrand urged the advantage of this step as dissolving the
Anglo-Austrian alliance, yet Napoleon refused to hear of it; for at
that time he was offering that Electorate to Haugwitz.[50] Still less
would he hear a word in favour of the Court of Naples, whose conduct
had aroused his resentment. The utmost that the Austrian envoys could
wring from him was the reduction of the war contribution to 40,000,000
francs.

The terms finally arranged in the Treaty of Pressburg (December 26th,
1805) may be thus summarized: Austria recognized the recent
acquisitions and changes of title made by Napoleon in Italy, and ceded
to him her parts of Venetia, Istria, and Dalmatia. She recognized the
title of King now bestowed by Napoleon on the Electors of Bavaria and
Würtemberg, a change which was not to invalidate their membership of
the "Germanic Confederation." To those potentates and to the Elector
(now Grand Duke) of Baden, the Hapsburgs ceded all their scattered
Swabian domains, while Bavaria also gained Tyrol and Vorarlberg. As a
slight compensation for these grievous losses, Austria gained
Salzburg, whose Elector was to receive from Bavaria the former
principality of Würzburg. The domains and revenues of the Teutonic and
Maltese Orders were secularized, so as to furnish appanages to some
other princes of the Hapsburg House; and another blow was dealt at the
Germanic system by the declaration that Napoleon guaranteed the full
and entire sovereignty of the rulers of Bavaria, Würtemberg, and
Baden. In fact, as will appear in the next chapter, Napoleon now
usurped the place in Germany previously held by the Hapsburgs, and
extended his influence as far east as the River Inn, and, on the
south, down to the remote city of Ragusa on the Adriatic.

But it is one thing to win a brilliant diplomatic triumph, and quite
another thing to secure a firm and lasting peace. The Peace of
Pressburg raised Napoleon to heights of power never dreamt of by Louis
XIV.: but his pre-eminence was at best precarious. When by moderate
terms he might have secured the alliance of Austria and severed her
friendship with England, he chose to place his heel on her neck and
drive her to secret but irreconcilable hatred.

And his choice was deliberate. Two months earlier, Talleyrand had sent
him a memorandum on the subject of a Franco-Austrian alliance, which
is instinct with statesmanlike foresight. He stated that there were
four Great Powers--France, Great Britain, Russia, and Austria: he
excluded Prussia, whose rise to greatness under Frederick the Great
was but temporary. Austria, he claimed, must remain a Great Power. She
had opposed revolutionary France; but with Imperial France she had no
lasting quarrel. Rather did her manifest destiny clash with that of
Russia on the lower Danube, where the approaching break-up of the
Ottoman Power must bring those States into conflict. It was good
policy, then, to give a decided but friendly turn of Hapsburg policy
towards the east. Let Napoleon frankly approach the Emperor Francis
and say in effect: "I never sought this war with you, but I have
conquered: I wish to restore complete harmony between us: and, in
order to remove all causes of dispute, you must give up your Swabian,
Tyrolese, and Venetian lands: of these Tyrol shall fall to a prince of
your choice, and Venice (along with Trieste and Istria) shall form an
aristocratic Republic under a magistrate nominated in the first
instance by me. As a set-off to these losses, you shall receive
Moldavia, Wallachia, and northern Bulgaria. If the Russians object to
this and attack you, I will be your ally." Such was Talleyrand's
proposal.[51]

It is easy to criticise it in many details; but there can be little
doubt that its adoption by Napoleon would have laid a firmer
foundation for French supremacy than was afforded by the Treaties of
Pressburg and Tilsit. Austria would not have been deeply wounded, as
she now was by the transfer of her faithful Tyrolese to the detested
rule of Bavaria, and by the undisguised triumph of Napoleon in Italy
and along the Adriatic. Moreover, the erection of Tyrol and Venetia
into separate States would have been a wise concession to those
clannish societies; and Austria could not have taken up the
championship of outraged Tyrolese sentiment, which she assumed four
years later. Instead of figuring as the leader of German nationality,
she would have been on the worst of terms with the Czar over the
Eastern Question; and their discord would have enabled France to
dictate her own terms as to the partition of the Sultan's dominions.
Talleyrand had no specific for dissolving the traditional friendship
of England and Austria, and we may imagine the joy with which he heard
from the Hapsburg envoys the demand for Hanover, at a time when
English gold was pouring into the empty coffers at Vienna. Here was
the sure means of embroiling England and Austria for a generation at
least. But this further chance of preventing future coalitions was
likewise rejected by Napoleon, who deliberately chose to make Austria
a deadly foe, and to aggrandize her rival Prussia.[52]

Why did Napoleon reject Talleyrand's plan? Unquestionably, I think,
because he had resolved to build up a Continental System, which should
"hermetically seal" the coasts of Europe against English commerce. If
he was to realize those golden visions of his youth, ships, colonies,
and an Eastern empire, which, even amidst the glories of Austerlitz,
he placed far above any European triumph, he must extend his coast
system and subject or conciliate the maritime States. Of these the
most important were Prussia and Russia. The seaborne commerce of
Austria was insignificant, and could easily be controlled from his
vassal lands of Venetia and Dalmatia. To the would-be conqueror of
England the friendship or hatred of Austria seemed unimportant: he
preferred to depress this now almost land-locked Power, and to draw
tight the bonds of union with Prussia, always provided that she
excluded British goods.[53]

The same reason led him to hope for a Russian alliance. Only by the
help of Russia and Prussia could he shut England out from the Baltic;
and, to win that help, he destined Hanover for Prussia and the
Danubian States for the Czar. For the founder of the Continental
System such a choice was natural; but, viewed from the standpoint of
Continental politics, his treatment of Austria was a serious blunder.
His frightful pressure on her motley lands endowed them with a
solidity which they had never known before; and in less than four
years, the conqueror had cause to regret having driven the Hapsburgs
to desperation. It may even be questioned whether Austerlitz itself
was not a misfortune to him. Just before that battle he thought of
treating Austria leniently, taking only Verona and Legnago, and
exchanging Venetia against Salzburg. This would have detached her from
the Coalition, and made a friend of a Power that is naturally inclined
to be conservative.

After Austerlitz, he rushed to the other extreme and forced the
Hapsburgs to a hostility in which the Marie Louise marriage was only a
forced and uneasy truce. His motives are not, in my judgment, to be
assigned to mere lust of domination, but rather to a reasoned though
exaggerated conviction of the need of Prussia and Russia to his
Continental System. Above all things, he now sought to humble England,
so that finally he might be free for his long-deferred Oriental
enterprise. This is the irony of his career, that, though he preferred
the career of Alexander the Great to that of Cæsar; though he placed
his victory at Austerlitz far below the triumph of the great
Macedonian at Issus which assured the conquest of the Orient, yet he
felt himself driven to the very measures which tethered him to _cette
vieille Europe_ and which finally roused the Continent against him.

Among his errors of judgment, assuredly his behaviour to Austria in
1805 was not the least. The recent history of Europe supplies a
suggestive contrast. Two generations after Austerlitz, the Hapsburg
Power was shattered by the disaster of Königgrätz, and once more lost
all influence in Germany and Italy. But the victor then showed
consideration for the vanquished. Bismarck had pondered over the
lessons of history, because, as he said, _history teaches one how far
one may safely go_. He therefore persuaded King William to forego
claims that would have embittered the rivalry of Prussia and Austria.
Nay! he recurred to Talleyrand's policy of encouraging the Hapsburgs
to seek in the Balkan Peninsula compensation for their losses in the
west: and within fifteen years the basis of the Triple Alliance was
firmly laid. Napoleon, on the other hand, for lack of that
statesmanlike moderation which consecrates victory and cements the
fabric of an enduring Empire, soon saw the political results of
Austerlitz swept away by the rising tide of the nations' wrath. In
less than nine years the Austrians and their allies were masters of
Paris.

    NOTE TO THE THIRD EDITION.--The account given on p. 41 of the
    drowning of numbers of Russians at the close of the Battle of
    Austerlitz was founded upon the testimony of Napoleon and many
    French generals; the facts, as related by Lejeune, seemed quite
    convincing; the Czar Alexander also asserted at Vienna in 1815
    that 20,000 Russians had been drowned there. But the local
    evidence (kindly furnished to me by Professor Fournier of Vienna)
    seems to prove that the story is a myth. Both lakes were drained
    only a few days after the battle, _at Napoleon's orders_; in the
    lower lake not a single corpse was found; in the upper lake 150
    corpses of horses, but only two, some say three, of men, were
    found. Probably Napoleon invented the catastrophe for the sake of
    dramatic effect, and others followed the lead given in his
    bulletin. The Czar may have adopted the story because it helped to
    excuse his defeat. (See my article in the "Eng. Hist. Rev." for
    July, 1902.)

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER XXIV

PRUSSIA AND THE NEW CHARLEMAGNE


An eminent German historian, who has striven to say some kind words
about Frederick William's Government before the collapse at Jena,
prefaces his apology by the axiom that from a Prussian monarch one
ought to expect, not French, English, or Russian policy, but only
Prussian policy. The claim may well be challenged. Doubtless, there
are some States concerning which it would be true. Countries such as
Great Britain and Spain, whose areas are clearly defined by nature,
may with advantage be self-contained until their peoples overflow into
new lands: before they become world Powers, they may gain in strength
by being narrowly national. But there are other States whose fortunes
are widely different. They represent some principle of life or energy,
in the midst of mere political wreckage. If the binding power, which
built up an older organism, should decline, as happened to the Holy
Roman Empire after the religious wars, fragments will fall away and
join bodies to which they are now more akin.

Of the States that throve among the crumbling masses of the old Empire
the chief was Brandenburg-Prussia. She had a twofold energy which the
older organism lacked: she was Protestant and she was national; she
championed the new creed cherished by the North Germans, and she felt,
though dimly as yet, the strength that came from an almost single kin.
Until she seized on part of the spoils of Poland, her Slavonic
subjects were for the most part germanized Slavs; and even after
acquiring Posen and Warsaw at the close of the eighteenth century, she
could still claim to be the chief Germanic State. A generation
earlier, Frederick the Great had seen this to be the source of her
strength. His policy was not merely Prussian: in effect, if not in
aim, it was German. His victory at Rossbach over a great polyglot
force of French and Imperialists first awakened German nationality to
a thrill of conscious life; and the last success of his career was the
championship of the lesser German princes against the encroachments of
the Hapsburgs. In fact, it seems now a mere commonplace to assert that
Prussia has prospered most when, as under Frederick the Great and
William the Great, her policy has been truly German, and that she has
fallen back most in the years 1795-1806 and 1848-1852, when the
subservience of her Frederick Williams to France and Austria has lost
them the respect and support of the rest of the Fatherland. A State
that would attract other fragments of the same nation must be
attractive, and it must be broadly national if it is to attract. If
Stein and Bismarck had been merely Prussians, if Cavour's policy had
been narrowly Sardinian, would their States ever have served as the
rallying centres for the Germany and Italy of to-day?

The difficulties which beset Frederick William III. in 1805 were not
entirely of his own making. His predecessor of the same ill-omened
name, when nearing the close of his inglorious reign, made the Peace
of Basel (1795), which began to place the policy of Berlin at the beck
and call of the French revolutionists. But the present ruler had
assured Prussia's subservience to France at the time of the
Secularizations, when he gained Erfurt, Eichsfeld, Hildesheim,
Paderborn, and a great part of the straggling bishopric of Münster.
Even at that time of shameless rapacity, there were those who saw that
the gain of half a million of subjects to Prussia was a poor return
for the loss of self-respect that befell all who shared in the
sacrilegious plunder bartered away by Bonaparte and Talleyrand.
Frederick William III. was even suspected of a leaning towards French
methods of Government; and a Prussian statesman said to the French
ambassador:

    "You have only the nobles against you: the King and the people are
    openly for France. The revolution which you have made from below
    upwards will be slowly effected in Prussia from above downwards:
    the King is a democrat after his fashion: he is always striving to
    curtail the privileges of the nobles, but by slow means. In a few
    years feudal rights will cease to exist in Prussia."[54]

Could the King have carried out these much-needed reforms, he might
perhaps have opposed a solid society to the renewed might of France.
But he failed to set his house in order before the storm burst; and in
1803 he so far gave up his championship of North German affairs as to
allow the French to occupy Hanover, a land that he and his Ministers
had long coveted.

We saw in the last chapter that Hanover was the bait whereby Napoleon
hooked the Prussian envoy, Haugwitz, at Schönbrunn; and that the very
man who had been sent to impose Prussia's will upon the French Emperor
returned to Berlin bringing peace and dishonour. The surprise and
annoyance of Frederick William may be imagined. On all sides
difficulties were thickening around him. Shortly before the return of
Haugwitz to Berlin, the Russian troops campaigning in Hanover had been
placed under the protection of Prussia; and the King himself had
offered to our Minister, Lord Harrowby, to protect Cathcart's
Anglo-Hanoverian corps which, _with the aid of Prussian troops_, was
restoring the authority of George III. in that Electorate.

Moreover, Frederick William could not complain of any shabby treatment
from our Government. Knowing that he was set on the acquisition of
Hanover and could only be drawn into the Coalition by an equally
attractive offer, the Pitt Ministry had proposed through Lord Harrowby
the cession to Prussia at the general peace of the lands south-west of
the Duchy of Cleves, "bounded by a frontier line drawn from Antwerp to
Luxemburg," and connected with the rest of her territories.[55] This
plan, which would have planted Prussia firmly at Antwerp, Liège,
Luxemburg, and Cologne, also aimed at installing the Elector of
Salzburg in the rest of the new Rhenish acquisitions of France; while
the equipoise of the Powers was to be adjusted by the cession of
Salzburg, the Papal Legations, and the line of the Mincio to Austria,
she in her turn giving up part of her Dalmatian lands to Russia.
Prussia was to be the protectress of North Germany and regard any
incursion of the French, "north of the Maine or at least of the Lahn,"
as an act of war. Great Britain, after subsidizing Prussia for 100,000
troops on the usual scale, pledged herself to restore all her
conquests made, or to be made, during the war, with the exception of
the Cape of Good Hope: but no questions were to be raised about that
desirable colony, or Malta, or the British maritime code.[56]

At the close of 1805, then, Frederick William was face to face with
the offers of England and those brought by Haugwitz from Napoleon.
That is, he had to choose between the half of Belgium and the
Rhineland as offered by England, or Hanover as a gift from Napoleon.
The former gain was the richer, but apparently the more risky, for it
entailed the hatred of France: the latter seemed to secure the
friendship of the conqueror, though at the expense of the claims of
honour and a naval war with England. His confidential advisers,
Lombard, Beyme, and Haugwitz, were determined to gain the Electorate,
preferably at Napoleon's hands; while his Foreign Minister,
Hardenberg, a Hanoverian by birth, desired to assure the union of his
native land with Prussia by more honourable means, and probably by
means of an exchange with George III., which will be noticed
presently. In his opposition to French influence, Hardenberg had the
support of the more patriotic Prussians, who sought to safeguard
Prussia's honour, and to avert war with England. The difficulty in
accepting the Electorate at the point of Napoleon's sword was not
merely on the score of morality: it was due to the presence of a large
force of English, Hanoverians, and Russians on the banks of the Weser,
and to the protection which the Prussian Government had offered to
those troops against any French attack, always provided that they did
not move against Holland and retired behind the Prussian
battalions.[57] The indignation of British officers at this last order
is expressed by Christian Ompteda, of the King's German Legion, in a
letter to his brother at Berlin: "My dear fellow, if this sort of
thing goes on, the Continent will soon be irrecoverably lost. The
Russian and English armies will not long creep for refuge under the
contemptible Prussian cloak. We are here, 40,000 of the best and
bravest troops. A swift move on Holland only would have opened the
road to certain success.... And this is Lombard's and Haugwitz's
work!"[58]

What meanwhile were George III.'s Ministers doing? At this crisis
English policy suffered a terrible blow. Death struck down the
"stately column" that held up the swaying fortunes of our race.
William Pitt, long failing in health, was sore-stricken by the news of
Austerlitz and the defection of Austria. But the popular version as to
the cause of his death--that _Austerlitz killed Pitt_--is more
melodramatic than correct. Among the many causes that broke that
unbending spirit, the news of the miserable result of the Hanoverian
Expedition was the last and severest. The files of our Foreign Office
papers yield touching proof of the hopes which the Cabinet cherished,
even after Vienna was in Napoleon's hands. Harrowby was urged to do
everything in his power--short of conceding Hanover--to bring Prussia
into the field, in which case "nearly 300,000 men will be available in
North Germany at the beginning of the next campaign, which will
include 70,000 British and Hanoverian troops employed there or in
maritime enterprises."[59] To this hope Pitt clung, even after hearing
the news of Austerlitz, and it was doubtless this which enabled him to
bear that last journey from Bath to Putney Heath, with less fatigue
and far more quickly than had been expected. He arrived home on
Saturday night, January 11th. On the following Wednesday his friend,
George Rose, called on him and found that a serious change for the
worse had set in.

    "On the Sunday he was better, and continued improving till Monday
    in the afternoon, when Lord Castlereagh insisted on seeing him,
    and, having obtained access to him, entered (Lord Hawkesbury being
    also present) on points of public business of the most serious
    importance (principally respecting the bringing home the British
    troops from the Continent), which affected him visibly that
    evening and the next day, and this morning the effect was more
    plainly observed: ... his countenance is extremely changed, his
    voice weak, and his body almost wasted."

It is clear also from the medical evidence which the diarist gives
that the news from Hanover was the cause of this sudden change. On the
previous Sunday, that is, just after the fatigue of the three days'
journey, the physicians "thought there was a reasonable prospect of
Mr. Pitt's recovery, that the probability was in favour of it, and
that, if his complaint should not take an unfavourable turn, he might
be able to attend to business in about a month."[60] That unfavourable
turn took place when the heroic spirit lost all hope under the
distressing news from Berlin and Hanover. Austerlitz, it is true, had
depressed him. Yet that, after all, did not concern British honour and
the dearest interests of his master.

But, that Frederick William, from whom he had hoped so much, to whom
he was on the point of advancing a great subsidy, should now fall
away, should talk of peace with Napoleon and claim Hanover, should
forbid an invasion of Holland and request the British forces to
evacuate North Germany--this was a blow to George III., to our
military prestige, and to the now tottering Ministry. How could he
face the Opposition, already wellnigh triumphant in the sad Melville
business, with a King's Speech in which this was the chief news?
Losing hope, he lost all hold on life: he sank rapidly: in the last
hours his thoughts wandered away to Berlin and Lord Harrowby. "What is
the wind?" he asked. "East; that will do; that will bring him fast,"
he murmured. And, on January 23rd, about half an hour before he
breathed his last, the servant heard him say: "My country: oh my
country."[61]

Thus sank to rest, amidst a horror of great darkness, the statesman
whose noon had been calm and glorious. Only a superficial reading of
his career can represent him as eager for war and a foe to popular
progress. His best friends knew full well his pride in the great
financial achievements of 1784-6, his resolute clinging to peace in
1792, and his longing for a pacification in 1796, 1797, and 1800,
provided it could be gained without detriment to our allies and to the
vital interests of Britain. His defence lies buried amidst the
documents of our Record Office, and has not yet fully seen the light.
For he was a reserved man, the warmth of whose nature blossomed forth
only to a few friends, or on such occasions as his inspired speech on
the emancipation of slaves. To outsiders he had more than the usual
fund of English coldness: he wrote no memoirs, he left few letters, he
had scant means of influencing public opinion; and he viewed with
lofty disdain the French clamour that it was he who made and kept up
the war. "I know it," he said; "the Jacobins cry louder than we can,
and make themselves heard."[62] He was, in fact, a typical champion of
our rather dumb and stolid race, that plods along to the end of the
appointed stage, scarcely heeding the cloud of stinging flies. Both
the people and its champion were ill fitted to cope with Napoleon.
None of our statesmen had the Latin tact and the histrionic gifts
needful to fathom his guile, to arouse the public opinion of Europe
against him, or to expose his double-dealing.

But Pitt was unfortunate above all of them. It was his fate to begin
his career in an age of mediocrities and to finish it in an almost
single combat with the giant. He was no match for Napoleon. The
Coalition, which the Czar and he did so much to form, was a house of
cards that fell at the conqueror's first touch; and the Prussian
alliance now proved to be a broken reed. His notions of strategy were
puerile. The French Emperor was not to be beaten by small forces
tapping at his outworks; and Austria might reasonably complain that
our neglect to attack the rear of the Grand Army in Flanders exposed
her to the full force of its onset on the Danube. But though his
genius pales before the fiery comet of Napoleon, it shines with a
clear and steady radiance when viewed beside that of the Continental
statesmen of his age. They flickered for a brief space and set. His
was the rare virtue of dauntless courage and unswerving constancy. By
the side of their wavering groups he stands forth like an Abdiel:

  "Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified,
  His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal:
  Nor number nor example with him wrought
  To swerve from truth or change his constant mind,
  Though single."

While English statesmanship was essaying the task of forming a
Coalition Ministry under Fox and Grenville, Napoleon with untiring
activity was consolidating his position in Germany, Italy, and France.
In Germany he allied his family by marriage with the now royal Houses
of Bavaria and Würtemberg. He chased the Bourbons of Naples from their
Continental domains. In France he found means to mitigate a severe
financial crisis, and to strengthen his throne by a new order of
hereditary nobility. In a word, he became the new Charlemagne.

The exaltation of the South German dynasties had long been a favourite
project with Napoleon, who saw in the hatred of the House of Bavaria
for Austria a sure basis for spreading French influence into the heart
of Germany. Not long after the battle of Austerlitz, the Elector of
Bavaria, while out shooting, received from a French courier a letter
directed to "Sa Majesté _le Roi_ de Bavière et de Suabe."[63] This
letter was despatched six days after a formal request was sent through
Duroc, that the Elector would give his daughter Augusta in marriage to
Eugène Beauharnais. The affair had been mooted in October: it was
clinched by the victory of Austerlitz; and after Napoleon's arrival at
Munich on the last day of the year, the final details were arranged.
The bridegroom was informed of it in the following laconic style: "I
have arrived at Munich. I have arranged your marriage with the
Princess Augusta. It has been announced. This morning the princess
visited me, and I spoke with her for a long time. She is very pretty.
You will find herewith her portrait on a cup; but she is much better
looking." The wedding took place at Munich as soon as the bridegroom
could cross the Alps; and Napoleon delayed his departure for France in
order to witness the ceremony which linked him with an old reigning
family. At the same time he arranged a match between Jerome Bonaparte
and Princess Catherine of Würtemberg. This was less expeditious,
partly because, in the case of a Bonaparte, Napoleon judged it needful
to sound the measure of his obedience. But Jerome had been broken in:
he had thrown over Miss Paterson, and, after a delay of a year and a
half, obeyed his brother's behests, and strengthened the ties
connecting Swabia with France. A third alliance was cemented by the
marriage of the heir to the Grand Duchy of Baden with Stéphanie de
Beauharnais, niece of Josephine.

In the early part of 1806 Napoleon might flatter himself with his
brilliant success as a match-maker. Yet, after all, he was less
concerned with the affairs of Hymen than with those of Mars and
Mercury. He longed to be at Paris for the settlement of finances; and
he burned to hear of the expulsion of the Bourbons from Naples. For
this last he had already sent forth his imperious mandates from
Vienna; and, after a brief sojourn at the Swabian capitals, he set out
for Paris, where he arrived incognito at midnight of January 26th.
During his absence of one hundred and twenty-five days he had captured
or destroyed two armies, stricken a mighty coalition to the heart,
shattered the Hapsburg Power, and revolutionized the Germanic system
by establishing two Napoleonic kingdoms in its midst.

Yet, as if nothing had been done, and all his hopes and thoughts lay
in the future, he summoned his financial advisers to a council for
eight o'clock in the morning. Scarcely did he deign to notice their
congratulations on his triumphs. "We have," he said, "to deal with
more serious questions: it seems that the greatest dangers of the
State were not in Austria: let us hear the report of the Minister of
the Treasury." It then appeared that Barbé-Marbois had been concerned
in risky financial concerns with the Court of Spain, through a man
named Ouvrard. The Minister therefore was promptly dismissed, and
Mollien then and there received his post. The new Minister states in
his memoirs that the money, which had sufficed to carry the French
armies from the English Channel to the Rhine, had been raised on
extravagant terms, largely on loans on the national domains. In fact,
it had been an open question whether victory would come promptly
enough to avert a wholesale crash at Paris.

So bad were the finances that, though 40,000,000 francs were poured
every year into France as subsidies from Italy and Spain, yet loans of
120,000,000 francs had been incurred in order to meet current
expenses.[64] It would exceed the limits of our space to describe by
what forceful means Napoleon restored the financial equilibrium and
assuaged the commercial crisis resulting from the war with England.
Mollien soon had reason to know that, so far from avoiding Continental
wars, the Emperor thenceforth seemed almost to provoke them, and that
the motto--_War must support war_--fell far short of the truth.
Napoleon's wars, always excepting his war with England, supported the
burdens of an armed peace. In this respect his easy and gainful
triumph over Austria was a disaster for France and Europe. It beckoned
him on to Jena and Tilsit.

While reducing his finances to order and newspaper editors to
servility, the conqueror received news of the triumph of his arms in
Southern Italy. There the Bourbons of Naples had mortally offended
him. After concluding a convention for the peaceable withdrawal of St.
Cyr's corps and the strict observance of neutrality by the kingdom of
Naples, Ferdinand IV. and his Queen Caroline welcomed the arrival at
their capital of an Anglo-Russian force of 20,000 men, and intrusted
the command of these and of the Neapolitan troops to General Lacy.[65]
This force, it is true, did little except weaken the northward march
of Masséna; but the violation of neutrality by the Bourbons galled
Napoleon. At Vienna he refused to listen to the timid pleading of the
Hapsburgs on their behalf, and as soon as peace was signed at
Pressburg he put forth a bulletin stating that St. Cyr was marching on
Naples to hurl from the throne that guilty woman who had so flagrantly
violated all that is sacred among men. France would fight for thirty
years rather than pardon her atrocious act of perfidy: the Queen of
Naples had ceased to reign: let her go to London and form a committee
of sympathetic ink with Drake, Spencer-Smith, Taylor, and Wickham.

This diatribe was not the first occasion on which the conqueror had
proved that he was no gentleman. In his brutal letter of January 2nd,
1805, to Queen Caroline, he told her that, if she was the cause of
another war, she and her children would beg their bread all through
Europe. That and similar outbursts afford some excuse for the conduct
of the Bourbons in the autumn of 1805. They infringed the neutrality
which their ambassador had engaged to observe: but it is to be
remembered that Napoleon's invasion of the Neapolitan States in 1803
was a gross violation of international law, which the French Foreign
Office sought to cloak by fabricating two secret articles of the
Treaty of Amiens.[66] And though troth should doubtless be kept, even
with a law-breaker, yet its violation becomes venial when the latter
adopts the tone of a bully. For the present he triumphed. Joseph
Bonaparte invaded Naples in force, and on January 13th the King,
Queen, and Court set sail for Palermo. The Anglo-Russian divisions
re-embarked and sailed away for Malta and Corfu. One of the Neapolitan
strongholds, Gaëta, held out till the middle of July. Elsewhere the
Bourbon troops gave little trouble.

The conquest of Naples enabled Napoleon to extend his experiment of a
federation of Bonapartist Kings. He announced to Miot de Melito, now
appointed one of Joseph's administrators, his intentions in an
interview at the Tuileries on January 28th. Joseph was to be King of
Naples, if he accepted the honour quickly. If not, the Emperor would
adopt a son, as in the case of Eugène, and make him King.--"I don't
need a wife to have an heir. It is by my pen that I get
children."--But Joseph must also show himself worthy of the honour.
Let him despise fatigue, get wounded, break a leg.

    "Look at me. The recent campaign, agitation, and movement have
    made me fat. I believe that if all the kings coalesced against me,
    I should get a quite ridiculous stomach.... You have heard my
    words. I can no longer have relatives in obscurity. Those who will
    not rise with me, shall no longer be of my family. I am making a
    family of kings attached to my federative system."[67]

The threat having had its effect, Joseph was proclaimed King of Naples
by a decree of Napoleon. "Keep a firm hand: I only ask one thing of
you: be entirely the master there."[68] Such was the advice given to
his amiable brother, who after enjoying a military promenade
southwards was charged to undertake the conquest of Sicily. It
mattered little that the overthrow of the Neapolitan Bourbons offended
the Czar, who had undertaken the protection of that House.

As though intent on browbeating Alexander by an exhibition of his
power, Napoleon lavished Italian titles on his Marshals and statesmen.
Talleyrand became Prince of Benevento; and Bernadotte, Prince of
Ponte-Corvo (two Papal enclaves in Neapolitan soil). To these and
other titles were attached large domains (not divisible at death),
which enabled his paladins and their successors to support their new
dignities with pomp and splendour; especially was this so with the two
titles which his bargains with Prussia and Bavaria enabled him to
bestow. Thanks to the complaisance of their Kings, the Grand Duchy of
Berg and Cleves was granted to Murat, while the energetic and trusty
Berthier was rewarded with the Principality of Neufchâtel and a truly
princely fortune.[69]

Thus was founded the Napoleonic nobility; and thus was fulfilled Mme.
de Staël's prophecy that the priests and nobles would be the
_caryatides_ of the future throne. The change was brought about
skilfully. It took place when pride in Napoleon's exploits was at its
height, and when the "Gazette de France" asserted:

    "France is henceforth the arbitress of Europe.... Civilization
    would have perished in Europe, if forth from the ruins there had
    not arisen one of these men before whom the world keeps silence,
    and to whom Providence seems to intrust its destinies."[70]

This adulation, which recalls that of the Court of Augustus or
Tiberius, gives the measure of French thought. In truth, Napoleon
showed profound insight into human nature when he judged the hatred of
an order of nobility to be a mere passing spasm of revolutionary
fever; and he evinced equal good sense in restoring that order through
the chiefs of the one truly popular institution in France, the army.
Besides, the new titles were not taken from French domains, which
would have revived the idea of feudal dependence in France: they were
the fruit of Napoleon's great victory; and the sound of distant names
like Benevento, Berg, and Dalmatia skilfully flattered the pride of
_la grande nation_.

It is now time to return to the affairs of Prussia and to point out
the chief stages in her downward course. On January 3rd, 1806, an
important State Council was held at Berlin in order to decide on
certain modifications to the Schönbrunn Treaty with Napoleon. The
chief change resolved on was as follows: Instead of the cessions of
territory being immediate and absolute, as proposed by Napoleon, they
were not to take effect before the general peace. Until that took
place, Frederick William resolved to occupy Hanover provisionally,
meanwhile answering to France for the tranquillity of the north of
Germany.[71] The Prussian Government therefore gave strong hints that
the presence of a British force there was objectionable, and the
troops were withdrawn.[72]

Napoleon was to be less pliable. And yet Haugwitz assured the Prussian
King and council that he had looked Napoleon through and through, and
had discerned an unexpressed wish to deal easily with Prussia. As to
his acceptance of these changes in the Schönbrunn Treaty, Haugwitz
felt no doubt whatever, at least so his foe, Hardenberg, states. But
the Prussian Ministers were now proposing, not the offensive and
defensive treaty of alliance that Napoleon required, but rather a
mediation for peace between France and England. They were, in fact,
striving to steer halfway between Napoleon and George III.--and gain
Hanover. Verily, here was a belief in half measures passing that of
women.

The envoy despatched to assure Napoleon's assent to these new
conditions was the very man who had quailed before the Emperor at
Schönbrunn. Count Haugwitz set out on January 14th for Munich and
thence for Paris; but long before any definite news was received from
him, the Court of Berlin decided, on the strength of a few oily
compliments from the French ambassador, Laforest, to regard the
acceptance of Napoleon as fully assured. Accordingly, on January 24th,
the Government resolved to place the Prussian army on a peace-footing
and recall the troops from Franconia, as a daily saving of 100,000
thalers might thereby be effected. Never was there a greater act of
extravagance. As soon as the retreat and demobilizing of the Prussian
forces was announced, the French troops in Bavaria and Franconia began
to press forward, while others poured across the Rhine. Affecting to
ignore these threatening moves, the Prussian Court strove peaceably to
acquire Hanover by secretly offering George III. a re-arrangement of
territories, whereby the Hanoverian lands east of the Weser, along
with a few districts west of Hameln and Nienburg, should pass to
Prussia. Frederick William proposed to keep Minden and Ravensburg, but
to cede East Frisia and all the rest of his Westphalian possessions to
King George, who would retain the electoral dignity for these new
lands.[73] The only reply that our ruler deigned to this offer was
that he trusted:

    "His Prussian Majesty will follow the honourable dictates of his
    own heart, and will demonstrate to the world that he will not set
    the dreadful example of indemnifying himself at the expense of a
    third party, whose sentiments and conduct towards him and his
    subjects have been uniformly friendly and pacifick."[74]

But by the close of February this appeal fell on deaf ears. Frederick
William had decided to comply with Napoleon's terms and was about to
take formal possession of Hanover.

The conqueror was far from taking that easy view of the changes made
in the Schönbrunn Treaty which the discerning Haugwitz had trustfully
expected. At first, every effort was made by Talleyrand to delay his
interview with the Emperor, evidently in the hope that the subtle
flattery of Laforest at Berlin would lead to the demobilization of the
Prussian forces. This fatal step was known at Paris before February
6th, when Haugwitz was received by the Emperor; and the knowledge that
Prussia was at his mercy decided the conqueror's tone. He began by
some wheedling words as to the ability shown by Haugwitz in the
Schönbrunn negotiation:

    "If anyone but myself had treated with you I should have thought
    him bought over by you; but, let me confess to you, the treaty was
    due to your talents and merit. You were in my eyes the first
    statesman in Europe, and covered yourself with immortal glory."

Before that interview, forsooth, he had decided to make war on
Prussia; and only Haugwitz had induced him to offer her peace and the
gift of Hanover. Why, then, had that treaty been so criticised at
Berlin? Why had the French ambassador been slighted? Why was
Hardenberg high in favour? Why had not the King dismissed that tool of
England? Here the envoy strove to stem the rising torrent of the
Emperor's wrath; his words were at once swept aside; and the deluge
flowed on. As Prussia had not ratified the treaty pure and simple, she
was in a state of war with France; for she still had Russian and
English troops on her soil. Here again Haugwitz observed that those
forces were withdrawing, and that the Prussians were entering Hanover
in force. The storm burst forth anew. What right had Prussia thus to
carry into effect a treaty which she had not ratified? If her forces
entered Hanover, his troops should forthwith occupy Ansbach, Cleves,
and Neufchâtel: if Frederick William meant to have Hanover, he should
pay dearly for it. But he would allow Haugwitz to see Talleyrand, so
as to prevent an immediate war.[75]

The calm of the Foreign Minister was as dangerous as the bluster of
the Emperor. Talleyrand was no friend to Prussia. He had long known
Napoleon's determination to press on a war between England and
Prussia, and he lent himself to the plan of undermining the
Hohenzollerns. The scales now fell from the envoy's eyes. He saw that
his country stood friendless before an exacting creditor, who now
claimed further sacrifices--or Prussia's life-blood. The Emperor's
threats were partly fictitious; and when Haugwitz was thoroughly
frightened and ready to concede almost anything, Napoleon came to the
real point at issue, and demanded that the whole of the German
coast-line on the North Sea should be closed to English commerce. With
this stringent clause superadded, Hanover was now handed over to
Prussia. Never was a Greek gift more skilfully offered. The present of
Hanover on those terms implied for the recipient Russia's disapproval
and the hostility of England.[76]

This was the news brought by Haugwitz to Berlin. Frederick William was
now on the horns of the very dilemma which he had sought to avoid.
Either he must accept Napoleon's terms, or defy the conqueror to
almost single combat. The irony of his position was now painfully
apparent. In his longing for peace and retrenchment he had dismissed
his would-be allies, and had sent his own soldiers grumbling to their
homes. Moreover, he was tied by his previous action. If he accepted
peace from Napoleon at Christmas, when 300,000 men could have disputed
the victor's laurels, how much more must he accept it now! He not only
gave way on this point: he even complied with Napoleon's wishes by
keeping Hardenberg at a distance. He did not dismiss him--the
friendship of the spirited Queen Louisa forbade that: but Hardenberg
yielded up to Haugwitz the guidance of foreign affairs, and was
granted unlimited leave of absence.

Popular feeling was deeply moved by this craven compliance with French
behests. The officers of the Berlin garrison serenaded the patriotic
statesman, while Haugwitz twice had his windows smashed. Public
opinion, it is true, counted for little in Prussia. The rigorous
separation of classes, the absence of popular education, the complete
subjection of the journals to Government, and the mutual jealousy of
soldiers and civilians, prevented any general expression of opinion in
that almost feudal society.

But when the people of Ansbach piteously begged not to be handed over
to Bavaria, and forthwith saw their land occupied by the French before
Prussia had ratified the cession of that principality; when the North
Germans found that the gain of Hanover by Prussia was at the price of
war with England and the ruin of their commerce; when it was seen that
Frederick William and Haugwitz had clipped the wings of the Prussian
eagle till it shunned a fight with the Gallic cock, a feeling of shame
and indignation arose which proved that the limits of endurance had
been reached. Observers saw that, after all, the old German feeling
was not dead; it was only torpid; and forces were beginning to work
which threatened ruin to the Hohenzollerns if they again tarnished the
national honour.[77]

Meanwhile the first overtures for peace were exchanged between Paris,
London, and St. Petersburg. In the spring of 1806 there seemed some
ground for hope that Europe might find repose, at least on land, after
fourteen years of almost constant war. France was no longer
Jacobinical. Under Napoleon she had quickly fallen into line with the
monarchical States, and the questions now at stake merely related to
boundaries and the balance of power. The bellicose ardour of the Czar
had melted away at Austerlitz. The seizure of Hanover by Prussia moved
him but little, and he sought to compose the resulting strife. As for
the other Powers, they were either helpless or torpid. The King of
Sweden was venting his spleen upon Prussia. Italy, South Germany,
Holland, and Spain were at Napoleon's beck; and the policy of England
under the new Grenville-Fox Ministry inclined strongly towards peace.
There seemed, then, every chance of founding the supremacy of France
upon lasting foundations, if the claims of Britain and Austria
received reasonable satisfaction. Napoleon also seems to have wanted
peace for the consolidation of his power in Europe and the extension
of his colonies and commerce. As at the close of all his land
campaigns, his thoughts turned to the East, and on January 31st, 1806,
he issued orders to Decrès which, far from showing any despair as to
the French navy, foreshadowed a vigorous naval and colonial policy;
while his moves on the Dalmatian coast, and the despatch of Sebastiani
on a mission to the Porte, revealed the magnetic attraction which the
Levant still had for him.

A peculiar interest therefore attaches to the negotiations for peace
in 1806, especially as they were pushed on by that generous orator,
Fox, who had so long pleaded for a good understanding with France. On
February 20th, 1806, he disclosed to Talleyrand the details of a
supposed plot for the murder of the French Emperor, which some person
had proposed to him, an offer which he rejected with horror, at the
same time ordering the man to be expelled from the kingdom. It is more
than probable that the whole thing was got up by the French police as
a test of the esteem which Fox had always expressed for Bonaparte.

The experiment having turned out well, Talleyrand assured Fox of the
pacific desires of the French Emperor as recently stated to the Corps
Législatif, namely, that peace could be had on the terms of the Treaty
of Amiens. Fox at once clasped the outstretched hand, but stated that
the negotiations must be in concert with Russia, and the treaty such
as our allies could honourably accept. To this Talleyrand, on April
1st, gave a partial assent, adding that Napoleon was convinced that
the rupture of the Peace of Amiens was due solely to the refusal of
France to grant a treaty of commerce. France and England could now
come to satisfactory terms, if England would be content with the
sovereignty of the seas, and not interfere with Continental
affairs.[78] France desired, not a truce, but a durable peace.

To this Fox assented, but traversed the French claim that Russia's
participation would imply her mediation. Peace could only come from an
honourable understanding between all the Powers actually at war.
Talleyrand denied that Russia was at war with France, as the Third
Coalition had lapsed; but Fox held his ground, and declared there must
be peace with England _and Russia_, or not at all: otherwise France
would be seen to aim at "excluding us from any connection with the
Continental Powers of Europe."[79]

Such a beginning was disappointing: it showed that Napoleon and
Talleyrand were intent on sowing distrust between England and Russia,
who were mutually pledged not to make peace separately; and for a time
all overtures ceased between London and Paris, until it was known that
a Russian envoy was going to Paris. Hitherto the French Foreign Office
had won brilliant successes by skilfully separating and embittering
allies. But now it seemed that their tactics were foiled. Two firm and
trusty allies yet remained, Britain and Russia. To Czartoryski our
Foreign Minister had expressed his desire that the former offensive
alliance should now take a solely defensive character: "If we cannot
reduce the enormous power of France, it will always be something to
stop its progress." To these opinions the Russian Minister gave a
cordial assent, and despatched a special envoy to London to concert
terms of peace along with the British Ministry, while Oubril, "a safe
man on whose prudence and principles the two allied Courts may safely
rely," was despatched to Vienna and Paris.[80]

Oubril proceeded to Vienna, where he had long discussions with the
British and French ambassadors: Fox also requested that Lord Yarmouth,
one of the many hundreds of Englishmen still kept under restraint in
France, might have his freedom and repair at once to Paris for a
preliminary discussion with Talleyrand. The request being granted, the
prisoner left the depot at Verdun, and, early in June, saw that
Minister in his first flush of pride at the new title of Prince of
Benevento. At that time Paris was intoxicated with Napoleon's glory.
The French were lords of Franconia, whence they levied heavy
exactions: in Italy they defied the Pope's authority.[81] They were
firmly installed at Ancona, despite repeated protests of Pius VII.
King Joseph with an army of 45,000 men was planning the expulsion of
the Bourbons from Sicily. And in these early days of June, Louis
Bonaparte was declared King of Holland.

Yet Talleyrand was not so dazzled by this splendour as to slight the
idea of peace with England; and when Lord Yarmouth stated that George
III. would above all things require the restoration of Hanover, the
Minister, after a delay in which he consulted his master, stated that
that would make no difficulty. As to the other questions, namely,
Sicily and the maintenance of the Turkish Empire, he replied: "You
hold Sicily, we do not ask it of you: if we possessed it, it might
much increase our difficulties"; and as regards Turkey he advised
that England should speedily gain the guarantee of its integrity from
France--"for much is being prepared, but nothing is yet done." After
reporting these views at Downing Street, Lord Yarmouth returned to
Paris for further discussions, with the general understanding that the
principle of _uti possidetis_ should form their basis--except as
regards Hanover. He now was informed by Talleyrand that the
negotiations with Russia were to be kept separate, and that Napoleon
had other views about Sicily, as he looked on its conquest as
necessary for Joseph's security on the mainland.

Surprised at this change, our envoy stated that he could not discuss
any terms of peace in which Sicily was not kept for the Bourbons;
whereupon Talleyrand replied that things were altered, and that we
ought to be content with regaining Hanover from Prussia and keeping
Malta and the Cape of Good Hope. On Lord Yarmouth declining to proceed
further until the French claims to Sicily were renounced, the offer of
the Hanse Towns (Lübeck, Hamburg, and Bremen) was made for his
Sicilian Majesty; and on the refusal of that bait, Dalmatia, Ragusa,
and Albania were proposed.

As Napoleon had offered to guarantee the integrity of the Turkish
Empire, Lord Yarmouth showed some indignation at a proposal which
would have begun its partition; and, but for the expected arrival of
Oubril, would have broken off the negotiation. On July 8th he saw the
Russian envoy and found him a man of straw. Oubril approved
everything. He was glad that France would give back Hanover to
England, because that would sever the Franco-Prussian union and make
the Court of Berlin dependent on Russia. He even thought it might be
well for the Hanse Towns to go to the Neapolitan Bourbons, provided
those towns were placed under the Czar's protection. But even better
was the proposal that those Bourbons should have Dalmatia and
neighbouring lands; for that would drive a wedge between Napoleon and
Turkey. Such was the gist of this curious interview. Desirous of
testing the accuracy of his account of it, Lord Yarmouth read it over
to Oubril at their next interview, when the Russian envoy added the
following written corrections:

    "N.B.M. d'Oubril believes, though he has no directions on this
    subject, that it would be suitable to Russia, and even
    advantageous for the assuring their own independence, that Hamburg
    and Lübeck should pass under the suzerainty of Russia.--N.B.
    Although M. d'Oubril has a positive order to insist on the
    preservation of Sicily for the King of Naples, yet he is of
    opinion that the acquisition of Venetia, Istria, Dalmatia, and
    Albania" [should be an establishment for his Sicilian
    Majesty].[82]

That a reed shaken by every breeze should bow before Napoleon's will
was not surprising; and late at night on July 20th Lord Yarmouth heard
that the Russian envoy had just signed a separate peace with France,
whereby the independence of the Ionian Isles was recognized (Russia
keeping only 4,000 troops in Corfu), and Germany was to be evacuated
by the French. But the sting was in the tail: for a secret article
stipulated that Ferdinand IV. should cede Sicily to Joseph Bonaparte
and receive the Balearic Isles from Napoleon's ally, Spain.

Such was the news which our envoy heard, after forcing his way to
Oubril's presence, just as the latter was hurrying off to St.
Petersburg. At that city an important change had taken place;
Czartoryski had retired in favour of Baron Budberg, who was less
favourable to a close alliance with England; and it appears certain
that Oubril would not have broken through his instructions had he not
known of this change. What other motives led him to break faith with
England, Sicily, and Spain are not clearly known. He claimed that the
new order of things in Germany rendered it highly important to get the
French troops out of that land. Doubtless this was so; but even that
benefit would have been dearly bought at the price of disgrace to the
Czar.[83]

Leaving for the present Oubril to face his indignant master, we turn
to notice an epoch-making change, the details of which were settled at
Paris in the midst of the negotiations with England and Russia. On
July 17th was quietly signed the Act of the Confederation of the
Rhine, that destroyed the old Germanic Empire.

Some such event had long been expected. The Holy Roman Empire, after a
thousand years of life, had been stricken unto death at Austerlitz.
The seizure of Hanover by Prussia had led the King of Sweden to
declare that he, for his Pomeranian lands, would take no more share in
the deliberations of the senile Diet at Ratisbon which took no notice
of that outrage. Moreover, Ratisbon was now merely the second city of
Bavaria, whose King might easily deny to that body its local
habitation; and the use of the term Germanic Confederation in the
Treaty of Pressburg sounded the death-knell of an Empire which
Voltaire with equal wit and truth had described as neither holy, nor
Roman, nor an Empire. In the new age of trenchant realities how could
that venerable figment survive--where the election of the Emperor was
a sham, his coronation a mere parade of tattered robes before a crowd
of landless Serenities, and where the Diet was largely concerned with
regulating the claims of the envoys of princes to sit on seats of red
cloth or on the less honourable green cloth, or with apportioning the
traditional thirty-seven dishes of the imperial banquet so that the
last should be borne by a Westphalian envoy?[84]

Among these spectral survivals of an outworn life the incursion of
Napoleon across the Rhine had aroused a panic not unlike that which
the sturdy form of Æneas cast on the gibbering shades of the Greeks in
the mourning fields of Hades. And when, on August 1st, 1806, the heir
to the Revolution notified to the Diet at Ratisbon that neither he nor
the States of South and Central Germany any longer recognized the
existence of the old Empire, feebler protests arose than came from the
straining throats of the scared comrades of Agamemnon. The Diet itself
uttered no audible sound. The Emperor, Francis II., forthwith declared
that he laid down his crown, absolved all the electors and princes
from their allegiance, and retired within the bounds of the Austrian
Empire.

Thus feebly flickered out the light which had shed splendour on
mediæval Christendom. Kindled in the basilica of St. Peter's on
Christmas Day of the year 800 in an almost mystical union of spiritual
and earthly power, by the blessing of Pope Leo on Karl the Great, it
was now trodden under foot by the chief of a more than Frankish State,
who aspired to unquestioned sway over a dominion as great as that of
the mediæval hero. For Napoleon, as Protector of the Rhenish
Confederation, now controlled most of the German lands that
acknowledged Charlemagne, while his hold on Italy was immeasurably
stronger. Further parallels between two ages and systems so unlike as
those of Charlemagne and his imitator are of course superficial; and
Napoleon's attempt at impressing the imagination of the Germans seems
to us to smack of unreality. Yet we must remember that they were then
the most impressionable and docile of nations, that his attempt was
made with much skill, and that none of the appointed guardians of the
old Empire raised a voice in protest while he imposed a constitution
on the fifteen Princes of the new Confederation.

They included the rulers of South Germany, as well as Dalberg the
Arch-Chancellor, who now took the title of Prince Primate, the
Grand-Duke of Berg, the Landgrave, now Grand-Duke, of Hesse-Darmstadt,
two Princes of the House of Nassau, and seven lesser potentates. In
some cases German laws were abolished in favour of the _Code
Napoléon_. A close offensive and defensive alliance was framed between
France and these States, that were to furnish in all 63,000 troops at
the bidding of the Protector. Napoleon also gained some control over
their fiscal and commercial codes--an important advantage, in view of
the Continental System, that was soon to take definite form.[85]

As a set-off to this surrender of all questions of foreign policy and
many internal rights, what did these rulers receive? As happened
almost uniformly in Napoleon's aggrandizements, he struck a bargain
extremely serviceable to himself, less so to those whose support he
sought, and in which the losses fell crushingly on the weak. His
statecraft in this respect was more cynical than that of the crowned
robbers who had degraded eighteenth-century politics into a game of
grab. Their robberies were at least direct and straightforward. It was
reserved for Napoleon at the Treaty of Campo Formio to win huge gains
mostly at the expense of a weak third party, namely, Venice. He
pursued the same profitable tactics in the Secularizations, when
France and the greater German Powers gained enormously at the final
cost of the Church lands and the little States; and now he ground up
the German domains that were to cement his new Rhenish system.

There were still numbers of Imperial Counts and Knights, as well as
free cities, that had not been absorbed in 1803. The survivors were
now wiped out by Napoleon for the benefit of his Rhenish underlings,
the spoliation being veiled under the term _Mediatization_. The
euphemism claims a brief explanation. In old German law the nobles and
cities that gained local independence by shaking off the control of
the local potentate were termed _immediate_, because they owed
allegiance directly to the Emperor, without any feudal intermediary:
if by mischance they fell under that hated control they were said to
be _mediatized_. This term was now applied to acts that subjected the
knight, or city, not to feudal control, but to complete absorption by
the king or prince of Napoleon's creation. Six Imperial or Free Cities
survived the Secularizations, namely, the three Hanse towns, and
Augsburg, Frankfurt, and Nuremberg. The northern towns still held
their ancient rights; but Augsburg and Nuremberg now fell to the King
of Bavaria, and Frankfurt was bestowed by Napoleon on Dalberg, the
Prince Primate of the Confederation.

German life began to lose much of the quaint diversity beloved of
artists and poets; but it also gained much. No longer did the Count of
Limburg-Styrum parade his army of one colonel, six officers, and two
privates in the valley of the Roehr: he and his passed under the sway
of Murat, and the lapse of these pigmy forces made a national army
possible in the dim future. No more did the Imperial lawyers at
Wetzlar browse on evergreen lawsuits: justice was administered after
the concise methods of Napoleon. The crops of the Swabian peasant were
now comparatively safe from the deer of His Translucency of the castle
hard by; for the spirit of the French Revolution breathed upon the old
game laws and robbed them of their terrors. And the German patriot of
to-day must still confess that the first impulse for reform, however
questionable its motives and brutal its application, came from the new
Charlemagne.

    NOTE TO THE FOURTH EDITION.--In a volume of Essays entitled
    "Napoleonic Studies" (George Bell and Sons, 1904) I have treated
    somewhat fully the questions of Pitt's Continental policy, and of
    Napoleon's relations to the new thought of the age, in two Essays,
    entitled "Pitt's Plans for the Settlement of Europe" and
    "Wordsworth, Schiller, Fichte, and the Idealist Revolt against
    Napoleon."

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER XXV

THE FALL OF PRUSSIA


We now turn to consider the influence which the founding of the
Rhenish Confederation exerted on the international problems which were
being discussed at Paris. Having gained this diplomatic victory,
Napoleon, it seems, might well afford to be lenient to Prussia, to the
Czar, even to England. Would he seize this opportunity, and soothe the
fears of these Powers by a few timely concessions, or would he press
them all the harder because the third of Germany was now under his
control? Here again he was at the parting of the ways.

As the only obstacles to the conclusion of a durable peace with
England were Sicily and Hanover, it may be well to examine here the
bearing of these questions on the peace of Europe and Napoleon's
future.

It is clear from his letters to Joseph that he had firmly resolved to
conquer Sicily. Before his brother had reached Naples he warned him to
prepare for the expulsion of the Bourbons from that island. For that
purpose the French pushed on into Calabria and began to make extensive
preparations--at the very time when Talleyrand stated to Lord Yarmouth
that the French did not want Sicily. But the English forces defending
that island prepared to deal a blow that would prevent a French
descent. A force of about 5,000 men under Sir John Stuart landed in
the Bay of St. Euphemia: and when, on the 4th of July, 1806, Reynier
led 7,000 troops against them in full assurance of victory, his
choicest battalions sank before the fierce bayonet charge of the
British: in half an hour the French were in full retreat, leaving half
their numbers on the field.

The moral effect of this victory was very great. Hitherto our troops,
except in Egypt, had had no opportunity of showing their splendid
qualities. More than half a century had passed since at Minden a
British force had triumphed over a French force in Europe; and
Napoleon expressed the current opinion when he declared to Joseph his
joy that at last the _slow and clumsy English_ had ventured on the
mainland.[86] Moreover, the success at Maida, the general rising of
the Calabrias that speedily followed, and Stuart's capture of Reggio,
Cortone, and other towns, with large stores and forty cannon destined
for the conquest of Sicily, scattered to the winds the French hope of
carrying Sicily by a _coup de main_.

If there was any chance of the Russian and British Governments
deserting the cause of the Bourbons, it was ended by the news from the
Mediterranean; and Napoleon now realized that the mastery of that
sea--"_the principal and constant aim of my policy_"--had once more
slipped from his grasp! On their side the Bourbons were unduly elated
by a further success which was more brilliant than solid. Queen
Caroline, excited at the capture of Capri by Sir Sidney Smith, sought
to rouse all her lost provinces: she intrigued behind the back of the
King and of General Acton, while the knight-errant succeeded in
paralyzing the plans of Sir John Stuart.[87] Meanwhile Masséna, after
reducing the fortress of Gaëta to surrender, marched southward with a
large force, and the British and Bourbon forces re-embarked for
Sicily, leaving the fierce peasants and bandits of Calabria to the
mercies of the conquerors. But Maida was not fought in vain. Sicily
thenceforth was safe, the British army regained something of its
ancient fame, and the hope of resisting Napoleon was strengthened both
at St. Petersburg and London.

Peace can rarely be attained unless one of the combatants is overcome
or both are exhausted. But neither Great Britain nor France was in
this position. By sea our successes had been as continuous as those of
Napoleon over our allies on land. In January we captured the Cape from
the Dutch: in February the French force at St. Domingo surrendered to
Sir James Duckworth: Admiral Warren in March closed the career of the
adventurous Linois; and early in July a British force seized great
treasure at Buenos Ayres, whence, however, it was soon obliged to
retire. After these successes Fox could not but be firm. He refused to
budge from the standpoint of _uti possidetis_ which our envoy had
stated as the basis of negotiations: and the Earl of Lauderdale, who
was sent to support and finally to supersede the Earl of Yarmouth, at
once took a firm tone which drew forth a truculent rejoinder. If that
was to be the basis, wrote Clarke, the French plenipotentiary, then
France would require Moravia, Styria, the whole of Austria (Proper),
and Hanover, and in that case leave England her few colonial
conquests.

This reply of August 8th nearly severed the negotiations on the spot:
but Talleyrand persistently refused to grant the passports which
Lauderdale demanded--evidently in the hope that the Czar's
ratification of Oubril's treaty would cause us to give up Sicily.[88]
He was in error. On September 3rd the news reached Paris that
Alexander scornfully rejected his envoy's handiwork. Nevertheless,
Napoleon refused to forego his claims to Sicily; and the closing days
of Fox were embittered by the thought that this negotiation, the last
hope of a career fruitful in disappointments, was doomed to failure.
After using his splendid eloquence for fifteen years in defence of the
Revolution and its "heir," he came to the bitter conclusion that
liberty had miscarried in France, and that that land had bent beneath
the yoke in order the more completely to subjugate the Continent. He
died on September 13th.

French historians, following an article in the "Moniteur" of November
26th, have often asserted that the death of Fox and the accession to
power of the warlike faction changed the character of the
negotiations.[89] Nothing can be further from the truth. Not long
before his end, Fox thus expressed to his nephew his despair of peace:

    "We can in honour do nothing without the full and _bona fide_
    consent of the Queen and Court of Naples; but, even exclusive of
    that consideration and of the great importance of Sicily, it is
    not so much the value of the point in dispute as the manner in
    which the French fly from their word that disheartens me. It is
    not Sicily, but the shuffling, insincere way in which they act,
    that shows me that they are playing a false game; and in that case
    it would be very imprudent to make any concessions, which by any
    possibility could be thought inconsistent with our honour, or
    could furnish our allies with a plausible pretence for suspecting,
    reproaching, or deserting us."

It is further to be noted that Lauderdale stayed on at Paris three
weeks after the death of Fox; that he put forward no new demand, but
required that Talleyrand should revert to his first promise of
renouncing all claim to Sicily, and should treat conjointly with
England and Russia. It was in vain. Napoleon's final concessions were
that the Bourbons, after losing Sicily, should have the Balearic Isles
and be pensioned _by Spain_; that Russia should hold Corfu (as she
already did); and that we should recover Hanover from Prussia, and
keep Malta, the Cape, Tobago, and the three French towns in India;
but, except Hanover, all of these were in our power. On Sicily he
would not bate one jot of his pretensions. The negotiations were
therefore broken off on October 6th, twelve days after Napoleon left
Paris to marshal his troops against Prussia.[90] The whole affair
revealed Napoleon's determination to trick the allies into signing
separate and disadvantageous treaties, and thus to regain by craft the
ground which he had lost in fair fight at Maida.

If Sicily was the rock of stumbling between us and Napoleon, Hanover
was the chief cause of the war between France and Prussia. During the
negotiations at Paris, Lord Yarmouth privately informed Lucchesini,
the Prussian ambassador, that Talleyrand made no difficulty about the
restitution of Hanover to George III. The news, when forwarded to
Berlin at the close of July, caused a nervous flutter in ministerial
circles, where every effort was being made to keep on good terms with
France.

Even before this news arrived, the task was far from easy. Murat, when
occupying his new Duchy of Berg, pushed on his troops into the old
Church lands of Essen and Werden. Prussia looked on these districts as
her own, and the sturdy patriot Blücher at once marched in his
soldiers, tore down Murat's proclamations, and restored the Prussian
eagle with blare of trumpet and beat of drum.[91] A collision was with
difficulty averted by the complaisance of Frederick William, who
called back his troops and referred the question to lawyers; but even
the King was piqued when the Grand-Duke of Berg sent him a letter of
remonstrance on Blücher's conduct, commencing with the familiar
address, _Mon frère_.

Blücher meanwhile and the soldiery were eating out their hearts with
rage, as they saw the French pouring across the Rhine, and
constructing a bridge of boats at Wesel; and had they known that that
important stronghold, the key of North Germany, was quietly declared
to be a French garrison town, they would probably have forced the
hands of the King.[92] For at this time Frederick William and Haugwitz
were alarmed by the formation of the Rhenish Confederation, and were
not wholly reassured by Napoleon's suggestion that the abolition of
the old Empire must be an advantage to Prussia. They clutched eagerly,
however, at his proposal that Prussia should form a league of the
North German States, and made overtures to the two most important
States, Saxony and Hesse-Cassel. During a few halcyon days the King
even proposed to assume the title _Emperor of Prussia_, from which,
however, the Elector of Saxony ironically dissuaded him. This castle
in the air faded away when news reached Berlin at the beginning of
August that Napoleon was seeking to bring the Elector of Hesse-Cassel
into the Rhenish Confederation, and was offering as a bait the domains
of some Imperial Knights and the principality of Fulda, now held by
the Prince of Orange, a relative of Frederick William. Moreover, the
moves of the French troops in Thuringia were so threatening to Saxony
that the Court of Dresden began to scout the project of a North German
Confederation.

Still, the King and Haugwitz tried to persuade themselves that
Napoleon meant well for Prussia, that England had been doing her
utmost to make bad blood between the two allies, and that "great
results could not be attained without some friction." In this hope
they were encouraged by the French ambassador, the man who had enticed
Prussia to her demobilization. He was charged by Talleyrand to report
at Berlin that "peace with England would be made, as well as with
Russia, if France had consented to the restitution of Hanover.--I have
renewed," added Laforest, "the assurance that the Emperor [Napoleon]
would never yield on this point."

And yet at that very time the French Foreign Office was at work upon a
Project of a Treaty in which the restitution of Hanover to George III.
was expressly named and received the assent of Napoleon.[93] The
Prussian ambassador, Lucchesini, had some inkling of this from French
sources,[94] as well as from Lord Yarmouth, and on July 28th penned a
despatch which fell like a thunderbolt on the optimists of Berlin. It
crossed on the way--such is the irony of diplomacy--a despatch from
Berlin that required him to show unlimited confidence in Napoleon.
From confidence the King now rushed to the opposite extreme, and saw
Napoleon's hand in all the friction of the last few weeks.

Here again he was wrong; for the French Emperor had held back Murat
and the other hot-bloods of the army who were longing to measure
swords with Prussia.[95] His correspondence proves that his first
thoughts were always in the Mediterranean. For one page that he wrote
about German affairs he wrote twenty to Joseph or Eugène on the need
of keeping a firm hand and punishing Calabrian rebels--"shoot three
men in every village"--above all, on the plans for conquering Sicily.
It was therefore with real surprise that on August 16th-18th he learnt
from a purloined despatch of Lucchesini that the latter suspected him
of planning with the Czar the partition of Prussian Poland. He treated
the matter with contempt, and seems to have thought that Prussia would
meekly accept the morsels which he proposed to throw to her in place
of Hanover. But he misread the character of Frederick William, if he
thought so grievous an insult would be passed over, and he knew not
the power of the Prussian Queen to kindle the fire of patriotism.

Queen Louisa was at this time thirty years of age and in the flower of
that noble matronly beauty which bespoke a pure and exalted being. As
daughter of a poverty-stricken prince of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, her
youth had been spent in the homeliest fashion, until her charms won
the heart of the Crown Prince of Prussia. Her first entry into Berlin
was graced by an act that proclaimed a loving nature. When a group of
children dressed in white greeted her with verses of welcome, she
lifted up and kissed their little leader, to the scandal of stiff
dowagers, and the joy of the citizens. The incident recalls the easy
grace and disregard of etiquette shown by Marie Antoinette at
Versailles in her young bridal days; and, in truth, these queens have
something in common, besides their loveliness and their misfortunes.
Both were mated with cold and uninspiring consorts. Destiny had
refused both to Frederick William and to Louis XVI. the power of
exciting feelings warmer than the esteem and respect due to a worthy
man; and all the fervour of loyalty was aroused by their queens.

Louisa was a North German Marie Antoinette, but more staid and homely
than the vivacious daughter of Maria Theresa. Neither did she
interfere much in politics, until the great crash came: even when the
blow was impending, and the patriotic statesmen, with whom she
sympathized, begged the King to remove Haugwitz, she disappointed them
by withholding the entreaties which her instincts urged but her wifely
obedience restrained. Her influence as yet was that of a noble,
fascinating woman, who softened the jars occasioned by the King's
narrow and pedantic nature, and purified the Court from the grossness
of the past. But in the dark days that were to come, her faith and
enthusiasm breathed new force into a down-trodden people; and where
all else was shattered, the King and Queen still held forth the ideal
of that first and strongest of Teutonic institutions, a pure family
life.

The "Memoirs" of Hardenberg show that the Queen quietly upheld the
patriotic cause;[96] and in the tone of the letter that Frederick
William wrote to the Czar (August 8th) there is something of feminine
resentment against the French Emperor: after recounting his grievances
at Napoleon's hands, he continued:

    "If the news be true, if he be capable of perfidy so black, be
    convinced, Sire, that it is not merely a question about Hanover
    between him and me, but that he has decided to make war against me
    at all costs. He wants no other Power beside his own.... Tell me,
    Sire, I conjure you, if I may hope that your troops will be within
    reach of succour for me, and if I may count on them in case of
    aggression."

Alexander wrote a cheering response, advising him to settle his
differences with England and Sweden, and assuring him of help.
Whereupon the King replied (September 6th) that he had reopened the
North Sea rivers to British ships and hoped for peace and pecuniary
help from London. He concluded thus:

    "Meanwhile, Bonaparte has left me at my ease: for not only does he
    not enter into any explanation about my armaments, but he has even
    forbidden his Ministers to give and receive any explanations
    whatever. It appears, then, that it is I who am to take the
    initiative. My troops are marching on all sides to hasten that
    moment."[97]

These last sentences are the handwriting on the wall for the _ancien
régime_ in Prussia. Taking the bland assurances of Talleyrand and the
studied indifference of Laforest as signs that Napoleon might be
caught off his guard, Prussia continued her warlike preparations; and
in order to gain time Lucchesini was recalled and replaced by an envoy
who was to enter into lengthy explanations. The trick did not deceive
Napoleon, who on September 3rd had heard with much surprise that
Russia meant to continue the war. At once he saw the germ of a new
Coalition, and bent his energies to the task of conciliating Austria,
and of fomenting the disputes between Russia and Turkey. Towards
Frederick William his tone was that of a friend who grieves at an
unexpected quarrel. How--he exclaimed to Lucchesini on the
ambassador's departure--how could the King credit him with encouraging
the intrigues of a fussy ambassador at Cassel or the bluster of Murat?

As for Hanover, he had intended sending some one to Berlin to propose
an equivalent for it in case England still made its restitution a
_sine qua non_ of peace. "But," he added, "if your young officers and
your women at Berlin want war, I am preparing to satisfy them. Yet my
ambition turns wholly to Italy. She is a mistress whose favours I will
share with no one. I will have all the Adriatic. The Pope shall be my
vassal, and I will conquer Sicily. On North Germany I have no claims:
I do not object to the Hanse towns entering your confederation. As to
the inclusion of Saxony in it, my mind is not yet made up."[98]

Indeed, the tenor of his private correspondence proves that before the
first week of September he did not expect a new Coalition. He believed
that England and Russia would give way before him, and that Prussia
would never dare to stir. For the Court of Berlin he had a sovereign
contempt, as for the "old coalition machines" in general. His conduct
of affairs at this time betokens, not so much desire for war as lack
of imagination where other persons' susceptibilities are concerned. It
is probable that he then wanted peace with England and peace on the
Continent; for his diplomacy won conquests fully as valuable as the
booty of his sword, and only in a naval peace could he lay the
foundations of that oriental empire which, he assured O'Meara at St.
Helena, held the first place in his thoughts after the overthrow of
Austria. But it was not in his nature to make the needful concessions.
"_I must follow my policy in a geometrical line_" he said to
Lucchesini. England might have Hanover and a few colonies if she would
let Sicily go to a Bonaparte: as for Prussia, she might absorb
half-a-dozen neighbouring princelings.

That is the gist of Napoleon's European policy in the summer of 1806;
and the surprise which he expressed to Mollien at the rejection of his
offers is probably genuine. Sensitive to the least insult himself, his
bluntness of perception respecting the honour of others might almost
qualify him to rank with Aristotle's man devoid of feeling. It is
perfectly true that he did not make war on Prussia in 1806 any more
than on England in 1803. He only made peace impossible.[99]

The condition on which Prussia now urgently insisted was the entire
evacuation of Germany by French troops. This Napoleon refused to
concede until Frederick William demobilized his army, a step that
would have once more humbled him in the eyes of this people. It might
even have led to his dethronement. For an incident had just occurred
in Bavaria that fanned German sentiment to a flame. A bookseller of
Nuremberg, named Palm, was proved by French officers to have sold an
anonymous pamphlet entitled "Germany in her deep Humiliation." It was
by no means of a revolutionary type, and the worthy man believed it to
be a mistake when he was arrested by the military authorities. He was
wrong. Napoleon had sent orders that a terrible example must be made
in order to stop the sale of patriotic German pamphlets. Palm was
therefore haled away to Braunau, an Austrian town then held by French
troops, was tried by martial law and shot (August 25th). Never did the
Emperor commit a greater blunder. The outrage sent a thrill of
indignation through the length and breadth of Germany. Instead of
quenching, it inflamed the national sentiment, and thus rendered
doubly difficult any peaceful compromise between Frederick William and
Napoleon. The latter was now looked upon as a tyrant by the citizen
class which his reforms were designed to conciliate: and Frederick
William became almost the champion of Germany when he demanded the
withdrawal of the French troops.

Unfortunately, the King refused to appoint Ministers who inspired
confidence. With Hardenberg in place of Haugwitz, men would have felt
sure that the sword would not again be tamely sheathed; great efforts
were made to effect this change, but met with a chilling repulse from
the King.[100] It is true that Haugwitz and Beyme now expressed the
bitterest hatred of Napoleon, as well they might for a man who had
betrayed their confidence. But, none the less, the King's refusal to
change his men along with his policy was fatal. Both at St. Petersburg
and London no trust was felt in Prussia as long as Haugwitz was at the
helm. The man who had twice steered the ship of state under Napoleon's
guns might do it again; and both England and Russia waited to see some
irrevocable step taken before they again risked an army for that
prince of waverers.

Grenville rather tardily sent Lord Morpeth to arrange an alliance, but
only after he should receive a solemn pledge that Hanover would be
restored. That envoy approached the Prussian headquarters just in time
to be swept away in the torrent of fugitives from Jena. As for Russia,
she had awaited the arrival of a Prussian officer at St. Petersburg to
concert a plan of campaign. When he arrived he had no plan; and the
Czar, perplexed by the fatuity of his ally, and the hostility of the
Turks, refused to march his troops forthwith into Prussia.[101]
Equally disappointing was the conduct of Austria. This Power, bleeding
from the wounds of last year and smarting under the jealousy of
Russia, refused to move until the allies had won a victory. And so,
thanks to the jealousies of the old monarchies, Frederick William had
no Russian or Austrian troops at his side, no sinews of war from
London to invigorate his preparations, when he staked his all in the
high places of Thuringia. He gained, it is true, the support of Saxony
and Weimar; but this brought less than 21,000 men to his side.

On the other hand, Napoleon, as Protector of the Rhenish
Confederation, secured the aid of 25,000 South Germans, as well as an
excellent fortified base at Würzburg. His troops, holding the citadels
of Passau and Braunau on the Austrian frontier, kept the Hapsburgs
quiet; and 60,000 French and Dutch troops at Wesel menaced the
Prussians in Hanover. Above all, his forces already in Germany were
strengthened until, in the early days of October, some 200,000 men
were marching from the Main towards the Duchy of Weimar. Soult and Ney
led 60,000 men from Amberg towards Baireuth and Hof: Bernadotte and
Davoust, with 90,000, marched towards Schleitz, while Lannes and
Augereau, with 46,000, moved by a road further to the left towards
Saalfeld.

The progress of these dense columns near together and through a hilly
country presented great difficulties, which only the experience of the
officers, the energy and patience of the men, and the genius of their
great leader could overcome. Meanwhile Napoleon had quietly left Paris
on September 25th. Travelling at his usual rapid rate, he reached
Mainz on the 28th: he was at Würzburg on October 2nd; there he
directed the operations, confident that the impact of his immense
force would speedily break the Prussians, drive them down the valley
of the Saale and thus detach the Elector of Saxony from an alliance
that already was irksome.

The French, therefore, had a vast mass of seasoned fighters, a good
base of operations, and a clear plan of attack. The Prussians, on the
contrary, could muster barely 128,000 men, including the Saxons, for
service in the field; and of these 27,000 with Rüchel were on the
frontier of Hesse-Cassel seeking to assure the alliance of the
Elector. The commander-in-chief was the septuagenarian Duke of
Brunswick, well known for his failure at Valmy in 1792 and his recent
support to the policy of complaisance to France. His appointment
aroused anger and consternation; and General Kalckreuth expressed to
Gentz the general opinion when he said that the Duke was quite
incompetent for such a command: "His character is not strong enough,
his mediocrity, irresolution, and untrustworthiness would ruin the
best undertaking." The Duke himself was aware of his incompetence. Why
then, we ask, did he accept the command? The answer is startling; but
it rests on the evidence of General von Müffling:

    "The Duke of Brunswick had accepted the command _in order to avert
    war_. I can affirm this with perfect certainty, since I have heard
    it from his own lips more than once. He was fully aware of the
    weaknesses of the Prussian army and the incompetence of its
    officers."[102]

Thus there was seen the strange sight of a diffident, peace-loving
King accompanying the army and sharing in all the deliberations; while
these were nominally presided over by a despondent old man who still
intrigued to preserve peace, and shifted on to the King the
responsibility of every important act. And yet there were able
generals who could have acted with effect, even if they fell short of
the opinion hopefully bruited by General Rüchel, that "several were
equal to M. de Bonaparte." Events were to prove that Gneisenau,
Scharnhorst, and Blücher rivalled the best of the French Marshals; but
in this war their lights were placed under bushels and only shone
forth when the official covers had been shattered. Scharnhorst,
already renowned for his strategic and administrative genius, took
part in some of the many councils of war where everything was
discussed and little was decided; but his opinion had no weight, for
on October 7th he wrote: "What we ought to do I know right well, what
we _shall_ do only the gods know."[103] He evidently referred to the
need of concentration. At that time the thin Prussian lines were
spread out over a front of eighty-five miles, the Saxons being near
Gera, the chief army, under Brunswick, at Erfurth, while Rüchel was so
far distant on the west that he could only come up at Jena just one
hour too late to avert disaster.

And yet with these weak and scattered forces, Prince Hohenlohe
proposed a bold move forward to the Main. Brunswick, on the other
hand, counselled a prudent defensive; but he could not, or would not,
enforce his plan; and the result was an oscillation between the two
extremes. Had he massed all his forces so as to command the valleys of
the Saale and Elster near Jena and Gera, the campaign might possibly
have been prolonged until the Russians came up. As it was, the allies
dulled the ardour of their troops by marches, counter-marches, and
interminable councils-of-war, while Napoleon's columns were threading
their way along those valleys at the average rate of fifteen miles a
day, in order to turn the allied left and cut the connection between
Prussia and Saxony.[104]

The first serious fighting was on October the 10th at Saalfeld, where
Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia with a small force sought to protect
Hohenlohe's flank march westwards on Jena. The task was beyond the
strength even of this flower of Prussian chivalry. He was overpowered
by the weight and vigour of Lannes' attack, and when already wounded
in a cavalry _mêlée_ was pierced through the body by an officer to
whom he proudly refused to surrender. The death of this hero, the
"Alcibiades" of Prussia, cast a gloom over the whole army, and
mournful faces at headquarters seemed to presage yet worse disasters.
Perhaps it was some inkling of this discouragement, or a laudable
desire to stop "an impolitic war," that urged Napoleon two days later
to pen a letter to the King of Prussia urging him to make peace before
he was crushed, as he assuredly would be. In itself the letter seems
admirable--until one remembers the circumstances of the case. The King
had pledged his word to the Czar to make war; if, therefore, he now
made peace and sent the Russians back, he would once more stand
condemned of preferring dishonourable ease to the noble hazards of an
affair of honour. As Napoleon was aware of the union of the King and
Czar, this letter must be regarded as an attempt to dissolve the
alliance and tarnish Frederick William's reputation. It was viewed in
that light by that monarch; and there is not a hint in Napoleon's
other letters that he really expected peace.

He was then at Gera, pushing forward his corps towards Naumburg so as
to cut off the Prussians from Saxony and the Elbe. Great as was his
superiority, these movements occasioned such a dispersion of his
forces as to invite attack from enterprising foes; but he despised the
Prussian generals as imbeciles, and endeavoured to unsteady their rank
and file by seizing and burning their military stores at the latter
town. He certainly believed that they were all in retreat northwards,
and great was his surprise when he heard from Lannes early on October
13th that his scouts, after scaling the hills behind Jena in a dense
mist, had come upon the Prussian army. The news was only partly
correct. It was only Hohenlohe's corps: for the bulk of that army,
under Brunswick, was retreating northwards, and nearly stumbled upon
the corps of Davoust and Bernadotte behind Naumburg.

Lannes also was in danger on the Landgrafenberg. This is a lofty hill
which towers above the town of Jena and the narrow winding vale of the
Saale; while its other slopes, to the north and west, rise above and
dominate the broken and irregular plateau on which Hohenlohe's force
was encamped. Had the Prussians attacked his weary regiments in force,
they might easily have hurled them into the Saale. But Hohenlohe had
received orders to retire northwards in the rear of Brunswick, as soon
as he had rallied the detachment of Rüchel near Weimar, and was
therefore indisposed to venture on the bold offensive which now was
his only means of safety. The respite thus granted was used by the
French to hurry every available regiment up the slopes north and west
of Jena. Late in the afternoon, Napoleon himself ascended the
Landgrafenberg to survey the plateau; while a pastor of the town was
compelled to show a path further north which leads to the same plateau
through a gulley called the Rau-thal.[105]

[Illustration: BATTLE OF JENA]

On the south the heights sink away into a wider valley, the Mühl-thal,
along which runs the road to Weimar; and on this side too their wooded
brows are broken by gulleys, up one of which runs a winding track
known as the Schnecke or Snail. Villages and woods diversified the
plateau and hindered the free use of that extended line formation on
which the Prussians relied, while favouring the operations of dense
columns preceded by clouds of skirmishers by which Napoleon so often
hewed his way to victory. His greatest advantage, however, lay in the
ignorance of his foes. Hohenlohe, believing that he was confronted
only by Lannes' corps, took little thought about what was going on in
his front, and judging the Mühl-thal approach alone to be accessible,
posted his chief force on this side. So insufficient a guard was
therefore kept on the side of the Landgrafenberg that the French,
under cover of the darkness, not only crowned the summit densely with
troops, but dragged up whole batteries of cannon.

The toil was stupendous: in one of the steep hollow tracks a number of
cannon and wagons stuck fast; but the Emperor, making his rounds at
midnight, brought the magic of his presence to aid the weary troops
and rebuke the officers whose negligence had caused this block.
Lantern in hand, he went up and down the line to direct the work; and
Savary, who saw this scene, noted the wonder of the men, as they
caught sight of the Emperor, the renewed energy of their blows at the
rocks, and their whispers of surprise that _he_ should come in person
when their officers were asleep. The night was far spent when, after
seeing the first wagon right through the narrow steep, he repaired to
his bivouac amidst his Guards on the summit, and issued further orders
before snatching a brief repose. By such untiring energy did he assure
victory. Apart from its immense effect on the spirits of his troops,
his vigilance reaped a rich reward. Jena was won by a rapid
concentration of troops, and the prompt seizure of a commanding
position almost under the eyes of an unenterprising enemy. The corps
of Soult and Ney spent most of the night and early morning in marching
towards Jena and taking up their positions on the right or north wing,
while Lannes and the Guard held the central height, and Augereau's
corps in the Mühl-thal threatened the Saxons and Prussians guarding
the Schnecke.[106]

A dense fog screened the moves of the assailants early on the morrow,
and, after some confused but obstinate fighting, the French secured
their hold on the plateau not only above the town of Jena, where their
onset took the Prussians by surprise, but also above the Mühl-thal,
where the enemy were in force.

By ten o'clock the fog lifted, and the warm rays of the autumn sun
showed the dense masses of the French advancing towards the middle of
the plateau. Hohenlohe now saw the full extent of his error and
despatched an urgent message to Rüchel for aid. It was too late. The
French centre, led by Lannes, began to push back the Prussian lines on
the village named Vierzehn Heiligen. It was in vain that Hohenlohe's
choice squadrons flung themselves on the serried masses in front: the
artillery and musketry fire disordered them, while French dragoons
were ready to profit by their confusion. The village was lost, then
retaken by a rally of the Prussians, then lost again when Ney was
reinforced; and when the full vigour of the French attack was
developed by the advance of Soult and Augereau on either wing,
Napoleon launched his reserves, his Guard, and Murat's squadrons on
the disordered lines. The impact was irresistible, and Hohenlohe's
force was swept away. Then it was that Rüchel's force drew near, and
strove to stem the rout. Advancing steadily, as if on parade, his
troops for a brief space held up the French onset; but neither the
dash of the Prussian horse nor the bravery of the foot-soldiers could
dam that mighty tide, which laid low the gallant leader and swept his
lines away into the general wreck.[107]

In the headlong flight before Murat's horsemen, the fugitives fell in
with another beaten array, that of Brunswick. At Jena the Prussians,
if defeated, were not disgraced: before the first shot was fired their
defeat was a mathematical certainty. At the crisis of the battle they
had but 47,400 men at hand, while Napoleon then disposed of 83,600
combatants.[108] But at Auerstädt they were driven back and disgraced.
There they had a decided superiority in numbers, having more than
35,000 of their choicest troops, while opposite to them stood only the
27,000 men of Davoust's corps.

Hitherto Davoust had been remarkable rather for his dog-like devotion
to Napoleon than for any martial genius; and the brilliant Marmont had
openly scoffed at his receiving the title of Marshal. But, under his
quiet exterior and plodding habits, there lay concealed a variety of
gifts which only needed a great occasion to shine forth and astonish
the world.[109] The time was now at hand. Frederick William and
Brunswick were marching from Auerstädt to make good their retreat on
the Elbe, when their foremost horsemen, led by the gallant Blücher,
saw a solid wall of French infantry loom through the morning fog. It
was part of Davoust's corps, strongly posted in and around the village
of Hassenhausen.

At once Blücher charged, only to be driven back with severe loss.
Again he came on, this time supported by infantry and cannon: again he
was repulsed; for Davoust, aided by the fog, had seized the
neighbouring heights which commanded the high road, and held them with
firm grip. Determined to brush aside or crush this stubborn foe, the
Duke of Brunswick now led heavy masses along the narrow defile; but
the steady fire of the French laid him low, with most of the officers;
and as the Prussians fell back, Davoust swung forward his men to
threaten their flanks. The King was dismayed at these repeated checks,
and though the Prussian reserves under Kalckreuth could have been
called up to overwhelm the hard-pressed French by the weight of
numbers, yet he judged it better to draw off his men and fall back on
Hohenlohe for support.

But what a support! Instead of an army, it was a terrified mob flying
before Murat's sabres, that met them halfway between Auerstädt and
Weimar. Threatened also by Bernadotte's corps on their left flank, the
two Prussian armies now melted away in one indistinguishable torrent,
that was stemmed only by the sheltering walls of Erfurt, Magdeburg,
and of fortresses yet more remote.

Of the twin battles of Jena and Auerstädt, the latter was
unquestionably the more glorious for the French arms. That Napoleon
should have beaten an army of little more than half his numbers is in
no way remarkable. What is strange is that so consummate a leader
should have been entirely ignorant of the distribution of the enemy's
forces, and should have left Davoust with only 27,000 men exposed to
the attack of Brunswick with nearly 40,000.[110] In his bulletins, as
in the "Relation Officielle," the Emperor sought to gloze over his
error by magnifying Hohenlohe's corps into a great army and
attenuating Davoust's splendid exploit, which in his private letters
he warmly praised. The fact is, he had made all his dispositions in
the belief that he had the main body of the Prussians before him at
Jena.

That is why, on the afternoon of the 13th, he hastily sent to recall
Murat's horse and Bernadotte's corps from Naumburg and its vicinity;
and in consequence Bernadotte took no very active part in the
fighting. For this he has been bitterly blamed, on the strength of an
assertion that Napoleon during the night of the 13th-14th sent him an
order to support Davoust. This order has never been produced, and it
finds no place in the latest and fullest collection of French official
despatches, which, however, contains some that fully exonerate
Bernadotte.[111] Unfortunately for Bernadotte's fame, the tattle of
memoir writers is more attractive and gains more currency than the
prosaic facts of despatches.

Fortune plays an immense part in warfare; and never did she favour the
Emperor more than on October the 14th, 1806. Fortune and the skill and
bravery of Davoust and his corps turned what might have been an almost
doubtful conflict into an overwhelming victory. Though Napoleon was as
ignorant of the movements of Brunswick as he was of the flank march of
Blücher at Waterloo, yet the enterprise and tenacity of Davoust and
Lannes yielded him, on the Thuringian heights, a triumph scarcely
paralleled in the annals of war. It is difficult to overpraise those
Marshals for the energy with which they clung to the foe and brought
on a battle under conditions highly favourable to the French: without
their efforts, the Prussian army could never have been shattered on a
single day.

The flood of invasion now roared down the Thuringian valleys and
deluged the plains of Saxony and Brandenburg. Rivers and ramparts were
alike helpless to stay that all-devouring tide. On October the 16th,
16,000 men surrendered at Erfurt to Murat: then, spurring eastward,
_le beau sabreur_ rushed on the wreck of Hohenlohe's force, and with
the aid of Lannes' untiring corps compelled it to surrender at
Prenzlau.[112] Blücher meanwhile stubbornly retreated to the north;
but, with Murat, Soult, and Bernadotte dogging his steps, he finally
threw himself into Lübeck, where, after a last desperate effort, he
surrendered to overpowering numbers (November 7th).

Here the gloom of defeat was relieved by gleams of heroism; but before
the walls of other Prussian strongholds disaster was blackened by
disgrace. Held by timid old men or nerveless pedants, they scarcely
waited for a vigorous attack. A few cannon-shots, or even a
demonstration of cavalry, generally brought out the white flag. In
quick succession, Spandau, Stettin, Küstrin, Magdeburg, and Hameln
opened their gates, the governor of the last-named being mainly
concerned about securing his future retiring pension from the French
as soon as Hanover passed into their keeping.

Amidst these shameful surrenders the capital fell into the hands of
Davoust (October 25th). Varnhagen von Ense had described his mingled
surprise and admiration at seeing those "lively, impudent,
mean-looking little fellows," who had beaten the splendid soldiers
trained in the school of Frederick the Great. His wonder was natural;
but all who looked beneath the surface well knew that Prussia was
overthrown before the first shot was fired. She was the victim of a
deadening barrack routine, of official apathy or corruption, and of a
degrading policy which dulled the enthusiasm of her sons.

Thirteen days after the great battle, Napoleon himself entered Berlin
in triumph. It was the first time that he allowed himself a victor's
privilege, and no pains were spared to impress the imagination of
mankind by a parade of his choicest troops. First came the foot
grenadiers and chasseurs of the Imperial Guard: behind the central
group marched other squadrons and battalions of these veterans,
already famed as the doughtiest fighters of their age. In their midst
came the mind of this military machine--Napoleon, accompanied by three
Marshals and a brilliant staff. Among them men noted the plain,
soldierlike Berthier, the ever trusty and methodical chief of the
staff. At his side rode Davoust, whose round and placid face gave
little promise of his rapid rush to the front rank among the French
paladins. There too was the tall, handsome, threatening form of
Augereau, whose services at Jena, meritorious as they were, scarcely
maintained his fame at the high level to which it soared at
Castiglione. Then came Napoleon's favourite aide-de-camp, Duroc, a
short, stern, war-hardened man, well known in Berlin, where twice he
had sought to rivet close the bonds of the French alliance.

Above all, the gaze of the awe-struck crowd was fixed on the figure of
the chief, now grown to the roundness of robust health amidst toils
that would have worn most men to a shadow; and on the face, no longer
thin with the unsatisfied longings of youth, but square and full with
toil requited and ambition wellnigh sated--a visage redeemed from the
coarseness of the epicure's only by the knitted brows that bespoke
ceaseless thought, and by the keen, melancholy, unfathomable eyes.


NOTE ADDED TO THE FOURTH EDITION

    Several facts of considerable interest and importance respecting
    the Anglo-French negotiations of 1806 have been brought to light
    by M. Coquelle in his recently published work "Napoleon and
    England, 1803-1813," chapters xi.-xvii. (George Bell and Sons,
    1904).

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER XXVI

THE CONTINENTAL SYSTEM: FRIEDLAND

    "I know full well that London is a corner of the world, and that
    Paris is its centre."--_Letter of Napoleon_, August 18th, 1806.

On the 21st of November, 1806, Napoleon issued at Berlin the decree
which proclaimed open and unrelenting war on English industry and
commerce, a war that was to embroil the whole civilized world and
cease only with his overthrow. After reciting his complaints against
the English maritime code, he declared the British Isles to be in a
state of blockade, interdicted all commerce with them, threatened
seizure and imprisonment to English goods and subjects wherever found
by French or allied troops, forbade all trade in English and colonial
wares, and excluded from French and allied ports any ship that had
touched at those of Great Britain; while any ship that connived at the
infraction of the present decree was to be held a good prize of
war.[113] This ukase, which was binding for France, Italy,
Switzerland, Holland, and the Rhenish Confederation, formed the
foundation of the Continental System, a term applicable to the sum
total of the measures that aimed at ruining England by excluding her
goods from the Continent.

The plan of strangling Britain by her own wealth was not peculiar to
Napoleon. In common with much of his political stock-in-trade he had
it from the Jacobins, who stoutly maintained that England's wealth was
fictitious and would collapse as soon as her commerce was attacked in
the Indies and excluded from the Rhine and Elbe. At first the
fulminations of Parisian legislators fell idly on the stately pile of
British industry; but when the young Bonaparte appeared on the scene,
the commercial warfare became serious. As soon as his victories in
Italy widened the sphere of French influence, the Directory banned the
entry of all our products, counting all cotton and woollen goods as
English unless the contrary could be proved by certificates of
origin.[114] Public opinion in France, which, unless held in by an
intelligent monarch, has always swung towards protection or
prohibition, welcomed that vigorous measure; and great was the outcry
of manufacturers when it was rumoured in 1802 that Napoleon was about
to make a commercial treaty with the national enemy. Tradition and
custom, therefore, were all on his side, when, after Trafalgar, he
concentrated all his energy on his "coast-system."[115]

Ostensibly the Berlin Decree was a retort to our Order in Council of
May 16th, 1806, which declared all the coast between Brest and the
Elbe in a state of blockade; and French historians have defended it on
this ground, asserting that it was a necessary reply to England's
aggressive action.[116] But this plea can scarcely be maintained. The
aggressor, surely, was the man who forced Prussia to close the neutral
North German coast to British goods (February, 1806). Besides, there
is indirect proof that Napoleon looked on our blockade of the northern
coasts as not unreasonable. In his subsequent negotiations with us, he
raised no protest against it, and made no difficulty about our
maritime code: if we would let him seize Sicily, we might, it seems,
have re-enacted that code in all its earlier stringency. Far from
doing so, Fox and his successors relaxed the blockade of North
Germany; and by an order dated September 25th, the coast between the
Elbe and the Ems was declared free.

Napoleon's grievance against us was thereby materially lessened, and
his protest against fictitious blockades in the preamble of the Berlin
Decree really applied only to our action on the coast between the
Helder and Brest, where our cruisers were watching the naval
preparations still going on. His retort in the interests of outraged
law was certainly curious; he declared our 3,000 miles of coast in a
state of blockade--a mere _brutum fulmen_ in point of fact, but
designed to give a show of legality to his Continental System. Yet,
apart from this thin pretext, he troubled very little about law.
Indeed, blockade is an act of war; and its application to this or that
part or coast depends on the will and power of the belligerents.
Napoleon frankly recognized that fact; and, however much his preambles
appealed to law, his conduct was decided solely by expediency. When he
wanted peace (along with Sicily) he said nothing about our maritime
claims: when the war went on, he used them as a pretext for an action
that was ten times as stringent.

The gauntlet thrown down by him at Berlin was promptly taken up by
Great Britain. An Order in Council of January 7th, 1807, forbade
neutrals to trade between the ports of France and her allies, or
between ports that observed the Berlin Decree, under pain of seizure
and confiscation of the ship and cargo. In return Napoleon issued from
Warsaw (January 27th) a decree, ordering the seizure in the Hanse
Towns of all English goods and colonial produce. By way of reprisal
England reimposed a strict blockade on the North German coast (March
11th); and after the Peace of Tilsit laid the Continent at the feet of
Napoleon, he frankly told the diplomatic circle at Fontainebleau that
he would no longer allow any commercial or political relations between
the Continent and England. "The sea must be subdued by the land." In
these words Napoleon pithily summed up his enterprise; and whatever
may be thought of the means which he adopted, the design is not
without grandeur. Granted that Britannia ruled the waves, yet he ruled
the land; and the land, as the active fruitful element, must overpower
the barren sea. Such was the notion: it was fallacious, as will appear
later on; but it appealed strongly to the French imagination as
providing an infallible means of humbling the traditional foe.
Furthermore, it placed in Napoleon's hands a potent engine of
government, not only for assuring his position in France, but for
extending his sway over North Germany and all coasts that seemed
needful to the success of the experiment.

Indirectly also it seems to have fed, without satisfying, his
ever-growing love of power. Here we touch on the difficult question of
motive; and it is perhaps impossible, except for dogmatists, to
determine whether the enterprises that led to his ruin--the partition
of Portugal, which slid easily into the occupation of Spain, together
with his Moscow adventure--were prompted by ambition or by a
semi-fatalistic feeling that they were necessary to the complete
triumph of his Continental System. He himself, with a flash of almost
uncanny insight, once remarked to Roederer that his ambition was
different from that of other men: for they were slaves to it, whereas
it was so interwoven with the whole texture of his being as to
interfere with no single process of thought and will. Whether that is
possible is a question for psychologists and casuists; but every
open-minded student of Napoleon's career must at times pause in utter
doubt, whether this or that act was prompted by mad ambition, or
followed naturally, perhaps inevitably, from that world-embracing
postulate, the Continental System.

England also derived some secondary advantages from this war of the
elements. In order to stalemate her mighty foe, she pushed on her
colonial conquests so as to control the resources of the tropics, and
thus prevent that deadly tilting of the balance landwards which
Napoleon strove to effect. And fate decreed that the conquests of
English seamen and settlers were to be more enduring than those of
Napoleon's legions. While the French were gaining barren victories
beyond the Vistula and Ebro, our seamen seized French and Dutch
colonies and our pioneers opened up the interior of Australia and
South Africa.

We also used our maritime monopoly to depress neutral commerce. We
have not space to discuss the complex question of the rights of
neutrals in time of war, which would involve an examination of the
"rule of 1756" and the compromises arrived at after the two Armed
Neutrality Leagues. Suffice it to say that our merchants had recently
been indignant at the comparative immunity enjoyed by neutral ships,
and had pressed for more vigorous action against such as traded to
French ports.[117] Yet the statement that our Orders in Council were
determined by the clamour of the mercantile class is an exaggeration:
they were reprisals against Napoleon's acts, following them in almost
geometrical gradations. To his domination over the industrial
resources of the Continent we had nothing to oppose but our
manufacturing skill, our supremacy in the tropics, and our control of
the sea. The methods used on both sides were alike brutal, and, when
carried to their logical conclusion at the close of the year, crushed
the neutrals between the upper and the nether millstone. But it is
difficult to see what other alternative was open to an insular State
that was all-powerful at sea and weak on land. Our very existence was
bound up with maritime commerce; and an abandonment of the carrying
trade to neutrals would have been the tamest of surrenders, at a time
when surrender meant political extinction.

We turn now to follow the chief steps in Napoleon's onward march,
which enabled him to impose his system on nearly the whole of the
Continent. While encamped in the Prussian capital he decreed the
deposition of the Elector of Hesse-Cassel, and French and Dutch troops
forthwith occupied that Electorate. Towards Saxony he acted with
politic clemency; and on December 11th, 1806, the Elector accepted the
French alliance, entered the Confederation of the Rhine, and received
the title of King.[118]

Meanwhile Frederick William, accompanied by his grief-stricken
consort, was striving to draw together an army in his eastern
provinces. Some overtures with a view to peace had been made after
Jena; but Napoleon finally refused to relax his pursuit unless the
Prussians retired beyond the Vistula, and yielded up to him all the
western parts of the kingdom, with their fortresses. Besides, he let
it be known that Prussia must join him in a close alliance against
Russia, with a view to checking her ambitious projects against Turkey;
for the Czar, resenting the Sultan's deposition of the hospodars of
the Danubian Principalities, an act suggested by the French, had sent
an army across the River Pruth, even when the Porte timidly revoked
its objectionable firman.[119] The Eastern Question having been thus
reopened, Napoleon suggested a Franco-Prussian alliance so as to avert
a Russian conquest of the Balkan Peninsula. But now, as ever, his
terms to Prussia were too exacting. The King deigned not to stoop to
such humiliation, but resolved to stake his all on the courage of his
troops and the fidelity of the Czar.

The Russians, though delayed by their distrust of Haugwitz, and by
their insensate war with Turkey, were now marching, 73,000 strong,
into Prussian Poland, but were too late to save the Silesian
fortresses, most of which surrendered to the French. The fighting in
the open also went against the allies, though at Pultusk, a town north
of Warsaw, the Russians claimed that the contest had been drawn in
their favour.

At the close of the year the armies went into winter-quarters. It was
high time. The French were ill supplied for a winter campaign amid the
desolate wastes of Poland. Snow and rain, frosts and thaws had turned
the wretched tracks into muddy swamps, where men sank to their knees,
horses to their bellies, and carriages beyond their axles. The
carriage conveying Talleyrand was a whole night stuck fast, in spite
of the efforts of ten horses to drag it out. The opinion of the
soldiery on Poland and the Poles is well expressed by that prince of
_raconteurs_, Marbot: "Weather frightful, victuals very scarce, no
wine, beer detestable, water muddy, no bread, lodgings shared with
cows and pigs. 'And they call this their country,' said our soldiers."

Yet Polish patriotism had been a mighty power in the world; and
Napoleon, ever on the watch for the weak places of his foes, saw how
effective a lever it might be. This had been his constant practice: he
had pitted Italians against Austrians, Copts against Mamelukes, Druses
against Turks, Irish against English, South Germans against the
Hapsburgs and Hohenzollerns, and for the most part with success. But,
except in the case of the Italian people and the South German princes,
he rarely, if ever, bestowed boons proportionate to the services
rendered. It is very questionable whether he felt more warmly for
Irish nationalists than for Copts and Druses.[120] Except in regard to
his Italian kindred, none of the nationalist aspirations that were to
mould the history of the century touched a responsive chord in his
nature. In this, as in other affairs of state, he held "true policy"
to be "nothing else than the calculation of combinations and chances."

It was in this spirit that he surveyed the Polish Question. Arising
out of the partitions of that unhappy land by Russia, Austria, and
Prussia, it had distracted the repose of Europe scarcely less than the
French Revolution; and now the heir to the Revolution, after hewing
his way through the weak monarchies of Central Europe, was about to
probe this ulcer of Christendom. As usual, nothing had been done to
forestall him. Czartoryski had begged Alexander to declare Russian
Poland an autonomous kingdom united with Russia only by the golden
link of the crown, but this timely proposal was rejected;[121] and the
Czar displayed the weakness of his judgment and the strength of his
vanity by plunging into war with Turkey and Persia, at a time when
Poland was opening her arms to the victor of a hundred fights. It was,
therefore, easy for Napoleon to surround Russia with foes; and, as
will shortly appear, he took steps to invigorate even the remote
Persian Empire.

But, above all, he spurred on the Poles to take up arms. His
encouragements were discreetly vague. True, he countenanced Polish
proclamations, which spoke grandiloquently of national liberty; but
proclamations he ever viewed as the _ballons d'essai_ of politics. He
also warned Murat not to promise the Poles too much: "My greatness
does not depend on the aid of a few thousand Poles. Let them show a
firm resolve to be independent: let them pledge themselves to support
the King that will be given to them, and then I will see what is to be
done."

There were two reasons for this caution. His Marshals found no very
general disposition among the Poles to take up arms for France; and he
desired not to offend Austria by revolutionizing Galicia and her
districts south and east of Warsaw. Already the Hapsburgs were
nervously mustering their troops, and Napoleon had no wish to tempt
fortune by warring against three Powers a thousand miles away from his
own frontiers. He therefore calmed the Court of Vienna by promising
that he would discourage any rising in Austrian Poland, and he held
forth the prospect of regaining Silesia. This tempting offer was made
secretly and conditionally; and evoked no expression of thanks, but
rather a redoubling of precautions. Yet, despite the efforts of
England and Russia, the Hapsburg ruler refused to join the allies: he
preferred to play the waiting game which had ruined Prussia.[122]

The campaign was reopened amidst terrible weather by a daring move of
Bennigsen's Russians westwards, in the hope of saving Danzig and
Graudenz from the French. At first a screen of forests well concealed
his advance. But, falling in with Bernadotte near the River Passarge,
his progress was checked and his design revealed. At once Napoleon
prepared to march northwards and throw the Russians into the sea, a
plan which in its turn was foiled by the seizure of a French despatch
by Cossacks. Bennigsen, now aware of his danger, at once retreated
towards Königsberg, but at Eylau turned on his pursuers and fought the
bloodiest battle fought in Europe since Malplaquet. The numbers on
both sides were probably about equal, numbering some 75,000 men, the
Russians having a slight superiority in men and still more in
artillery. Driven from Eylau on the night of February 7th after
confused fighting, the Muscovite withdrew to a strong position formed
by an irregular line of hills, which he crowned with cannon.

As the dawn peered through the snow-laden clouds, guns began to deal
death amongst the hostile masses, and heavy columns moved forward.
Davoust, on the French right, began to push back the Russians on that
side, whereupon Napoleon ordered Augereau's corps to complete the
advantage by driving in the enemy's centre. Gallantly the French
advanced. Their leading regiment, the 14th, had seized a hillock which
commanded the enemy's lines,[123] when, amidst a whirlwind of snow
that beat in their faces, a deadly storm of grape and canister almost
annihilated the corps. Its shattered lines fell back, leaving the 14th
to its fate. But a cloud of Cossacks now swept on the retiring
companies, stabbing with their long spears; and it was a scanty band
that found safety in their former position. Russian cannon and cavalry
also stopped the advance of Davoust, and the fighting for a time
resolved itself into confused but murderous charges at close quarters.
As if to increase the horrors of the scene, snowstorms again swept
over the field, dazing the French and shrouding with friendly wings
the fierce charges of Cossacks. Yet the Grand Army fought on with
devoted heroism; and the chief, determined to snatch at victory,
launched eighty squadrons of horse against the Russian centre.
Sweeping aside the Cossacks, and defying the cannon that riddled their
files, they poured upon the first line of Russian infantry: for a time
they were stemmed, but, finding some weaker places, the cuirassiers
burst through, only to be thrown back by the second line; and, when
furiously charged by Cossacks, they fell back in disorder. "These
Russians fight like bulls," said the French. The simile was just. Even
while Murat was hacking at their centre a column of 4,000 Russian
grenadiers, detaching itself from their mangled line, marched straight
forward on the village of Eylau. With the same blind courage that
nerved Solmes' division at Steinkirk, they beat aside the French light
horse and foot, and were now threatening the cemetery where Napoleon
and his staff were standing.

    "I never was so much struck with anything in my life," said
    General Bertrand at St. Helena, "as by the Emperor at Eylau when
    he was almost trodden under foot by the Russian column. He kept
    his ground as the Russians advanced, saying frequently, 'What
    boldness.'"

But, when all around him trembled, and Berthier ordered up the horses
as if for retreat, he himself quietly signalled for his Guards. These
sturdy troops, long fuming at their inaction, marched forward with a
stern joy. As at Steinkirk the French Household Brigade disdained to
fire on the bull-dogs, so now the Guards rushed on the Muscovites with
the cold steel. The shock was terrible; but the pent-up fury of the
French carried all before it, and the grenadiers were wellnigh
destroyed. The battle might still have ended in a French victory; for
Davoust was obstinately holding the village which he had seized in the
morning, and even threatened the rear of Bennigsen's centre. But when
both sides were wellnigh exhausted, the Prussian General Lestocq with
8,000 men, urged on by the counsels of Scharnhorst, hurried up from
the side of Königsberg, marched straight on Davoust, and checked his
forward movements. Ney followed Lestocq, but at so great a distance
that his arrival at nightfall served only to secure the French left.

Thus darkness closed over some 100,000 men, who wearily clung to their
posts, and over snowy wastes where half that number lay dead, dying,
or disabled. Well might Ney exclaim: "What a massacre, and without any
issue!" Each side claimed the victory, and, as is usual in such cases,
began industriously to minimize its own and to magnify the enemy's
losses. The truth seems to be that both sides had about 25,000 men
_hors de combat_; but, as Bennigsen lacked tents, supplies, and above
all, the dauntless courage of Napoleon, he speedily fell back, and
this enabled the Emperor to claim a decisive victory.[124]

Exhausted by this terrific strife, the combatants now relaxed their
efforts for a brief space; but while Napoleon used the time of respite
in hurrying up troops from all parts of his vast dominions, the allies
did little to improve their advantage. This inertness is all the more
strange as Prussia and Russia came to closer accord in the Treaty of
Bartenstein (April 26th, 1807).[125]

The two monarchs now recur to the generous scheme of a European peace,
for which the Czar and William Pitt had vainly struggled two years
before. The present war is to be fought out to the end, not so as to
humble France and interfere in her internal concerns, but in order to
assure to Europe the blessings of a solid peace based on the claims of
justice and of national independence. France must be satisfied with
reasonable boundaries, and Prussia be restored to the limits of 1805
or their equivalent. Germany is to be freed from the dictation of the
French, and become a "constitutional federation," with a boundary
"parallel to the Rhine." Austria is to be asked to join the present
league, regaining Tyrol and the Mincio frontier. England and Sweden
must be rallied to the common cause. The allies will also take steps
to cause Denmark to join the league. For the rest, the integrity of
Turkey is to be maintained, and the future of Italy decided in concert
with Austria and England, the Kings of Sardinia and Naples being
restored. Even should Austria, England, and Sweden not join them, yet
Russia and Prussia will continue the struggle and not lay down their
arms save by mutual consent.

Had all the Powers threatened by Napoleon at once come forward and
acted with vigour, these ends might, even now, have been attained. But
Austria merely renewed her offers of mediation, a well-meaning but
hopeless proposal. England, a prey to official incapacity, joined the
league, promised help in men and money, and did little or nothing
except send fruitless expeditions to Alexandria and the Dardanelles
with the aim of forcing the Turks to a peace with Russia. In Sicily we
held our own against Joseph's generals, but had no men to spare for a
diversion against Marmont's forces in Dalmatia, which Alexander urged.
Still less could we send from our own shores any force for the
effective aid of Prussia. Though we had made peace with that Power,
and ordinary prudence might have dictated the taking of steps to save
the coast fortresses, Danzig and Colberg, from the French besiegers,
yet our efforts were limited to the despatch of a few cruisers to the
former stronghold. Even more urgent was the need of rescuing
Stralsund, the chief fortress of Swedish Pomerania. Such an expedition
clearly offered great possibilities with the minimum of risk. From the
Isle of Rügen Mortier's corps could be attacked; and when Stralsund
was freed, a dash on Stettin, then weakly held by the French, promised
an easy success that would raise the whole of North Germany in
Napoleon's rear.[126]

But arguments were thrown away upon the Grenville Ministry, which
clung to its old plan of doing nothing and of doing it expensively.
The Foreign Secretary, Lord Howick, replied that the allies must not
expect any considerable aid from our land forces. Considering that the
Income or War Tax of 2s. in the £ had yielded close on £20,000,000,
and that the army numbered 192,000 men (exclusive of those in India),
this declaration did not shed lustre on the Ministry of all the
Talents. That bankrupt Cabinet, however, was dismissed by George III.
in March, 1807, because it declined to waive the question of Catholic
Emancipation, and its place was filled by the Duke of Portland, with
Canning as Foreign Minister. Soon it was seen that Pitt's cloak had
fallen on worthy shoulders, and a new vigour began to inspirit our
foreign policy. Yet the bad results of frittering away our forces on
distant expeditions could not be wiped out at once. In fact, our
military expert, Lord Cathcart, reported that only some 12,000 men
could at present be spared for service in the Baltic; and, as it would
be beneath our dignity to send so small a force, it would be better to
keep it at home ready to menace any part of the French coast. As to
Stralsund, he thought that plan was more feasible, but that, even
there, the allies would not make head against Mortier's corps.[127]

This is a specimen of the reasoning that was fast rendering Britain
contemptible alike to friends and foes. It is not surprising that such
timorous selfishness should have at last moved the Czar to say to our
envoy: "Act where you please, provided that you act at all."[128] In
the end the new Ministry did venture to act: it engaged to send 20,000
men to the succour of Stralsund; but, with the fatality that then
dogged our steps, that decision was formed on June the 17th, three
days after the Coalition was shattered by the mighty blow of
Friedland.

In striking contrast to the faint-hearted measures of the allies was
the timely energy of Napoleon in bringing up reinforcements. These
were drawn partly from Mortier's corps in Pomerania, now engaged in
watching the Swedes, who made a truce; partly from the Bavarians and
Saxons; but mostly from French troops already in Central Germany,
their places being taken by Italians, Spaniards, Swiss, and Dutch. In
France a new levy of conscripts was ordered--the third since the
outbreak of war with Prussia. The Turks were encouraged to press on
the war against Russia and England; and a mission was sent to the Shah
of Persia to strengthen his arms against the Czar. To this last we
will now advert.

For some time past Napoleon had been coquetting with Persia, and an
embassy from the Shah now came to the castle of Finkenstein, a
beautiful seat not far from the Vistula, where the Emperor spent the
months of spring. A treaty was drawn up, and General Gardane was
deputed to draw closer the bonds of friendship with the Court of
Teheran. The instructions secretly issued to this officer are of great
interest. He is ordered to proceed to Persia by way of Constantinople,
to concert an alliance between Sultan and Shah, to redouble Persia's
efforts against her "natural enemy," Russia, and to examine the means
of invading India. For this purpose a number of officers are sent with
him to examine the routes from Egypt or Syria to Delhi, as also to
report on the harbours in Persia with a view to a maritime expedition,
either by way of Suez or the Cape of Good Hope. The Shah is to be
induced to form a corps of 12,000 men, drilled on the European model
and armed with weapons sold by France. This force will attack the
Russians in Georgia and serve later in an expedition to India. With a
view to the sending of 20,000 French troops to India, Gardane is to
communicate with the Mahratta princes and prepare for this enterprise
by every possible means.

We may note here that Gardane proceeded to Persia and was urging on
the Shah to more active measures against Russia when the news of the
Treaty of Tilsit diverted his efforts towards the east. At the close
of the year, he reported to Napoleon that, for the march overland from
Syria to the Ganges, Cyprus was an indispensable base of supplies: he
recommended the route Bir, Mardin, Teheran, Herat, Cabul, and
Peshawur: forty to fifty thousand French troops would be needed, and
thirty or forty thousand Persians should also be taken up. Nothing
came of these plans; but it is clear that, even when Napoleon was face
to face with formidable foes on the Vistula, his thoughts still turned
longingly to the banks of the Ganges.[129]

The result of Napoleon's activity and the supineness of his foes were
soon apparent. Danzig surrendered to the French on May the 24th, and
Neisse in Silesia a little later; and it was not till the besiegers of
these fortresses came up to swell the French host that Bennigsen
opened the campaign. He was soon to rue the delay. His efforts to
drive the foe from the River Passarge were promptly foiled, and he
retired in haste to his intrenched camp at Heilsberg. There, on June
the 10th, he turned fiercely at bay and dealt heavy losses to the
French vanguard. In vain did Soult's corps struggle up towards the
intrenchments; his men were mown down by grapeshot and musketry: in
vain did Napoleon, who hurried up in the afternoon, launch the
fusiliers of the Guard and a division of Lannes' corps. The Muscovites
held firm, and the day closed ominously for the French. It was Eylau
over again on a small scale.

But Bennigsen was one of those commanders who, after fighting with
great spirit, suffer a relapse. Despite the entreaties of his
generals, he had retreated after Eylau; and now, after a day of
inaction, his columns filed off towards Königsberg under cover of the
darkness. In excuse for this action it has been urged that he had but
two days' supply of bread in the camp, and that a forward move of
Davoust's corps round his right flank threatened to cut him off from
his base of supplies, Königsberg.[130]

The first excuse only exposes him to greater censure. The Russian
habit at that time usually was to live almost from hand to mouth; but
that a carefully-prepared position like that of Heilsberg should be
left without adequate supplies is unpardonable. On the two next days
the rival hosts marched northward, the one to seize, the other to
save, Königsberg. They were separated by the winding vale of the Alle.
But the course of this river favoured Napoleon as much as it hindered
Bennigsen. The Alle below Heilsberg makes a deep bend towards the
north-east, then northwards again towards Friedland, where it comes
within forty miles of Königsberg, but in its lower course flows
north-east until it joins the Pregel.

An army marching from Heilsberg to the old Prussian capital by the
right bank would therefore easily be outstripped by one that could
follow the chord of the arc instead of the irregular arc itself.
Napoleon was in this fortunate position, while the Russians plodded
amid heavy rains over the semicircular route further to the east.
Their mistake in abandoning Heilsberg was now obvious. The Emperor
halted at Eylau on the 13th for news of the Prussians in front and of
Bennigsen on his right flank. Against the former he hurled his chief
masses under the lead of Murat in the hope of seizing Königsberg at
one blow.[131] But, foreseeing that the Russians would probably pass
over the Alle at Friedland he despatched Lannes to Domnau to see
whether they had already crossed in force. Clearly, then, Napoleon did
not foresee what the morrow had in store for him: his aim was to drive
a solid wedge between Bennigsen and the defenders of Königsberg, to
storm that city first, and then to turn on Bennigsen. The claim of
some of Napoleon's admirers that he laid a trap for the Russians at
Friedland, as he had done at Austerlitz, is therefore refuted by the
Emperor's own orders.

None the less did Bennigsen walk into a trap, and one of his own
choosing. Anxious to thrust himself between Napoleon and the old
Prussian capital, he crossed the river at Friedland and sought to
strengthen his position on the left bank by driving Lannes' vanguard
back on Domnau, by throwing three bridges over the stream, and by
crowning the hills on the right bank with a formidable artillery. But
he had to deal with a tough and daring opponent. Throughout the winter
Lannes had been a prey to ill-health and resentment at his chief's
real or fancied injustice: but the heats of summer re-awakened his
thirst for glory and restored him to his wonted vigour. Calling up the
Saxon horse, Grouchy's dragoons, and Oudinot's grenadiers, he held his
ground through the brief hours of darkness. Before dawn he posted his
10,000 troops among the woods and on the plateau of Posthenen that
lies to the west of Friedland and strove to stop the march of 40,000
Russians. After four hours of fighting, his men were about to be
thrust back, when the divisions of Verdier and Dupas--the latter from
Mortier's corps--shared the burden of the fight until the sun was at
its zenith. When once more the fight was doubtful, the dense columns
of Ney and Victor were to be seen, and by desperate efforts the French
vanguard held its ground until this welcome aid arrived.

Napoleon, having received Lannes' urgent appeals for help, now rode up
in hot haste, and in response to the cheers of his weary troops
repeatedly exclaimed: "Today is a lucky day, the anniversary of
Marengo." Their ardour was excited to the highest pitch, Oudinot
saluting his chief with the words: "Quick, sire! my grenadiers can
hold no longer: but give me reinforcements and I'll pitch the Russians
into the river."[132] The Emperor cautiously gave them pause: the
fresh troops marched to the front and formed the first line, those who
had fought for nine hours now forming the supports. Ney held the post
of honour in the woods on the right flank, nearly above Friedland;
behind him was the corps of Bernadotte, which, since the disabling of
that Marshal by a wound had been led by General Victor: there too were
the dragoons of Latour-Maubourg, and the imposing masses of the Guard.
In the centre, but bending in towards the rear, stood the remnant of
Lannes' indomitable corps, now condemned for a time to comparative
inactivity; and defensive tactics were also enjoined on
Mortier and Grouchy on the left wing, until Ney and Victor should
decide the fortunes of the second fight. The Russians, as if bent on
favouring Napoleon's design, continued to deploy in front of
Friedland, keeping up the while a desultory fight; and Bennigsen,
anxious now about his communications with Königsberg, detached 6,000
men down the right bank of the river towards Wehlau. Only 46,000 men
were thus left to defend Friedland against a force that now numbered
80,000: yet no works were thrown up to guard the bridges--and this
after the arrival of Napoleon with strong reinforcements was known by
the excitement along the enemy's front.

[Illustration: BATTLE OF FRIEDLAND]

Nevertheless, as late as 3 p.m., Napoleon was in doubt whether he
should not await the arrival of Murat. At his instructions, Berthier
ordered that Marshal to leave Soult at Königsberg and hurry back with
Davoust and the cavalry towards Friedland: "If I perceive at the
beginning of this fight that the enemy is in too great force, I might
be content with cannonading to-day and awaiting your arrival." But a
little later the Emperor decides for instant attack. The omens are all
favourable. If driven back the Russians will fight with their backs to
a deep river. Besides, their position is cut in twain by a mill-stream
which flows in a gulley, and near the town is dammed up so as to form
a small lake. Below this lies Friedland in a deep bend of the river
itself. Into this _cul-de-sac_ he will drive the Russian left, and
fling their broken lines into the lake and river.

At five o'clock a salvo of twenty guns opened the second and greater
battle of Friedland. To rush on the Muscovite van and clear it from
the wood of Sortlack was for Ney's leading division the work of a
moment; but on reaching the open ground their ranks were ploughed by
the shot of the Russian guns ranged on the hills beyond the river.
Staggered by this fire, the division was wavering, when the Russian
Guards and their choicest squadrons of horse charged home with deadly
effect. But Ney's second division, led by the gallant Dupont, hurried
up to restore the balance, while Latour-Maubourg's dragoons fell on
the enemy's horsemen and drove them pell-mell towards Friedland.

The Russian artillery fared little better: Napoleon directed Sénarmont
with thirty-six guns to take it in flank and it was soon overpowered.
Freed now from the Russian grapeshot and sabres, Ney held on his
course like a torrent that masters a dam, reached the upper part of
the lake, and threw the bewildered foe into its waters or into the
town. Friedland was now a death-trap: huddled together, plied by
shell, shot and bayonet, the Russians fought from street to street
with the energy of despair, but little by little were driven back on
the bridges. No help was to be found there; for Sénarmont, bringing up
his guns, swept the bridges with a terrific fire: when part of the
Russian left and centre had fled across, they burst into flames, a
signal that warned their comrades further north of their coming doom.
On that side, too, a general advance of the French drove the enemy
back towards the steep banks of the river. But on those open plains
the devotion and prowess of the Muscovite cavalry bore ampler fruit:
charging the foe while in the full swing of victory, these gallant
riders gave time for the infantry to attempt the dangers of a deep
ford: hundreds were drowned, but others, along with most of the guns,
stole away in the darkness down the left bank of the river.

On the morrow Bennigsen's army was a mass of fugitives straggling
towards the Pregel and fighting with one another for a chance to cross
its long narrow bridge. Even on the other side they halted not, but
wandered on towards the Niemen, no longer an army but an armed mob. On
its banks they were joined by the defenders of Königsberg, who after a
stout stand cut their way through Soult's lines and made for Tilsit.
There, behind the broad stream of the Niemen, the fugitives found
rest.

It will always be a mystery why Bennigsen held on to Friedland after
French reinforcements arrived; and the feeling of wonder and
exasperation finds expression in the report of our envoy, Lord
Hutchinson, founded on the information of two British officers who
were at the Russian headquarters:

    "Many of the circumstances attending the Battle of Friedland are
    unexampled in the annals of war. We crossed the River Alle, not
    knowing whether we had to contend with a corps or the whole French
    army. From the commencement of the battle it was manifest that we
    had a great deal to lose and probably little to gain: ... General
    Bennigsen would, I believe, have retired early in the day from
    ground which he ought never to have occupied; but the corps in our
    front made so vigorous a resistance that, though occasionally we
    gained a little ground, yet we were never able to drive them from
    the woods or the village of Heinrichsdorf."[133]

This evidence shows the transcendent services of Lannes, Oudinot, and
Grouchy in the early part of the day; and it is clear that, as at
Jena, no great battle would have been fought at all but for the valour
and tenacity with which Lannes clung to the foe until Napoleon came
up.

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER XXVII

TILSIT


Even now matters were not hopeless for the allies. Crowds of
stragglers rejoined the colours at Tilsit, and Tartar reinforcements
were near at hand. The gallant Gneisenau was still holding out bravely
at Kolberg against Brune's divisions; and two of the Silesian
fortresses had not yet surrendered. Moreover, Austria seemed about to
declare against Napoleon, and there were hopes that before long
England would do something. But, above all, since the war was for
Prussia solely an affair of honour,[134] it deeply concerned
Alexander's good name not to desert an ally to whom he was now pledged
by all the claims of chivalry until satisfactory terms could be
gained.

But Alexander's nature had not as yet been strengthened by misfortune
and religious convictions: it was a sunny background of flickering
enthusiasms, flecked now and again by shadows of eastern cunning or
darkened by warlike ambitions--a nature in which the sentimentalism of
Rousseau and the passions of a Boyar alternately gained the mastery.
No realism is more crude than that of the disillusionized idealist;
and for months the young Czar had seen his dream of a free and happy
Europe fade away amidst the smoke of Napoleon's guns and the mists of
English muddling. At first he blenched not even at the news of
Friedland. In an interview with our ambassador, Lord Gower, on June
the 17th, he bitterly upbraided him with our inactivity in the Baltic
and the Mediterranean, and the non-fulfilment of our promise of a
loan; as for himself, "he would never stoop to Bonaparte: he would
rather retire to Kazan or even to Tobolsk." But five days later,
acting under pressure from his despairing generals, some of whom
reminded him of his father's fate, he arranged an armistice with the
conqueror.[135] Five days only were allowed in which Prussia might
decide to follow his example or proceed with the war alone. She
accepted the inevitable on the following day.

The international situation was now strangely like that which followed
immediately upon the battle of Austerlitz. Then it was Prussia, now it
was Austria, that played the part of the cautious friend at the very
time when the beaten allies were meditating surrender. For some time
past the Court of Vienna had been offering its services for mediation:
they were well received at London, with open disappointment by
Prussia, and with ill-concealed annoyance by Napoleon. As at the time
when Haugwitz came to him to dictate Prussia's terms, so now the
Emperor kept the Austrian envoy waiting without an answer, until the
blow of Friedland was dealt.[136] Even then Austria seemed about to
enter the lists, when news arrived of the conclusion of the armistice
at Tilsit. This enabled her to sheathe her sword with no loss of
honour; but, as was the case with Prussia at the close of 1805, her
conduct was seen to be timid and time-serving; and it merited the
secret rebuke of Canning that she "was (as usual) just ten days too
late in her determination, or the world might have been saved."[137]

Whether Austria had been beguiled by the recent diplomatic caresses of
Napoleon may well be doubted; for they were obviously aimed at keeping
her quiet until he had settled scores with Prussia and Russia. His
advances only began on the eve of the last war, and the sharpness of
the transition from threats to endearments could not be smoothed over
even by Talleyrand's finesse.[138] When the slaughter at Eylau placed
him in peril, he again bade Talleyrand soothe the Austrian envoy with
assurances that, if his master was anxious to maintain the integrity
of Turkey, France would maintain it; or if he desired to share in an
eventual partition, France would also arrange that to his liking.[139]
But as the prospects for the campaign improved, Napoleon's tone
hardened. On March the 14th he states that he has enough men to keep
Austria quiet and to "get rid of the Russians in a month." And now he
looks on an alliance with the Hapsburgs merely as giving a short time
of quiet, whereas an alliance with Russia would be "very
advantageous."[140] He had also felt the value of alliance with
Prussia, as his repeated overtures during the campaign testify; but
when Frederick William persistently rejected all accommodation with
the man who had so deeply outraged his kingly honour, he turned
finally to Alexander.

The Czar was made of more pliable stuff. Moreover, he now cherished
one sentiment that brought him into sympathy with Napoleon, namely,
hatred of England. He certainly had grave cause for complaint. We had
done nothing to help the allies in the Polish campaign except to send
a few cruisers and 60,000 muskets, which last did not reach the
Swedish and Russian ports until the war was over. True, we had gone
out of our way to attack Constantinople at his request; but that
attack had failed; and our attitude towards his Turkish policy was one
of veiled suspicion, varied with moral lectures.[141] As for the loan
of five millions sterling which the Czar had asked us to guarantee, we
had put him off, our envoy finally reminding him that it had been of
the first importance to help Austria to move. Worst of all, our
cruisers had seized some Russian merchantmen coming out of French
ports, and despite protests from St. Petersburg the legality of that
seizure was maintained. Thus, in a war which concerned our very
existence we had not rendered him a single practical service, and yet
strained the principles of maritime law at the expense of Russian
commerce.[142]

Over against our policy of blundering delay there was that of
Napoleon, prompt, keen, and ever victorious. The whole war had arisen
out of the conflict of these two Powers; and Napoleon had never ceased
to declare that it was essentially a struggle between England and the
Continent. After Eylau Alexander was proof against these arguments;
but now the triumphant energy of Napoleon and the stolid apathy of
England brought about a quite bewildering change in Russian policy.
Delicate advances having been made by the two Emperors, an interview
was arranged to take place on a raft moored in the middle of the River
Niemen (June 25th).

"I hate the English as much as you do, and I will second you in all
your actions against them." Such are said to have been the words with
which Alexander greeted Napoleon as they stepped on to the raft.
Whereupon the conqueror replied: "In that case all can be arranged and
peace is made."[143] As the two Emperors were unaccompanied at that
first interview, it is difficult to see on what evidence this story
rests. It is most unlikely that either Emperor would divulge the
remarks of the other on that occasion; and the words attributed to
Alexander seem highly impolitic. For what was his position at this
time? He was striving to make the best of a bad case against an
opponent whose genius he secretly feared. Besides, we know for certain
that he was most anxious to postpone his rupture with England for some
months.[144] All desire for an immediate break was on Napoleon's side.

We can therefore only guess at what transpired, from the vague
descriptions of the two men themselves. They are characteristic
enough: "I never had more prejudices against anyone than against
_him_," said Alexander afterwards; "but, after three-quarters of an
hour of conversation, they all disappeared like a dream"; and later he
exclaimed: "Would that I had seen him sooner: the veil is torn aside
and the time of error is past." As for Napoleon, he wrote to
Josephine: "I have just seen the Emperor Alexander: I have been very
pleased with him: he is a very handsome, good, and young Emperor: he
has an intellect above what is commonly attributed to him."[145] The
tone of these remarks strikes the keynote of all the conversations
that followed. At the next day's conference, also held in the
sumptuous pavilion erected on the raft, the King of Prussia was
present; but towards him Napoleon's demeanour was cold and
threatening. He upbraided him with the war, lectured him on the duty
of a king to his people, and bade him dismiss Hardenberg. Frederick
William listened for the most part in silence; his nature was too
stiff and straightforward to practise any Byzantine arts; but when his
trusty Minister was attacked, he protested that he should not know how
to replace him. Napoleon had foreseen the plea and at once named three
men who would give better advice. Among them was the staunch patriot
Stein!

From the ensuing conferences the King was almost wholly excluded. They
were held in a part of the town of Tilsit which was neutralized for
that purpose, as also for the guards and diplomatists of the three
sovereigns. There, too, lived the two Emperors in closest intercourse,
while on most days the Prussian King rode over from a neighbouring
village to figure as a sad, reproachful guest at the rides, parades,
and dinners that cemented the new Franco-Russian alliance. Yet, amid
all the melodious raptures of Alexander over Napoleon's newly
discovered virtues, it is easy to detect the clinging ground-tone of
Muscovite ambition. An event had occurred which excited the hopes of
both Emperors. At the close of May, the Sultan Selim was violently
deposed by the Janissaries who clamoured for more vigorous measures
against the Russians. Never did news come more opportunely for
Napoleon than this, which reached him at Tilsit on, or before, June
the 24th. He is said to have exclaimed to the Czar with a flash of
dramatic fatalism: "It is a decree of Providence which tells me that
the Turkish Empire can no longer exist."[146]

Certain it is that the most potent spell exerted by the great
conqueror over his rival was a guarded invitation to share in some
future partition of the Turkish Empire. That scheme had fascinated
Napoleon ever since the year 1797, when he gazed on the Adriatic.
Though laid aside for a time in 1806, when he roused the Turks against
Russia, it was never lost sight of; and now, on the basis of a common
hatred of England and a common desire to secure the spoils of the
Ottoman Power, the stately fabric of the Franco-Russian alliance was
reared.

On his side, Alexander required some assurance that Poland should not
be reconstituted in its integrity--a change that would tear from
Russia the huge districts stretching almost up to Riga, Smolensk, and
Kiev, which were still Polish in sympathy. Here Napoleon reassured
him, at least in part. He would not re-create the great kingdom of
Poland: he would merely carve out from Prussia the greater part of her
Polish possessions.

These two important questions being settled, it only remained for the
Czar to plead for the King of Prussia, to acknowledge Napoleon's
domination as Emperor of the West, while he himself, as autocrat of
the East, secured a better western boundary for Russia. At first he
strove to gain for Frederick William the restoration of several of his
lands west of the Elbe. This championship was not wholly
disinterested; for it is now known that the Czar had set his heart on
a great part of Prussian Poland.

In truth, he was a sufficiently good disciple of the French
revolutionists to plead very cogently his claims to a "natural
frontier." He disliked a "dry frontier": he must have a riverine
boundary: in fact, he claimed the banks of the Lower Niemen, and,
further south, the course of the rivers Wavre, Narew and Bug. To this
claim he had perhaps been encouraged by some alluring words of
Napoleon that thenceforth the Vistula must be the boundary of their
empires. But his ally was now determined to keep Russia away from the
old Polish capital; and in strangely prophetic words he pointed out
that the Czar's claims would bring the Russian eagles within sight of
Warsaw, which would be too clear a sign that that city was destined to
pass under the Russian rule.[147] Divining also that Alexander's plea
for the restoration by France of some of Prussia's western lands was
linked with a plan which would give Russia some of her eastern
districts,[148] Napoleon resolved to press hard on Prussia from the
west. While handing over to the Czar only the small district around
Bialystock, he remorselessly thrust Prussia to the east of the Elbe.

From this neither the arguments of the Czar nor the entreaties of
Queen Louisa availed to move him. And yet, in the fond hope that her
tears might win back Magdeburg, that noble bulwark of North German
independence, the forlorn Queen came to Tilsit to crave this boon
(July 6th). It was a terrible ordeal to do this from the man who had
repeatedly insulted her in his official journals, figuring her, first
as a mailed Amazon galloping at the head of her regiment, and finally
breathing forth scandals on her spotless reputation.

Yet, for the sake of her husband and her people, she braced herself up
to the effort of treating him as a gentleman and appealing to his
generosity. If she was able to conceal her loathing, this was scarcely
so with her devoted lady in waiting, the Countess von Voss, who has
left us an acrid account of Napoleon's visit to the Queen at the
miller's house at Tilsit.[149]

    "He is excessively ugly, with a fat swollen sallow face, very
    corpulent, besides short and entirely without figure. His great
    eyes roll gloomily around; the expression of his features is
    severe; he looks like the incarnation of fate: only his mouth is
    well shaped, and his teeth are good. He was extremely polite,
    talked to the Queen a long time alone.... Again, after dinner, he
    had a long conversation with the Queen, who also seemed pretty
    well satisfied with the result."[150]


Queen Louisa's verdict about his appearance was more favourable; she
admired his head "as that of a Cæsar." With winsome boldness inspired
by patriotism, she begged for Magdeburg. Taken aback by her beauty and
frankness, Napoleon had recourse to compliments about her dress. "Are
we to talk about fashion, at such a time?" was her reply. Again she
pleaded, and again he fell back on vapidities. Nevertheless, her
appeals to his generosity seemed to be thawing his statecraft, when
the entrance of that unlucky man, her husband, gave the conversation a
colder tone. The dinner, however, passed cheerfully enough; and,
according to French accounts, Napoleon graced the conclusion of
dessert by offering her a rose. Her woman's wit flew to the utterance:
"May I consider it a token of friendship, and that you grant my
request for Magdeburg?" But he was on his guard, parried her onset
with a general remark as to the way in which such civilities should be
taken, and turned the conversation. Then, as if he feared the result
of a second interview, he hastened to end matters with the Prussian
negotiators.[151]

He thus described the interview in a letter to Josephine:

    "I have had to be on my guard against her efforts to oblige me to
    some concessions for her husband; but I have been gallant, and
    have held to my policy."

This was only too clear on the following day, when the Queen again
dined with the sovereigns.

    "Napoleon," says the Countess von Voss, "seemed malicious and
    spiteful, and the conversation was brief and constrained. After
    dinner the Queen again conversed apart with him. On taking leave
    she said to him that she went away feeling it deeply that he
    should have deceived her. My poor Queen: she is quite in despair."


When conducted to her carriage by Talleyrand and Duroc, she sank down
overcome by emotion. Yet, amid her tears and humiliation, the old
Prussian pride had flashed forth in one of her replies as the rainbow
amidst the rain-storm. When Napoleon expressed his surprise that she
should have dared to make war on him with means so utterly inadequate,
she at once retorted: "Sire, I must confess to Your Majesty, the glory
of Frederick the Great had misled us as to our real strength"--a
retort which justly won the praise of that fastidious connoisseur,
Talleyrand, for its reminder of Prussia's former greatness and the
transitoriness of all human grandeur.[152]

On that same day (July 7th) the Treaty of Tilsit was signed. Its terms
may be thus summarized. Out of regard for the Emperor of Russia,
Napoleon consented to restore to the King of Prussia the province of
Silesia, and the old Prussian lands between the Elbe and Niemen. But
the Polish lands seized by Prussia in the second and third partitions
were (with the exception of the Bialystock district, now gained by
Russia) to form a new State called the Duchy of Warsaw. Of this duchy
the King of Saxony was constituted ruler. Danzig, once a Polish city,
was now declared a free city under the protection of the Kings of
Prussia and Saxony, but the retention there of a French garrison until
the peace made it practically a French fortress. Saxe-Coburg,
Oldenburg, and Mecklenburg-Schwerin were restored to their dukes, but
the two last were to be held by French troops until England made peace
with France. With this aim in view, Napoleon accepted Alexander's
mediation for the conclusion of a treaty of peace with England,
provided that she accepted that mediation within one month of the
ratification of the present treaty.

On his side, the Czar now recognized the recent changes in Naples,
Holland, and Germany; among the last of these was the creation of the
Kingdom of Westphalia for Jerome Bonaparte out of the Prussian lands
west of the Elbe, the Duchy of Brunswick, and the Electorate of
Hesse-Cassel. Holland gained East Frisia at the expense of Prussia. As
regards Turkey, the Czar pledged himself to cease hostilities at once,
to accept the mediation of Napoleon in the present dispute, and to
withdraw Russian troops from the Danubian Provinces as soon as peace
was concluded with the Sublime Porte. Finally, the two Emperors
mutually guaranteed the integrity of their possessions and placed
their ceremonial and diplomatic relations on a footing of complete
equality.

Such were the published articles of the Treaty of Tilsit. Even if this
had been all, the European system would have sustained the severest
blow since the Thirty Years' War. The Prussian monarchy was suddenly
bereft of half its population, and now figured on the map as a
disjointed land, scarcely larger than the possessions of the King of
Saxony, and less defensible than Jerome Bonaparte's Kingdom of
Westphalia; while the Confederation of the Rhine, soon to be
aggrandized by the accession of Mecklenburg and Oldenburg, seemed to
doom the House of Hohenzollern to lasting insignificance.[153]

But the published treaty was by no means all. There were also secret
articles, the chief of which were that the Cattaro district--to the
west of Montenegro--and the Ionian Islands should go to France, and
that the Czar would recognize Joseph Bonaparte as King of Sicily when
Ferdinand of Naples should have received "an indemnity such as the
Balearic Isles, or Crete, or their equivalent." Also, if Hanover
should eventually be annexed to the Kingdom of Westphalia, a
Westphalian district with a population of from three to four hundred
thousand souls would be retroceded to Prussia. Finally, the chiefs of
the Houses of Orange-Nassau, Hesse-Cassel, and Brunswick were to
receive pensions from Murat and Jerome Bonaparte, who dispossessed
them.

Most important of all was the secret treaty of alliance with Russia,
also signed on July 7th, whereby the two Emperors bound themselves to
make common cause in any war that either of them might undertake
against any European Power, employing, if need be, the whole of their
respective forces. Again, if England did not accept the Czar's
mediation, or if she did not, by the 1st of December, 1807, recognize
the perfect equality of all flags at sea, and restore her conquests
made from France and her allies since 1805, then Russia would make war
on her. In that case, the present allies will "summon the three Courts
of Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Lisbon to close their ports against the
English and declare war against England. If any one of the three
Courts refuse, it shall be treated as an enemy by the high contracting
parties, and if Sweden refuse, _Denmark shall be compelled to declare
war on her_." Pressure would also be put on Austria to follow the same
course. But if England made peace betimes, she might recover Hanover,
on restoring her conquests in the French, Spanish, and Dutch colonies.
Similarly, if Turkey refused the mediation of Napoleon, he would in
that case help Russia to drive the Turks from Europe--"the city of
Constantinople and the province of Roumelia alone excepted."[154]

The naming of the city of Constantinople, which is in Roumelia,
betokens a superfluity of prudence. But it helps to confirm the
statement of Napoleon's secretary, M. Méneval, that the future of that
city led to a decided difference of opinion between the Emperors.
After one of their discussions, Napoleon stayed poring over a map, and
finally exclaimed, "Constantinople! Never! It is the empire of the
world." Doubtless it was on this subject that Alexander cherished some
secret annoyance. Certain it is that, despite all his professions of
devotion to Napoleon, he went back to St. Petersburg ill at ease and
possessed with a certain awe of the conqueror. For what had he gained?
He received a small slice of Prussian Poland, and the prospect of
aggrandizement on the side of Turkey and Sweden, Finland being pointed
out as an easy prey. For these future gains he was to close his ports
to England and see his commerce, his navy, and his seaboard suffer. It
is not surprising that before leaving Tilsit he remarked to Frederick
William that "the most onerous condition imposed by Napoleon was
common to Russia and Prussia."[155]

This refers to the compulsion put upon them to join Napoleon's
Continental System. In the treaty signed with Prussia on July 9th,
Napoleon not only wrested away half her lands, but required the
immediate closing of all her ports to British vessels. We may also
note here that, by the extraordinary negligence of the Prussian
negotiator, Marshal Kalckreuth, the subsequent convention as to the
evacuation of Prussia by the French troops left open a loophole for
its indefinite occupation. Each province or district was to be
evacuated when the French requisitions had been satisfied.[156] The
exaction of impossible sums would therefore enable the conquerors,
quite legally, to keep their locust swarms in that miserable land. And
that was the policy pursued for sixteen months.

Why this refinement of cruelty to his former ally? Why not have
annexed Prussia outright? Probably there were two reasons against
annexation: first, that his army could live on her in a way that would
not be possible with his own subjects or allies; second, that the army
of occupation would serve as a guarantee both for Russia's good faith
and for the absolute exclusion of British goods from Prussia.[157]
This had long been his aim. He now attained it, but only by war that
bequeathed a legacy of war, and a peace that was no peace.

Napoleon's behaviour at Tilsit has generally been regarded, at least
in England, as prompted by an insane lust of power; and the treaty has
been judged as if its aim was the domination of the Continent. But
another explanation, though less sweeping and attractive, seems more
consonant with the facts of the case.

He hoped that, before so mighty a confederacy as was framed at Tilsit,
England would bend the knee, give up not only her maritime claims but
her colonial conquests, and humbly take rank with Powers that had
lived their day. The conqueror who had thrice crumpled up the Hapsburg
States, and shattered Prussia in a day, might well believe that the
men of Downing Street, expert only in missing opportunities and
exasperating their friends, would not dare to defy the forces of
united Europe, but would bow before his prowess and grant peace to a
weary world. In his letter of July 6th, 1807, to the Czar, he advised
the postponement of the final summons to the British Government,
because it would "give five months in which the first exasperation
will die down in England, and she will have time to understand the
immense consequences that would result from so imprudent a struggle."
Neither Napoleon nor Alexander was deaf to generous aspirations. They
both desired peace, so that their empires might expand and
consolidate. Above all, France was weary of war; and by peace the
average Frenchman meant, not respite from Continental strifes that
yielded a surfeit of barren glories, but peace with England. The words
of Lucchesini, the former Prussian ambassador in Paris, on this
subject are worth quoting:

    "The war with England was at bottom the only one in which the
    French public took much interest, since the evils it inflicted on
    France were felt every moment: nothing was spoken of so decidedly
    among all classes of the people as the wish to have done with that
    war; and when one spoke of peace at Paris, one always meant peace
    with England: peace with the others was as indifferent to the
    public as the victories or the conquests of Bonaparte."[158]

If the French middle classes longed for a maritime peace so that
coffee and sugar might become reasonably cheap, how much more would
their ruler, whose heart was set on colonies and a realm in the
Orient? In Poland he had cheered his troops with the thought that they
were winning back the French colonial empire; and, as we have seen, he
was even then preparing the ground in Persia for a future invasion of
India. These plans could only be carried out after a time of peace
that should rehabilitate the French navy. Humanitarian sentiment,
patriotism, and even the promptings of a wider ambition, therefore
bade him strive for a general pacification, such as he seemed to have
assured at Tilsit.

But the means which he adopted were just those that were destined to
defeat this aim. Where he sought to intimidate, he only aroused a more
stubborn resistance: where he should have allayed national fears, he
redoubled them. He did not understand our people: he saw not that,
behind our official sluggishness and muddling, there was a quenchless
national vitality, which, if directed by a genius, could defy a
world-wide combination. If, instead of making secret compacts with the
Czar and trampling on Prussia; if, instead of intriguing with the
Sultan and the Shah, and thus reawakening our fears respecting Egypt
and India, he had called a Congress and submitted all the present
disputes to general discussion, there is reason to think that Great
Britain would have received his overtures. George III.'s Ministers had
favoured the proposal of a Congress when put forward by Austria in the
spring;[159] and they would doubtless have welcomed it from Napoleon
after Friedland, had they not known of far-reaching plans which
rendered peace more risky than open war. This great genius had, in
fact, one fatal defect; he had little faith except in outward
compulsion; and his superabundant energy of menace against England
blighted the hopes of peace which he undoubtedly cherished.

Long before Alexander's offer of mediation was forwarded to London,
our Ministers had taken a sudden and desperate resolution. They
determined to compel Denmark to join England and Sweden, and to hold
the fleet at Copenhagen as a gauge of Danish fidelity.

That momentous resolve was formed on or just before July the 16th, in
consequence of news that had arrived from Memel and Tilsit. The exact
purport of that news, and the manner of its acquisition, have been one
of the puzzles of modern history. But the following facts seem to
furnish a solution. Our Foreign Office Records show that our agent at
Tilsit, Mr. Mackenzie, who was on confidential terms with General
Bennigsen, left post haste for England immediately after the first
imperial interview; and the news which he brought, together with
reports of the threatening moves of the French on Holstein, clinched
the determination of our Government to checkmate the Franco-Russian
aims by bringing strong pressure to bear on Denmark. To keep open the
mouth of the Baltic was an urgent necessity, otherwise we should lose
touch with the Anglo-Swedish forces campaigning against the French
near Stralsund.[160] Furthermore, it should be noted that Denmark held
the balance in naval affairs. France and her allies now had fifty-nine
sail of the line ready for sea: the compact with the Czar would give
her twenty-four more; and if Napoleon seized the eighteen Danish and
nine Portuguese battleships, his fighting strength would be nearly
equal to our own.[161] Canning therefore determined, on July 16th, to
compel Denmark to side with us, or at least to observe a neutrality
favourable to the British cause; and, to save her honour, he proposed
to send an irresistible naval force.

    "Denmark's safety," he wrote on July 16th, "is to be found, under
    the present circumstances of the world, only in a balance of
    opposite dangers. For it is not to be disguised that the influence
    which France has acquired from recent events over the North of
    Europe, might, unless balanced by the naval power of Great
    Britain, leave to Denmark no other option than that of compliance
    with the demands of Bonaparte."[162]

_A balance of opposite dangers!_ In this phrase Canning summed up his
policy towards Denmark. Threatened by Napoleon on the land, she was to
be threatened by us from the sea; and Canning hoped that these
opposite forces would, at least, secure Danish neutrality, without
which Sweden must succumb in her struggle against France. That some
compulsion would be needed had long been clear. In fact, the use of
compulsion had first been recommended by the Russian and Prussian
Governments, which had gone so far as to include in the Treaty of
Bartenstein a proposal of common action, along with England, Austria
and Sweden, _to compel Denmark to side with the allies against
Napoleon_.[163] To this resolve England still clung, despite the
defection of the Czar. In truth, his present conduct made the case for
the coercion of Denmark infinitely more urgent.

As to the reality of Napoleon's designs on Denmark, there can be no
doubt. After his return to France, he wrote from St. Cloud, directing
Talleyrand to express his displeasure that Denmark had not fulfilled
her _promises_: "Whatever my desire to treat Denmark well, I cannot
hinder her suffering from having allowed the Baltic to be violated [by
the English expedition to Stralsund]; and, if England refuses Russia's
mediation, Denmark must choose either to make war against England, or
against me."[164] Whence it is clear that Denmark had given Napoleon
grounds for hoping that she would declare the Baltic a _mare clausum_.

The British Government had so far fathomed these designs as to see the
urgency of the danger. Accordingly it proposed to Denmark a secret
defensive alliance, the chief terms of which were the handing over of
the Danish fleet, to be kept as a "sacred pledge" by us till the
peace, a subsidy of £100,000 paid to Denmark for that fleet, and the
offer of armed assistance in case she should be attacked by France.
This offer of defensive alliance was repulsed, and the Danish Prince
Royal determined to resist even the mighty armada which was now
nearing his shores. Towards the close of August, eighty-eight British
ships were in the Sound and the Belt; and when the transports from
Rügen and Stralsund joined those from Yarmouth, as many as 15,400
troops were at hand, under the command of Lord Cathcart. A landing was
effected near Copenhagen, and offers of alliance were again made,
including the deposit of the Danish fleet; "but if this offer is
rejected now, it cannot be repeated. The captured property, public and
private, must then belong to the captors: and the city, when taken,
must share the fate of conquered places." The Danes stoutly repelled
offers and threats alike: the English batteries thereupon bombarded
the city until the gallant defenders capitulated (September 7th). The
conditions hastily concluded by our commanders were that the British
forces should occupy the citadel and dockyard for six weeks, should
take possession of the ships and naval stores, and thereupon evacuate
Zealand.

These terms were scrupulously carried out; and at the close of six
weeks our forces sailed away with the Danish fleet, including fifteen
sail of the line, fifteen frigates, and thirty-one small vessels. This
end to the expedition was keenly regretted by Canning. In a lengthy
Memorandum he left it on record that he desired, not merely Denmark's
fleet, but her alliance. In his view nothing could save Europe but a
firm Anglo-Scandinavian league, which would keep open the Baltic and
set bounds to the designs of the two Emperors. Only by such an
alliance could Sweden be saved from Russia and France. Indeed,
foreseeing the danger to Sweden from a French army acting from Zealand
as a base, Canning proposed to Gustavus that he should occupy that
island, or, failing that, receive succour from a British force on his
own shore of the Sound. But both offers were declined. The final
efforts made to draw Denmark into our alliance were equally futile,
and she kept up hostilities against us for nearly seven years. Thus
Canning's scheme of alliance with the Scandinavian States failed.
Britain gained, it is true, a further safeguard against invasion; but
our statesman, while blaming the precipitate action of our commanders
in insisting solely upon the surrender of the fleet, declared that
that action, apart from an Anglo-Danish alliance, was "an act of great
injustice."[165]

And as such it has been generally regarded, that is, by those who did
not, and could not, know the real state of the case. In one respect
our action was unpardonable: it was not the last desperate effort of a
long period of struggle: it came after a time of selfish torpor fatal
alike to our reputation and the interests of our allies. After
protesting their inability to help them, Ministers belied their own
words by the energy with which they acted against a small State. And
the prevalent opinion found expression in the protests uttered in
Parliament that it would have been better to face the whole might of
the French, Russian, and Danish navies than to emulate the conduct of
those who had overrun and despoiled Switzerland.

Moreover, our action did not benefit Sweden, but just the reverse.
Cathcart's force, that had been helping the Swedes in the defence of
their Pomeranian province, was withdrawn in order to strengthen our
hands against Copenhagen. Thereupon the gallant Gustavus, overborne by
the weight of Marshal Brune's corps, sued for an armistice. It was
granted only on the condition that Stralsund should pass into Brune's
hands (August 20th); and the Swedes, unable even to hold Rügen, were
forced to give up that island also. Sick in health and weary of a
world that his chivalrous instincts scorned, Gustavus withdrew his
forces into Sweden. Even there he was menaced. The hostilities which
Denmark forthwith commenced against England and Sweden exposed his
southern coasts; but he now chose to lean on the valour of his own
subjects rather than on the broken reed of British assistance, and
awaited the attacks of the Danes on the west and of the Russians on
his province of Finland.

The news from Copenhagen also furnished the Czar with a good excuse
for hostilities with England. For such an event he had hitherto been
by no means desirous. On his return from Tilsit to St. Petersburg he
found the nobility and merchants wholly opposed to a rupture with the
Sea Power, the former disdaining to clasp the hand of the conqueror of
Friedland, the latter foreseeing ruin from the adoption of the
Continental System; and when Napoleon sent Savary on a special mission
to the Czar's Court, the Empress-Mother and nobles alike showed their
abhorrence of "the executioner of the Duc d'Enghien." In vain were
imperial favours lavished on this envoy. He confessed to Napoleon that
only the Czar and the new Foreign Minister, Romantzoff, were
favourable to France; and it was soon obvious that their ardour for a
partition of Turkey must disturb the warily balancing policy which
Napoleon adopted as soon as the Czar's friendship seemed assured.

The dissolution of this artificial alliance was a task far beyond the
powers of British statesmanship. To Alexander's offer of mediation
between France and England Canning replied that we desired first to
know what were "the just and equitable terms on which France intended
to negotiate," and secondly what were the secret articles of the
Treaty of Tilsit. That there were such was obvious; for the published
treaty made no mention of the Kings of Sardinia and of the two
Sicilies, in whom Alexander had taken so deep an interest. But the
second request annoyed the Czar; and this feeling was intensified by
our action at Copenhagen. Yet, though he pronounced it an act of
"unheard-of violence," the Russian official notes to our Government
were so far reassuring that Lord Castlereagh was able to write to Lord
Cathcart (September 22nd): "Russia does not show any disposition to
resent or to complain of what we have done at Copenhagen.... The tone
of the Russian cabinet has become much more conciliatory to us since
they heard of your operations at Copenhagen."[166] It would seem,
however, that this double-dealing was prompted by naval
considerations. The Czar desired to temporize until his Mediterranean
squadron should gain a place of safety and his Baltic ports be encased
in ice; but on 27th October (8th November, N.S.) he broke off all
communications with us, and adopted the Continental System.

Meanwhile, at the other extremity of Europe, events were transpiring
that served as the best excuse for our harshness towards Denmark. Even
before our fleet sailed for the Sound, Napoleon was weaving his plans
for the destruction of Portugal. It is clear that he designed to
strike her first before taking any action against Denmark. During his
return journey from Tilsit to Paris, he directed Talleyrand to send
orders to Lisbon for the closing of all Portuguese ports against
British goods by September the 1st--"in default of which I declare war
on Portugal." He also ordered the massing of 20,000 French troops at
Bayonne in readiness to join the Spanish forces that were to threaten
the little kingdom.[167]

What crime had Portugal committed? She had of late been singularly
passive: anxiously she looked on at the gigantic strifes that were
engulfing the smaller States one by one. Her conduct towards Napoleon
had been far less provocative than that of Denmark towards England.
Threatened with partition by him and Spain in 1801, she had eagerly
snatched at peace, and on the rupture of the Peace of Amiens was fain
to purchase her neutrality at the cost of a heavy subsidy to France,
which she still paid in the hope of prolonging her "existence on
sufferance."[168] That hope now faded away.

As far back as February, 1806, Napoleon had lent a ready ear to the
plans which Godoy, the all-powerful Minister at Madrid, had proposed
for the partition of Portugal; and, in the month of July following,
Talleyrand held out to our plenipotentiary at Paris the threat that,
unless England speedily made peace with France, Napoleon would annex
Switzerland--"but still less can we alter, for any other
consideration, our intention of invading Portugal. The army destined
for that purpose is already assembling at Bayonne." A year's respite
was gained for the House of Braganza by the campaigns of Jena and
Friedland. But now, with the tenacity of his nature, the Emperor
returned to the plan, actually tried in 1801 and prepared for in 1806,
of crushing our faithful ally in order to compel us to make peace. On
this occasion he counted on certain success, as may be seen by the
following extract from the despatch of the Portuguese ambassador at
Paris to his Government:

    "On Sunday afternoon [August 2nd] there was a diplomatic Levée.
    The Emperor came up to me as I stood in the circle, and in a low
    voice said: 'Have you written to your Court? Have you despatched a
    courier with my final determination?'--I replied in the
    affirmative.--'Very well,' said the Emperor, 'then by this time
    your Court knows that she must break with England before the 1st
    of September. It is the only way to accelerate peace.'--As the
    place did not permit discussion on my part, I answered: 'I should
    think, Sire, that England must now be sincerely anxious to make
    peace.'--'Oh,' replied the Emperor, 'we are very certain of that:
    however, in all cases, you must break either with England or
    France before the 1st of September.'--He then turned about and
    addressed himself to the Danish Minister, as far as I could judge
    to the same purport."[169]

Equally confident is Napoleon's tone in the lately published letter of
September 7th:

    "As soon as I received news of the English expedition against
    Copenhagen,[170] I caused Portugal to be informed that all her
    ports must be closed to England, and I massed an army of 40,000
    men at Bayonne to join the Spaniards in enforcing this action, if
    necessary. But a letter I have just received from the Prince
    Regent [of Portugal] leads me to presume that this last measure
    will not be necessary, that the Portuguese ports will be closed to
    the English by the time this is read, and that Portugal will have
    declared war against England. On the other hand, my flotilla will
    be ready for action on 1st October, and I shall have a large army
    at Boulogne, ready to attempt a _coup de main_ on England."

The letter concludes by ordering that all British diplomatists are to
be driven _out of Europe_, and that Sweden must make common cause with
France and Russia. Such were the means to be used for forcing
affrighted Peace again to visit this distracted earth.

In truth, the fate of the British race seemed for the time to hang
upon the events at Copenhagen and Lisbon. Very much depended on the
action of the Prince Regent of Portugal. Had he tamely submitted to
Napoleon's ukase and placed his fleet and his vast colonial empire at
the service of France, it is doubtful whether even the high-souled
Canning would not have stooped to surrender in face of odds so
overwhelming. The young statesman's anxiety as to the action of
Portugal is attested by many a long and minutely corrected despatch to
Viscount Strangford, our envoy at Lisbon. But, fortunately for us,
Napoleon committed the blunder which so often marred his plans: he
pushed them too far: he required the Prince Regent to adopt a course
of conduct repellent to an honourable man, namely, to confiscate the
merchandise and property of British merchants who had long trusted the
good faith of the House of Braganza. To this last demand the prince
opposed a dignified resistance, though on all other points he gave
way. This will appear from Lord Strangford's despatch of August 13th:

    " ... The Portuguese Ministers place all their hopes of being able
    to ward off this terrible blow in the certainty which they
    entertain of England being obliged to enter into negotiations for
    a general peace.... The very existence of the Portuguese Monarchy
    depends on the celerity with which England shall meet the pacific
    interference of the Emperor of Russia. The Prince Regent gives the
    most solemn promise that he will not on any account consent to the
    measure of confiscating the property of British subjects residing
    under his protection. But I think that if France could be induced
    to give up this point, and limit her demands to the exclusion of
    British commerce from Portugal, the Government of this country
    would accede to them...."

A week later he states that Portugal begged England to put up with a
temporary rupture, and reports that a quantity of diamonds had been
taken out of the Treasury and sent to Paris to be distributed in
presents to persons supposed to possess influence over the minds of
Bonaparte and Talleyrand. It would be interesting to trace the history
of these diamonds. But, as Napoleon had recently awarded sums
amounting in all to 26,582,000 francs from out of the estates
confiscated in Poland,[171] signs of sudden affluence were widespread
in Paris and rendered it difficult to detect the receivers of the
gems. Talleyrand was the usual recipient of such _douceurs_. But on
August the 14th he had retired from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
gaining the title of Vice Grand-Elector; and, if we are to be guided,
not by the statements of his personal foes, Hauterive and Pasquier,
but by the determination which he is known to have formed at Tilsit,
that he would not be "the executioner of Europe," we may judge that he
disapproved of the barbarous treatment meted out to Prussia and now
planned against Portugal.[172]

As has been stated above, the partition of this kingdom had been
planned by Godoy in concert with Napoleon early in 1806. That pampered
minion of the Spanish Court, angry at the shelving of plans which
promised to yield him a third of Portugal, called Spain to arms while
Napoleon was marching to Jena, an affront which the conqueror seemed
to overlook but never really forgave. Now, however, he appeared wholly
to enter into Godoy's scheme; and, while the Prince Regent of Portugal
was appealing to his pity, the Emperor (September 25th, 1807) charged
Duroc to confer with Godoy's confidential agent at Paris, Don
Izquierdo. " ...As for Portugal, I make no difficulty about granting to
the King of Spain a suzerainty over Portugal, and even taking part of
it away for the Queen of Etruria and the Prince of the Peace [Godoy]."
Duroc was also to point out the difficulty, now that "all Italy"
belonged to Napoleon, of allowing "that deformity," the kingdom of
Etruria, to disfigure the peninsula. The change would in fact, doubly
benefit the French Emperor. It would enable him completely to exclude
British commerce from the port of Leghorn, where it was trickling in
alarmingly, and also to place the mouths of the Tagus and Douro in the
hands of obedient vassals.

Such was the scheme in outline. Despite the offer of the Prince Regent
to obey all Napoleon's behests except that relating to the seizure of
British subjects and their property, war was irrevocably resolved on
by October the 12th.[173] And on October the 27th a secret convention
was signed at the Palace of Fontainebleau for arranging "the future
lot of Portugal by a healthy policy and conformably to the interests
of France and Spain." Portugal was now to be divided into three very
unequal parts: the largest portion, comprising Estremadura, Beira, and
Tras-os Montes, was reserved for a future arrangement at the general
peace, but meanwhile was to be held by France: Algarve and Alemtejo
were handed over to Godoy; while the diminutive province of Entre
Minho e Douro was flung as a sop to the young King of Etruria and his
mother, a princess of the House of Spain, to console them for the loss
of Etruria. A vague promise was made that the House of Braganza might
be reinstated in the first of these three portions, in case England
restored Gibraltar, Trinidad, and other colonies taken by her from
Spain or her allies; and Napoleon guaranteed to the King of Spain his
possessions in Europe, exclusive of the Balearic Isles, offering also
to recognize him as Emperor of the Two Americas.

Meanwhile Junot was leading his army corps from Bayonne towards
Salamanca and Ciudad Rodrigo, to give effect to this healthful
arrangement. This general, whom it was desirable to remove from Paris
on account of his rather too open _liaison_ with one of the Bonaparte
princesses, was urged to the utmost speed and address by the Emperor.
He must cover the whole 200 leagues in thirty-five days; lack of
provisions must not hinder the march, for "20,000 men can live
anywhere, even in a desert"; and, above all, as the Prince Regent had
again offered to declare war on England, he (Junot) could represent
that he came as an ally: "I have already informed you that my
intention in authorizing you to enter that land as an ally was to
enable you to seize its fleet, but that my mind was fully made up to
take possession of Portugal."[174] Lisbon, in fact, was to be served
as Venice was ten years before, the lion donning the skin of the fox
so as to effect a peaceful seizure. But that ruse could hardly succeed
twice. The Prince Regent had his ships ready for flight. The bluff and
headstrong Junot, nicknamed "the tempest" by the army, was too artless
to catch the prince by guile; but he hurried his soldiers over
mountains and through flooded gorges until, on November 30th, 1,500
tattered, shoeless, famished grenadiers straggled into Lisbon--to find
that the royal quarry had flown.

The Prince Regent took this momentous resolve with the utmost
reluctance. For many weeks he had clung to the hope that Napoleon
would spare him; and though he accepted a convention with England,
whereby he gained the convoy of our men-of-war across the Atlantic and
the promise of aggrandizement in South America, he still continued to
temporize, and that too, when a British fleet was at hand in the Tagus
strong enough to thwart the designs of the Russian squadron there
present to prevent his departure. When the French were within two
days' march of Lisbon, Lord Strangford feared that the Portuguese
fleet would be delivered into their hands; and only after a trenchant
declaration that further vacillation would be taken as a sign of
hostility to Great Britain, did the Prince Regent resolve to seek
beyond the seas the independence which was denied to him in his own
realm.[175]

Few scenes are more pathetic than the departure of the House of
Braganza from the cradle of its birth. Love for the Prince Regent as a
man, mingled with pity for the demented Queen, held the populace of
Lisbon in tearful silence as the royal family and courtiers filed
along the quays, followed by agonized groups of those who had decided
to share their trials. But silence gave way to wails of despair as the
exiles embarked on the heaving estuary and severed the last links with
Europe. Slowly the fleet began to beat down the river in the teeth of
an Atlantic gale. Near the mouth the refugees were received with a
royal salute by the British fleet, and under its convoy they breasted
the waves of the ocean and the perils of the future.

The conduct of England towards Denmark and that of Napoleon towards
Portugal call for a brief comparison. Those small kingdoms were the
victims of two powerful States whose real or fancied interests
prompted them to the domination of the land and of the sea. But when
we compare the actions of the two Great Powers, important differences
begin to reveal themselves. England had far more cause for complaint
against Denmark than Napoleon had against Portugal. The hostility of
the Danes to the recent coalition was notorious. To compel them to
change their policy without loss of national honour, we sent the most
powerful armada that had ever left our shores, with offers of alliance
and a demand that their fleet, the main object of Napoleon's designs,
should be delivered up to be held in deposit. The offer was refused,
and we seized the fleet. The act was brutal, but it was at least open
and above board, and the capitulation of September 7th was
scrupulously observed, even when the Danes prepared to renew
hostilities.

On the other hand, the demands of Napoleon on the Court of Lisbon were
such as no honourable prince could accept; they were relentlessly
pressed on in spite of the offer of the Prince Regent to meet him in
every particular save one; the appeals of the victim were deliberately
used by the aggressor to further his own rapacious designs; and the
enterprise fell short of ending in a massacre only because the glamour
of the French arms so dazzled the susceptible people of the south
that, for the present, they sank helplessly away at the sight of two
battalions of spectres. Finally, Portugal was partitioned--or rather
it was kept entirely by Napoleon; for, after the promises of partition
had done their work, the sleeping partners in the transaction were
quietly shelved, and it was then seen that Portugal had finally served
as the bait for ensnaring Spain. To this subject we shall return in
the next chapter.

In Italy also, the Juggernaut car of the Continental System rolled
over the small States. The Kingdom of Etruria, which in 1802 had
served as an easy means of buying the whole of Louisiana from the
Spanish Bourbons, was now wrested from that complaisant House, and in
December was annexed to the French Empire.

The Pope also passed under the yoke. For a long time the relations
between Pius VII. and Napoleon had been strained. Gentle as the
Pontiff was by nature, he had declined to exclude all British
merchandise from his States, or to accept an alliance with Eugène and
Joseph. He also angered Napoleon by persistently refusing to dissolve
the marriage of Jerome Buonaparte with Miss Paterson; and an
interesting correspondence ensued, culminating in a long diatribe
which Eugène was charged to forward to the Vatican as an extract from
a private letter of Napoleon to himself.[176] Pius VII. was to be
privately warned that Napoleon had done more good to religion than the
Pope had done harm. Christ had said that His Kingdom was not of this
world. Why then did the Pope set himself above Christ? Why did he
refuse to render to Cæsar that which was Cæsar's?--A fortnight later
the Emperor advised Eugène to despatch troops in the direction of
Bologna--"and if the Pope commits an imprudence, it will be a fine
opportunity for depriving him of the Roman States."

No imprudence was committed. Yet, in the following January, Napoleon
ordered his troops to occupy Rome, alleging that the Eternal City was
a hotbed of intrigues fomented by England and the ex-Queen of Naples,
that Neapolitan rebels had sought an asylum in the Papal States, and
that, though he had no wish to deprive the Pope of his territories,
yet he must include him in his "system." When Pius VII. refused to
commit himself to a policy which would involve war with England,
Napoleon ordered that his lands east of the Apennines should be
annexed to the Kingdom of Italy (April 2nd, 1808). Napoleon thus
gained complete control over the Adriatic coasts, which, along with
the island of Corfu, had long engaged his most earnest attention.[177]

True to his aim of forcing or enticing all maritime States into a
mighty confederacy for the humiliation of England, Napoleon had given
most heed to lands possessing extensive seaboards. Northern Italy,
Holland, Naples, North Germany, Prussia, Russia, Portugal, Spain,
Denmark, and Central Italy had, in turn, adopted his system. On
Austria he exerted a less imperious pressure; for her coast-line of
Trieste and Croatia was so easily controlled by his Italian and
Dalmatian territories that English merchandise with difficulty found
admittance. Yet, in order to carry out there also his policy of
"Thorough," he brought the arguments of Paris and St. Petersburg to
bear on the Court of Vienna; and on February 18th, 1808, Austria was
enrolled in a league that might well be called continental; for in the
spring of that year it embraced every land save Sweden and Turkey.

His activity at this time almost passes belief. While he fastened his
grip on the Continent, gallicized the institutions of Italy and
Germany, and almost daily instructed his brothers in the essentials of
successful statecraft, he found time to turn his thoughts once more to
the East, and to mark every device of England for lengthening her
lease of life. Noticing that we had annulled our blockade of the Elbe
and Weser, with the aim of getting our goods introduced there by
neutral ships, Napoleon charged his Finance Minister, Gaudin, to
prepare a decree for pressing hard on neutrals who had touched at any
of our ports or carried wares that could be proved to be of British
origin.[178]

He was perfectly correct in his surmise that English goods were about
to be sent into the Continent extensively on neutral vessels. After
the consequences of the Treaty of Tilsit had been fully developed,
that was almost their only means of entry. "In August, September and
October, British commerce lay prostrate and motionless until a
protecting and self-defensive system was interposed by our Orders in
Council."[179] The first of these ordered reprisals against the new
Napoleonic States (November 4th): a week later came a second which
declared that, as the Orders of January had not induced the enemy to
relax his commercial hostilities, but these were now enforced with
increased rigour, any port whence the British flag was excluded would
be treated as if it were actually blockaded; that is, the principle of
the legality of a nominal blockade, abandoned in 1801, was now
reaffirmed. The carriage of hostile colonial products was likewise
prohibited to neutrals, though certain exceptions were allowed. Also
any neutral vessel carrying "certificates of origin"--a device for
distinguishing between British and neutral goods--was to be considered
a lawful prize of war. A third Order in Council of the same date
allowed goods to be imported into the United Kingdom from a hostile
port in neutral ships, subject to the ordinary duties, and bonding
facilities were granted for the re-exportation of such goods to any
friendly or neutral port.[180] These orders were designed to draw
neutral commerce through our ports, and to give secret facilities for
the carriage of our goods by neutrals, while pressing upon those that
obeyed Napoleon's system.

The harshest of them was that which encouraged the searching of
neutral vessels for certificates of origin--a measure as severe as the
confiscation of British property by Napoleon, which it was designed to
defeat. And we may note here that the friction resulting from our
Orders in Council and our enforcement of the right of search led to
the United States passing a Non-Intercourse Act (December 23rd, 1807)
that preluded active hostilities against us. It also led Napoleon to
confiscate all American ships in his harbours after April 17th, 1808.

The November Orders in Council soon drew a reply from Napoleon. He
heard of them during a progress through the north of Italy, and from
Milan he flung back his retort, the famous Milan Decrees of November
23rd and December 17th. He thereby declared every neutral ship, which
submitted to those orders, to be denationalized and good prize of war;
and the same doom was pronounced against every vessel sailing to or
from any port in the United Kingdom or its colonies or possessions.
But these measures were not to affect ships of those States that
compelled Great Britain to respect their flag. The islanders might
well be dismayed at the prospect of a seclusion which promised to
recall the Virgilian line:

  "penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos."

Yet they resolved to pit the resources of the outer world against the
militarism of Napoleon; and, drawing the resources of the tropics to
the new power-looms of Lancashire and Yorkshire, they might well hope
to pour their unequalled goods into Europe from points of vantage such
as Sicily, Gibraltar, the Channel Islands, and Heligoland. There were
many Englishmen who believed that the November Orders in Council
brought nothing but harm to our cause. They argued that our
manufactured goods must find their way into the Continent in spite of
the Berlin Decrees; and they could point to the curious fact that
Bourrienne, Napoleon's agent at Hamburg, when charged to procure
50,000 overcoats for the French army during the Eylau campaign, was
obliged to buy them from England.[181]

The incident certainly proves the folly of the Continental System. And
if we had had to consult our manufacturing interests alone, a policy
of _laisser faire_ would doubtless have been the best. England,
however, prided herself on her merchant service: to that she looked as
the nursery for the royal navy: and the abandonment of the world's
carrying trade to neutrals would have seemed an act of high treason.
Her acts of retaliation against the Berlin Decrees and the policy of
Tilsit were harsh and high-handed. But they were adopted during a
pitiless commercial strife; and, in warfare of so novel and desperate
a kind, acts must unfortunately be judged by their efficacy to harm
the foe rather than by the standards of morality that hold good during
peace. Outwardly, it seemed as if England were doomed. She had lost
her allies and alienated the sympathies of neutrals. But from the sea
she was able to exert on the Napoleonic States a pressure that was
gradual, cumulative, and resistless; and the future was to prove the
wisdom of the words of Mollien: "England waged a warfare of modern
times; Napoleon, that of ancient times. There are times and cases when
an anachronism is fatal."

Moreover, at the very time when the Emperor was about to complete his
great experiment by subduing Sweden and preparing for the partition of
Turkey, it sustained a fatal shock by the fierce rising of the Spanish
people against his usurped authority.

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER XXVIII

THE SPANISH RISING


The relations of Spain to France during the twelve years that preceded
the rising of 1808 are marked by acts of folly and unmanly
complaisance that promised utterly to degrade a once proud and
sensitive people. They were the work of the senile and spiritless
King, Charles IV., of his intriguing consort, and, above all, of her
paramour, the all-powerful Minister Godoy. Of an ancient and
honourable family, endowed with a fine figure, courtly address, and
unscrupulous arts, this man had wormed himself into the royal
confidence; and after bringing about a favourable peace with France in
1795, he was styled The Prince of the Peace.

In the next year the meaning of the French alliance was revealed in
the Treaty of St. Ildefonso, which required Spain to furnish troops,
ships, and subsidies for the war against England, a state of vassalage
which was made harder by Napoleon. The results are well known. After
being forced by him to cede Trinidad to us at the Peace of Amiens, she
sacrificed her navy at Trafalgar, saw her colonies and commerce decay
and her finances shrivel for lack of the golden streams formerly
poured in by Mexico and Peru.

In the summer of 1806, while sinking into debt and disgrace, the Court
of Madrid heard with indignation of Napoleon's design to hand over the
Balearic Isles to the Spanish Bourbons whom he had driven from Naples
and proposed to drive from Sicily. At once Spanish pride caught fire
and clutched at means of revenge.[182] Godoy was further incensed by
the sudden abandonment of the plans which he had long discussed with
Napoleon for the partition of Portugal, plans which gave him the
prospect of reigning as King over the southern portion of that
realm.[183] Accordingly, when the Emperor was entering upon the Jena
campaign, he summoned the Spanish people to arms in a most threatening
manner. The news of the collapse of Prussia ended his bravado.
Complaisance again reigned at Madrid, and 15,000 Spaniards were sent,
at Napoleon's demand, to serve on the borders of Denmark, while the
autocrat of the West perfected his plans against the Iberian
Peninsula. As was noted in the previous chapter, the Emperor renewed
his offers of a partition of Portugal in the early autumn of 1807; and
in pursuance of the secret Treaty of Fontainebleau, Junot's corps
marched through Spain into Portugal, where they were helped by a
Spanish corps.

It is significant that, as early as October 17th, 1807, Napoleon
ordered his general to send a detailed description of the country and
of his line of march, the engineer officers being specially charged to
send sketches, "_which it is important to have_." Other French
divisions then crossed the Pyrenees, under plea of keeping open
Junot's communications with France; and spies were sent to observe the
state of the chief Spanish strongholds. Others were charged to report
on the condition of the Spanish army and the state of public opinion;
while Junot was cautioned to keep a sharp watch on the Spanish troops
in Portugal, to allow no fortress to be in their hands, and to send
all the Portuguese troops away to France. Thus, in the early days of
1808, Napoleon had some 20,000 troops in Portugal, about 40,000 in the
north of Spain, and 12,000 in Catalonia. By various artifices they
gained admission into the strongholds of Pamplona, Monjuik, Barcelona,
St. Sebastian, and Figueras, so that by the month of March the north
and west of the peninsula had passed quietly into his hands, while the
greater part of the Spanish army was doing his work in Portugal or on
the shores of the Baltic.[184]

These proceedings began to arouse alarm and discontent among the
Spanish people; but on its Government their influence was as benumbing
as that which the boa-constrictor exerts on its prey. In vain did
Charles IV. and Godoy strive to set a limit to the numbers of the
auxiliaries that poured across the Pyrenees to help them against
fabled English expeditions. In vain did they beg that the partition of
Portugal might now proceed in accordance with the terms of the secret
Treaty of Fontainebleau. The King was curtly told that affairs were
not yet ripe for the publication of that treaty.[185] And the growing
conviction that he had been duped poured gall into the cup of family
bitterness that had long been full to overflowing.

The scandalous relations of the Queen with Godoy had deeply incensed
the heir to the throne, Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias. His attitude of
covert opposition to his parents and their minion was strengthened by
the influence of his bride, a daughter of the ex-Queen of Naples, and
their palace was the headquarters of all who hoped to end the
degradation of the kingdom. As later events were to prove, Ferdinand
had not the qualities of courage and magnanimity that command general
homage; but it was enough for his countrymen that he opposed the
Court. In 1806 his consort died; and on October 11th, 1807, without
consulting his father, he secretly wrote to Napoleon, requesting the
hand of a Bonaparte princess in marriage, and stating that such an
alliance was the ardent wish of all Spaniards, while they would abhor
his union with a sister of the Princess of the Peace. To this letter
Napoleon sent no reply. But Charles IV. had some inkling of the fact
that the prince had been treating direct with Napoleon; and this,
along with another unfilial action of the prince, furnished an excuse
for a charge of high treason. It was spitefully pressed home and was
revoked only on his humble request for the King's pardon.

Now, this "School for Scandal" was being played at Madrid at the time
when Napoleon was arranging the partition of Portugal; and the schism
in the Spanish royal House may well have strengthened his
determination to end its miserable existence and give a good
government to Spain. At the close of the so-called palace plot,
Charles IV. informed his august ally of _that frightful attempt_, and
begged him to _give the aid of his lights and his counsels_.[186] The
craven-hearted King thus himself opened the door for that intervention
which Napoleon had already meditated. His resolve now rapidly
hardened. At the close of January, 1808, he wrote to Junot asking him:
"If unexpected events occurred in Spain, what would you fear from the
Spanish troops? Could you easily rid yourself of them?"[187] On
February the 20th he appointed Murat, Grand Duke of Berg, to be his
Lieutenant in Spain and commander of the French Forces. The choice of
this bluff, headstrong cavalier, who had done so much to provoke
Prussia in 1806, certainly betokened a forward policy. Yet the Emperor
continued to smile on the Spanish Court, and gave a sort of half
sanction to the union of Ferdinand with a daughter of Lucien
Bonaparte.[188] In fact, the hope of this alliance was now used to
keep quiet the numerous partisans of Ferdinand, while Murat advanced
rapidly towards Madrid. To his Lieutenant the Emperor wrote (March
16th): "Continue your kindly talk. Reassure the King, the Prince of
the Peace, the Prince of Asturias, the Queen. The chief thing is to
reach Madrid, to rest your troops and replenish your provisions. Say
that I am about to come so as to arrange matters."

As to Napoleon's real aims, Murat was in complete ignorance; and he
repeatedly complained of the lack of confidence which a brother-in-law
had a right to expect.[189] But while the Grand Duke of Berg beamed on
the Spaniards with meaningless affability, Izquierdo, Godoy's secret
agent at Paris, troubled his master with gloomy reports of the
deepening reserve and lowering threats of Ministers at Paris. There
was talk of requiring from Spain the cession of her lands between the
Pyrenees and the Ebro: there were even dark suggestions as to the need
of dethroning the Spanish Bourbons once for all. Interpreting these
hints in the light of their own consciences, the King, Queen, and
favourite saw themselves in imagination flung forth into the Atlantic,
a butt to the scorn of mankind; and they prepared to flee to the New
World betimes, with the needful treasure.

But there, too, Napoleon forestalled them. On February 21st a secret
order was sent to a French squadron to anchor off Cadiz and stop the
King and Queen of Spain if they sought to "repeat the scene of
Lisbon."[190] Their escape to America would be even more favourable to
England than the flight of the Court of Lisbon had been; and Napoleon
took good care that the King, to whom he had awarded the title of
Emperor of the two Americas, should remain a prisoner in Europe.
Scared, however, by the approach of Murat and the news from Paris,
Charles still prepared for flight; and the Queen's anxiety to save her
favourite from the growing fury of the populace also bent her desires
seawards.

The Court was at the palace of Aranjuez, not far from Madrid, and it
seemed easy to escape into Andalusia, and to carry away, by guile or
by force, the heir to the throne. But Ferdinand, who hoped for
deliverance at the hands of the French, thwarted the scheme by a
timely hint to his faithful guards. At once his partisans gathered
round him; and the people, rushing to Godoy's residence, madly
ransacked it in the hope of tearing to pieces the author of the
nation's ruin. After thirty-six hours' concealment, Godoy ventured to
steal forth; at once he was discovered, was kicked and beaten; and
only the intervention of Ferdinand, prompted by the agonized
entreaties of his mother, availed to save the dregs of that wretched
life. The roars of the crowd around the palace, and the smashing of
the royal carriage, now decided the King to abdicate; and he declared
that his declining years and failing health now led him to yield the
crown to Ferdinand (March 19th, 1808).

Loud was the acclaim that greeted the young King when he entered
Madrid; but the rejoicings were soon damped by the ambiguous behaviour
of Murat, who, on entering Madrid at the head of his troops, skilfully
evaded any recognition of Ferdinand as King. In fact, Murat had
received (March 21st) a letter from Charles IV.'s daughter begging for
his help to her parents at Aranjuez; and it soon transpired that the
ex-King and Queen now repented of their abdication, which they
represented as brought about by force and therefore null and void. The
Grand Duke of Berg saw the advantage which this dispute might give to
Napoleon; and he begged the Emperor to come immediately to Madrid for
the settlement of matters on which he alone could decide. To this
Napoleon replied (March 30th) commending his Lieutenant's prudence,
and urging him to escort Charles IV. to the Escurial as King, while
Godoy was also to be protected and sent to Bayonne.

To this town the Emperor set out on April the 2nd, as though he would
thence proceed to Madrid. Ferdinand, meanwhile, was treated with
guarded courtesy that kept alive his hope of an alliance with a French
princess. To favour this notion, Napoleon despatched the wariest of
his agents, Savary, who artfully persuaded him to meet the Emperor at
Burgos. He succeeded, and even induced him to continue his journey to
Vittoria. At that place the citizens sought to cut the traces of the
royal carriage, so much did they fear treachery if he proceeded
further. Yet the young King, beguiled by the Emperor's letter of April
16th, which offered the hand of a French princess, prolonged his
journey, crossed the frontier, and was received by Napoleon at Bayonne
(April 20th). His arguments, proving that his father's abdication had
been voluntary, fell on deaf ears. The Emperor invited him to dinner,
and afterwards sent Savary to inform him that he must hand back the
crown to his father. To this Ferdinand returned a firm refusal; and
his advisers, Escoiquiz and Labrador, ventured to warn the Emperor
that the Spaniards would swear eternal hatred to France if he tampered
with the crown of Spain. Napoleon listened good-humouredly, pulled
Escoiquiz by the ear as a sign of his personal regard, and added: "You
are a deep fellow; but, I tell you, the Bourbons will never let me
alone." On the next day he offered Ferdinand the throne of Etruria. It
was coldly declined.[191]

Charles IV., his Queen, and Godoy, arrived at Bayonne at the close of
April. The ex-King had offered to put himself and his claim in
Napoleon's hands, which was exactly what the Emperor desired. The
feeble creature now poured forth his bile on his disobedient son, and
peevishly bade him restore the crown. Ferdinand assented, provided his
father would really reign, and would dismiss those advisers who were
hated by the nation; but the attempt to impose conditions called forth
a flash of senile wrath, along with the remark that "one ought to do
everything _for_ the people and nothing _by_ the people."

Meanwhile the men of Madrid were not acting with the passivity desired
by their philosophizing monarch. At first they had welcomed Murat as
delivering them from the detested yoke of Godoy; but the conduct of
the French in their capital, and the detention of Ferdinand at
Bayonne, aroused angry feelings, which burst forth on May the 2nd, and
long defied the grapeshot of Murat's guns and the sabres of his
troopers. The news of this so-called revolt gave Napoleon another
handle against his guests. He hurried to Charles and cowed him by
well-simulated signs of anger, which that _roi fainéant_ thereupon
vented on his son, with a passion that was outdone only by the shrill
gibes of the Queen. At the close of this strange scene, the Emperor
interposed with a few stern words, threatening to treat the prince as
a rebel if he did not that very evening restore the crown to his
father. Ferdinand braved the parental taunts in stolid silence, but
before the trenchant threats of Napoleon he quailed, and broke down.

Resistance was now at an end. On that same night (May 5th) the Emperor
concluded with Godoy a convention whereby Charles IV. agreed to hand
over to Napoleon the crowns of Spain and the Indies, on consideration
that those dominions should remain intact, should keep the Roman
Catholic faith to the exclusion of all others, and that he himself
should be pensioned off with the estates of Compiègne and Chambord,
receiving a yearly income of seven and a half million francs, payable
by the French treasury. The Spanish princes were similarly treated,
Ferdinand signing away his rights for a castle and a pension. To crown
the farce, Napoleon ordered Talleyrand to receive them at his estate
of Valençay, and amuse them with actors and the charms of female
society. Thus the choicest humorist of the age was told off to
entertain three uninteresting exiles; and the ex-Minister of Foreign
Affairs, who disapproved of the treachery of Bayonne, was made to
appear the Emperor's accomplice.

Such were the means whereby Napoleon gained the crowns of Spain and
the Indies, without striking a blow.

His excuse for the treachery as expressed at the time was as follows:
"My action is not good from a certain point of view, I know. But my
policy demands that I shall not leave in my rear, so near to Paris, a
dynasty hostile to mine." From this and from other similar remarks, it
would seem that his resolve to dethrone the Bourbons was taken while
on his march to Jena, but was thrust down into the abyss of his
inscrutable will for a whole year, until Junot's march to Lisbon
furnished a safe means for effecting the subjugation of Spain. This
end he thenceforth pursued unswervingly with no sign of remorse, or
even of hesitation--unless we accept as genuine the almost certainly
spurious letter of March 29th, 1808. That letter represents him as
blaming Murat for entering Madrid, when he had repeatedly urged him to
do so; as asking his advice after he had all along kept him in
ignorance as to his aims; and as writing a philosophical homily on the
unused energies of the Spanish people, for whom in his genuine letters
he expressed a lofty contempt.[192]

The whole enterprise is, indeed, a masterpiece of skill, but a
masterpiece marred by ineffaceable stains of treachery. And at the
close of his life, he himself said: "I embarked very badly on the
Spanish affair, I confess: the immorality of it was too patent, the
injustice too cynical, and the whole thing wears an ugly look since I
have fallen; for the attempt is only seen in its hideous nakedness
deprived of all majesty and of the many benefits which completed my
intention."

That he hoped to reform Spain is certain. Political and social reforms
had hitherto consolidated the work of conquest; and those which he
soon offered to the Spaniards might possibly have renovated that
nation, had they not been handed in at the sword's point; but the
motive was too obvious, the intervention too insulting, to render
success possible with the most sensitive people in Europe. On May 2nd
he wrote to Murat that he intended King Joseph of Naples to reign at
Madrid, and offered to Murat either Portugal or Naples.[193] He chose
the latter. Joseph was allowed no choice in the matter. He was
summoned from Naples to Bayonne, and, on arriving at Pau, heard with
great surprise that he was King of Spain.

Napoleon's selection was tactful. At Naples, the eldest of the
Bonapartes had effected many reforms and was generally popular; but
the treachery of Bayonne blasted all hopes of his succeeding at
Madrid. Though the grandees of Spain welcomed the new monarch with
courtly grace, though Charles IV. gave him his blessing, though
Ferdinand demeaned himself by advising his former subjects quietly to
submit, the populace willed otherwise.

Every instinct of the Spanish nature was aflame with resentment.
Loathing for Charles IV., his Queen, and their favourite, whom
Napoleon richly dowered, love of the young King whom he falsely
filched away, detestation of the French troops who outraged the rights
of hospitality, and zeal for the Roman Catholic Church, whose chief
had just been robbed of half his States, goaded the Spaniards to
madness. Their indignation rumbled hoarsely for a time, like a volcano
in labour, and then burst forth in an explosion of fury. The
constitution which Napoleon presented to the Spanish Notables at
Bayonne was accepted by them, only to be flung back with scorn by the
people. The men of enlightenment who counselled prudence and patience
were slain by raging mobs or sought safety in flight. The rising was
at once national in its grand spontaneity and local in its intensity.
Province after province rose in arms, except the north and centre,
where 80,000 French troops held the patriots in check. In the van of
the movement was the rugged little province of Asturias, long ago the
forlorn hope of the Christians in their desperate conflicts with the
Moors. Intrenched behind their mountains and proud of their ancient
fame, the Asturians ventured on the sublime folly of declaring war
against the ruler of the West and the lord of 900,000 warriors.
Swiftly Galicia and Leon in the north repeated the challenge; while in
the south, the fertile lands of Andalusia, Murcia, and Valencia
flashed back from their mountains the beacon lights of a national war.
The former dislike of England was forgotten. The Juntas of Asturias,
Galicia, and Andalusia sent appeals to us for help, to which Canning
generously responded; and, on July 4th, we passed at a single bound
from war with the Spanish Bourbons to an informal alliance with the
people of Spain.

Napoleon now began to see the magnitude of his error. Instead of
gaining control over Spain and the Indies, he had changed
long-suffering allies into irreconcilable foes. He prepared to conquer
Spain. While Joseph was escorted to his new capital by a small army,
Napoleon from Bayonne directed the operations of his generals. Holding
the northern road from Bayonne to Burgos and Madrid, they were to send
out cautious feelers against the bands of insurgents; for, as Napoleon
wrote to Savary (July 13th): "In civil wars it is the important posts
that must be held: one ought not to go everywhere." Weighty words,
which his lieutenants in Spain were often to disregard! Bessières in
the north gained a success at Medina de Rio Seco; but a signal
disaster in the south ruined the whole campaign. Dupont, after beating
the levies of Andalusia, penetrated into the heart of that great
province, and, when cumbered with plunder, his divided forces were
surrounded, cut off from their supplies, and forced to surrender at
Baylen--in all about 20,000 men (July 19th). The news that a French
army had laid down its arms caused an immense sensation in an age when
Napoleon's troops were held to be invincible. Baylen was hailed
everywhere by despairing patriots as the dawn of a new era. And such
it was to be. If Valmy proclaimed the advent of militant democracy,
the victory of Spaniards over one of the bravest of Napoleon's
generals was felt to be an even greater portent. It ushered in the
epoch of national resistance to the overweening claims of the Emperor
of the West.

That truth he seems dimly to have surmised. His rage on hearing of the
capitulation was at first too deep for words. Then he burst out:
"Could I have expected that from Dupont, a man whom I loved, and was
rearing up to become a Marshal? They say he had no other way to save
the lives of his soldiers. Better, far better, to have died with arms
in their hands. Their death would have been glorious: we should have
avenged them. You can always supply the place of soldiers. Honour
alone, when once lost, can never be regained."

Moreover, the material consequences were considerable. The Spaniards
speedily threatened Madrid; and, on the advice of Savary, Joseph
withdrew from his capital after a week's sojourn, and fell back
hurriedly on the line of the Upper Ebro, where the French rallied for
a second advance.

Their misfortunes did not end here. In the north-east the hardy
Catalans had risen against the invaders, and by sheer pluck and
audacity cooped them up in their ill-gotten strongholds of Barcelona
and Figueras. The men of Arragon, too, never backward in upholding
their ancient liberties, rallied to defend their capital Saragossa.
Their rage was increased by the arrival of Palafox, who had escaped in
disguise from the suite of Ferdinand at Bayonne, and brought news of
the treachery there perpetrated. Beaten outside their ancient city,
and unable to hold its crumbling walls against the French cannon and
columns of assault, the defenders yet fiercely turned to bay amidst
its narrow lanes and massive monasteries. There a novel warfare was
waged. From street to street and house to house the fight eddied for
days, the Arragonese opposing to French valour the stubborn devotion
ever shown by the peoples of the peninsula in defence of their walled
cities, and an enthusiasm kindled by the zeal of their monks and the
heroism of the Maid of Saragossa. Finally, on August 10th, the noble
city shook off the grip of the 15,000 assailants, who fell back to
join Joseph's forces higher up the Ebro.

Even now the Emperor did not fully realize the serious nature of the
war that was beginning. Despite Savary's warnings of the dangers to be
faced in Spain, he persisted in thinking of it as an ordinary war that
could be ended by good strategy and a few victories. He censured
Joseph and Savary for giving up the line of the Upper Douro: he blamed
them next for the evacuation of Tudela, and summed up the situation by
stating that "all the Spanish forces are not able to overthrow 25,000
French in a reasonable position"--adding, with stinging satire: "In
war _men_ are nothing: it is _a man_ who is everything."

When, at the close of August, Napoleon penned these memorable words in
his palace of St. Cloud, he knew not that a _man_ had arrived on the
scene of action. At the beginning of that month, Sir Arthur Wellesley
with a British force of 12,300 men landed at the mouth of the River
Mondego, and, aided by Portuguese irregulars, began his march on
Lisbon. This is not the place for a review of the character and career
of our great warrior: in truth, a volume would be too short for the
task. With fine poetic insight, Lord Tennyson has noted in his funeral
Ode the qualities that enabled him to overcome the unexampled
difficulties caused by our own incompetent Government and by jealous,
exacting, and slipshod allies:

  "Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood,
  The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute,
  Whole in himself, a common good."


Glory and vexation were soon to be his. On the 17th he drove the
French vanguard from Roliça; and when, four days later, Junot hurried
up with all his force, the British inflicted on that presumptuous
leader a signal defeat at Vimiero. So bad were Junot's tactics that
his whole force would have been cut off from Torres Vedras, had not
Wellesley's senior officer, Sir Harry Burrard, arrived just in time to
take over the command and stop the pursuit. Thereupon Wellesley
sarcastically exclaimed to his staff: "Gentlemen, nothing now remains
to us but to go and shoot red-legged partridges." The peculiarities of
our war administration were further seen in the supersession of
Burrard by Sir Hew Dalrymple, whose chief title to fame is his signing
of the Convention of Cintra.

By this strange compact the whole of Junot's force was to be conveyed
from Portugal to France on British ships, while the Russian squadron
blockaded in the Tagus was to be held by us in pledge till the peace,
the crews being sent on to Russia. The convention itself was violently
attacked by the English public; but it has found a defender in Napier,
who dwells on the advantages of getting the French at once out of
Portugal, and thus providing a sure base for the operations in Spain.
Seeing, however, that Junot's men were demoralized by defeat, and that
the nearest succouring force was in Navarre, these excuses seem
scarcely tenable, except on the ground that, with such commanders as
Burrard and Dalrymple, it was certainly desirable to get the French
speedily away.

On his side, Napoleon showed much annoyance at Junot's acceptance of
this convention, and remarked: "I was about to send Junot to a council
of war: but happily the English got the start of me by sending their
generals to one, and thus saved me from the pain of punishing an old
friend." With his customary severity to those who had failed, he
frowned on all the officers of the Army of Portugal, and, on landing
in France, they were strictly forbidden to come to Paris. The fate of
Dupont and of his chief lieutenants, who were released by the
Spaniards, was even harder: on their return they were condemned to
imprisonment. By such means did Napoleon exact the uttermost from his
troops, even in a service so detested as that in Spain ever was.[194]

Despite the blunderings of our War Office, the silly vapourings of the
Spaniards, and the insane quarrels of their provincial juntas about
precedence and the sharing of English subsidies, the summer of 1808
saw Napoleon's power stagger under terrible blows. Not only did he
lose Spain and Portugal and the subsidies which they had meekly paid,
but most of the 15,000 Spanish troops which had served him on the
shores of the Baltic found means to slip away on British ships and put
a backbone into the patriotic movements in the north of Spain. But
worst of all was the loss of that moral strength, which he himself
reckoned as three-fourths of the whole force in war. Hitherto he had
always been able to marshal the popular impulse on his side. As the
heir to the Revolution he had appealed, and not in vain, to the
democratic forces which he had hypnotized in France but sought to stir
up in his favour abroad. Despite the efforts of Czartoryski and Stein
to tear the democratic mask from his face, it imposed on mankind until
the Spanish Revolution laid bare the truth; and at St. Helena the
exile gave his own verdict on the policy of Bayonne: "It was the
Spanish ulcer which ruined me."


    NOTE TO THE THIRD EDITION.--For a careful account of the
    Convention of Cintra in its military and political aspects, see
    Mr. Oman's recently published "History of the Peninsular War,"
    vol. i., pp. 268-278, 291-300. I cannot, however, agree with the
    learned author that that Convention was justifiable on military
    grounds, after so decisive a victory as Vimiero.

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER XXIX

ERFURT

    "At bottom the great question is--who shall have
    Constantinople?"--NAPOLEON, May 31st, 1808.


The Spanish Rising made an immense rent in Napoleon's plans. It opened
valuable markets for British goods both in the Peninsula and in South
and Central America, and that too at the very time when the
Continental System was about to enfold us in its deadly grip.[195] And
finally it disarranged schemes that reached far beyond Europe. To
these we must now briefly recur.

Even amidst his greatest military triumphs Napoleon's gaze turned
longingly towards the East; and no sooner did he force peace on the
conquered than his thoughts centred once more on his navy and
colonies, on Egypt and India. The Treaty of Tilsit gave him leisure to
renew these designs. The publication in 1807 of his official Atlas of
Australia, in which he claimed nearly half that continent for France,
proves that he never accepted Trafalgar as a death-blow to his
maritime and colonial aspirations. And the ardour of his desire for
the conquest of India is seen in the letter which he wrote to the Czar
on February 2nd, 1808. After expressing his desire for the glory and
expansion of Russia, and advising the Czar to conquer Finland, he
proceeds:

    "An army of 50,000 men, Russians, French, and perhaps a few
    Austrians, that penetrated by way of Constantinople into Asia,
    would not reach the Euphrates before England would tremble and bow
    the knee before the Continent. I am ready in Dalmatia. Your
    Majesty is ready on the Danube. A month after we came to an
    agreement the army could be on the Bosphorus.... By the 1st of May
    our troops can be in Asia, and at the same time those of Your
    Majesty, at Stockholm. Then the English, threatened in the Indies,
    and chased from the Levant, will be crushed under the weight of
    events with which the atmosphere will be charged."[196]

There were several reasons why Napoleon should urge on this scheme. He
was irritated by the continued resistance of Great Britain, and
thought to terrify us into surrender by means of those oriental
enterprises which convinced our statesmen that we must fight on for
dear life. He also desired to restore the harmony of his relations
with Alexander. For, in truth, the rapturous harmonies of Tilsit had
soon been marred by discord. Alexander did not withdraw his troops
from the Danubian provinces; whereupon Napoleon declined to evacuate
Silesia; and the friction resulting from this wary balancing of
interests was increased, when, at the close of 1807, a formal proposal
was sent from Paris that, if Russia retained those provinces, Silesia
should be at the disposal of France.[197] The dazzling vistas opened
up to Alexander's gaze at Tilsit were thus shrouded by a sordid and
distasteful bargain, which he hotly repelled. To repair this false
step, Napoleon now wrote the alluring letter quoted above; and the
Czar exclaimed on perusing it: "Ah, this is the language of Tilsit."

Yet, it may be questioned whether Napoleon desired to press on an
immediate partition of the Ottoman Power. His letter invited the Czar
to two great enterprises, the conquest of Finland and the invasion of
Persia and India. The former by itself was destined to tax Russia's
strength. Despite Alexander's offer of a perpetual guarantee for the
Finnish constitution and customs, that interesting people opposed a
stubborn resistance. Napoleon must also have known that Russia's
forces were then wholly unequal to the invasion of India; and his
invitation to Alexander to engage in two serious enterprises certainly
had the effect of postponing the partition of Turkey. Delay was all in
his favour, if he was to gain the lion's share of the spoils. Russian
troops were ready on the banks of the Danube; but he was not as yet
fully prepared. His hold on Dalmatia, Ragusa, and Corfu was not wholly
assured. Sicily and Malta still defied him; and not until he seized
Sicily could he gain the control of the Mediterranean--"the constant
aim of my policy." Only when that great sea had become a French lake
could he hope to plant himself firmly in Albania, Thessaly, Greece,
Crete, Egypt, and Syria.

For the present, then, the Czar was beguiled with the prospect of an
eastern expedition; and, while Russian troops were overrunning
Finland, Napoleon sought to conquer Sicily and reduce Spain to the
rank of a feudatory State. From this wider point of view, he looked on
the Iberian Peninsula merely as a serviceable base for a greater
enterprise, the conquest of the East. This is proved by a letter that
he wrote to Decrès, Minister of Marine and of the Colonies, from
Bayonne on May 17th, 1808, when the Spanish affair seemed settled:
"There is not much news from India. England is in great penury there,
and the arrival of an expedition [from France] would ruin that colony
from top to bottom. The more I reflect on this step, the less
inconvenience I see in taking it." Two days later he wrote to Murat
that money must be found for naval preparations at the Spanish ports:
"I must have ships, for I intend striking a heavy blow towards the end
of the season." But at the close of June he warned Decrès that as
Spanish affairs were going badly, he must postpone his design of
despatching a fleet far from European waters.[198]

Spain having proved to be, not a meek purveyor of fleets, but a
devourer of French armies, there was the more need of a close accord
with the Czar. Napoleon desired, not only to assure a further
postponement of the Turkish enterprise, but also to hold Austria and
Germany in check. The former Power, seeing Napoleon in difficulties,
pushed on apace her military organization; and Germany heaved with
suppressed excitement at the news of the Spanish Rising. The dormant
instinct of German nationality had already shown signs of awakening.
In the early days of 1808 the once cosmopolitan philosopher, Fichte,
delivered at Berlin within sound of the French drums his "Addresses to
the German Nation," in which he dwelt on the unquenchable strength of
a people that determined at all costs to live free.

On the philosopher's theme the Spaniards now furnished a commentary
written with their life-blood. Thinkers and soldiers were alike moved
by the stories of Baylen and Saragossa. Varnhagen von Ense relates how
deep was the excitement of the quaint sage, Jean Paul Richter, who
"doubted not that the Germans would one day rise against the French as
the Spaniards had done, and that Prussia would revenge its insults and
give freedom to Germany.... I proved to him how hollow and weak was
Napoleon's power: how deeply rooted was the opposition to it. The
Spaniards were the refrain to everything, and we always returned to
them."

The beginnings of a new civic life were then being laid in Prussia by
Stein. Called by the King to be virtually a civic dictator, this great
statesman carried out the most drastic reforms. In October, 1807,
there appeared at Memel the decrees of emancipation which declared the
abolition of serfdom with all its compulsory and menial services. The
old feudal society was further invigorated by the admission of all
classes to the holding of land or to any employment, while trade
monopolies were similarly swept away. Municipal self-government gave
new zest and energy to civic life; and the principle that the army
"ought to be the union of all the moral and physical energies of the
nation" was carried out by the military organizer Scharnhorst, who
conceived and partly realized the idea that all able-bodied men should
serve their time with the colours and then be drafted into a reserve.
This military reform excited Napoleon's distrust, and he forced the
King to agree by treaty (September, 1808) that the Prussian army
should never exceed 42,000 men, a measure which did not hinder the
formation of an effective reserve, and was therefore complied with to
the letter, if not in spirit.

In fact, in the previous month a plan of a popular insurrection had
been secretly discussed by Stein, Scharnhorst, and other patriotic
Ministers. The example of the Spaniards was everywhere to be followed,
and, if Austria sent forth her legions on the Danube and England
helped in Hanover, there seemed some prospect of shaking off the
Napoleonic yoke. The scheme miscarried, and largely owing to the
interception of a letter in which Stein imprudently referred to the
exasperation of public feeling in Germany and the lively hope excited
by the events in Spain and the preparations of Austria. Napoleon
caused the letter to be printed in the "Moniteur" of September 8th,
and sequestered Stein's property in Westphalia. He also kept his grip
on Prussia; for while withdrawing most of his troops from that
exhausted land, he retained French garrisons in Stettin, Glogau, and
Küstrin. Holding these fortresses on the strong defensive line of the
Oder, he might smile at the puny efforts of Prussian patriots and hope
speedily to crush the Spanish rebels, provided he could count on the
loyal support of Alexander in holding Austria in check.

To gain this support and to clear away the clouds that bulked on their
oriental horizon, Napoleon urgently desired an interview with his
ally. For some months it had been proposed; but the Spanish Rising and
the armaments of Austria made it essential.

The meeting took place at Erfurt (September 27th). The Thuringian city
was ablaze with uniforms, and the cannon thundered salvoes of welcome
as the two potentates and their suites entered the ancient walls and
filed through narrow streets redolent of old German calm, an abode
more suited to the speculations of a Luther than to the
world-embracing schemes of the Emperors of the West and East. With
them were their chief warriors and Ministers, personages who now threw
into the shade the new German kings. There, too, were the lesser
German princes, some of them to grace the Court of the man who had
showered lands and titles on them, others to hint a wish for more
lands and higher titles. In truth, the title of king was tantalizingly
common; and if we may credit a story of the time, the French soldiery
had learnt to despise it. For, on one occasion, when the guard of
honour, deceived by the splendour of the King of Würtemberg's chariot,
was about to deliver the triple salute accorded only to the two
Emperors, the officer in command angrily exclaimed: "Be quiet: it's
only a king."

The Emperors at Erfurt devoted the mornings to personal interviews,
the afternoons to politics, the evenings to receptions and the
theatre. The actors of the Comédie Française had been brought from
Paris, and played to the Emperors and a parterre of princes the
masterpieces of the French stage, especially those which contained
suitable allusions. A notable incident occurred on the recital of the
line in the "Oedipe" of Voltaire:

  "L'amitié d'un grand homme est un bienfait des dieux."

As if moved by a sudden inspiration, Alexander arose and warmly
pressed the hand of Napoleon, who was then half-dozing at his
side.[199] On the surface, indeed, everything was friendship and
harmony. With urbane facility, the Czar accompanied his ally to the
battlefield of Jena, listened to the animated description of the
victor, and then joined in the chase in a forest hard by.

But beneath these brilliant shows there lurked suspicions and fears.
Alexander was annoyed that Napoleon retained French garrisons in the
fortresses on the Oder and claimed an impossible sum as indemnity from
Prussia. This was not the restoration of Prussia's independence, for
which he, Alexander, had pleaded; and while the French eagles were at
Küstrin, the Russian frontier could not be deemed wholly safe.[200]
Then again the Czar had been secretly warned by Talleyrand against
complaisance to the French Emperor. "Sire, what are you coming here
for? It is for you to save Europe, and you will only succeed in that
by resisting Napoleon. The French are civilized, their sovereign is
not. The sovereign of Russia is civilized, her people are not.
Therefore the sovereign of Russia must be the ally of the French
people."[201] We may doubt whether this symmetrical proposition would
have had much effect, if Alexander had not received similar warnings
from his own ambassador at Paris; and it would seem that too much
importance has been assigned to what is termed Talleyrand's
_treachery_ at Erfurt.[202] Affairs of high policy are determined, not
so much by the logic of words as by the sterner logic of facts. Ever
since Tilsit, Napoleon had been prodigal of promises to his ally, but
of little else. The alluring visions set forth in his letter of
February 2nd were as visionary as ever; and Romantzoff expressed the
wish of his countrymen in his remark to Champagny: "We have come to
Erfurt to set a limit to this conduct." It was evident that if
Napoleon had his way completely, the partition of Turkey would take
place at the time and in the manner desired by him; this the Czar was
determined to prevent, and therefore turned a deaf ear to his ally's
proposal that they should summon Austria to explain her present
ambiguous behaviour and frankly to recognize Joseph Bonaparte as King
of Spain. If Austria put a stop to her present armaments, the
supremacy of Napoleon in Central Europe would be alarmingly great.
Clearly it was not to Russia's interest to weaken the only
buffer-state that remained between her and the Empire of the West.

These fears were quietly fed by a special envoy of the Court of
Vienna, Baron Vincent, who brought complimentary notes to the two
Emperors and remained to feel the pulse of European policy. It boded
peace for Austria for the present. Despite Napoleon's eager arguments
that England would never make peace until Austria accepted the present
situation in Spain, Alexander quietly but firmly refused to take any
steps to depress the Hapsburg Power. The discussions waxed warm; for
Napoleon saw that, unless the Court of Vienna were coerced, England
would persist in aiding the Spanish patriots; and Alexander showed an
unexpected obstinacy. Napoleon's plea, that peace could only be
assured by the entire discouragement of England, Austria, and the
Spanish "rebels," had no effect on him: in fact, he began to question
the sincerity of a peacemaker whose methods were war and intimidation.
Finding arguments useless, Napoleon had recourse to anger. At the end
of a lively discussion, he threw his cap on the ground and stamped on
it. Alexander stopped, looked at him with a meaning smile, and said
quietly: "You are violent: as for me, I am obstinate: anger gains
nothing from me: let us talk, let us reason, or I go." He moved
towards the door, whereupon Napoleon called him back--and they
reasoned.

It was of no avail. Though Alexander left his ally a free hand in
Spain, he refused to join him in a diplomatic menace to Austria; and
Napoleon saw that "those devilish Spanish affairs" were at the root of
this important failure, which was to cost him the war on the Danube in
the following year.

As a set-off to this check, he disappointed Alexander respecting
Prussia and Turkey. He refused to withdraw his troops from the
fortresses on the Oder, and grudgingly consented to lower his
pecuniary claims on Prussia from 140,000,000 francs to 120,000,000.
Towards the Czar's Turkish schemes he showed little more complaisance.
After sharp discussions it was finally settled that Russia should gain
the Danubian provinces, but not until the following year. France
renounced all mediation between Alexander and the Porte, but required
him to maintain the integrity of all the other Turkish possessions,
which meant that the partition of Turkey was to be postponed until it
suited Napoleon to take up his oriental schemes in earnest. The golden
visions of Tilsit were thus once more relegated to a distant future,
and the keenness of the Czar's disappointment may be measured by his
striking statement quoted by Caulaincourt in one of his earlier
reports from St. Petersburg: "Let the world be turned upside down
provided that Russia gains Constantinople and the Dardanelles."[203]

The Erfurt interview left another hidden sore. It was there that the
divorce from Josephine was officially discussed, with a view to a more
ambitious alliance. Persistent as the rumours of a divorce had been
for seven years past, they seem to have emanated, not from the
husband, but from jealous sisters-in-law, intriguing relatives, and
officious Ministers. To the most meddlesome of these satellites,
Fouché, who had ventured to suggest to Josephine the propriety of
sacrificing herself for the good of the State, Napoleon had lately
administered a severe rebuke. But now he caused Talleyrand and
Caulaincourt to sound the Czar as to the feasibility of an alliance
with one of his sisters. The response was equally vague and discreet.
Alexander expressed his gratification at the friendship which
proffered such a request and his desire for the founding of a
Napoleonic House. Further than this he did not go: and eight days
after his return to St. Petersburg his only marriageable sister,
Catherine, was affianced to the heir to the Duchy of Oldenburg. This
event, it is true, was decided by the Dowager Empress; but no one,
least of all Napoleon, could harbour any doubts as to its
significance.

In truth, Napoleon's chief triumphs at Erfurt were social and
literary. His efforts to dazzle German princes and denationalize two
of her leading thinkers were partly successful. Goethe and Wieland
bowed before his greatness. To the former Napoleon granted a lengthy
interview. He flattered the aged poet at the outset by the words, "You
are a man": he then talked about several works in a way that Goethe
thought very just; and he criticised one passage of the poet's
youthful work, "Werther," as untrue to nature, with which Goethe
agreed. On Voltaire's "Mahomet" he heaped censure, for its unworthy
portraiture of the conqueror of the East and its ineffective fatalism.
"These pieces belong to an obscure age. Besides, what do they mean
with their fatalism? Politics is fatalism." The significance of this
saying was soon to be emphasized, so that misapprehension was
impossible. After witnessing Voltaire's "La Mort de César," Napoleon
suggested that the poet ought to write a tragedy in a grander style
than Voltaire's, so as to show how the world would have benefited if
the great Roman had had time to carry out his vast plans.

Finally, Goethe was invited to come to Paris, where he would find
abundant materials for his poetic creations. Fortunately, Goethe was
able to plead his age in excuse; and the world was therefore spared
the sight of a great genius saddled with an imperial commission and
writing a Napoleonized version of Cæsar's exploits and policy. But the
pressing character of the invitation reveals the Emperor's
dissatisfaction with his French poetasters and his intention to
denationalize German literature. He had a dim perception that Teutonic
idealism was a dangerous foe, inasmuch as it kept alive the sense of
nationality which he was determined to obliterate. He was right. The
last and most patriotic of Schiller's works, "Wilhelm Tell," the
impassioned discourses of Fichte, the efforts of the new patriotic
league, the Tugendbund, and last, but not least, the memory of the
murdered Palm, all these were influences that baffled bayonets and
diplomacy. Conquer and bargain as he might, he could not grapple with
the impalpable forces of the era that was now dawning. The younger
generation throbbed responsive to the teachings of Fichte, the appeals
of Stein, and the exploits of the Spaniards; it was blind to the
splendours of Erfurt: and it heard with grief, but with no change of
conviction, that Goethe and Wieland had accepted from Napoleon the
cross of the Legion of Honour, and that too on the anniversary of the
Battle of Jena.

After thus finally belittling the two poets, he shot a parting shaft
at German idealism in his farewell to the academicians. He bade them
beware of idealogues as dangerous dreamers and disguised materialists.
Then, raising his voice, he exclaimed: "Philosophers plague themselves
with weaving systems: they will never find a better one than
Christianity, which, reconciling man with himself, also assures public
order and repose. Your idealogues destroy every illusion; and the time
of illusions is for peoples and individuals alike the time of
happiness. I carry one away, that you will think kindly of me." He
then mounted his carriage and drove away to Paris to resume his
conquest of Spain.[204]

The last diplomatic proceeding at Erfurt was the drawing up of a
secret convention which assigned Finland and the Danubian Provinces to
Russia, and promised Russia's help to Napoleon in case Austria should
attack him. The Czar also recognized Joseph Bonaparte as King of Spain
and joined Napoleon in a joint note to George III. summoning him to
make peace. On the same day (October 12th) that note was drawn up and
despatched to London. In reply, Canning stated our willingness to
treat for peace, provided that it should include all parties: that,
although bound by no formal treaty to Ferdinand VII. and the Spanish
people, yet we felt ourselves none the less pledged to them, and
presumed that they, as well as our other allies, would be admitted to
the negotiations. Long before this reply reached Paris, Napoleon had
left for Spain. But on November 19th, he charged Champagny to state
that the Spanish rebels could no more be admitted than the Irish
insurgents: as for the other parties to the dispute he would not
refuse to admit "either the King reigning in Sweden, or the King
reigning in Sicily, or the King reigning in Brazil." This insulting
reply sufficiently shows the insincerity of his overtures and the
peculiarity of his views of monarchy. The Spaniards were rebels
because they refused to recognize the forced abdication of their young
King; and the rulers of Sweden, Naples and Portugal, were Kings as
long as it suited Napoleon to tolerate them, and no longer. It is
needless to add that our Government refused to desert the Spaniards;
and in his reply to St. Petersburg, Canning expressed George III.'s
deep regret that Alexander should sanction

    "An usurpation unparalleled in the history of the world.... If
    these be the principles to which the Emperor of Russia has
    inviolably attached himself ... deeply does His Majesty [George
    III.] lament a determination by which the sufferings of Europe
    must be aggravated and prolonged. But not to His Majesty is to be
    attributed the continuance of the calamities of war, by the
    disappointment of all hope of such a peace as would be compatible
    with justice and honour."[205]

No open-minded person can peruse the correspondence on this subject
without concluding that British policy, if lacking the breadth, grip
and _finesse_ that marked that of France and Russia, yet possessed the
sterling merits of manly truthfulness and staunch fidelity. The words
quoted above were the words of Canning, but the spirit that animated
them was that of George III. His storm-tossed life was now verging
towards the dread bourne of insanity; but it was given to him to make
this stern yet half-pleading appeal to the Czar's better nature. And
who shall say that the example of constancy which the aged King
displayed amidst the gathering gloom of his public and private life
did not ultimately bear fruit in the later and grander phase of
Alexander's character and career?

Meanwhile Napoleon was bursting through the Spanish defence. The
patriots, puffed up with their first successes, had been indulging in
dreams of an invasion of France; and their provincial juntas
quarrelled over the sharing of the future spoils as over the
apportionment of English arms and money. Their awakening was terrible.
With less than 90,000 raw troops they were attacked by 250,000 men led
by the greatest warrior of the age. Everywhere they were routed, and
at a last fight at the pass over the Somosierra mountain, the
superiority of the French was strikingly shown. While the Spaniards
were pouring down grapeshot on the struggling masses of the
assailants, the Emperor resolved to hurl his light Polish horse uphill
at the death-dealing guns. Dashingly was the order obeyed. Some forty
or fifty riders bit the dust, but the rest swept on, sabred the
gunners, and decided the day. The Spaniards, amazed at these
unheard-of tactics, took to their heels, and nothing now stayed
Napoleon's entry into Madrid (December 4th). There he strove to
popularize Joseph's rule by offering several desirable reforms, such
as the abolition of feudal laws and of the Inquisition. It was of no
avail. The Spaniards would have none of them at his hands.

After a brief stay in Madrid, he turned to crush Sir John Moore. That
brave soldier, relying on the empty promises of the patriots, had
ventured into the heart of Leon with a British force of 26,000 men. If
he could not save Madrid, he could at least postpone a French conquest
of the south. In this he succeeded; his chivalrous daring drew on him
the chief strength of the invaders; and when hopelessly outnumbered he
beat a lion-like retreat to Corunna. There he turned and dealt the
French a blow that closed his own career with glory and gained time
for his men to embark in safety.

While the red-coats saw the snowy heights of Galicia fade into the
sky, Napoleon was spurring back to the Pyrenees. He had received news
that portended war with Austria; and, cherishing the strange belief
that Spain was conquered, he rushed back to Paris to confront the
Hapsburg Power. But Spain was not conquered. Scattered her armies were
in the open, and even brave Saragossa fell in glorious ruins under
Lannes' persistent attacks. But the patriots fiercely rallied in the
mountains, and Napoleon was to find out the truth of the Roman
historian's saying: "In no land does the character of the people and
the nature of the country help to repair disasters more readily than
in Spain."

There was another reason for Napoleon's sudden return. Rumours had
reached him as to the _rapprochement_ of those usually envious rivals,
Talleyrand and Fouché, who now walked arm in arm, held secret
conclaves, and seemed to have some understanding with Murat. Were they
plotting to bring this ambitious man and his still more ambitious and
vindictive consort from the despised throne at Naples to seize on
power at Paris while the Emperor was engulfed in the Spanish quagmire?
A story ran that Fouché had relays of horses ready between Naples and
Paris for this enterprise.[206] But where Fouché and Talleyrand are
concerned, truth lurks at the bottom of an unfathomable well.

All that we know for certain is that Napoleon flew back to Paris in a
towering rage, and that, after sharply rebuking Fouché, he subjected
the Prince of Benevento to a violent tirade: just as he (Talleyrand)
had first advised the death of the Duc d'Enghien and then turned that
event to his sovereign's discredit, so now, after counselling the
overthrow of the Spanish dynasty, he was making the same underhand use
of the miscarriage of that enterprise. The Grand Chamberlain stood as
if unmoved until the storm swept by, and then coldly remarked to the
astonished circle: "What a pity that so great a man has been so badly
brought up." Nevertheless, the insult rankled deep in his being, there
to be nursed for five years, and then in the fullness of time to dart
forth with a snake-like revenge. In 1814 and 1815 men saw that not the
least serious result of Napoleon's Spanish policy was the envenoming
of his relations with the two cleverest of living Frenchmen.


NOTE TO THE THIRD EDITION.--In the foregoing narrative, describing the
battle of the Somosierra, I followed the usually accepted account,
which assigns the victory solely to the credit of the Polish horsemen.
But Mr. Oman has shown ("History of the Peninsular War," vol. i., pp.
459-461) that their first charge failed, and that only when a brigade
of French infantry skirmished right up to the crest, did a second
effort of the Poles, supported by cavalry of the Guard, secure the
pass. Napier's description (vol. i., p. 267), based on the French
bulletin, is incorrect.

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER XXX

NAPOLEON AND AUSTRIA


"Never maltreat an enemy by halves": such was the sage advice of
Prussia's warrior King Frederick the Great, who instinctively saw the
folly of half measures in dealing with a formidable foe. The only
statesmanlike alternatives were, to win his friendship by generous
treatment, or to crush him to the earth so that he could not rise to
deal another blow.

As we have seen, Napoleon deliberately took the perilous middle course
with the Hapsburgs after Austerlitz. He tore away from them their
faithful Tyrolese along with all their Swabian lands, and he half
crippled them in Italy by leaving them the line of the Adige instead
of the Mincio. Later on, he compelled Austria to join the Continental
System, to the detriment of her commerce and revenue; and his thinly
veiled threats at Erfurt nerved her to strike home as soon as she saw
him embarked on the Spanish enterprise. She had some grounds for
confidence. The blows showered on the Hapsburg States had served to
weld them more closely together; reforms effected in the
administration under the guidance of the able and high-spirited
minister, Stadion, promised to reinvigorate the whole Empire; and army
reforms, championed by the Archduke Charles, had shelved the petted
incapables of the Court and opened up undreamt-of vistas of hope even
to the common soldier. Moreover, it was certain that the Tyrolese
would revolt against the cast-iron Liberalism now imposed on them from
Munich, which interfered with their cherished customs and church
festivals.

Throughout Germany, too, there were widespread movements for casting
off the yoke of Napoleon. The benefits gained by the adoption of his
laws were already balanced by the deepening hardships entailed by the
Continental System; and the national German sentiment, which Napoleon
ever sought to root out, persistently clung to Berlin and Vienna. A
new thrill of resentment ran through Germany when Napoleon launched a
decree of proscription against Stein, who had resigned office on
November 24th. It was dated from Madrid (December 16th, 1808), and
ordered that "the man named Stein," for seeking to excite troubles in
Germany, should be held an enemy of France and the Confederation of
the Rhine, and suffer confiscation of his property and seizure of his
person, wherever he might be. The great statesman thereupon fled into
Austria, where all the hopes of German nationalists now centred.[207]

On April the 6th the Archduke Charles issued a proclamation in which
the new hopes of reformed Austria found eloquent expression: "The
freedom of Europe has sought refuge beneath your banners. Soldiers,
your victories will break her chains: your German brothers who are now
in the ranks of the enemy wait for their deliverance." These hopes
were premature. Austria was too late or too soon: she was too late to
overpower the Bavarians, or to catch the French forces leaderless, and
too soon to gain the full benefit from her recent army reforms and
from the diversion promised by England on the North Sea.[208] But our
limits of space render it impossible adequately to describe the course
of the struggle on the Danube or of the Tyrolese rising.

Napoleon, hurrying from Paris, found his forces spread out over a
front of sixty miles from Ratisbon to positions south of Augsburg, and
it needed all his skill to mass them before the Archduke's blows fell.
Thanks to Austrian slowness the danger was averted, and a difficult
retrograde movement was speedily changed into a triumphant offensive.
Five successive days saw as many French victories, the chief of which,
at Eckmühl (April 22nd), forced the Archduke with the Austrian right
wing northwards towards Ratisbon, which was stormed on the following
day, Charles now made for the Böhmer Wald, while his left wing on the
south of the Danube fell back towards the Inn. Pushing his advantage
to the utmost, the victor invaded Austria and forced Vienna to
surrender (May 13th).

At that city Napoleon issued (May 17th) a decree which reveals the
excess of his confidence. It struck down the temporal power of the
Pope, and annexed to the French Empire the part of the Papal States
which he had spared the year before. The form of the decree was as
remarkable as its substance. With an effrontery only equalled by its
historical falsity, it cited the example of "Charlemagne, my august
predecessor, Emperor of the French"; and, after exalting the Imperial
dignity, it proceeded to lower the Popes to the position of Bishops of
Rome. The subordination of the spiritual to the civil power was also
assured by the assigning of a yearly stipend of 2,000,000 francs to
the Pope.

When Pius VII. protested against the seizure of his States, and hurled
a bull of excommunication at the spoliator, Napoleon issued orders
which led to his arrest; and shortly after midsummer the unfortunate
pontiff was hurried away from Rome to Florence.

Meanwhile Napoleon had experienced an unlooked-for reverse. Though so
far cowed by his defeats in Bavaria as to send Napoleon a cringing
request for peace, to which the victor deigned no reply, the Archduke
Charles obstinately clung to the northern bank of the Danube opposite
the capital, and inflicted a severe defeat on the Emperor when the
latter sought to drive him from Aspern-Essling (May 21st-22nd). Had
the Austrian commander had that remorseless resolve which ever
prompted Napoleon to wrest from Fortune her utmost favours, the
white-coats might have driven their foes into the river; for at the
close of both of those days of carnage they had a clear advantage. A
French disaster was in fact averted only by the combined efforts of
Napoleon, Masséna, Lannes, and General Mouton; and even they were for
a time dismayed by the frightful losses, and by the news that the
bridges, over which alone they could retire, had been swept away by
trees and barges sent down the flooded stream. But, as at Eylau,
Napoleon's iron will imposed on his foes, and, under cover of
darkness, the French were withdrawn into the island of Lobau, after
losing some 25,000 men.[209]

Among them was that prince of vanguard leaders, Lannes. On hearing
that his old friend was mortally wounded, the Emperor hurried to him,
and tenderly embraced him. The interview, says Marbot, who was
supporting the Marshal's shoulders, was most affecting, both these
stern warriors displaying genuine emotion. And yet, it is reported
that, after Lannes was removed to Ebersdorf, his last words were those
of reproach to the Emperor for his ambition. At that time, however,
the patient was delirious, and the words, if really uttered, were
meaningless; but the inventor of the anecdote might plead that it was
consonant with the recent tenor of the Marshal's thoughts. Like all
thoughtful soldiers, who placed France before Napoleon, Lannes was
weary of these endless wars. After Jena his heart was not in the work;
and he wrote thus about Napoleon during the siege of Danzig: "I have
always been the victim of my attachment to him. He only loves you by
fits and starts, that is, when he has need of you." His presentiment
was true. He was a victim to a war that was the outcome solely of
Napoleon's Continental System, and not of the needs of France. He
passed away, leaving a brilliant military fame and a reputation for
soldierly republican frankness which was fast vanishing from the camps
and _salons_ of the Empire.[210]

As yet, however, Napoleon's genius and the martial ardour of his
soldiers sufficed to overbear the halting efforts of Austria and her
well-wishers. On retiring into Lobau Island he put forth to the utmost
his extraordinary powers of organization. Boats brought vast supplies
of stores and ammunition from Vienna, which the French still held. The
menacing front of Masséna and Davoust imposed on the enemy.
Reinforcements were hurried up from Bavaria. Tyrol was denuded of
Franco-Bavarian troops, so that the peasants, under the lead of the
brave innkeeper, Hofer, were able to organize a systematic defence.
And a French army which had finally beaten the Austrians in Venetia,
now began to drive them back into Hungary. In Poland the white-coats
were held in check, and the Franco-Russian compact deterred Frederick
William from making any move against France such as Prussian patriots
ardently counselled.

To have done so would have been madness, unless England sent powerful
aid on the side of Hanover; and that aid was not forthcoming. Yet the
patriotic ardour of the Germans led to two daring efforts against the
French. Schill, with a Prussian cavalry regiment, sought to seize
Magdeburg, and failing there moved north in hopes of British help. His
adventurous ride was ended by Napoleon's Dutch and North German
troops, who closed in on him at Stralsund, and, on May 31st, cut to
pieces his brave troop. Schill met a warrior's death: most of the
survivors were sent to the galleys in France. Undeterred by this
failure, the young Duke of Brunswick sought to rouse Saxony and
Westphalia by a dashing cavalry raid (June); but, beyond showing the
weakness of Jerome Bonaparte's rule and the general hatred of the
French, he effected little: with his 2,000 followers he was finally
saved by British cruisers (August). Had the British expedition, which
in the ensuing autumn rotted away on Walcheren, been landed at
Stralsund, or in Hanover during the spring, it is certain that Germany
would have risen in Napoleon's rear; and in that case, the doubtful
struggle which closed at Wagram might have ended very
differently.[211]

All hopes for European independence centred in Wellesley and the
Archduke Charles. Although there was no formal compact between England
and Austria, yet the Hapsburgs rested their hopes largely on the
diversions made by our troops. In the early part of the Peninsular
campaign of 1809, these hopes were brilliantly fulfilled. Wellesley
moved against Soult at Oporto, and, by a dextrous crossing of that
river in his rear, compelled him to beat a calamitous retreat on
Spain, with the loss of all his cannon and stores. The French reached
Lugo an armed rabble, and were greeted there with jeers and
execrations by the men of Ney's corps. The two Marshals themselves
took up the quarrel, and so fierce were the taunts of Ney that Soult
drew his sword and a duel was barely averted.[212] An appearance of
concord was restored during their operations in Galicia and Asturias:
but no opportunity was missed of secretly thwarting the hated rival;
and here, as all through the Peninsular War, the private jealousies of
the French leaders fatally compromised the success of their arms.
Wellesley, seeing that the operations in Galicia would never decide
the war, began to prepare a deadly blow at the centre of French
authority, Madrid.

While Wellesley thrust a thin wedge into the heart of Spain, the
Archduke Charles was overthrown on the banks of the Danube. After
drawing in reinforcements from France, the Rhenish Confederation, and
Eugène's army of Italy, the French Emperor disposed of 180,000
highly-trained troops, whom he massed in the Lobau Island, or on the
right shore of the Danube. Every preparation was made for deceiving
the Austrians as to the point of crossing and with complete success.
With great labour the defenders threw up intrenchments facing the
north side of the island. But, on a thick stormy night (July 4th), six
bridges of boats were quickly swung across the stream lower down, that
is, on the east side of Lobau, while a furious cannonade on the north
side misled their foes. The crossing was effected without loss by
Oudinot and Masséna; and sunrise saw the whole French army advancing
rapidly northwards, thereby outflanking the Austrian earthworks, which
were now evacuated.

Charles was outmanoeuvred and outnumbered. His brother, the Archduke
John, was at Pressburg with 20,000 men, watched hitherto by Davoust.
But the French Marshal cleverly withdrew his corps, leaving only
enough men to impose on that unenterprising leader. Other Austrian
detachments were also far away at the critical time, and thus Napoleon
had a superiority of force of about 50,000 men. Nevertheless, the
defence at Wagram was most obstinate (July 6th). Holding his own on
the hills behind the Russbach, the Archduke swung forward his right in
such strength as to drive back Masséna on Aspern; but his weakened
centre was now pushed back and endangered by the persistent vigour of
Macdonald's onset. This success at the centre gave time for Davoust to
wrest Neusiedel from the white-coats, a movement which would have been
stopped or crushed, had the Archduke John obeyed his brother's orders
and marched from the side of Pressburg on Napoleon's unguarded right
flank. Finally, after an obstinate stand, the Austrians fell back in
good order, effectively covering their retreat by a murderous
artillery fire. A total loss of some 50,000 men, apportioned nearly
equally on either side, was the chief result of this terrible day. It
was not remarkable for brilliant tactics; and, as at Aspern, the
Austrians fully equalled their foes in courage.

[Illustration: WAGRAM]

Such was the battle of Wagram, one of the greatest of all time, if the
number of combatants be counted, but one of the least decisive in its
strictly military results. If we may compare Austerlitz with Blenheim,
Wagram may with equal fitness be matched with the vast slaughter of
Malplaquet exactly a century before. The French now felt the hardening
of the national defence of Austria and the falling off in their own
fighting powers. Marmont tells how, at the close of the day, the
approach of the Archduke John's scouts struck panic into the
conquerors, so that for a time the plain on the east was covered with
runaway conscripts and disconcerted plunderers. The incident proved
the deterioration of the Grand Army from the times of Ulm and Jena.
Raw conscripts raised before their time and hurriedly drafted into the
line had impaired its steadiness, and men noted as another ominous
fact that few unwounded prisoners were taken from the Austrians, and
only nine guns and one colour. In fact, the only reputation enhanced
was that of Macdonald, who for his great services at the centre
enjoyed the unique honour of receiving a Marshal's bâton from Napoleon
on the field of battle.

Had the Archduke Charles been made of the same stuff as Wellington,
the campaign might still have been retrieved. But softness and
irresolution were the characteristics of Austria's generals no less
than of her rulers.[213] The Hapsburg armies were still led with the
old leisurely _insouciance_; and their counsels swayed to and fro
under the wavering impulses of a seemingly decrepit dynasty. Francis
had many good qualities: he was a good husband and father, and his
kindly manners endeared him to the Viennese even in the midst of
defeat. But he was capricious and shortsighted; anything outside of
the well-worn ruts of routine vexed and alarmed him; and it is a
supreme proof of the greatness and courage of his reforming Minister,
Stadion, that his innovations should have been tolerated for so long.
Now that disasters were shaking his throne he began to suspect the
reformer; and Stadion confessed to the publicist, Gentz, that it was
impossible to reckon on the Emperor for a quarter of an hour together,
unless one stayed by him all the twenty-four hours.--"After a great
defeat, he will take himself off at once and will calmly commend us to
God."--This was what now happened. Another failure at Znaim so daunted
the Archduke that he sued for an armistice (July 12th). For this there
was some excuse. The latest news both from Spain and Prussia inspired
the hope that, if time were gained, important diversions might be made
in both quarters.

As we have seen, Sir Arthur Wellesley opened the campaign with a
brilliant success, and then prepared to strike at the heart of the
French power. The memorable campaign of Talavera was the result.
Relying on promises of aid from the Spanish Junta and from their
cross-grained commander, Cuesta, he led a small British force up the
valley of the Tagus to seize Madrid, while the chief French armies
were engaged in distant provinces. In one sense he achieved his aim.
He compelled the enemy to loose their hold on those provinces and
concentrate to save the capital. And before they fully effected their
concentration, he gave battle to King Joseph and Marshals Jourdan and
Victor at Talavera (July 28th). Skilfully posting the Spaniards behind
intrenchments and in gardens where their raw levies could fight with
every advantage, he extended his thin red lines--he had only 17,000
British troops--along a ridge stretching up to a plateau that
dominated the broken ground north of the town. On that hill Wellesley
planted his left: and all the efforts of Victor to turn that wing or
to break it by charges across the intervening ravine were bloodily
beaten off.

The fierce heat served but to kindle French and British to greater
fury. Finally, the dashing charge of our 23rd dragoons and the
irresistible advance of the 48th regiment of foot overthrew the
enemy's centre; and as the day waned, the 30,000 French retired, with
a loss of 17 cannon and of 7,000 men in killed, wounded, and
prisoners. Had the other Spanish armies now offered the support which
Wellesley expected, he would doubtless have seized Madrid. He had
written three days before Talavera: "With or without a battle we shall
be at Madrid soon." But his allies now failed him utterly: they did
not hold the mountain passes which confronted Soult in his march from
Salamanca into the valley of the Tagus; and they left the British
forces half starving.--"We are here worse off than in a hostile
country," wrote our commander; "never was an army so ill used: we had
no assistance from the Spanish army: we were obliged to unload our
ammunition and our treasure in order to employ the cars in the removal
of our sick and wounded." Meanwhile Soult, with 50,000 men, was
threading his way easily through the mountains and threatened to cut
us off from Portugal: but by a rapid retreat Wellesley saved his army,
vowing that he would never again trust Spanish offers of help.[214]

Far more dispiriting was the news that reached the Austrian
negotiators from the North Sea. There the British Government succeeded
in eclipsing all its former achievements in forewarning foes and
disgusting its friends. Very early in the year, the men of Downing
Street knew that Austria was preparing to fight Napoleon and built her
hopes of success, partly on the Peninsular War, partly on a British
descent in Hanover, where everything was ripe for revolution.
Unfortunately, we were still, formally, at war with her: and the
conclusion of the treaty of peace was so long delayed at Vienna that
July was almost gone before the Austrian ratification reached London,
and our armada set sail from Dover.[215] The result is well known.
Official favouritism handed over the command of 40,000 troops to the
Earl of Chatham, who wasted precious days in battering down the walls
of Flushing when he should have struck straight at the goal now aimed
at, Antwerp. That fortress was therefore ready to beat him off; and he
finally withdrew his army into the Isle of Walcheren, into whose
fever-laden swamps Napoleon had refused to send a single French
soldier. A tottering remnant was all that survived by the close of the
year: and the climax of our national disgrace was reached when a
court-martial acquitted the commanders. Napoleon would have had them
shot.

Helpless as the old monarchies were to cope with Napoleon, a wild
longing for vengeance was beginning to throb among the peoples. It
showed itself in a remarkable attempt on his life during a review at
Schönbrunn. A delicate youth named Staps, son of a Thuringian pastor,
made his way to the palace, armed with a long knife, intending to stab
him while he read a petition (October 12th). Berthier and Rapp, noting
the lad's importunity, had him searched and brought before Napoleon.
"What did you mean to do with that knife?" asked the Emperor. "Kill
you," was the reply. "You are an idiot or an Illuminat." "I am not an
idiot and do not know what an Illuminat is." "Then you are diseased."
"No, I am quite well." "Why do you wish to kill me?" "Because you are
the curse of my Fatherland." "You are a fanatic; I will forgive you
and spare your life." "I want no forgiveness." "Would you thank me if
I pardoned you?" "I would seek to kill you again." The quiet firmness
with which Staps gave these replies and then went to his doom made a
deep impression on Napoleon; and he sought to hurry on the conclusion
of peace with these odd Germans whom he could conquer but not
convince.

The Emperor Francis was now resigned to his fate, but he refused to
hear of giving up his remaining sea-coast in Istria. On this point
Metternich strove hard to bend Napoleon's will, but received as a
final answer: "Then war is unavoidable."[216] In fact, the victor knew
that Austria was in his power. The Archduke Charles had thrown up his
command, the soldiery were depressed, and a great part of the Empire
was in the hands of the French. England's efforts had failed; and of
all the isolated patriotic movements in Germany only that of the
Tyrolese mountaineers still struggled on. Napoleon could therefore
dictate his own terms in the Treaty of Schönbrunn (October 14th),
which he announced as complete, when as yet Francis had not signed
it.[217] Austria thereby recognized Joseph as King of Spain, and ceded
Salzburg and the Inn-viertel to Napoleon, to be transferred by him to
Bavaria. To the French Empire she yielded up parts of Austrian Friuli
and Carinthia, besides Carniola, the city and district of Trieste, and
portions of Croatia and Dalmatia to the south of the River Save. Her
spoils of the old Polish lands now went to aggrandize the Duchy of
Warsaw, a small strip of Austrian Gallicia also going to Russia.
Besides losing 3,500,000 subjects, Austria was mulcted in an indemnity
of £3,400,000, and again bound herself to exclude all British
products. By a secret clause she agreed to limit her army to 150,000
men.

Perhaps the severest loss was the abandonment of the faithful
Tyrolese. After Aspern, the Emperor Francis promised that he would
never lay down his arms until they were re-united with his Empire.
This promise now went the way of the many fond hopes of reform and
championship of German nationality which her ablest men had lately
cherished, and the Empire settled down in torpor and bankruptcy. In
dumb wrath and despair Austrian patriots looked on, while the Tyrolese
were beaten down by French, Bavarian, and Italian forces. Hofer
finally took to the hills, was betrayed by a friend, and was taken to
Mantua. Some of the officers who there tried him desired to spare his
life, but a special despatch of Napoleon[218] ordered his execution,
and the brave mountaineer fell, with the words on his lips: "Long live
the Emperor Francis." Tyrol, meanwhile, was parcelled out between
Bavaria, Illyria, and the Kingdom of Italy; but bullets and partitions
were of no avail against the staunch patriotism of her people, and the
Tyrolese campaign boded ill for Napoleon if monarchs, generals, and
statesmen should ever be inspired by the sturdy faith and hardihood of
that noble peasantry.

As yet, however, prudence and timidity reigned supreme. Though the
Czar uttered some snappish words at the threatening increase to the
Duchy of Warsaw, he still posed as Napoleon's ally. The Swedes, weary
of their hopeless strifes with France, Russia, and Denmark, deposed
the still bellicose Gustavus IV.; and his successor, Charles XIII.,
made peace with those Powers, retaining Swedish Pomerania, but only at
the cost of submitting to the Continental System. Prussia seemed, to
official eyes, utterly cowed. The Hapsburgs, having failed in their
bold championship of the cause of reform and of German nationality,
now fell back into a policy marked by timid opportunism and decorously
dull routine.

The change was marked by the retirement of Stadion, a man whose
enterprising character, no less than his enthusiasm for reform, ill
fitted him for the time of compromise and subservience now at hand. He
it was who had urged Austria forward in the paths of progress and had
sought safety in the people: he was the Stein of Austria. But now, on
the eve of peace, he earnestly begged to be allowed to resign the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs; and the Emperor Francis thereupon
summoned to that seemingly thankless office a young diplomatist, who
was destined to play a foremost part in the mighty drama of Napoleon's
overthrow, and thereafter to wield by his astute policy almost as
great an influence in Central and Southern Europe as the autocrat
himself.

Metternich was born at Coblentz in 1773, and was therefore four years
the junior of Napoleon. He came of an old family of the Rhineland, and
his father's position in the service of the old Empire secured him
early entrance into the diplomatic circle. After acting as secretary
to the Imperial delegates at the Congress of Rastatt, he occupied the
post of Austrian ambassador successively at the Courts of Dresden and
Berlin; and in 1806 he was suddenly called to take up the embassy in
Paris. There he displayed charms of courtly tact, and lively and
eloquent conversation, which won Napoleon's admiration and esteem. He
was looked on as a Gallophil; and, like Bismarck at a later crisis, he
used his social gifts and powers of cajolery so as to gain a correct
estimate of the characters of his future opponents.

Yet, besides these faculties of finesse and intrigue--and the Miltonic
Belial never told lies with more winsome grace--Metternich showed at
times a manly composure and firmness, even when Napoleon unmasked a
searching fire of diplomatic questions and taunts. Of this he had
given proof shortly before the outbreak of the late war, and his
conduct had earned the thanks of the other ambassadors for giving the
French Emperor a lesson in manners, while the autocrat liked him none
the less, but rather the more, for standing up to him. But now, after
the war, all was changed; craft was more serviceable than fortitude;
and the gay Rhinelander brought to the irksome task of subservience to
the conqueror a courtly _insouciance_ under which he nursed the hope
of ultimate revenge.--"From the day when peace is signed," he wrote to
the Emperor Francis on August 10th, 1809, "we must confine our system
to tacking and turning, and flattering. Thus alone may we possibly
preserve our existence, till the day of general deliverance."[219]
This was to be the general drift of Austrian policy for the next four
years; and it may be granted that only by bending before the blast
could that sore-stricken monarchy be saved from destruction. An
opportunity soon occurred of carrying the new system into effect.
Metternich offered the conqueror an Austrian Archduchess as a bride.

After the humiliation of the Hapsburgs and of the Spanish patriots,
nothing seemed wanting to Napoleon's triumph but an heir who should
found a durable dynasty. This aim was now to be reached. As soon as
the Emperor returned to Paris, his behaviour towards Josephine showed
a marked reserve. The passage communicating between their private
apartments was closed, and the gleams of triumphant jealousy that
flashed from her sisters-in-law warned Josephine of her approaching
doom. The divorce so long bruited by news-mongers was at hand. The
Emperor broke the tidings to his consort in the private drawing-room
of the Tuileries on November 30th, and strove to tone down the
harshness of his decision by basing it on the imperative needs of the
State. But she spurned the dictates of statecraft. With all her
faults, she was affectionate and tender; she was a woman first and an
Empress afterwards; she now clung to Napoleon, not merely for the
splendour of the destiny which he had opened to her, but also from
genuine love.

Their relations had curiously changed. At the outset she had slighted
his mad devotion by her shallow coldness and occasional infidelities,
until his lava-like passion petrified. Thenceforth it was for her to
woo, and woo in vain. For years past she had to bemoan the waning of
his affection and his many conjugal sins. And now the chasm, which she
thought to have spanned by the religious ceremony on the eve of the
coronation, yawned at her feet. The woman and the Empress in her
shrank back from the black void of the future; and with piteous
reproaches she flung back the orders of the Emperor and the soothings
of the husband. Napoleon, it would seem, had nerved himself against
such an outbreak. In vain did Josephine sink down at his feet with
heart-rending cries that she would never survive the disgrace: failing
to calm her himself, he opened the door and summoned the prefect of
the palace, Bausset, and bade him bear her away to her private
apartments. Down the narrow stairs she was borne, the Emperor lifting
her feet and Bausset supporting her shoulders, until, half fainting,
she was left to the sympathies of her women and the attentions of
Corvisart. But hers was a wound that no sympathy or skill could
cure.[220]

On his side, Napoleon felt the wrench. Not only the ghost of his early
love, but his dislike of new associates and novel ways cried out
against the change. "In separating myself from my wife," Napoleon once
said to Talleyrand, "I renounce much. I should have to study the
tastes and habits of a young woman. Josephine accommodates herself to
everything: she understands me perfectly."[221] But his boundless
triumphs, his alliance with the Czar and total overthrow of the
Bourbons and the Pope, had fed the fires of his ambition. He aspired
to give the _mot d'ordre_ to the universe; and he scrupled not to put
aside a consort who could not help him to found a dynasty. Yet it was
not without pangs of sorrow and remorse. His laboured, panting breath
and almost gasping words left on Bausset the impression that he was
genuinely affected; and, consummate actor though he was, we may well
believe that he felt the parting from his early associations.
Underneath his generally cold exterior he hid a nervous nature,
dominated by an inflexible will, but which now and again broke through
all restraint, bathing the beloved object with sudden tenderness or
blasting a foe with fiery passion. And it would seem that Josephine's
pangs had power to reawaken the feelings of his more generous youth.
The ceremony of divorce took place on December 15th Josephine
declaring with agonized pride that she gave her assent for the welfare
of France.

Already the new marriage negotiations had begun. They are unique even
amidst the frigid annals of royal betrothals. The French ambassador,
Caulaincourt, was charged to make definite overtures at St. Petersburg
for the hand of the Czar's younger sister; the conditions could easily
be arranged; religion need be no difficulty; but time was pressing;
the Emperor had need of an heir; "we are counting the minutes here,"
ran the despatch; and an answer was expected from St. Petersburg after
an interval of _two days_.[222] The request caused Alexander the
greatest perplexity. He parried it with the reply, correct enough in
form as in fact, that the disposal of his sister rested with the
Dowager Empress. But her hostility to Napoleon was well known. After
the half overtures of Erfurt she had at once betrothed her elder
daughter to the Duke of Oldenburg. No similar escape was now possible
for the younger one: but, after leaving Napoleon's request unanswered
until February 4th, the reply was then despatched that the tender age
of the princess, she being only twenty years old, formed an
insuperable obstacle.

Some such answer had long been expected at Paris. Metternich asserts
in his "Memoirs" that Napoleon had caused Laborde, one of his
diplomatic agents at Vienna, tentatively to sound that Court as to his
betrothal with the Archduchess Marie Louise. But the French archives
show that the first hint came from Metternich, who saw in it a means
of weakening the Franco-Russian alliance and saving Austria from
further disasters.[223] A little later the Countess Metternich was at
Paris; and great was her surprise when, on January 2nd, 1810,
Josephine informed her that she favoured a marriage between Napoleon
and Marie Louise. "I spoke to him of it yesterday," she said; "his
choice is not yet fixed; but he thinks that this would be his choice
if he were sure of its being accepted." Thereafter the Countess
received the most flattering attentions at Court, a proof that the
Hapsburg match was now favoured, even though the coyness of the Czar
was as yet unknown.

At the close of January a Privy Council was held at the Tuileries to
decide on the imperial bride. The votes were nearly equal: four voted
for Austria, four for Saxony, and three for Russia. After listening
quietly to the arguments, Napoleon summed up the discussion by
pronouncing firmly and warmly in favour of Austria. The marriage
contract was therefore drawn up on February 7th; and Berthier was
despatched to Vienna to claim the hand of Marie Louise. He entered
that city over the ruins of the old ramparts, which were now being
dismantled in accordance with the French demands.

The marriage took place at Vienna by proxy; the bride was conducted to
Paris; and the final ceremony took place at Notre Dame on April 2nd,
but not until the union had been consummated. Such were Napoleon's
second wooing and wedding. Nevertheless, he showed himself an
attentive and even indulgent spouse, and he remarked at St. Helena
that if Josephine was all grace and charm, Marie Louise was innocence
and nature herself.

The Austrian marriage was an event of the first importance. It gained
a few years' respite for the despairing Hapsburgs, and gave tardy
satisfaction to Talleyrand's statesmanlike scheme of a Franco-Austrian
alliance which should be in the best sense conservative. Had Napoleon
taken this step after Austerlitz in the way that his counsellor
advised, possibly Europe might have reached a condition of stable
equilibrium, always provided that he gave up his favourite scheme of
partitioning Turkey. But that was not to be; and when Austria finally
yielded up Marie Louise as an unpicturesque Iphigenia on the marriage
altar, she did so only as a desperate device for appeasing an
inexorable destiny. And, strange to say, she succeeded. For Alexander
took offence at the marriage negotiations; and thus was opened a
breach in the Franco-Russian alliance which other events were rapidly
to widen, until Western and Central Europe hurled themselves against
the East, and reached Moscow.

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER XXXI

THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT


Napoleon's star had now risen to its zenith. After his marriage with a
daughter of the most ancient of continental dynasties, nothing seemed
lacking to his splendour. He had humbled Pope and Emperor alike:
Germany crouched at his feet: France, Italy, and the Confederation of
the Rhine gratefully acknowledged the benefits of his vigorous sway:
the Czar was still following the lead given at Erfurt: Sweden had
succumbed to the pressure of the two Emperors: and Turkey survived
only because it did not yet suit Napoleon to shear her asunder: he
must first complete the commercial ruin of England and drive
Wellington into the sea. Then events would at last be ripe for the
oriental schemes which the Spanish Rising had postponed.

He might well hope that England's strength was running out: near the
close of 1810 the three per cent consols sank to sixty-five, and the
declared bankruptcies averaged 250 a month. The failure of the
Walcheren expedition had led to terrible loss of men and treasure, and
had clouded over the reputation of her leaders. After mutual
recriminations Canning and Castlereagh resigned office and fought a
duel. Shortly afterwards the Premier, the Duke of Portland, fell ill
and resigned: his place was taken by Mr. Perceval, a man whose sole
recommendation for the post was his conscientious Toryism and powers
of dull plodding. Ruled by an ill-assorted Ministry and a King whose
reason was now hopelessly overclouded, weakened by the strangling grip
of the Continental System, England seemed on the verge of ruin; and,
encouraged alike by the factious conduct of our parliamentary
Opposition and by Soult's recent conquest of Andalusia, Napoleon bent
himself to the final grapple by extending his coast system, and by
sending Masséna and his choicest troops into Spain to drive the
leopards into the sea.

The limits of our space prevent any description of the ensuing
campaign of Torres Vedras; and we must refer our readers to the ample
canvas of Napier if they would realize the sagacity of Wellington in
constructing to the north of Lisbon that mighty _tête de pont_ for the
Sea Power against Masséna's veteran army. After dealing the staggering
blow of Busaco at that presumptuous Marshal, our great leader fell
back, through a tract which he swept bare of supplies, on this sure
bulwark, and there watched the French host of some 65,000 men waste
away amidst the miseries of hunger and the rains and diseases of
autumn. At length, in November, Masséna drew off to positions near
Santarem, where he awaited the succour which Napoleon ordered Soult to
bring. It was in vain: Soult, puffed up by his triumphs in Andalusia,
was resolved to play his own game and reduce Badajoz; he won his point
but marred the campaign; and, at last, foiled by Wellington's skilful
tactics, Masséna beat a retreat northwards out of Portugal after
losing some 35,000 men (March, 1811). Wellington's success bore an
immeasurable harvest of results. The unmanly whinings of the English
Opposition were stilled; the replies of the Czar to Napoleon's demands
grew firmer; and the patriots of the Peninsula stiffened their backs
in a resistance so stubborn, albeit unskilful, that 370,000 French
troops utterly failed to keep Wellington in check, and to stamp out
the national defence in the summer of 1811.

In truth, Napoleon had exasperated the Spaniards no less than their
_soi disant_ king, by a series of provocations extending over the year
1810. On the plea that Spain must herself meet the expenses of the
war, he erected the four northern provinces into commands for French
generals, who were independent of his brother's authority and levied
all the taxes over that vast area (February). On May 29th he withdrew
Burgos and Valladolid from Joseph's control, and divided the greater
part of Spain for military and administrative purposes into districts
that were French satrapies in all but name. The decree was doubly
disastrous: it gave free play to the feuds of the French chiefs; and
it seemed to the Spaniards to foreshadow a speedy partition of Spain.
The surmise was correct. Napoleon intended to unite to France the
lands between the Pyrenees and the Ebro. Indeed, in his conception,
the conquest of Portugal was mainly desirable because it would provide
his brother with an indemnity in the west for the loss of his northern
provinces. Joseph's protests against such a partition of the land,
which Napoleon had sworn at Bayonne to keep intact, were disregarded;
but letters on this subject fell into the hands of the Spanish
guerillas and were published by order of the Regency at Cadiz.
Despised by the Spaniards, flouted by Napoleon, set at defiance by the
French satraps, and reduced wellnigh to bankruptcy, the puppet King
felt his position insupportable, and, hurrying to Paris, tendered his
resignation of the crown (May, 1811). In his anxiety to huddle up the
scandal, Napoleon appeased his brother, promised him one-fourth of the
taxes levied by the French commanders, and coaxed or drove him to
resume his thankless task at Madrid. But the doggedness of the
Emperor's resolve may be measured by the fact that, even when on the
brink of war with Russia, he defied Spanish national sentiment by
annexing Catalonia to France (March, 1812).

It seems strange that Napoleon did not himself proceed to Spain in
order to direct the operations in person and thus still the jealousies
of the Marshals which so hampered his armies. Wellington certainly
feared his coming. At a later date he told Earl Stanhope that Napoleon
was vastly superior to any of his Marshals: "There was nothing like
him. He suited a French army so exactly.... His presence on the field
made a difference of 40,000 men."[224] That estimate is certainly
modest if one looks not merely at tactics but at the strategy of the
whole Peninsular War. But the Emperor did not again come into Spain.
At the outset of 1810 he prepared to do so; but, as soon as the
Austrian marriage was arranged, he abandoned this salutary project.

There were thenceforth several reasons why he should remain in or near
Paris. His attentions to his young wife, and his desire to increase
the splendour of the Court, counted for much. Yet more important was
it to curb the clericals (now incensed at the imprisonment of the
Pope), and sharply to watch the intrigues of the royalists and other
malcontents. Public opinion, also, still needed to be educated; the
constant drain of men for the wars and the increase in the price of
necessaries led to grumblings in the Press, which claimed the presence
of his Argus eye and the adoption of a very stringent censorship.[225]
But, above all, there was the commercial war with England. This could
be directed best from Paris, where he could speedily hear of British
endeavours to force goods into Germany, Holland, or Italy, and of any
change in our maritime code.

Important as was the war in Spain, it was only one phase of his
world-wide struggle with the mistress of the seas; and he judged that
if she bled to death under his Continental System, the Peninsular War
must subside into a guerilla strife, Spain thereafter figuring merely
as a greater Vendée. Accordingly, the year 1810 sees the climax of his
great commercial experiment.

The first land to be sacrificed to this venture was Holland. For many
months the Emperor had been discontented with his brother Louis, who
had taken into his head the strange notion that he reigned there by
divine right. As Napoleon pathetically said at St. Helena, when
reviewing the conduct of his brothers, "If I made one a king, he
imagined that he was _King by the grace of God_. He was no longer my
lieutenant: he was one enemy more for me to watch." A singular fate
for this king-maker, that he should be forgotten and the holy oil
alone remembered! Yet Louis probably used that mediæval notion as a
shield against his brother's dictation. The tough Bonaparte nature
brooked not the idea of mere lieutenancy. He declined to obey orders
from the brother whom he secretly detested. He flatly refused to be
transferred from the Hague to Madrid, or to put in force the
burdensome decrees of the Continental System.

On his side, Napoleon upbraided him with governing too softly, and
with seeking popularity where he should seek control. After the
Walcheren expedition, he chid him severely for allowing the English
fleet ever to show its face in the Scheldt; for "the fleets of that
Power ought to find nothing but rocks of iron" in that river, "which
was as important to France as the Thames to England."[226] But the
head and front of his offending was that British goods still found
their way into Holland. In vain did the Emperor forbid that American
ships which had touched at English ports should be debarred from those
of Holland. In vain did he threaten to close the Scheldt and Rhine to
Dutch barges. Louis held on his way, with kindly patience towards his
merchants, and with a Bonapartist obstinacy proof against fraternal
advice or threats. At last, early in 1810, Napoleon sent troops to
occupy Walcheren and neighbouring Dutch lands. It seemed for a time as
though this was but a device to extort favourable terms of peace from
England in return for an offer that France would not annex Holland.
Negotiations to this effect were set on foot through the medium of
Ouvrard and Labouchere, son-in-law of the banker Baring: Fouché also,
without the knowledge of his master, ventured to put forth a
diplomatic feeler as to a possible Anglo-French alliance against the
United States, an action for which he was soon very properly
disgraced.[227]

The negotiation failed, as it deserved to do. Our objections were, not
merely to the absurd proposal that we should give up our maritime code
if Napoleon would abstain from annexing Holland and the Hanseatic
towns, but still more against the man himself and his whole policy. We
had every reason to distrust the good faith of the man who had
betrayed the Turks at Tilsit, Portugal at Fontainebleau, and the
Spaniards at Bayonne. To pause in the strife, to relax our hold on our
new colonies, and to desert the Spaniards, in order to preserve the
merely titular independence of Holland and the Hanse Towns, would have
been an act of singular simplicity. Nor does Napoleon seem to have
expected it. He wrote to his Foreign Minister, Champagny, on March
20th, 1810: "From not having made peace sooner, England has lost
Naples, Spain, Portugal, and the market of Trieste. If she delays much
longer, she will lose Holland, the Hanse Towns, and Sicily." And
surely this Sibylline conduct of his required that he should annex
these lands and all Europe in order to exact a suitable price from the
exhausted islanders. Such was the corollary of the Continental System.

Meanwhile Louis, nettled by the inquisitions of the French
_douaniers_, and by the order of his brother to seize all American
ships in Dutch ports, was drawing on himself further reproaches and
threats: "Louis, you are incorrigible ... you do not want to reign for
any length of time. States are governed by reason and policy, and not
by acrimony and weakness." Twenty thousand French troops were
approaching Amsterdam to bring him to reason, when the young ruler
decided to be rid of this royal mummery. On the night of July 1st he
fled from Haarlem, and travelled swiftly and secretly eastwards until
he reached Teplitz, in Bohemia. The ignominy of this flight rested on
the brother who had made kingship a mockery. The refugee left behind
him the reputation of a man who, lovable by nature but soured by
domestic discords, sought to shield his subjects from the ruin into
which the rigid application of the Continental System was certain to
plunge them. That fate now befell the unhappy little land. On July 9th
it was annexed to the French Empire, and all the commercial decrees
were carried out as rigidly at Rotterdam as at Havre.

At the close of the year, Napoleon's coast system was extended to the
borders of Holstein by the annexation of Oldenburg, the northern parts
of Berg, Westphalia, and Hanover, along with Lauenburg and the Hanse
Towns, Bremen, Hamburg, and Lübeck. The little Swiss Republic of
Valais was also absorbed in the Empire.

This change in North Germany, which carried the French flag to the
shores of the Baltic, was his final expedient for assuring England's
commercial ruin. As far back as February, 1798, he had recommended the
extension of French influence over the Hanse Towns as a means of
reducing his most redoubtable foe to surrender, and now there were two
special reasons for this annexation. First, the ships of Oldenburg had
been largely used for conveying British produce into North
Germany;[228] and secondly, the French commercial code was so rigorous
that no officials with even the semblance of independence could be
trusted with its execution. On August 5th a decree had been
promulgated at the Trianon, near Versailles, which imposed enormous
duties on every important colonial product. Cotton--especially that
from America--sugar, tea, coffee, cocoa, and other articles were
subjected to dues, generally of half their value and irrespective of
their place of production.

[Illustration: CENTRAL EUROPE AFTER 1810]

Traders were ordered to declare their possession of all colonial wares
and to pay the duty, under pain of confiscation. Depôts of such goods
within four days' distance from the frontiers of the Empire were held
to be clandestine; and troops were sent forthwith into Germany,
Switzerland, and Spain to seize such stores, a proceeding which
aroused the men of Stuttgart, Frankfurt, and Berne to almost open
resistance. It is difficult to see the reason for this decree, except
on the supposition that the Continental System did not stop British
imports, and that all tropical products were British.

Napoleon's own correspondence shows that he believed this to be so. At
that same time he issued orders that all colonial produce found at
Stettin should be confiscated because it was evidently English
property brought on American ships. He further recommended Murat and
Eugène to press hard on such wares in order to replenish their
exchequers and raise funds for restoring their commerce. Eugène must,
however, be careful to tax American and colonial cotton most heavily,
while letting in that of the Levant on favourable terms.

Jerome, too, was bidden rigorously to enforce the Trianon tariff in
Westphalia; and the hint was to be passed on to Prussia and the
Rhenish Confederation that, by subjecting colonial goods to these
enormous imposts, those States would gain several millions of francs
"and the loss would fall partly on English commerce and partly on the
smugglers."[229] In fact, all his acts and words at this time reveal
the densest ignorance, not only of political economy, but of the
elementary facts of commerce, as when he imagined that officials, who
were sufficiently hard worked with watching a nimble host of some
100,000 smugglers along an immense frontier, would also be able to
distinguish between Syrian and American cottons, and to exact 800
francs from 100 kilogrammes of the latter, as against 400 francs from
the former, or that six times as much could ever be levied on Chinese
teas as on other teas! Such a tariff called for a highly drilled army
of those sufficiently rare individuals, honest _douaniers_, endowed
also with Napoleonic activity and omniscience. But, as Chaptal
remarked, the Emperor had never thought much about the needs of
commerce, and he despised merchants as persons who had "neither a
faith nor a country, whose sole object was gain." His own notion about
commerce was that he could "make it manoeuvre like a regiment"; and
this military conception of trade led him to entertain the fond hope
that exchequers benefited by confiscation and prohibitive tariffs,
that a "national commerce" could be speedily built up by cutting off
imports, and that the burden of loss in the present commercial war
fell on England and not on the continental consumer.

Such was the penalty which the great man paid for scorning all new
knowledge as _idéalogie_. The principles set forth by Quesnay, Turgot,
and Adam Smith were to him mere sophistical juggling. He once said to
Mollien: "I seek the good that is practical, not the ideal best: the
world is very old: we must profit by its experience: it teaches that
old practices are worth more than new theories: you are not the only
one who knows trade secrets."[230] This was his general attitude
towards the exponents of new financial or commercial views. Indeed, we
can hardly think of this great champion of external control and state
intervention favouring the open-handed methods of _laisser faire_.
Unhappy France, that gave this motto to the world but let her greatest
ruler emphasize her recent reaction towards commercial mediævalism!
Luckless Emperor, who aspired to found the United States of Europe,
but outraged the principle which most surely and lastingly works for
international harmony, that of Free Trade!

While the Trianon tariff sought to hinder the import of England's
colonial products, or, failing that, to reap a golden harvest from
them, Napoleon further endeavoured to terrify continental dealers from
accepting any of her manufactures. His Fontainebleau decree of October
18th, 1810, ordered that all such goods should be seized and publicly
burnt; and five weeks later special tribunals were instituted for
enforcing these ukases and for trying all persons, whether smugglers
caught red-handed or shopkeepers who inadvertently offered for sale
the cottons of Lancashire or the silks of Bengal.

The canon was now complete. It only remained to convert the world to
the new gospel of pacific war. The results were soon clearly visible
in a sudden rise of prices throughout France, Germany, and Italy. Raw
cotton now fetched 10 to 11 francs, sugar 6 to 7 francs, coffee 8
francs, and indigo 21 francs, per pound, or on the average about ten
times the prices then ruling at London.[231] The reason for this
advantage to the English consumer and manufacturer is clear. England
swayed the tropics and held the seas; and, having a monopoly of
colonial produce, she could import it easily and abundantly, while the
continental purchaser had ultimately to pay for the risks incurred by
his shopkeeper, by British merchants, and by their smugglers, who "ran
in" from Heligoland, Jersey, or Sicily. These classes vied in their
efforts to prick holes in the continental decrees. Bargees and women,
dogs and hearses, were pressed into service against Napoleon. The
last-named device was for a time tried with much success near Hamburg,
until the French authorities, wondering at the strange increase of
funerals in a river-side suburb, peered into the hearses, and found
them stuffed full with bales of British merchandise. This gruesome
plan failing, others were tried. Large quantities of sand were brought
from the seashore, until, unfortunately for the housewives, some
inquisitive official found that it hailed from the West Indies.

Or again, devious routes were resorted to. Sugar was smuggled from
London into Germany by way of Salonica, that being now almost the only
neutral port open to British commerce. Thence it was borne in panniers
on the backs of mules over the Balkans to Belgrade, where it was
transferred to barges and carried up the Danube. Another illicit trade
route was from the desolate shores of Dalmatia through Hungary. The
writer of a pamphlet, "England, Ireland, and America," states that his
firm then employed 500 horses on and near that coast in carrying
British goods into Central Europe, and that the cost of getting them
into France was "about £28 per cwt., or more than fifty times the
present freight to Calcutta." In fact, the result of the Emperor's
economic experiments may be summed up in the statement of Chaptal that
the general run of prices in France was higher by one-third than it
was before 1789.

Now the merest tyro might see that the difference in price above the
normal level was paid by the consumer. The colonial producer, the
British merchant and shipper were certainly harassed, and trade was
dislocated; but, as Mollien observed, commerce soon adapted itself to
altered conditions; and merchants never parted with their wares
without getting hard cash or resorting to the primitive method of
barter. Money was also frequently melted down in France and Germany so
as to effect bargains with England in bars of metal. And so, in one
way or another, trade was carried on, with infinite discomfort and
friction, it is true; but it never wholly ceased even between England
and France direct.

In fact, Napoleon so clung to the old mercantilist craze of
stimulating exports in order that they might greatly exceed the
imports, as to favour the sending of agricultural produce to England,
provided that such cargoes comprised manufactured goods. He allowed
this privilege not only to his Empire but also to the Kingdom of
Italy.[232] The difficulty was that England would not receive the
manufactured goods of her enemies; and, as corn and cheese could not
be exported to England, unless a certain proportion of silk and cloths
went with them, the latter were got up so as to satisfy the French
customs officers and then cast into the sea. It is needless to add
that this export of manufactures to England, on which Napoleon prided
himself, was limited to showy but worthless articles, which were made
solely _ad usum delphinorum_.

It was fortunate for us that Napoleon entertained these crude ideas on
political economy; for his action opened for us a loophole of escape
from a very serious difficulty. At that time our fast growing
population was barely fed by our own wheat even after good seasons;
and Providence afflicted us in 1809 and 1810 with very poor harvests.
In 1810 the average price was 103 shillings the quarter, the highest
ever known except in 1800 and 1801; and as commerce was dislocated by
the Continental System and hand-labour was being largely replaced by
the new power-looms and improved spinning machinery, the outlook would
have been hopeless, had not our great enemy allowed us to import
continental corn. This device, which he imagined would impoverish us
to enrich his own States, was the greatest aid that he could have
rendered to our hard-pressed social system; and readers of Charlotte
Brontë's realistic sketches of the Luddite rioting in Yorkshire may
imagine what would have befallen England if, besides lack of work and
low wages, there had been the added horrors of a bread famine. But
fortunately the curious commercial notions harboured by our foe
enabled us in the winter of 1810-11 to get supplies of corn not only
from Prussia and Poland but even from Italy and France.

In one sense this incident has been misunderstood. It has been
referred to by Porter[233] and other hopeful persons as proof positive
that as long as we can buy corn we shall get it, even from our
enemies. It proves nothing of the sort. Napoleon's correspondence and
his whole policy with regard to licences, which we shall presently
examine, shows clearly that he believed he would greatly benefit his
own States and impoverish our people by selling us large stores of
corn at a very high price. There is no hint in any of his letters that
he ever framed the notion of _starving_ us into surrender. All that he
looked to was the draining away of our wealth by cutting off our
exports, and by allowing imports to enter our harbours much as usual.
As long as he prevented us selling our produce, he heeded little how
much we bought from his States: in fact, the more we bought, the
sooner we should be bankrupt--such was his notion.

It is strange that he never sought to cut off our corn-supplies. They
were then drawn almost entirely from the Baltic ports. The United
States and Canada had as yet only sent us a few driblets of corn. La
Plata and the Cape of Good Hope were quite undeveloped; and our
settlements in New South Wales were at that time often troubled by
dearth. The plan of sealing up the cornfields of Europe from Riga to
Trieste would have been feasible, at least for a few weeks; French
troops held Danzig and Stettin; Russia, Prussia, and Denmark were at
his beck and call; and an imperial decree forbidding the export of
corn from France and her allied States to the United Kingdom could
hardly have failed to reduce us to starvation and surrender in the
very critical winter of 1810-11. But that strange mental defect of
clinging with ever increasing tenacity to preconceived notions led
Napoleon to allow and even to favour exports of corn to us in the time
of our utmost need; and Britain survived the strain.[234]

What folly, however, to refer to the action of this man of one
economic idea as being likely to determine the conduct of continental
statesmen in some future naval war with England. In truth, the urgency
of the problem of our national food-supply in time of a great war can
only be fully understood by those who have studied the Napoleonic era.
England then grew nearly enough corn for her needs; her fleets swept
the seas; and Napoleon's economic hobby left her foreign food-supply
unhampered at the severest crisis. Yet, even so, the price of the
quartern loaf rose to more than fifteenpence, and we were brought to
the verge of civil war. A comparison of that time with the conditions
that now prevail must yield food for reflection to all but the
case-hardened optimists.

But already Napoleon was convinced that the Continental System must be
secretly relaxed in special cases. Despite the fulsome addresses which
some Chambers of Commerce sent up, he knew that his seaports were in
the depths of distress, and that French cotton manufacturers could not
hope to compete with those of Lancashire now that his own tariff had
doubled the price of raw cotton and dyes in France. He therefore hit
upon the curious device of allowing continental merchants to buy
licences for the privilege of secretly evading his own decrees. The
English Government seems to have been the first to issue similar
secret permits; but Napoleon had scarcely signed his Berlin Decree for
the blockade of England before he connived at its infraction. When
sugar, coffee, and other comforts became scarce, they were secretly
imported from perfidious Albion for the imperial table. The final
stage was reached in July, 1810, when licences to import forbidden
goods were secretly sold to favoured merchants, and many
officials--among them Bourrienne--reaped a rich harvest from the sale
of these imperial indulgences. Merchants were so eager to evade the
hated laws that they offered high prices to the treasury and
_douceurs_ to officials for the coveted boon; and as much as £40,000
is said to have been paid for a single licence.

On both sides of the Channel this device was abhorred, but its results
were specially odious in Napoleon's States, where the burdens to be
evaded were far heavier than those entailed by the Orders in Council.
In fact, the Continental System was now seen to be an organized
hypocrisy, which, in order to ruin the mistress of the seas, exposed
the peoples to burdens more grievous than those borne by England, and
left all but the wealthiest merchants a prey to a grinding fiscal
tyranny. And the sting of it all was its social injustice; for while
the poor were severely punished, sometimes with death, for smuggling
sugar or tobacco, Napoleon and the favoured few who could buy licences
often imported these articles in large quantities. What wonder, then,
that Russia and Sweden should decline long to endure these gratuitous
hardships, and should seek to evade the behests of the imperial
smuggler of the Tuileries!

Nevertheless, as no inventive people can ever be thrown wholly on its
own resources without deriving some benefit, we find that France met
the crisis with the cheery patience and unflagging ingenuity which she
has ever evinced. In a great Empire which embraced all the lands
between Hamburg, Bayonne, and Rome, not to mention Illyria and
Dalmatia, a great variety of products might readily reward the
inventor and the husbandman. Tobacco, rice, and cotton could be reared
in the southern portions. Valiant efforts were also made to get
Asiatic produce overland, so as to disappoint the English cruisers;
and the coffee of Arabia was taxed very lightly, so as to ruin the
American producer. When the fragrant berry became more and more
scarce, chicory was discovered by good patriots to be a palatable
substitute, and scientific men sought to induce French manufacturers
to use the isatis plant instead of indigo. Prizes were offered by the
State and by local Chambers of Commerce to those who should make up
for the lack of tropical goods and dyes.

A notable discovery was made by Chaptal and Delessert, who improved on
Markgraf's process of procuring sugar from beetroot and made it a
practical success. Napoleon also hoped that a chemical substitute for
indigo had been found, and exclaimed to a doleful deputation of
merchants, who came to the Tuileries in the early summer of 1811, that
chemistry would soon revolutionize commerce as completely as the
discovery of the compass had done. Besides, the French Empire was the
richest country in the world, and could almost do without foreign
commerce, at least until England had given way; and that would soon
come to pass; for the pressure of events would soon compel London
merchants to throw their sugar and indigo into the Thames.[235]

In reality, he placed commerce far behind agriculture, which he
considered to be the basis of a nation's wealth and a nation's health.
But he also took a keen interest in manufactures. The silk industry at
Lyons found in him a generous patron. He ordered that the best
scientific training should there be given, so as to improve the
processes of manufacture; and, as silk of nearly all kinds could be
produced in France and Italy, Lyons was comparatively prosperous.
When, however, it suffered from the general rise of prices and from
the impaired buying power of the community, he adopted heroic
remedies. He ordered that all ships leaving France should carry silk
fabrics equal in value to one-fourth of the whole freight; but whether
these stuffs went to adorn women or mermaids seems an open question.
Or again, on the advice of Chaptal, the Emperor made large purchases
of surplus stocks of Lyons silk, Rouen cottons, and Ste. Antoine
furniture, so as to prevent an imminent collapse of credit and a
recrudescence of Jacobinism in those industrial centres; for as he
said: "I fear a rising brought about by want of bread: I had rather
fight an army of 200,000 men than that."[236]

In the main, this policy of giving _panem et circenses_ was successful
in France; at least, it kept her quiet. The national feeling ran
strongly in favour of commercial prohibition. In 1787 Arthur Young
found the cotton-workers of the north furious at the recent inroads of
Lancashire cottons, while the wine-growers of the Garonne were equally
favourable to the enlightened Anglo-French commercial treaty of 1786.
It was Napoleon's lot to win the favour of the rigid protectionists,
while not alienating that of the men of the Gironde, who saw in him
the champion of agrarian liberty against the feudal nobles. Moreover,
the nation still cherished the pathetic belief that the war was due to
Albion's perfidy respecting Malta, and burned with a desire to
chastise the recreant islanders. For these reasons, Frenchmen endured
the drain of men and money with but little show of grumbling.

They were tired of the wars. _We have had enough glory_, they said,
even in the capital itself, and an acute German observer describes the
feeling there as curiously mixed. Parisian gaiety often found vent in
lampoons against the Emperor; and much satire at his expense might
with safety be indulged in among a crowd, provided it were seasoned
with wit. The people seemed not to fear Napoleon, as he was feared in
Germany: the old revolutionary party was still active and might easily
become far more dangerous than the royalist coteries of the Boulevard
St. Germain. For the rest, they were all so accustomed to political
change that they looked on his government as provisional, and put up
with him only as long as the army triumphed abroad and he could make
his power felt at home. Such was the impression of Paris gained by
Varnhagen von Ense. Public opinion in the provinces seems to have been
more favourable to Napoleon; and, on the whole, pride in the army and
in the vigorous administration which that nation loves, above all,
hatred of England and the hope of wresting from her the world's
empire, led the French silently to endure rigorous press laws,
increased taxes, war prices, licences, and chicory.

For Germans the hardships were much greater and the alleviations far
less. They had no deep interest in Malta or in the dominion of the
seas; and political economy was then only beginning to dawn on the
Teutonic mind. The general trend of German thought had inclined
towards the _Everlasting Nay_, until Napoleon flashed across its ken.
For a time he won the admiration of the chief thinkers of Germany by
brushing away the feudal cobwebs from her fair face. He seemed about
to call her sons to a life of public activity; and in the famous
soliloquy of Faust, in which he feels his way from word to thought,
from thought to might, and from might to action, we may discern the
literary projection of the influence exerted by the new Charlemagne on
that nation of dreamers.[237] But the promise was fulfilled only in
the most harshly practical way, namely, by cutting off all supplies of
tobacco and coffee; and when Teufelsdröckh himself, admirer though he
was of the French Revolution, found that the summons for his favourite
beverage--the "dear melancholy coffee, that begets fancies," of
Lessing--produced only a muddy decoction of acorns, there was the risk
of his tendencies earthwards taking a very practically revolutionary
turn.

In truth, the German universities were the leaders of the national
reaction against the Emperor of the West. Fichte's pleading for a
truly national education had taken effect. Elementary instruction was
now being organized in Prussia; and the divorce of thought from
action, which had so long sterilized German life, was ended by the
foundation of the University of Berlin by Humboldt. Thus, in 1810, the
year of Prussia's deepest woe, when her brave Queen died of a stricken
heart, when French soldiers and _douaniers_ were seizing and burning
colonial wares, her thinkers came into closer touch with her men of
action, with mutually helpful results. Thinkers ceased to be mere
dreamers, and Prussian officials gained a wider outlook on life. The
life of beneficent activity, to which Napoleon might have summoned the
great majority of Germans, dawned on them from Berlin, not from Paris.

His influence was more and more oppressive. The final results of his
commercial decrees on the trade of Hamburg were thus described by
Perthes, a well-known writer and bookseller of that town: "Of the 422
sugar-boiling houses, few now stood open: the printing of cottons had
ceased entirely: the tobacco-dressers were driven away by the
Government. The imposition of innumerable taxes, door and window,
capitation and land taxes, drove the inhabitants to despair." But the
same sagacious thinker was able to point the moral of it all, and
prove to his friends that their present trials were due to the selfish
particularism of the German States: "It was a necessity that some
great power should arise in the midst of the degenerate selfishness of
the times and also prove victorious, for there was nothing vigorous to
oppose it. Napoleon is an historical necessity."[238]

Thus, both in the abodes of learning and in the centres of industry
men were groping after a higher unity and a firmer political
organization, which, after the Napoleonic deluge had swept by, was to
lay the foundation of a New Germany.

To all appearances, however, Napoleon's power seemed to be more firmly
established than ever in the ensuing year. On March 20th, 1811, a son
was born to him. At the crisis of this event, he revealed the warmth
of his family instincts. On hearing that the life of mother or infant
might have to be sacrificed, he exclaimed at once, "Save the
mother."[239] When the danger was past, he very considerately informed
Josephine, stating, "he has my chest, my mouth and my eyes. I trust
that he will fulfil his destiny." That destiny was mapped out in the
title conferred on the child, "King of Rome," which was designed to
recall the title "King of the Romans," used in the Holy Roman Empire.

Napoleon resolved that the old elective dignity should now be renewed
in a strictly hereditary Empire, vaster than that of Charlemagne.
Paris was to be its capital, Rome its second city, and the future
Emperors were always to be crowned a second time at Rome. Furthermore,
lest the mediæval dispute as to the supremacy of Emperor or Pope in
Rome should again vex mankind, the Papacy was virtually annexed: the
status of the pontiff was defined in the most Erastian sense, imperial
funds were assigned for his support, and he was bidden to maintain two
palaces, "the one necessarily at Paris, the other at Rome."

It is impossible briefly to describe the various conflicts between
Pius VII. and Napoleon. Though now kept in captivity by Napoleon, the
Pope refused to ratify these and other ukases of his captor; and the
credit which Napoleon had won by his wordly-wise Concordat was now lost
by his infraction of many of its clauses and by his harsh treatment of
a defenceless old man. It is true that Pius had excommunicated
Napoleon; but that was for the crime of annexing the Papal States, and
public opinion revolted at the spectacle of an all-powerful Emperor now
consigning to captivity the man who in former years had done so much to
consolidate his authority. After the disasters of the Russian campaign,
he sought to come to terms with the pontiff; but even then the bargain
struck at Fontainebleau was so hard that his prisoner, though unnerved
by ill-health, retracted the unholy compromise. Whereupon Napoleon
ordered that the cardinals who advised this step should be seized and
carried away from Fontainebleau. Few of Napoleon's actions were more
harmful than this series of petty persecutions; and among the
influences that brought about his fall, we may reckon the dignified
resistance of the pontiff, whose meekness threw up in sharp relief the
pride and arrogance of his captor. The Papacy stooped, but only to
conquer.

For the present, everything seemed to favour the new Charlemagne.
Never had the world seen embodied might like that of Napoleon's
Empire; and well might he exclaim at the birth of the King of Rome,
"Now begins the finest epoch of my reign." All the auguries seemed
favourable. In France, the voice of opposition was all but hushed.
Italians, Swiss, and even some Spaniards, helped to keep down Prussia.
Dutchmen and Danes had hunted down Schill for him at Stralsund. Polish
horsemen had charged up the Somosierra Pass against the Spanish guns,
and did valiant service on the bloody field of Albuera. The
Confederation of the Rhine could send forth 150,000 men to fight his
battles. The Hapsburgs were his vassals, and only faint shadows of
discord as yet clouded his relations with Alexander. One of his
Marshals, Bernadotte, had been chosen to succeed to the crown of
Sweden; and at the other end of Europe, it seemed that Wellington and
the Spanish patriots must ultimately succumb to superior numbers.

Surely now was the time for the fulfilment of those glowing oriental
designs beside which his European triumphs seemed pale. In the autumn
of 1810 he sent agents carefully to inspect the strongholds of Egypt
and Syria, and his consuls in the Levant were ordered to send a report
every six months on the condition of the Turkish Empire.[240] Above
all, he urged on the completion of dockyards and ships of war. Vast
works were pushed on at Antwerp and Cherbourg: ships and gunboats were
to be built at every suitable port from the Texel to Naples and
Trieste; and as the result of these labours, the Emperor counted on
having 104 ships of the line, which would cover the transports from
the Mediterranean, Cherbourg, Boulogne and the Scheldt, and threaten
England with an array of 200,000 fighting men.[241]

In March, 1811, this plan was modified, possibly because, as in 1804,
he found the difficulties of a descent on our coasts greater than he
first imagined. He now seeks merely to weary out the English in the
present year. But in the next year, or in 1813, he will send an
expedition of 40,000 men from the Scheldt, as if to menace Ireland;
and, having thrown us off our guard, he will divide that force into
four parts for the recovery of the French and Dutch colonies in the
West Indies. He counts also on having a part of his army in Spain free
for service elsewhere: it must be sent to seize Sicily or Egypt.

But this was not all. His thoughts also turn to the Cape of Good Hope.
Eight thousand men are to sail from Brest to seize that point of
vantage at which he had gazed so longingly in 1803. Of these plans,
the recovery of Egypt evidently lay nearest to his heart. He orders
the storage at Toulon of everything needful for an Egyptian
expedition, along with sixty gun-vessels of light draught suitable for
the navigation of the Nile or of the lakes near the coast.[242] Decrès
is charged to send models of these craft; and we may picture the eager
scrutiny which they received. For the Orient was still the pole to
which Napoleon's whole being responded. Turned away perforce by wars
with Austria, Russia, Prussia, and Spain, it swung round towards Egypt
and India on the first chance of European peace, only to be driven
back by some untoward shock nearer home. In 1803 he counted on the
speedy opening of a campaign on the Ganges. In 1811 he proposes that
the tricolour shall once more wave on the citadel of Cairo, and
threaten India from the shores of the Red Sea. But a higher will than
his disposed of these events, and ordained that he should then be
flung back from Russia and fight for his Empire in the plains of
Saxony.

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER XXXII

THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN


Two mighty and ambitious potentates never fully trust one another.
Under all the shows of diplomatic affection, there remains a thick
rind of reserve or fear. Especially must that be so with men who
spring from a fierce untamed stock. Despite the training of Laharpe,
Alexander at times showed the passions and finesse of a Boyar. And who
shall say that the early Jacobinism and later culture of Napoleon was
more than a veneer spread all too thinly over an Italian _condottiere_
of the Renaissance age? These men were too expert at wiles really to
trust to the pompous assurances of Tilsit and Erfurt. De Maistre tells
us that Napoleon never partook of Alexander's repasts on the banks of
the Niemen. For him Muscovite cookery was suspect.

Amidst the glories of Erfurt, Oudinot saw an incident that revealed
the Czar's hidden feelings. During one of their rides, the Emperors
were stopped by a dyke, which Napoleon's steed refused to take;
accordingly the Marshal had to help it across; but the Czar, proud of
his horsemanship, finally cleared the obstacle with a splendid bound,
though at the cost of a shock which broke his sword-belt. The sword
fell to the ground, and Oudinot was about to hand it to Alexander,
when Napoleon quickly said: "Keep that sword and bring it to me
later": then, turning to the Czar, he added: "You have no objection,
Sire?" A look of surprise and distrust flashed across the Czar's
features; but, resuming his easy bearing, he gave his assent. Later in
the day, Napoleon sent his own sword to Alexander, and thus came off
easily best from an incident which threatened at first to throw him
into the shade. The affair shows the ready wit and mental superiority
of the one man no less than the veiled reserve and uneasiness of the
other.

At the close of 1809, Alexander confessed his inner feeling to
Czartoryski. Napoleon, he said, was a man who would not scruple to use
any means so long as he gained his end: his mental strength was
unquestioned: in the worst troubles he was cool and collected: his
fits of passion were only meant to intimidate: his every act was the
result of calculation: it was absurd to say that his prodigious
exertions would drive him mad: his health was splendid and was equal
to any effort provided that he had eight hours' sleep every day. The
impression left on the ex-Minister was that Alexander understood his
ally thoroughly and _feared him greatly_.[243]

A few days later came Napoleon's request for the hand of the Czar's
sister, a request which Alexander declined with many expressions of
goodwill and regret. What, then, was his surprise to find that, before
the final answer had been returned, Napoleon was in treaty for the
hand of an Austrian Archduchess.[244] This time it was for him to feel
affronted. And so this breathless search for a bride left sore
feelings at both capitals, at Paris because the Czar declined
Napoleon's request, at St. Petersburg because the imperial wooer was
off on another scent before the first had given out.

Alexander's annoyance was increased by his ally's doubtful behaviour
about Poland. After the recent increase of the Duchy of Warsaw he had
urged Napoleon to make a declaration that "the Kingdom of Poland shall
never be re-established." This matter was being discussed side by side
with the matrimonial overtures; and, after their collapse, Napoleon
finally declined to give this assurance which Alexander felt needful
for checking the rising hopes of Poles and Lithuanians. The utmost the
French Emperor would do was to promise, _in a secret clause_, that he
would never aid any other Power or any popular movement that aimed at
the re-establishment of that kingdom.[245] In fact, as the Muscovite
alliance was on the wane, he judged it bad policy to discourage the
Poles, who might do so much for him in case of a Franco-Russian war.
He soon begins to face seriously the prospect of such an event. At the
close of 1810 he writes that the Russians are intrenching themselves
on the Dwina and Dniester, which "shows a bad spirit."

But the great difficulty is Russia's imperfect observation of the
Continental System. He begs the Czar to close his ports against
English ships: 600 of them are wandering about the Baltic, after being
repulsed from its southern shores, in the hope of getting into Russian
harbours. Let Alexander seize their cargoes, and England, now at her
last gasp, must give in. Five weeks later he returns to the charge. It
is not enough to seize British ships; the hated wares get in under
American, Swedish, Spanish, and Portuguese, _even under French flags_.
Of the 2,000 ships that entered the Baltic in 1810, not one was really
a neutral: they were all charged with English goods, with false papers
and _forged certificates of origin manufactured in London_.[246] Any
other unit among earth's millions would have been convinced of the
futility of the whole enterprise, now that his own special devices
were being turned against him. It was not enough to conquer and
enchain the Continent. Every customs officer must be an expert in
manufactures, groceries, documents, and the water-marks of paper, if
he was to detect the new "frauds of the neutral flags."

But Napoleon knew not the word impossible--"a word that exists only in
the dictionary of fools." In fact, his mind, naturally unbending, was
now working more and more in self-made grooves. Of these the deepest
was his commercial warfare; and he pushed on, reckless of Europe and
reckless of the Czar. In the middle of December he annexed the North
Sea coast of Germany, including Oldenburg. The heir to this duchy had
married Alexander's sister, whose hand Napoleon had claimed at Erfurt.
The duke, it is true, was offered the district of Erfurt as an
indemnity; but that proposal only stung the Czar the more. The
deposition of the duke was not merely a personal affront; it was an
infraction of the Treaty of Tilsit which had restored him to his
duchy.

A fortnight later, when as yet he knew not of the Oldenburg incident,
Alexander himself broke that treaty.[247] At the close of 1810 he
declined to admit land-borne goods on the easy terms arranged at
Tilsit, but levied heavy dues on them, especially on the _articles de
luxe_ that mostly hailed from France. Some such step was inevitable.
Unable to export freely to England, Russia had not money enough to buy
costly French goods without disordering the exchange and ruining her
credit. While seeking to raise revenue on French manufactures, the
Czar resolved to admit on easy terms all colonial goods, especially
American. English goods he would shut out as heretofore; and he
claimed that this new departure was well within the limits of the
Treaty of Tilsit. Far different was Napoleon's view: "Here is a great
planet taking a wrong direction. I do not understand its course at
all."[248] Such were his first words on reading the text of the new
ukase. A fatalistic tone now haunts his references to Russia's policy.
On April 2nd he writes: "If Alexander does not quickly stop the
impetus which has been given, he will be carried away by it next year;
and thus war will take place in spite of him, _in spite of me_, in
spite of the interests of France and Russia.... It is an operatic
scene, of which the English are the shifters." What madness! As if
Russia's craving for colonial wares and solvency were a device of the
diabolical islanders.[249] As if his planetary simile were anything
more than a claim that he was the centre of the universe and his will
its guiding and controlling power.

Nevertheless, Russia held on her way. In vain did Alexander explain to
his ally the economic needs of his realm, protest his fidelity to the
Continental System, and beg some consideration for the Duke of
Oldenburg. It was evident that the Emperor of the West would make no
real concession. In fact, the need of domination was the quintessence
of his being. And Maret, Duc de Bassano, who was now his Foreign
Minister, or rather, we should say, the man who wrote and signed his
despatches, revealed the psychological cause of the war which cost the
lives of nearly a million of men, in a note to Lauriston, the French
ambassador at St. Petersburg. Napoleon, he wrote, cared little about
interviews or negotiations unless the movements of his 450,000 men
caused serious concern in Russia, recalled her to the Continental
System as settled at Tilsit, and "brought her back to the state of
inferiority in which she was then."[250]

This was, indeed, the gist of the whole question. Napoleon saw that
Alexander was slipping out of the leading strings of Tilsit, and that
he was likely to come off best from that bargain, which was intended
to confirm the supremacy of the Western Empire. For both potentates
that treaty had been, at bottom, nothing more than a truce. Napoleon
saw in it a means of subjecting the Continent to his commercial code,
and of preparing for a Franco-Russian partition of Turkey. The Czar
hailed it as a breathing space wherein he could reorganize his army,
conquer Finland, and stride towards the Balkans. The Erfurt interview
prolonged the truce; for Napoleon felt the supreme need of stamping
out the Spanish Rising and of postponing the partition of Turkey which
his ally was eager to begin. By the close of 1811 both potentates had
exhausted all the benefits likely to accrue from their alliance.[251]
Napoleon flattered himself that the conquest of Spain was wellnigh
assured, and that England was in her last agonies. On the other hand,
Russia had recovered her military strength, had gained Finland and
planted her foot on the Lower Danube, and now sought to shuffle off
Napoleon's commercial decrees. In fine, the monarch, who at Tilsit had
figured as mere clay in the hands of the Corsican potter, had proved
himself to be his equal both in cunning and tenacity. The seeming dupe
of 1807 now promised to be the victor in statecraft.

Then there was the open sore of Poland. The challenge, on this
subject, was flung down by Napoleon at a diplomatic reception on his
birthday, August 15th, 1811. Addressing the Russian envoy, he
exclaimed: "I am not so stupid as to think that it is Oldenburg which
troubles you. I see that Poland is the question: you attribute to me
designs in favour of Poland. I begin to think that you wish to seize
it. No: if your army were encamped on Montmartre, I would not cede an
inch of the Warsaw territory, not a village, not a windmill." His
fears as to Russia's designs were far-fetched. Alexander's sounding of
the Poles was a defensive measure, seriously undertaken only after
Napoleon's refusal to discourage the Polish nationalists. But it
suited the French Emperor to aver that the quarrel was about Poland
rather than the Continental System, and the scene just described is a
good specimen of his habit of cool calculation even in seemingly
chance outbursts of temper. His rhapsody gained him the ardent support
of the Poles, and was vague enough to cause no great alarm to Austria
and Prussia.[252]

On the next day Napoleon sketched to his Ministers the general plan of
campaign against Russia. The whole of the Continent was to be
embattled against her. On the Hapsburg alliance he might well rely.
But the conduct of Prussia gave him some concern. For a time she
seemed about to risk a war _à outrance_, such as Stein, Fichte, and
the staunch patriots of the Tugendbund ardently craved. Indeed,
Napoleon's threats to this hapless realm seemed for a time to portend
its annihilation. The King, therefore, sent Scharnhorst first to St.
Petersburg and then to Vienna with secret overtures for an alliance.
They were virtually refused. Prudence was in the ascendant at both
capitals; and, as will presently appear, the more sagacious Prussians
soon came to see that a war, in which Napoleon could be enticed into
the heart of Russia, might deal a mortal blow at his overgrown Empire.
Certainly it was quite impossible for Prussia to stay the French
advance. A guerilla warfare, such as throve in Spain, must surely be
crushed in her open plains; and the diffident King returned
Gneisenau's plan of a rising of the Prussian people against Napoleon
with the chilling comment, "Very good as poetry."

Thus, when Napoleon wound up his diplomatic threats by an imperious
summons to side with him or against him, Frederick William was fain to
abide by his terms, sending 20,000 troops against Russia, granting
free passage to Napoleon's army, and furnishing immense supplies of
food and forage, the payment of which was to be settled by some future
arrangement (February, 1812). These conditions seemed to thrust
Prussia down to the lowest circle of the Napoleonic Inferno; and great
was the indignation of her patriots. They saw not that only by
stooping before the western blast could Prussia be saved. To this
topic we shall recur presently, when we treat of the Russian plan of
campaign.

Sweden was less tractable than Napoleon expected. He had hoped that
the deposition of his personal enemy, Gustavus IV., the enthronement
of a feeble old man, Charles XIII., and the choice of Bernadotte as
heir to the Swedish crown, would bring that land back to its
traditional alliance with France. But, on accepting his new dignity,
Bernadotte showed his customary independence of thought by refusing to
promise that he would never bear arms against France--a refusal that
cost him his principality of Ponte Corvo. He at once adopted a forward
Scandinavian policy; and, as the Franco-Russian alliance waned, he
offered Swedish succour to Napoleon if he would favour the acquisition
of Norway by the Court of Stockholm.

The Emperor had himself mooted this project in 1802, but he now
returned a stern refusal (February 25th, 1811), and bade Sweden
enforce the Continental System under pain of the occupation of Swedish
Pomerania by French troops. Even this threat failed to bend the will
of Bernadotte, and the Swedes preferred to forego their troublesome
German province rather than lose their foreign commerce. In the
following January, Napoleon carried out his threat, thereby throwing
Sweden into the arms of Russia. By the treaty of March-April, 1812,
Bernadotte gained from Alexander the prospect of acquiring Norway, in
return for the aid of Sweden in the forthcoming war against Napoleon.
This was the chief diplomatic success gained by Alexander; for though
he came to terms with Turkey two months later (retaining Bessarabia),
the treaty was ratified too late to enable him to concentrate all his
forces against the Napoleonic host that was now flooding the plains of
Prussia.[253]

The results of this understanding with the Court of Stockholm were
seen in the Czar's note presented at Paris at the close of April. He
required of Napoleon the evacuation of Swedish Pomerania by French
troops and a friendly adjustment of Franco-Swedish disputes, the
evacuation of Prussia by the French, the reduction of their large
garrison at Danzig, and the recognition of Russia's right to trade
with neutrals. If these terms were accorded by France, Alexander was
ready to negotiate for an indemnity for the Duke of Oldenburg and a
mitigation of the Russian customs dues on French goods.[254] The
reception given by Napoleon to these reasonable terms was unpromising.
"You are a gentleman," he exclaimed to Prince Kurakin, "--and yet you
dare to present to me such proposals?--You are acting as Prussia did
before Jena." Alexander had already given up all hope of peace. A week
before that scene, he had left St. Petersburg for the army, knowing
full well that Napoleon's cast-iron will might be shivered by a mighty
blow, but could never be bent by diplomacy.

On his side, Napoleon sought to overawe his eastern rival by a display
of imposing force. Lord of a dominion that far excelled that of the
Czar in material resources, suzerain of seven kingdoms and thirty
principalities, he called his allies and vassals about him at Dresden,
and gave to the world the last vision of that imperial splendour which
dazzled the imagination of men.

It was an idle display. In return for secret assurances that he might
eventually regain his Illyrian provinces, the Emperor Francis had
pledged himself by treaty to send 30,000 men to guard Napoleon's flank
in Volhynia. But everyone at St. Petersburg knew that this aid, along
with that of Prussia, was forced and hollow.[255] The example of Spain
and the cautious strategy of Wellington had dissolved the spell of
French invincibility; and the Czar was resolved to trust to the
toughness of his people and the defensive strength of his boundless
plains. The time of the Macks, the Brunswicks, the Bennigsens was
past: the day of Wellington and of truly national methods of warfare
had dawned.

Yet the hosts now moving against Alexander bade fair to overwhelm the
devotion of his myriad subjects and the awful solitudes of his
steppes. It was as if Peter the Hermit had arisen to impel the peoples
of Western and Central Europe once more against the immobile East.
Frenchmen to the number of 200,000 formed the kernel of this vast
body: 147,000 Germans from the Confederation of the Rhine followed the
new Charlemagne: nearly 80,000 Italians under Eugène formed an Army of
Observation: 60,000 Poles stepped eagerly forth to wrest their
nation's liberty from the Muscovite grasp; and Illyrians, Swiss, and
Dutch, along with a few Spaniards and Portuguese, swelled the Grand
Army to a total of 600,000 men. Nor was this all. Austria and Prussia
sent their contingents, amounting in all to 50,000 men, to guard
Napoleon's flanks on the side of Volhynia and Courland. And this
mighty mass, driven on by Napoleon's will, gained a momentum which was
to carry its main army to Moscow.

After reviewing his vassals at Dresden, and hurrying on the
arrangements for the transport of stores, Napoleon journeyed to the
banks of the Niemen. On all sides were to be seen signs of the passage
of a mighty host, broken-down carts, dead horses, wrecked villages,
and dense columns of troops that stripped Prussia wellnigh bare. Yet,
despite these immense preparations, no hint of discouragement came
from the Czar's headquarters. On arriving at the Niemen, Napoleon
issued to the Grand Army a proclamation which was virtually a
declaration of war. In it there occurred the fatalistic remark:
"Russia is drawn on by fate: her destinies must be fulfilled."
Alexander's words to his troops breathed a different spirit: "God
fights against the aggressor."

Much that is highly conjectural has been written about the plans of
campaign of the two Emperors. That of Napoleon may be briefly stated:
it was to find out the enemy's chief forces, divide them, or cut them
from their communications, and beat them in detail. In other words, he
never started with any set plan of campaign, other than the
destruction of the chief opposing force. But, in the present instance,
it may be questioned whether he had not sought by his exasperating
provocations to drive Prussia into alliance with the Czar. In that
case, Alexander would have been bound in honour to come to the aid of
his ally. And if the Russians ventured across the Niemen, or the
Vistula, as Napoleon at first believed they would,[256] his task would
doubtless have been as easy as it proved at Friedland. Many Prussian
officers, so Müffling asserts, believed that this was the aim of
French diplomacy in the early autumn of 1811, and that the best reply
was an unconditional surrender. On the other hand, there is the fact
that St. Marsan, Napoleon's ambassador at Berlin, assured that
Government, on October 29th, that his master did not wish to destroy
Prussia, but laid much stress on the supplies which she could furnish
him--a support that would enable the Grand Army to advance on the
Niemen _like a rushing stream_.

The metaphor was strangely imprudent. It almost invited Prussia to
open wide her sluices and let the flood foam away on to the sandy
wastes of Lithuania; and we may fancy that the more discerning minds
at Berlin now saw the advantage of a policy which would entice the
French into the wastes of Muscovy. It is strange that Napoleon's
Syrian adage, "Never make war against a desert," did not now recur to
his mind. But he gradually steeled himself to the conviction that war
with Alexander was inevitable, and that the help of Austria and
Prussia would enable him to beat back the Muscovite hordes into their
eastern steppes. For a time he had unquestionably thought of
destroying Prussia before he attacked the Czar; but he finally decided
to postpone her fate until he had used her for the overthrow of
Russia.[257]

After the experiences of Austerlitz and Friedland, the advantages of a
defensive campaign could not escape the notice of the Czar. As early
as October, 1811, when Scharnhorst was at St. Petersburg, he discussed
these questions with him; and not all that officer's pleading for the
cause of Prussian independence induced Alexander to offer armed help
unless the French committed a wanton aggression on Königsberg. Seeing
that there was no hope of bringing the Russians far to the west,
Scharnhorst seems finally to have counselled a Fabian strategy for the
ensuing war; and, when at Vienna, he drew up a memoir in this sense
for the guidance of the Czar.[258]

Alexander was certainly much in need of sound guidance. Though
Scharnhorst had pointed out the way of salvation, a strategic tempter
was soon at hand in the person of General von Phull, an uncompromising
theorist who planned campaigns with an unquestioning devotion to
abstract principles. Untaught by the catastrophes of the past,
Alexander once more let his enthusiasm for theories and principles
lead him to the brink of the abyss. Phull captivated him by setting
forth the true plan of a defensive campaign which he had evolved from
patient study of the Seven Years' War. Everything depended on the
proper selection of defensive positions and the due disposition of the
defending armies. There must be two armies of defence, and at least
one great intrenched camp. One army must oppose the invader on a line
near, or leading up to, the camp; while the other army must manoeuvre
on his rear or flanks. And the camp must be so placed as to stretch
its protecting influence over one, or more, important roads. It need
not be on any one of them: in fact, it was better that it should be
some distance away; for it thus fulfilled better the all-important
function of a "flanking position."

Such a position Phull had discovered at Drissa in a curve of the River
Dwina. It was sufficiently far from the roads leading from the Niemen
to St. Petersburg and to Moscow efficiently to protect them both.
There, accordingly, he suggested that vast earthworks should be
prepared; for there, at that artificial Torres Vedras, Russia's chief
force might await the Grand Army, while the other force harassed its
flank or rear.[259]

Napoleon had not probed this absurdity to its inmost depths: but he
early found out that the Russians were in two widely separated armies;
and this sufficed to decide his movements and the early part of the
campaign. Having learnt that one army was near Vilna, and the other in
front of the marshes of the Pripet, he sought to hold them apart by a
rapid irruption into the intervening space, and thereafter to destroy
them piecemeal. Never was a visionary theory threatened by a more
terrible realism. For Napoleon at midsummer was mustering a third of a
million of men on the banks of the Niemen, while the Russians, with
little more than half those numbers as yet available for the
fighting-line, had them spread out over an immense space, so as to
facilitate those flanking operations on which Phull set such
store.[260]

On the morn of June 23rd, three immense French columns wound their way
to the pontoon bridges hastily thrown over the Niemen near Kovno; and
loud shouts of triumph greeted the great leader as the vanguard set
foot on Lithuanian soil. No Russians were seen except a few light
horsemen, who galloped up, inquired of the engineers why they were
building the bridges, and then rode hastily away. During three days
the Grand Army filed over the river and melted away into the sandy
wastes. No foe at first contested their march, but neither were they
met by the crowds of downtrodden natives whom their fancy pictured as
thronging to welcome the liberators. In truth, the peasants of
Lithuania had no very close racial affinity to the Poles, whose
offshoots were found chiefly among the nobles and the wealthier
townsfolk. Solitude, the sultry heat of a Russian mid-summer, and
drenching thunderstorms depressed the spirits of the invaders. The
miserable cart tracks were at once cut up by the passage of the host,
and 10,000 horses perished of fatigue or of disease caused by the rank
grass, in the fifty miles' march from the Niemen to Vilna.

The difficulties of the transport service began at once, and they were
to increase with every day's march. With his usual foresight, Napoleon
had ordered the collection of immense stores of all kinds at Danzig,
his chief base of supplies. Two million pairs of boots were required
for the wear and tear of a long campaign, and all preparations were on
the same colossal scale. In this connection it is noteworthy that no
small proportion of the cloaks and boots came from England, as the
industrial resources of the Continent were wholly unequal to supplying
the crusaders of the Continental System.

A great part of those stores never reached the troops in Russia. The
wherries sent from Danzig to the Niemen were often snapped up by
British cruisers, and the carriage of stores from the Niemen entailed
so frightful a waste of horseflesh that only the most absolute
necessaries could keep pace with the army in its rapid advance. The
men were thus left without food except such as marauding could extort.
In this art Napoleon's troops were experts. Many miles of country were
scoured on either side of the line of march, and the Emperor, on
reaching Vilna, had to order Ney to send out cavalry patrols to gather
in the stragglers, who were committing "horrible devastations" and
would "fall into the hands of the Cossacks."

At Vilna the Grand Army met with a more cheering reception than
heretofore. Deftly placing his Polish regiments in front and chasing
the retiring Russians beyond the town, Napoleon then returned to find
a welcome in the old Lithuanian capital. The old men came forth clad
in the national garb, and it seemed that that province, once a part of
the great Polish monarchy, would break away from the empire of the
Czars and extend Napoleon's influence to within a few miles of
Smolensk.[261] The newly-formed Diet at Warsaw also favoured this
project: it constituted itself into a general confederation, declared
the Kingdom of Poland to be restored, and sent a deputation to
Napoleon at Vilna begging him to utter the creative words: "Let the
Kingdom of Poland exist." The Emperor gave a guarded answer. He
declared that he loved the Poles, he commended them for their
patriotism, which was "the first duty of civilized man," but added
that only by a unanimous effort could they now compel their enemies to
recognize their rights; and that, having guaranteed the integrity of
the Austrian Empire, he could not sanction any movement which would
disturb its remaining Polish provinces. This diplomatic reply chilled
his auditors. But what would have been their feelings had they known
that the calling of the Diet at Warsaw, and the tone of its address
to Napoleon; had all been sketched out five weeks before by the
imperial stage manager himself? Yet such was the case.

The scene-shifter was the Abbé de Pradt, Archbishop of Malines, whom
Napoleon sent as ambassador to Warsaw, with elaborate instructions as
to the summoning of the Diet, the whipping-up of Polish enthusiasm,
the revolutionizing of Russian Poland, and the style of the address to
him. Nay, his passion for the regulation of details even led him to
inform the ambassador that the imperial reply would be one of praise
of Polish patriotism and of warning that Polish liberty could only be
won by their "zeal and their efforts." The trickery was like that
which he had played upon the Poles shortly before Eylau. In effect, he
said now, as then: "Pour out your blood for me first, and I will do
something for you." But on this occasion the scenic setting was more
impressive, the rush of the Poles to arms more ardent, the diplomatic
reply more astutely postponed, and the finale more awful.[262]

Still, the Poles marched on; but their devotion became more
questioning. The feelings of the Lithuanians were also ruffled by
Napoleon's reply to the Polish deputies: nor were they consoled by his
appointment of seven magnates to regulate the affairs of the districts
of Lithuania, under the ægis of French commissioners, who proved to be
the real governors. Worst of all was the marauding of Napoleon's
troops, who, after their long habituation to the imperial maxim that
"war must support war," could not now see the need of enduring the
pangs of hunger in order that Lithuanian enthusiasm might not cool.

[Illustration: COMPAIGN IN RUSSIA]

Meanwhile the war had not progressed altogether as he desired. His aim
had been to conceal his advance across the Niemen, to surprise the two
chief Russian armies while far separated, and thus to end the war on
Lithuanian soil by a blow such as he had dealt at Friedland. The
Russian arrangements seemed to favour his plan. Their two chief
arrays, that led by the Czar and by General Barclay de Tolly, some
125,000 strong north of Vilna, and that of Prince Bagration mustering
now about 45,000 effectives, in the province of Volhynia, were
labouring to carry out the strategy devised by Phull. The former was
directly to oppose the march of Napoleon's main army, while the
smaller Russian force was to operate on its flanks and rear. Such a
plan could only have succeeded in the good old times when war was
conducted according to ceremonious etiquette; it courted destruction
from Napoleon. At Vilna the Emperor directed the movements that were
to ensnare Bagration. Already he had urged on the march of Davoust,
who was to circle round from the north, and the advance of Jerome
Bonaparte's Westphalians, who were bidden to hurry on eastwards from
the town of Grodno on the Upper Niemen. Their convergence would drive
Bagration into the almost trackless marshes of the Pripet, whence his
force would emerge, if at all, as helpless units.

Such was Napoleon's plan, and it would have succeeded but for a
miscalculation in the time needed for Jerome's march. Napoleon
underrated the difficulties of his advance or else overrated his
brother's military capacity. The King of Westphalia was delayed a few
days at Grodno by bad weather and other difficulties; thus Bagration,
who had been ordered by the Czar to retire, was able to escape the
meshes closing around him by a speedy retreat to Bobruisk, whence he
moved northwards. Napoleon was enraged at this loss of a priceless
opportunity, and addressed vehement reproaches to Jerome for his
slowness and "small-mindedness." The youngest of the Bonapartes
resented this rebuke which ignored the difficulties besetting a rapid
advance. The prospect of being subjected to that prince of martinets,
Davoust, chafed his pride; and, throwing up his command, he forthwith
returned to the pleasures of Cassel.

By great good fortune, Bagration's force had escaped from the snares
strewn in its path by the strategy of Phull and the counter-moves of
Napoleon. The fickle goddess also favoured the rescue of the chief
Russian army from imminent peril at Drissa. In pursuance of Phull's
scheme, the Czar and Barclay de Tolly fell back with that army towards
the intrenched camp on the Dwina. But doubts had already begun to
haunt their minds as to the wisdom of Phull's plans. In fact, the bias
of Barclay's nature was towards the proven and the practical. He came
of a Scottish family which long ago had settled in Livonia, and had
won prosperity and esteem in the trade of Riga. His ancestry and his
early surroundings therefore disposed him to the careful weighing of
evidence and distrust of vague theories. His thoroughness in military
organization during the war in Finland and his unquestioned probity
and open-mindedness, had recently brought him high into favour with
the Czar, who made him War Minister. He had no wide acquaintance with
the science of warfare, and has been judged altogether deficient in a
wide outlook on events and in those masterly conceptions which mark
the great warrior.[263] But nations are sometimes ruined by lofty
genius, while at times they may be saved by humdrum prudence; and
Barclay's common sense had no small share in saving Russia.

Two months before the Grand Army passed the Niemen, he had expressed
the hope that God would send retreat to the Russian armies; and we may
safely attribute to his influence with the Czar the timely order to
Bagration to desist from flanking tactics and beat a retreat while yet
there was time. That portion of Phull's strategy having signally
failed, Alexander naturally became more suspicious about the Drissa
plan; and during the retirement from Vilna, he ordered a survey of the
works to be made by Phull's adjutant, a young German named Clausewitz,
who was destined to win a name as an authority in strategy. This
officer was unable conscientiously to present a cheering report. He
found the camp deficient in many respects. Nevertheless, Alexander
still clung to the hope of checking the French advance before these
great intrenchments.

On his arrival there, on July 8th, this hope also was dashed. Michaud,
a young Sardinian engineer, pointed out several serious defects in
their construction. Barclay also protested against shutting up a large
part of the defending army in a camp which could easily be blockaded
by Napoleon's vast forces. Finally, as the Russian reserves stationed
there proved to be disappointingly weak both in numbers and
efficiency, the Czar determined to evacuate the camp, intrust the sole
command to Barclay, and retire to his northern capital. It is said
that, before he left the army, the Grand Duke Constantine, a friend of
the French cause, made a last effort to induce him to come to terms
with Napoleon, now that the plan of campaign had failed. If so,
Alexander repelled the attempt. Pride as a ruler and a just resentment
against Napoleon prevented any compromise; and probably he now saw
that safety for himself and ruin for his foe lay in the firm adoption
of that Fabian policy of retreat and delay, which Scharnhorst had
advocated and Barclay was now determined to carry out.

Though still hampered by the intrigues of Constantine, Bennigsen, and
other generals, who hated him as a foreigner and feigned to despise
him as a coward, Barclay at once took the step which he had long felt
to be necessary; he ordered a retreat which would bring him into touch
with Bagration. Accordingly, leaving Wittgenstein with 25,000 men to
hold Oudinot's corps in check on the middle Dwina, he marched
eastwards towards Vitepsk. True, he left St. Petersburg open to
attack; but it was not likely that Napoleon, when the summer was far
spent, would press so far north and forego his usual plan of striking
at the enemy's chief forces. He would certainly seek to hinder the
junction of the two Russian armies, as soon as he saw that this was
Barclay's aim. Such proved to be the case. Napoleon soon penetrated
his design, and strove to frustrate it by a rapid move from Vilna
towards Polotsk on Barclay's flank, but he failed to cut into his line
of march, and once more had to pursue.

Despite the heavy shrinkage in the Grand Army caused by a remorseless
rush through a country wellnigh stripped of supplies, the Emperor
sought to force on a general engagement. He hoped to catch Barclay at
Vitepsk. "The whole Russian army is at Vitepsk--we are on the eve of
great events," he writes on July 25th. But the Russians skilfully
withdrew by night from their position in front of that town, which he
entered on July 28th. Chagrined and perplexed, the chief stays a
fortnight to organize supplies and stores, while his vanguard presses
on to envelop the Russians at Smolensk. Again his hopes revive when he
hears that Barclay and Bagration are about to join near that city. In
fact, those leaders there concluded that strategic movement to the
rear which was absolutely necessary if they were not to be overwhelmed
singly. They viewed the retreat in a very different light. To the
cautious Barclay it portended a triumph long deferred, but sure: while
the more impulsive Muscovite looked upon the constant falling back as
a national disgrace.

The feelings of the soldiery also forbade a spiritless abandonment of
the holy city of the Upper Dnieper that stands as sentinel to Russia
Proper. On these feelings Napoleon counted, and rightly. He was now in
no haste to strike: the blow must be crushing and final. At last he
hears that Davoust, the leader whose devotion and methodical
persistence merit his complete trust, has bridged the River Dnieper
below the city, and has built ovens for supplying the host with bread.
And having now drawn up troops and supplies from the rear, he pushes
on to end the campaign.

Barclay was still for retreat; but religious sentiment and patriotism
bade the defenders stand firm behind those crumbling walls, while
Bagration secured the line of retreat. The French, ranged
around on the low hills which ring it on the south, looked for an easy
triumph, and Napoleon seems to have felt an excess of confidence. At
any rate, his dispositions were far from masterly. He made no serious
effort to threaten the Russian communications with Moscow, nor did he
wait for his artillery to overwhelm the ramparts and their defenders.
The corps of Ney, Davoust, and Poniatowski, with Murat's cavalry and
the Imperial Guard posted in reserve, promised an easy victory, and
the dense columns of foot moved eagerly to the assault. They were
received with a terrific fire. Only after three hours' desperate
fighting did they master the southern suburbs, and at nightfall the
walls still defied their assaults. Yet in the meantime Napoleon's
cannon had done their work. The wooden houses were everywhere on fire;
a speedy retreat alone could save the garrison from ruin; and amidst a
whirlwind of flame and smoke Barclay drew off his men to join
Bagration on the road to Moscow (August 17th).

Once more, then, the Russian army had slipped from Napoleon's grasp,
though this time it dealt him a loss of 12,000 in killed or wounded.
And the momentous question faced him whether he should halt, now that
summer was on the wane, or snatch under the walls of Moscow the
triumph which Vilna, Vitepsk, and Smolensk had promised and denied. It
is stated by that melodramatic narrator, Count Philip Ségur, that on
entering Vitepsk, the Emperor exclaimed: "The campaign of 1812 is
ended, that of 1813 will do the rest." But the whole of Napoleon's
"Correspondence" refutes the anecdote. Besides, it was not Napoleon's
habit to go into winter quarters in July, or to rest before he had
defeated the enemy's main army.[264]

At Smolensk the question wore another aspect. Napoleon told Metternich
at Dresden that he would not in the present year advance beyond
Smolensk, but would organize Lithuania during winter and advance again
in the spring of 1813, adding: "My enterprise is one of those of which
the solution is to be found in patience." A policy of masterly
inactivity certainly commended itself to his Marshals. But the desire
to crush the enemy's rear drew Ney and Murat into a sharp affair at
Valutino or Lubino: the French lost heavily, but finally gained the
position: and the hope that the foe were determined to fight the
decisive battle at Dorogobuzh lured Napoleon on, despite his earlier
decision.[265] Besides, his position seemed less hazardous than it was
before Austerlitz. The Grand Army was decidedly superior to the united
forces of Barclay and Bagration. On the Dwina, Oudinot held the
Russians at bay; and when he was wounded, his successor, Gouvion St.
Cyr, displayed a tactical skill which enabled him easily to foil a
mere fighter like Wittgenstein. On the French right flank, affairs
were less promising; for the ending of the Russo-Turkish war now left
the Russian army of the Pruth free to march into Volhynia. But, for
the present, Napoleon was able to summon up strong reserves under
Victor, and assure his rear.

With full confidence, then, he pressed onwards to wrest from Fortune
one last favour. It was granted to him at Borodino. There the Russians
made a determined stand. National jealousy of Barclay, inflamed by his
protracted retreat, had at last led to his being superseded by
Kutusoff; and, having about 110,000 troops, the old fighting general
now turned fiercely to bay. His position on the low convex curve of
hills that rise behind the village of Borodino was of great strength.
On his right was the winding valley of the Kolotza, an affluent of the
Moskwa, and before his centre and left the ground sloped down to a
stream. On this more exposed side the Russians had hastily thrown up
earthworks, that at the centre being known as the Great Redoubt,
though it had no rear defences.

Napoleon halted for two days, until his gathering forces mustered some
125,000 men, and he now prepared to end the war at a blow. After
surveying the Russian position, he saw Kutusoff's error in widely
extending his lines to the north; and while making feints on that
side, so as to prevent any concentration of the Muscovite array, he
planned to overwhelm the more exposed centre and left, by the assaults
of Davoust and Poniatowski on the south, and of Ney's corps and
Eugène's Italians on the redoubts at the centre. Davoust begged to be
allowed to outflank the Russian left; but Napoleon refused, perhaps
owing to a fear that the Russians might retreat early in the day, and
decided on dealing direct blows at the left and centre. As the 7th of
September dawned with all the splendour of a protracted summer, cannon
began to thunder against the serried arrays ranged along the opposing
slopes, and Napoleon's columns moved against the redoubts and woods
that sheltered the Muscovite lines. The defence was most obstinate.
Time after time the smaller redoubts were taken and retaken; and
while, on the French right centre, the tide of battle surged up and
down the slope, the Great Redoubt dealt havoc among Eugène's Italians,
who bravely but, as it seemed, hopelessly struggled up that fatal
rise.

Then was seen a soul-stirring sight. Of a sudden, a mass of
Cuirassiers rushed forth from the invaders' ranks, flung itself
uphill, and girdled the grim earthwork with a stream of flashing steel
There, for a brief space, it was stayed by the tough Muscovite lines,
until another billow of horsemen, marshalled by Grouchy and Chastel,
swept all before it, took the redoubt on its weak reverse, and
overwhelmed its devoted defenders.[266] In vain did the Russian
cavalry seek to save the day: Murat's horsemen were not to be denied,
and Kutusoff was at last fain to draw back his mangled lines, but
slowly and defiantly, under cover of a crushing artillery fire.

Thus ended the bloodiest fight of the century. For several hours 800
cannon had dealt death among the opposing masses; the Russians lost
about 40,000 men, and, whatever Napoleon said in his bulletins, the
rents in his array were probably nearly as great. He has been censured
for not launching his Guard at the wavering foe at the climax of the
fight; and the soldiery loudly blamed its commander, Bessières, for
dissuading his master from this step. But to have sacrificed those
veterans to Russian cannon would have been a perilous act.[267] His
Guard was the solid kernel of his army: on it he could always rely,
even when French regulars dissolved, as often happened after long
marches, into bands of unruly marauders; and its value was to be found
out during the retreat. More fitly may Napoleon be blamed for not
seeking earlier in the day to turn the Russian left, and roll that
long line up on the river. Here, as at Smolensk, he resorted to a
frontal attack, which could only yield success at a frightful cost.
The day brought little glory to the generals, except to Ney, Murat,
and Grouchy. For his valour in the _mêlée_, Ney received the title of
Prince de la Moskwa.

A week before this Pyrrhic triumph, Napoleon had heard of a terrible
reverse to French arms in Spain. His old friend, Marmont, who had won
the Marshal's baton after Wagram, measured his strength with
Wellington in the plains of Leon with brilliant success until a false
move near Salamanca exposed him to a crushing rejoinder, and sent his
army flying back towards Burgos. Madrid was now uncovered and was
occupied for a time by the English army (August 13th). Thus while
Napoleon was gasping at Moscow, his brother was expelled from Madrid,
until the recall of Soult from Andalusia gave the French a superiority
in the centre of Spain which forced Wellington to retire to Ciudad
Rodrigo. He lost the fruits of his victory, save that Andalusia was
freed: but he saved his army for the triumphant campaign of 1813. Had
Napoleon shown the like prudence by beating a timely retreat from
Moscow, who can say that the next hard-fought fights in Silesia and
Saxony would not have once more crowned his veterans with decisive
triumph?

As it was, the Grand Army toiled on through heat, dust, and the smoke
of burning villages, to gain peace and plenty at Moscow. But when, on
September the 14th, the conqueror entered that city with his vanguard,
solitude reigned almost unbroken. A few fanatics, clinging to the
tradition that the Kremlin was impregnable, idly sought to defend it;
but troops, officials, nobles, merchants, and the great mass of the
people were gone, and the military stores had been burnt or removed.
Rostopchin, the governor, had released the prisoners and broken the
fire engines. Flames speedily burst forth, and Bausset, the Prefect of
Napoleon's Palace, affirms that while looking forth from the Kremlin
he saw the flames burst forth in several districts in quick
succession; and that a careful examination of cellars often proved
them to be stored with combustibles, vitriol in one case being
swallowed by a French soldier who took it for brandy! If all this be
true, it proves that the Muscovites were determined to fire their
capital. But their writers have as stoutly affirmed that the fires
were caused by French and Polish plunderers.[268] Three days later,
the powers of the air and the demons of drink and frenzy raged
uncontrolled; and Napoleon himself barely escaped from the whirlwinds
of flame that enveloped the Kremlin and nearly scorched to death the
last members of his staff. For several hours the conflagration was
fanned by an equinoctial gale, and when, on the 20th, it died down,
convicts or plunderers kindled it anew.

Yet the army did not want for shelter, and, as Sergeant Bourgogne
remarks, if every house had been gutted there were still the caves and
cellars that promised protection from the cold of winter. The real
problem was now, as ever, the food-supply. The Russians had swept the
district wellnigh bare; and though the Grand Army feasted for a
fortnight on dainties and drink, yet bread, flour, and meat were soon
very scarce. In vain did the Emperor seek to entice the inhabitants
back; they knew the habits of the invaders only too well; and despite
several distant raids, which sometimes cost the French dear, the
soldiery began to suffer.

October wore on with delusive radiance, but brought no peace. Soon
after the great conflagration at Moscow, Napoleon sent secret and
alluring overtures to Alexander, offering to leave Russia a free hand
in regard to Turkey, inclusive of Constantinople, which he had
hitherto strictly reserved, and hinting that Polish affairs might also
be arranged to the Czar's liking.[269] But Alexander refused tamely to
accept the fruits of victory from the man who, he believed, had burnt
holy Moscow, and clung to his vow never to treat with his rival as
long as a single French soldier stood on Russian soil. His resolve
saved Europe. Yet it cost him much to defy the great conqueror to the
death: he had so far feared the capture of St. Petersburg as to
request that the Cronstadt fleet might be kept in safety in
England.[270] But gradually he came to see that the sacrifice of
Moscow had saved his empire and lured Napoleon to his doom. Kutusoff
also played a waiting game. Affecting a wish for peace, he was about
secretly to meet Napoleon's envoy, Lauriston, when the Russian
generals and our commissioner, Sir R. Wilson, intervened, and required
that it should be a public step. It seems likely, however, that
Kutusoff was only seeking to entrap the French into barren
negotiations; he knew that an answer could not come from the banks of
the Neva until winter began to steal over the northern steppes.

Slowly the truth begins to dawn on Napoleon that Moscow is not _the
heart of Russia_, as he had asserted to De Pradt that it was.
Gradually he sees that that primitive organism had no heart, that its
almost amorphous life was widespread through myriads of village
communes, vegetating apart from Moscow or Petersburg, and that his
march to the old capital was little more than a sword-slash through a
pond.[271] Had he set himself to study with his former care the real
nature of the hostile organism, he would certainly never have ventured
beyond Smolensk in the present year. But he had now merged the thinker
in the conqueror, and--sure sign of coming disaster--his mind no
longer accurately gauged facts, it recast them in its own mould.

By long manipulation of men and events, it had framed a dogma of
personal infallibility. This vice had of late been growing on him
apace. It was apparent even in trifles. The Countess Metternich
describes how, early in 1810, he persisted in saying that Kaunitz was
her brother, in spite of her frequent disclaimers of that honour; and,
somewhat earlier, Marmont noticed with half-amused dismay that when
the Emperor gave a wrong estimate of the numbers of a certain corps,
no correction had the slightest effect on him; his mind always
reverted to the first figure. In weightier matters this peculiarity
was equally noticeable. His clinging to preconceived notions, however
unfair or burdensome they were to Britain, Prussia, or Austria, had
been the underlying cause of his wars with those Powers. And now this
same defect, burnt into his being by the blaze of a hundred victories,
held him to Moscow for five weeks, in the belief that Russia was
stricken unto death, and that the facile Czar whom he had known at
Tilsit would once more bend the knee. An idle hope. "I have learnt to
know him now," said the Czar, "Napoleon or I; I or Napoleon; we cannot
reign side by side." Buoyed up by religious faith and by his people's
heroism, Alexander silently defied the victor of Moscow and rebuked
Kutusoff for receiving the French envoy.

At last, on October 18th, the Russians threw away the scabbard and
surprised Murat's force some forty miles south of Moscow, inflicting a
loss of 3,000 men. But already, a day or two earlier, Napoleon had
realized the futility of his hope of peace and had resolved to
retreat. The only alternative was to winter at Moscow, and he judged
that the state of French and Spanish affairs rendered such a course
perilous. He therefore informed Maret that the Grand Army would go
into winter quarters between the Dnieper and the Dwina.[272]

There is no hint in his letters that he anticipated a disastrous
retreat. The weather hitherto had been "as fine as that at
Fontainebleau in September," and he purposed retiring by a more
southerly route which had not been exhausted by war. Full of
confidence, then, he set out on the 19th, with 115,000 men, persuaded
that he would easily reach friendly Lithuania and his winter quarters
"before severe cold set in." The veil was rudely torn from his eyes
when, south of Malo-Jaroslavitz, his Marshals found the Russians so
strongly posted that any further attack seemed to be an act of folly.
Eugène's corps had suffered cruelly in an obstinate fight in and
around that town, and the advice of Berthier, Murat, and Bessières was
against its renewal. For an hour or more the Emperor sat silently
gazing at a map. The only prudent course now left was to retreat north
and then west by way of Borodino, _over his devastated line of
advance_.[273] Back, then, towards Borodino the army mournfully
trudged (October 26th):

    "Everywhere (says Labaume) we saw wagons abandoned for want of
    horses to draw them. Those who bore along with them the spoils of
    Moscow trembled for their riches; but we were disquieted most of
    all at seeing the deplorable state of our cavalry. The villages
    which had but lately given us shelter were level with the ground:
    under their ashes were the bodies of hundreds of soldiers and
    peasants.... But most horrible was the field of Borodino, where we
    saw the forty thousand men, who had perished there, yet lying
    unburied."

For a time, Kutusoff forbore to attack the sore-stricken host; but,
early in November, the Russian horse began to infest the line of
march, and at Viasma their gathering forces were barely held off: had
Kutusoff aided his lieutenants, he might have decimated his famished
foes.

Hitherto the weather had been singularly mild and open, so much so
that the superstitious peasants looked on it as a sign that God was
favouring Napoleon. But, at last, on November the 6th, the first storm
of winter fell on the straggling array, and completed its miseries.
The icy blasts struck death to the hearts of the feeble; and the puny
fighting of man against man was now merged in the awful struggle
against the powers of the air. Drifts of snow blotted out the
landscape; the wandering columns often lost the road and thousands
forthwith ended their miseries. Except among the Old Guard all
semblance of military order was now lost, and battalions melted away
into groups of marauders.

The search for food and fuel became furious, even when the rigour of
the cold abated. The behaviour of Bourgogne, a sergeant in the
Imperial Guard, may serve to show by what shifts a hardy masterful
nature fought its way through the wreckage of humanity around: "If I
could meet anybody in the world with a loaf, I would make him give me
half--nay, I would kill him so as to get the whole." These were his
feelings: he acted on them by foraging in the forest and seizing a pot
in which an orderly was secretly cooking potatoes for his general.
Bourgogne made off with the potatoes, devoured most of them
half-boiled, returned to his comrades and told them he had found
nothing. Taking his place near their fire, he scooped out his bed in
the snow, lay under his bearskin, and clasped his now precious
knapsack, while the others moaned with hunger. Yet, as his narrative
shows, he was not naturally a heartless man: in such a situation man
is apt to sink to the level of the wolf. The best food obtainable was
horseflesh, and hungry throngs rushed at every horse that fell,
disputing its carcass with the packs of dogs or wolves that hung about
the line of march.[274]

Smolensk was now the thought dearest to every heart; and, buoyed with
the hope of rest and food, the army tottered westwards as it had
panted eastwards through the fierce summer heats with Moscow as its
cynosure. The hope that clung about Smolensk was but a cruel mirage.
The wreck of that city offered poor shelter; the stores were exhausted
by the vanguard; and, to the horror of Eugène's Italians, men swarmed
out of that fancied abode of plenty and pounced on every horse that
stumbled to its doom on the slippery banks of the Dnieper. With
inconceivable folly, Napoleon, or his staff, had provided no means for
roughing the horses' shoes. The Cossacks, when they knew this,
exclaimed to Wilson: "God has made Napoleon forget that there was a
winter here."

Disasters now thickened about the Grand Army. During his halt at
Smolensk (November 9th-14th), Napoleon heard that Victor's force on
the Dwina had been worsted by the Russians, and there was ground for
fearing that the Muscovite army of the Ukraine would cut into the line
of retreat. The halt at Smolensk also gave time for Kutusoff to come
up parallel with the main force, and had he pressed on with ordinary
speed and showed a tithe of his wonted pugnacity, he might have
captured the Grand Army and its leader. As it was, his feeble attack
on the rearguard at Krasnoe only gave Ney an opportunity of showing
his dauntless courage. The "bravest of the brave" fought his way
through clouds of Cossacks, crossed the Dnieper, though with the loss
of all his guns, and rejoined the main body. Napoleon was greatly
relieved on hearing of the escape of this Launcelot of the Imperial
chivalry. He ordered cannon to be fired at suitable intervals so as to
forward the news if it were propitious; and on hearing their distant
boomings, he exclaimed to his officers: "I have more than 400,000,000
francs in the cellars of the Tuileries, and would gladly have given
the whole for the ransom of my faithful companion in arms."[275]

Far greater was the danger at the River Beresina. The Russian army of
the south had seized the bridge at Borisoff on which Napoleon's safety
depended, and Oudinot vainly struggled to wrest it back. The
Muscovites burnt it under his eyes. Such was the news which Napoleon
heard at Bobr on November 24th. It staggered him; for, with his usual
excess of confidence, he had destroyed his pontoons on the banks of
the Dnieper; and now there was no means of crossing a river, usually
insignificant, but swollen by floods and bridged only by half-thawed
ice. Yet French resource was far from vanquished. General Corbineau,
finding from some peasants that the river was fordable three leagues
above Borisoff, brought the news to Oudinot, who forthwith prepared to
cross there. Napoleon, coming up on the 26th, approved the plan, and
cheeringly said to his Marshal, "Well, you shall be my locksmith and
open that passage for me."[276]

To deceive the foe, the Emperor told off a regiment or two southwards
with a long tail of camp-followers that were taken to be an army. And
this wily move, harmonizing with recent demonstrations of the
Austrians on the side of Minsk, convinced the Muscovite leader that
Napoleon was minded to clasp hands with them.[277] While the Russians
patrolled the river on the south, French sappers were working, often
neck deep in the water, to throw two light bridges across the stream
higher up. By heroic toil, which to most of them brought death, the
bridges were speedily finished, and, as the light of November 26th was
waning Oudinot's corps of 7,000 men gained a firm footing on the
homeward side. But they were observed by Russian scouts, and when on
the next day Napoleon and other corps had struggled across, the enemy
came up, captured a whole division, and on the morrow strove to hurl
the invaders into the river. Victor and the rearguard staunchly kept
them at bay; but at one point the Russian army of the Dwina
temporarily gained ground and swept the bridges and their approaches
with artillery fire.

Then the panic-stricken throngs of wounded and stragglers, women and
camp-followers, writhed and fought their way until the frail planks
were piled high with living and dead. To add to the horrors, one
bridge gave way under the weight of the cannon. The rush for the one
remaining bridge became yet more frantic and the day closed amidst
scenes of unspeakable woe. Stout swimmers threw themselves into the
stream, only to fall victims to the ice floes and the numbing cold. At
dawn of the 29th, the French rearguard fired the bridge to cover the
retreat. Then a last, loud wail of horror arose from the farther bank,
and despair or a loathing of life drove many to end their miseries in
the river or in the flames.

Such was the crossing of the Beresina. The ghastly tale was told once
more with renewed horrors when the floods of winter abated and laid
bare some 12,000 corpses along the course of that fatal stream. It
would seem that if Napoleon, or his staff, had hurried on the
camp-followers to cross on the night of the 27th to the 28th, those
awful scenes would not have happened, for on that night the bridges
_were not used at all_. Grosser carelessness than this cannot be
conceived; and yet, even after this shocking blunder, the devotion of
the soldiers to their chief found touching expression. When he was
suffering from cold in the wretched bivouac west of the river,
officers went round calling for dry wood for his fire; and shivering
men were seen to offer precious sticks, with the words, "Take it for
the Emperor."[278]

On that day Napoleon wrote to Maret that possibly he would leave the
army and hurry on to Paris. His presence there was certainly needed,
if his crown was to be saved. On November 6th, the day of the first
snowstorm, he heard of the Quixotic attempt of a French republican,
General Malet, to overthrow the Government at Paris. With a handful of
followers, but armed with a false report of Napoleon's capture in
Russia, this man had apprehended several officials, until the scheme
collapsed of sheer inanity.[279] "How now, if we were at Moscow,"
exclaimed the Emperor, on hearing this curious news; and he saw with
chagrin that some of his generals merely shrugged their shoulders.
After crossing the Beresina, he might hope that the worst was over and
that the stores at Vilna and Kovno would suffice for the remnant of
his army. The cold for a time had been less rigorous. The behaviour of
Prussia and Austria was, in truth, more important than the conduct of
the retreat. Unless those Powers were kept to their troth, not a
Frenchman would cross the Elbe.

At Smorgoni, then, on December the 5th, he informed his Marshals that
he left them in order to raise 300,000 men; and, intrusting the
command to Murat, he hurried away. His great care was to prevent the
extent of the disaster being speedily known. "Remove all strangers
from Vilna," he wrote to Maret: "the army is not fine to look upon
just now." The precaution was much needed. Frost set in once more, and
now with unending grip. Vilna offered a poor haven of refuge. The
stores were soon plundered, and, as the Cossacks drew near, Murat and
the remnant of the Grand Army decamped in pitiable panic. Amidst ever
deepening misery they struggled on, until, of the 600,000 men who had
proudly crossed the Niemen for the conquest of Russia, only 20,000
famished, frost-bitten, unarmed spectres staggered across the bridge
of Kovno in the middle of December. The auxiliary corps furnished by
Austria and Prussia fell back almost unscathed. But the remainder of
that mighty host rotted away in Russian prisons or lay at rest under
Nature's winding-sheet of snow.[280]

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER XXXIII

THE FIRST SAXON CAMPAIGN


Despite the loss of the most splendid army ever marshalled by man,
Napoleon abated no whit of his resolve to dominate Germany and dictate
terms to Russia. At Warsaw, in his retreat, he informed De Pradt that
there was but one step from the sublime _to the ridiculous_, that is,
from the advance on Moscow to the retreat. At Dresden he called on his
allies, Austria and Prussia, to repel the Russians; and at Paris he
strained every nerve to call the youth of the Empire to arms. The
summons met with a ready response: he had but to stamp his foot when
the news from East Prussia looked ominous, and an array of 350,000
conscripts was promised by the Senate (January 10th).

In truth, his genius had enthralled the mind of France. The
magnificence of his aims, his hitherto triumphant energy, and the
glamour of his European supremacy had called forth all the faculties
of the French and Italian peoples, and set them pulsating with
ecstatic activity. He knew by instinct all the intricacies of their
being, which his genius controlled with the easy decisiveness of a
master-key. The rude shock of the Russian disaster served but to
emphasize the thoroughness of his domination, and the dumb
trustfulness of his forty-three millions of subjects.

And yet their patience might well have been exhausted. His military
needs had long ago drawn in levies the year before they were legally
liable; but the mighty swirl of the Moscow campaign now sucked 150,000
lads of under twenty years of age into the devouring vortex. In the
Dutch and German provinces of his Empire the number of those who
evaded the clutches of the conscription was very large. In fact, the
number of "refractory conscripts" in the whole realm amounted to
40,000. Large bands of them ranged the woods of Brittany and La
Vendée, until mobile columns were sent to sweep them into the
barracks.

But in nearly the whole of France (Proper), Napoleon's name was still
an unfailing talisman, appealing as it did to the two strongest
instincts of the Celt, the clinging to the soil and the passion for
heroic enterprise. Thus it came about that the peasantry gave up their
sons to be "food for cannon" with the same docility that was shown by
soldiers who sank death-stricken into a snowy bed with no word of
reproach to the author of their miseries. A like obsequiousness was
shown by the officials and legislators of France, who meekly listened
to the Emperor's reproaches for their weakness in the Malet affair,
and heard with mild surprise his denunciation against republican
idealogy--_the cloudy metaphysics to which all the misfortunes of our
fair France may be attributed_. No tongue dared to utter the retort
which must have fermented in every brain.[281]

But his explanations and appeals did not satisfy every Frenchman. Many
were appalled at the frightful drain on the nation's strength. They
asked in private how the deficit of 1812 and the further expenses of
1813 were to be met, even if he allotted the communal domains to the
service of the State. They pointed to allies ruined or lost; to Spain,
where Joseph's throne still tottered from the shock of Salamanca; to
Poland, lying mangled at the feet of the Muscovites; to Italy,
desolated by the loss of her bravest sons; to the Confederation of the
Rhine, equally afflicted and less resigned; to Austria and Prussia,
where timid sovereigns and calculating Courts alone kept the peoples
true to the hated French alliance. Only by a change of system, they
averred, could the hatred of Europe be appeased, and the formation of
a new and vaster Coalition avoided. Let Napoleon cease to force his
methods of commercial warfare on the Continent: let him make peace on
honourable terms with Russia, where the chief Minister, Romantzoff,
was ready to meet him halfway: let him withdraw his garrisons from
Prussian fortresses, soothe the susceptibilities of Austria--and
events would tend to a solid and honourable peace.

To all promptings of prudence Napoleon was deaf. His instincts and his
experience of the Kings prevented him yielding on any important point.
He determined to carry on the war from the Tagus to the Vistula, to
bolster up Joseph in Spain, to keep his garrisons fast rooted in every
fortress as far east as Danzig. Russia and Prussia, he said, had more
need of peace than France. If he began by giving up towns, they would
demand kingdoms, whereas by yielding nothing he would intimidate them.
And if they did form a league, their forces would be thinly spread out
over an immense space; he would easily dispose of their armies when
they were not aided by the climate; and a single victory would undo
the clumsy knot (_ce noeud mal assorti_).[282]

In truth, if he left Spain out of his count, the survey of the
military position was in many ways reassuring. England's power was
enfeebled by the declaration of war by the United States. In Central
Europe his position was still commanding. He held nearly all the
fortresses of Prussia, and though he had lost a great army, that loss
was spread out very largely over Poles, Germans, Italians, and smaller
peoples. Many of the best French troops and all his ablest generals
had survived. His Guard could therefore be formed again, and the
brains of his army were also intact. The war had brought to light no
military genius among the Russians; and all his past experience of the
"old coalition machines" warranted the belief that their rusty
cogwheels, even if oiled by English subsidies, would clank slowly
along and break down at the first exceptional strain. Such had been
the case at Marengo, at Austerlitz, at Friedland. Why should not
history repeat itself?

While he was guiding his steps solely by the light of past experience,
events were occurring that heralded the dawn of a new era for Central
Europe. On the 30th of December, the Prussian General Yorck, who led
the Prussian corps serving previously under Macdonald in Courland,
concluded the Convention of Tauroggen with the Russians, stipulating
that this corps should hold the district around Memel and Tilsit as
neutral territory, until Frederick William's decision should be known.
Strictly considered, this convention was a grave breach of
international law and an act of treachery towards Napoleon. The King
at first viewed it in that light; but to all his subjects it seemed a
noble and patriotic action. To continue the war with Russia for the
benefit of Napoleon would have been an act of political suicide.

Yet, for some weeks, Frederick William waited on events; and these
events decided for war, not against Russia, but against France. The
Prussian Chancellor, Hardenberg, did his best to hoodwink the French
at Berlin, and quietly to play into the hands of the ardent German
patriots. After publishing an official rebuke to Yorck, he secretly
sent Major Thile to reassure him. He did more: in order to rescue the
King from French influence, still paramount at Berlin, he persuaded
him to set out for Breslau, on the pretext of raising there another
contingent for service under Napoleon. The ruse completely succeeded:
it deceived the French ambassador, St. Marsan: it fooled even Napoleon
himself. With his now invariable habit of taking for granted that
events would march according to his word of command, the Emperor
assumed that this was for the raising of the corps of 30,000 men which
he had requested Frederick William to provide, and said to Prince
Hatzfeld (January 29th): "Your King is going to Breslau: I think it a
timely step." Such was Napoleon's frame of mind, even after he heard
of Yorck's convention with the Russians. That event he considered "the
worst occurrence that could happen." Yet neither that nor the
patriotic ferment in Prussia reft the veil from his eyes. He still
believed that the Prussians would follow their King, and that the King
would obey him. On February the 3rd he wrote to Maret, complaining
that 2,000 Prussian horsemen were shutting themselves up in Silesian
towns, "as if they were afraid of us, instead of helping us and
covering their country."

Once away from Berlin, Frederick William found himself launched on a
resistless stream of national enthusiasm. At heart he was no less a
patriot than the most ardent of the university students; but he knew
far better than they the awful risks of war with the French Empire.
His little kingdom of 4,700,000 souls, with but half-a-dozen
strongholds it could call its own, a realm ravaged by Napoleon's
troops alike in war and peace until commerce and credit were but a dim
memory--such a land could ill afford to defy an empire ten times as
populous and more than ten times as powerful. True, the Russians were
pouring in under the guise of friendship; but the bitter memories of
Tilsit forbade any implicit trust in Alexander. And, if the dross had
been burnt out of his nature by a year of fiery trial, could his army,
exhausted by that frightful winter campaign and decimated by the
diseases which Napoleon's ghastly array scattered broadcast in its
flight, ever hope, even with the help of Prussia's young levies, to
cope with the united forces of Napoleon and Austria?

For at present it seemed that the Court of Vienna would hold fast to
the French alliance. There Metternich was all-powerful, and the
keystone of his system was a guarded but profit-seeking subservience
to Napoleon. Not that the Emperor Francis and he loved the French
potentate; but they looked on him now as a pillar of order, as a
barrier against Jacobinism in France, against the ominous
pan-Germanism preached by Prussian enthusiasts, and against Muscovite
aggandizement in Turkey and Poland. Great was their concern, first at
the Russo-Turkish peace which installed the Muscovites at the northern
mouth of the Danube, and still more at the conquering swoops of the
Russian eagle on Warsaw and Posen. How could they now hope to gain
from Turkey the set-off to the loss of Tyrol and Illyria on which they
had recently been counting, and how save any of the Polish lands from
the grip of Russia? For the present Russia was more to be feared than
Napoleon. Her influence seemed the more threatening to the policy of
balance on which the fortunes of the Hapsburgs were delicately poised.

Only by degrees were these fears and jealousies laid to rest. It
needed all the address of a British envoy, Lord Walpole, who repaired
secretly to Vienna and held out the promise of tempting gains, to
assuage these alarms, and turn Austria's gaze once more on her lost
provinces, Tyrol, Illyria, and Venetia. For the present, however,
nothing came of these overtures; and when the French discovered
Walpole's presence at Vienna, Metternich begged him to leave.[283]

For the present, then, Austria assumed a neutral attitude. A truce was
concluded with Russia, and a special envoy was sent to Paris to
explain the desire of the Emperor Francis to act as mediator, with a
view to the conclusion of a general peace. The latest researches into
Austrian policy show that the Kaiser desired an honourable peace for
all parties concerned, and that Metternich may have shared his views.
But, early in the negotiations, Napoleon showed flashes of distrust as
to the sincerity of his father-in-law, and Austria gradually changed
her attitude. The change was to be fatal to Napoleon. But the question
whether it was brought about by Napoleon's obstinacy, or Metternich's
perfidy, or the force of circumstances, must be postponed for the
present, while we consider events of equal importance and of greater
interest.

While Austria balanced and Frederick William negotiated, the sterner
minds of North Germany rushed in on the once sacred ground of
diplomacy and statecraft. The struggle against Napoleon was prepared
for by the exile Stein, and war was first proclaimed by a professor.

Among the many influences that urged on the Czar to a war for the
liberation of Prussia and Europe, not the least was that wielded at
his Court in the latter half of 1812 by the staunch German patriot,
Stein. His heroic spirit never quailed, even in the darkest hour of
Prussia's humiliation; and he now pointed out convincingly that the
only sure means of overthrowing Napoleon was to raise Germany against
him. To remain on a tame defensive at Warsaw would be to court another
French invasion in 1813. The safety of Russia called for a pursuit of
the French beyond the Elbe and a rally of the Germans against the man
they detested. The appeal struck home. It revived Alexander's longings
for the liberation of Europe, which he had buried at Tilsit; and it
agreed with the promptings of an ambitious statecraft. Only by
overthrowing Napoleon's supremacy in Germany could the Czar gain a
free hand for a lasting settlement of the Polish Question. The eastern
turn given to his policy in 1807 was at an end--but not before Russia
had taken another step towards the Bosphorus. With one leg planted at
the mouth of the Danube, the Colossus now prepared to stride over
Central Europe. The aims of Catherine II. in 1792 were at last to be
realized. While Europe was wrestling with Revolutionary France, the
Muscovite grasp was to tighten on Poland. It is not surprising that
Alexander, on January 13th, commented on the "brilliance of the
present situation," or that he decided to press onward. He gave little
heed to the Gallophil counsels of Romantzoff or the dolorous warnings
of the German-hating Kutusoff; and, on January 18th, he empowered
Stein provisionally to administer in his name the districts of Prussia
(Proper) when occupied by Russian troops.

So irregular a proceeding could only be excused by dire necessity and
by success. It was more than excused; it was triumphantly justified.
Four days later Stein arrived at Königsberg, in company with the
patriotic poet, Arndt. The Estates, or Provincial Assemblies, of East
and West Prussia were summoned, and they heartily voted supplies for
forming a Landwehr or militia, as well as a last line of defence
called the Landsturm. This step, unique in the history of Prussia, was
taken apart from, almost in defiance of, the royal sanction: it was,
in fact, due to the masterful will of Stein, who saw that a great
popular impulse, and it alone, could overcome the inertia of King and
officials. That impulse he himself originated, and by virtue of powers
conferred on him by the Emperor Alexander. And the ball thus set
rolling at Königsberg was to gather mass and momentum until, thanks to
the powerful aid of Wellington in the South, it overthrew Napoleon at
Paris.

The action of the exile was furthered by the word of a thinker and
seer. A worthy professor at the University of Breslau, named Steffens,
had long been meditating on some means of helping his country. The
arrival of Frederick William had kindled a flame of devotion which
perplexed that modest and rather pedantic ruler. But he so far
responded to it as to allow Hardenberg to issue (February 3rd) an
appeal for volunteers to "reinforce the ranks of the old defenders of
the country." The appeal was entirely vague: it did not specify
whether they would serve against the nominal enemy, Russia, or the
real enemy, Napoleon. Pondering this weighty question, as did all good
patriots, Steffens heard, in the watches of the night, the voice of
conscience declare: "Thou must declare war against Napoleon." At his
early morning lecture on Physics, which was very thinly attended, he
told the students that he would address them at eleven on the call for
volunteers. That lecture was thronged; and to the sea of eager faces
Steffens spoke forth the thought that simmered in every brain, the
burning desire for _war with Napoleon_. He offered himself as a
recruit: 200 students from Breslau and 258 from the University of
Berlin soon flocked to the colours, and that, too, chiefly from the
classes which of yore had detested the army. Thanks to the teachings
of Fichte and the still deeper lessons of adversity, the mind of
Germany was now ranged on the side of national independence and
against an omnivorous imperialism.

Where the mind led the body followed, yet still somewhat haltingly. In
truth, the King and his officials were in a difficult position. They
distrusted the Russians, who seemed chiefly eager to force Frederick
William into war with France and to arrange the question of a frontier
afterwards. But the eastern frontier was a question of life and death
for Prussia. If Alexander kept the whole of the great Duchy of Warsaw,
the Hohenzollern States would be threatened from the east as
grievously as ever they were on the west by the French at Magdeburg.
And the Czar seemed resolved to keep the whole of Poland. He told the
Prussian envoy, Knesebeck, that, while handing over to Frederick
William the whole of Saxony, Russia must retain all the Polish lands,
a resolve which would have planted the Russian standards almost on the
banks of the Oder. Nay, more: Knesebeck detected among the Russian
officials a strong, though as yet but half expressed, longing for the
whole of Prussia east of the lower Vistula.

For his part, Frederick William cherished lofty hopes. He knew that
the Russian troops had suffered horribly from privations and disease,
that as yet they mustered only 40,000 effectives on the Polish
borders, and that they urgently needed the help of Prussia. He
therefore claimed that, if he joined Russia in a war against Napoleon,
he must recover the whole of what had been Prussian Poland, with the
exception of the district of Bialystock ceded at Tilsit.[284] It
seemed, then, that the Polish Question would once more exert on the
European concert that dissolving influence which had weakened the
Central Powers ever since the days of Valmy. Had Napoleon now sent to
Breslau a subtle schemer like Savary, the apple of discord might have
been thrown in with fatal results. But the fortunes of his Empire then
rested on a Piedmontese nobleman, St. Marsan, who showed a singular
credulity as to Prussia's subservience. He accepted all Hardenberg's
explanations (including a thin official reproof to Steffens), and did
little or nothing to countermine the diplomatic approaches of Russia.
The ground being thus left clear, it was possible for the Czar to
speak straight to the heart of Frederick William. This he now did.
Knesebeck was set aside; and Alexander, meeting the Prussian demands
halfway, promised in a treaty, signed at Kalisch on February 27th, to
leave Prussia all her present territories, and to secure for her the
equivalent, in a "statistical, financial, and geographical sense," of
the lands which she had lost since 1806, along with a territory
adapted to connect Prussia Proper with the province of Silesia.[285]

It seems certain that Stein's influence weighed much with Alexander in
this final compromise, which postponed the irritating question of the
eastern frontier and bent all the energies of two great States to the
War of Liberation. Stein was sent to Frederick William at Breslau; but
the King hardly deigned to see him, and the greatest of German
patriots was suffered to remain in a garret of that city during a
wearisome attack of fever. But he lived through disease and official
neglect as he triumphed over Slavonic intrigues; and he had at hand
that salve of many an able man--the knowledge that, even while he
himself was slighted, his plans were adopted with beneficent and
far-reaching results.

The Russo-Prussian alliance was firmly upheld by Lord Cathcart, the
British ambassador to Russia, who reached headquarters on March the
2nd. For the present, Great Britain did not definitely join the
allies; but the discussions on the Hanoverian Question, which had
previously sundered us from Prussia, soon proved that wisdom had been
learnt in the school of adversity. The Hohenzollerns now renounced all
claims to Hanover, though they showed some repugnance to our
Prince-Regent's demand that the Electorate should receive some
territorial gain.

Thus the two questions on which Napoleon had counted as certain to
clog the wheels of the Coalition, as they had done in the past, were
removed, and the way was cleared for a compact firmer than any which
Europe had hitherto known. On March 17th a Russo-Prussian Convention
was concluded at Breslau whereby those Powers agreed to deliver
Germany from France, to dissolve the Confederation of the Rhine, and
to summon the German princes and people to help them; every prince
that refused would suffer the loss of his States; and arrangements
were made for the provisional administration of the lands which the
allies should occupy. Frederick William also appealed to his people
and to his army, and instituted that coveted order of merit, the Iron
Cross.

But there was small need of appeals and decorations. The people rushed
to arms with an ardour that rivalled the _levée en masse_ of France in
1793. Nobles and students, professors and peasants, poets and
merchants, shouldered their muskets. Housewives and maidens brought
their scanty savings or their treasured trinkets as offerings for the
altar of the Fatherland. One incident deserves special notice. A girl,
Nanny by name, whose ringlets were her only wealth, shore them off,
sold them, and brought the price of them, two thalers, for the sacred
cause. A noble impulse thrilled through Germany. Volunteers came from
far, many of whom were to ride with Lützow's irregular horse in his
wild ventures. Most noteworthy of these was the gifted young poet,
Korner, a Saxon by birth, who now forsook a life of ease, radiant with
poetic promise, at the careless city of Vienna, to follow the Prussian
eagle. "A great time calls for great hearts," he wrote to his father:
"am I to write vaudevilles when I feel within me the courage and
strength for joining the actors on the stage of real life?" Alas! for
him the end was to be swift and tragic. Not long after inditing an ode
to his sword, he fell in a skirmish near Hamburg.

Germany mourned his loss; but she mourned still more that her greatest
poet, Goethe, felt no throb of national enthusiasm. The great Olympian
was too much wrapped up in his lofty speculations to spare much
sympathy for struggling mortals below: "Shake your chains, if you
will: the man (Napoleon) is too strong for you: you will not break
them." Such was his unprophetic utterance at Dresden to the elder
Korner. Men who touched the people's pulse had no such doubts. "Ah!
those were noble times," wrote Arndt: "the fresh young hope of life
and honour sang in all hearts; it echoed along every street; it rolled
majestically down every chancel." The sight of Germans thronging from
all parts into Silesia to fight for their Prussian champions awakened
in him the vision of a United Germany, which took form in the song,
"What is the German's Fatherland?"[286]

Against this ever-rising tide of national enthusiasm Napoleon pitted
the resources which Gallic devotion still yielded up to his demands.
They were surprisingly great. In less than half a year, after the loss
of half a million of men, a new army nearly as numerous was marshalled
under the imperial eagles. Thirty thousand tried troops were brought
from Spain, thereby greatly relieving the pressure on Wellington.
Italy and the garrison towns of the Empire sent forth a vast number.
But the majority were young, untrained troops; and it was remarked
that the conscripts born in the years of the Terror, 1793-4, had not
the stamina of the earlier levies. Brave they were, superbly brave;
and the Emperor sought by every means to breathe into them his own
indomitable spirit. One of them has described how, on handing them
their colours, he made a brief speech; and, at the close, rising in
his stirrups and stretching forth his hand, he shot at them the
question: "'You swear to guard them?' I felt, as we all felt, that he
snatched from our very navel the cry, 'Yes, we swear.'" Truly, the
Emperor could make boys heroes, but he could never repair the losses
of 1812. Guns he possessed to the number of a thousand in his
arsenals; but he lacked the thousands of skilled artillerymen: youths
he could find and horses he could buy: but not for many a month had he
the resistless streams of horsemen that poured over Prussia after
Jena, or swept into the Great Redoubt at Borodino. Nevertheless, the
energy which embattled a new host within five months of a seemingly
overwhelming disaster, must be considered the most extraordinary event
of an age fertile in marvels. "The imagination sinks back confounded,"
says Pasquier, "when one thinks of all the work to be done and the
resources of all kinds to be found, in order to raise, clothe, and
equip such an army in so short a time."

While immersed in this prodigious task, the Emperor heard, with some
surprise but with no dismay, the news of Prussia's armaments and
disaffection. At first he treats it as a passing freak which will
vanish with firm treatment. "Remain at Berlin as long as you can," he
writes to Eugène, March 5th. "Make examples for the sake of
discipline. At the least insult, whether from a village or a town,
were it from Berlin itself, burn it down." The chief thing that still
concerns him is the vagueness of Eugène's reports, which leave him no
option but to get news about his troops in Germany from _the English
newspapers_. "Do not forget," he writes again on March 14th, "that
Prussia has only four millions of people. She never in her most
prosperous times had more than 150,000 troops. She will not have more
than 40,000 now." That, indeed, was the number to which he had limited
her after Tilsit; and he was unable to conceive that Scharnhorst's
plan of passing men into a reserve would send triple that force into
the field.[287] As for the Russians, he writes, they are thinned by
disease, and must spread out widely in order to besiege the many
fortresses between the Vistula and the Elbe. Indeed, he assures his
ally, the King of Bavaria, that it will be good policy to let them
advance: "The farther they advance, the more certain is their ruin."
Sixty thousand troops were being led by Bertrand from Italy into
Bavaria.[288] These, along with the corps of Eugène and Davoust, would
crush the Russian columns. And, while the allies were busy in Saxony,
Napoleon proposed to mass a great force under the shelter of the Harz
Mountains, cross the Elbe near Havelberg, make a rush for the relief
of Stettin, and stretch a hand to the large French force beleaguered
at Danzig.

Such was his first plan. It was upset by the rapidity of the Cossacks
and the general uprising of Prussia. Augereau's corps was driven from
Berlin by a force of Cossacks led by Tettenborn; and this daring free
lance, a native of Hamburg, thereupon made a dash for the liberation
of his city. For the time he was completely successful: the fury of
the citizens against the French _douaniers_ gave the Cossacks and
patriots an easy triumph there and throughout Hanover. This news
caused Napoleon grave concern. The loss of the great Hanse Town opened
a wide door for English goods, English money, and English troops into
Germany. It must be closed at all costs: and, with severe rebukes to
Eugène and Lauriston, who were now holding the line of the middle
Elbe, he charged Davoust (March 18th) to hold the long winding course
of that river between Magdeburg and Hamburg. The advance of this
determined leader was soon to change the face of affairs in North
Germany.

Shortly before Napoleon left Paris for the seat of war, he received
the new Austrian ambassador, Prince Schwarzenberg (April 9th). With a
jocular courtesy that veiled the deepest irony, he complimented him on
having waged _a fine campaign in_ 1812. Austria's present requests