Alexander of Russia had much the same conception. Seeing his Oriental designs menaced by the treaty of Presburg, he had evacuated Naples to strengthen Corfu, and now proceeded to occupy the Bocche di Cattaro as an outpost. This station, though so far autonomous, was held by Napoleon to be a part of Dalmatia, and that province was to go to Italy with the rest of Venetia. This act of open hostility by the Czar was the complement to his haughty rejection of the treaty with Napoleon which Oubril submitted for his master's signature. In consequence, Francis, the third of the three emperors, was informed that the French army would not evacuate his fortress of Braunau until he could fulfil his obligations and deliver Dalmatia intact. The great army of France, therefore, was not withdrawn, and still continued to occupy Swabia, Franconia, and all southern Germany. This fact assured the existence of the Rhine Confederation and reduced Prussia to impotence. Moreover, it was one among many reasons which finally ended the negotiations with England. Lord Lauderdale gave the surrender of Sicily as his ultimatum, and when it was refused, demanded his passports on August ninth. Fox having finally grasped in its fullest meaning the aggressive, all-inclusive policy of Napoleon, his cabinet saw itself compelled to accept, item for item, the program of Pitt; and during the short remainder of his life, although he did not appear in Parliament after June, he was its hearty, persistent supporter. His death onSeptember thirteenth made no change in the attitude of England. The coalition which was dissolved at Austerlitz was cemented again; only this time Prussia, which had so far preserved a selfish neutrality, was to be associated with England and Russia.
After Napoleon returned to Paris on January twenty-seventh, 1806, he had promptly abandoned the avocation of war, and had reassumed his favorite rôle of emperor. On New Year's day the republican calendar had ceased to exist; there was not even that to remind him of the past. His figure was beginning to grow more portly; his carriage was more stately, and his demeanor more distant. The great Corsican began to emulate the Oriental conquerors of old—men of the people who, like himself, had risen to giddy heights by usurpation and military conquest—in surrounding himself with mystery and hedging himself about with various ranks of courtiers. Nearest him, absent in person, but present in their representatives, were the subsidiary reigning kings, princes, and grand dukes. Next in order, present in the flesh, and first in actual splendor, were the newly made honorary princes and dukes. Some of the old nobility continued to smile contemptuously at this array of former republicans and Jacobins, but many, and those not the least able and influential, hurried to accept office at the court, where their presence was earnestly desired. Etiquette reached an artificial perfection which showed how unnatural it was to those who practised it. In the Tuileries, as was wittily said, everything moved to the tap of the drum. The parvenu princes and dukes had each his proper state, and being now assured of ample income and hereditary office, they displayed a self-indulgence and an independence which augured ill for their continued devotion to their creator.
Behind this impenetrable screen the activities of the Emperor were resumed with a greater intensity and a higher velocity than ever. Not content with a daily task, his hours of recreation became shorter and shorter, until he ceased to have any capacity for pleasure, and found no comfort for his mind except in labor. Paris was in raptures of loyalty, and from every conceivable source came proposals for triumphs, statues, or other honors to "Napoleon the Great." The Church vied with the populace. Among many similar utterances one bishop declared the Emperor to be the chosen of God to restore His worship and lead His people; another announced that recent events, occurring on the anniversary of the coronation, had given Napoleon a divine character; while the cardinal archbishop of Paris cried aloud, "O God of Marengo, thou declarest thyself the God of Austerlitz; and the German eagle with the Russian eagle, both of which thou dost desert, is become the prey of the French eagle, which thou ceasest not to protect." Before long the monarch was everywhere called the "man of God, the anointed of the Lord," and occasionally he was designated as "his sacred Majesty." Opportunity was therefore ripe for radical changes. "My house," "my line," "my people," were phrases which had for a year past been on the Emperor's lips and in his letters. He now began to take measures for lending a theocratic character to his reign, which, in view of his religious belief, were simply shocking. Not only did he express the wish that his imperial standards should be regarded with "religious reverence," but he closed his letters with the royal, absolutist, and Roman Catholic formula, "I pray God to have you in his holy keeping," and was styled in public papers, "Napoleon, by the Grace of God Emperor." For this he could of course make no other plea than the universalthough antiquated customs of the existing European dynasties, which still claimed to reign by divine right. But he went further, and in personal coöperation with an obsequious church dignitary prepared a catechism from which every French child learned in a few months such medieval and now blasphemous dogmas as these: Napoleon is "the minister of the power of God, and his image on earth"; "to honor and serve the Emperor is to honor and serve God." The climax of this insincerity was to be found in the awful menace, instilled with absolute solemnity into the mind of every learner throughout all the dioceses, that as to disobey the Emperor was to resist the order ordained by God, such disobedience would prepare eternal damnation for the guilty. Although Napoleon ever refused to admit that he himself had any moral responsibility, and seemed to act on the doctrine that he had been born what he remained to the end, he nevertheless attributed immense influence to education in others. "There can be no settled politics," he said of the university, "without a settled body of teachers."
Above all else, the Emperor was solicitous for the army. "The reports on the situation of my armies," he said, "are for me the most agreeable literary works in my library, and those which I read with the greatest pleasure in my hours of relaxation." He was so assiduous and thorough that, as it has been declared, and probably without great exaggeration, he knew to a man his effective force; and when his armies were scattered over half the world he was more familiar than his ministers with the station of every battalion. This was only the beginning of his cares; his chief concern was for the equipment and well-being of the men—not only for their uniforms, accoutrements, and arms, but for their food, shelter, and pay. It was with the same thoroughnessthat accounts, inventories, and all the other dry details were examined; his fighting machine must not only be perfect, but he must know that it was so. The enormous levies raised in the late campaigns were turned into an army-chest for the benefit of the army, and the management of that fund was intrusted to Mollien, his most skilful financier. The pleasures of his soldiery were also a matter of interest to him. But carefully as he had studied their psychology, both personal and collective, he was mistaken when he asked the city of Paris to provide Spanish bull-fights and contests of wild beasts for his returning soldiers; and, recognizing his blunder, he revoked his order. For, after all, by the rigid enforcement of the conscription laws, the nation and the army were not far from being identical; hence the softening influences of home life were never entirely absent from the conscripts, and they were powerfully present when the young fellows were on furlough with their mothers and sweethearts. No captain ever understood the art of appealing to the pride and affection of his men as did Napoleon; but his success was on the eve of battle, not in peace. Quite as much as for the army he spent his energies upon the finances. But here he was not an expert. There were no pains he would not take, no toil he would not endure, to master the endless lines of figures, which, as one of his ministers said, he sought to marshal like battalions. Whether in military or in civil life, he desired to prearrange and order every detail. For this end he employed, in addition to his official machinery, an extensive unofficial correspondence. Among other things, he had news of the stock market, of the banks, and of all prices current. When a fact was incomprehensible he had it explained by an expert. The intensity of his interest in finance, and the just appreciation of its importance which he felt, appear inhis acts. The very evening of his arrival in Paris after Austerlitz, a midnight message summoned the ministers to council for eight next morning. Their congratulations were brusquely cut off by the dry statement: "We have more serious matters to consider. It appears that the greatest danger to the state has not been in Austria. Let us hear the report from the minister of the treasury." The document read by Barbé-Marbois mercilessly displayed the situation: the insufficiency of income, the venality of officials, and the shifts to which he himself had been put in order to avoid, not a panic,—for that had come,—but an utter crash. Three of the guilty office-holders were summoned on the spot.
The scene, according to Mollien, could be described only as "a discharge of thunderbolts from the highest heaven for a whole hour." One culprit burst into tears, a second stammered weak excuses, the third was stiffened into blank silence, and all three were dismissed with a threatening gesture. The session of the council, which lasted nine hours without a break, was not ended until five o'clock in the evening. When Marbois, who, though honest himself, had failed to keep others so, finally left the room, the Emperor turned to Mollien and said: "You are now minister of the treasury. Find sixty millions stolen by the officials, and I will appoint a successor to you in the management of the sinking fund I have destined for the reward of the army." He would listen to no excuse, and could not then, or in fact at any time, be brought to understand the rise or fall, and even disappearance, of values. He thought government bonds could be kept at one price no matter what happened, and that an annual budget was simply a nuisance. "It cannot be more difficult to govern the little corner of Paris they call the Exchange than to govern France," he said. The lesson which he had to learn cost himmany millions of his hoarded contributions. By pouring his treasure into the gulf he succeeded in reëstablishing public confidence for the time.
These were the serious occupations of the Emperor's first half-year; its avocations were of a social nature—chiefly banishing the possessors of biting tongues, and arranging matrimonial alliances between what he designated as the old and the new aristocracy. Napoleon's words and mien had at last become so awe-inspiring that the accustomed quip and jest of the old nobility were uttered only in whispers behind the closed doors of their residences in the Faubourg St. Germain. The most famous society of the Consulate and early Empire was accustomed to gather in the drawing-rooms of Mme. Récamier, wife of the great banker. The wealth of her husband and the distinction of her own manners made her a personage of great importance among the returned emigrants, who flattered and caressed her. By her spirit and beauty she wielded enormous influence, but not in Napoleon's behalf, for she considered him a parvenu. She was in reality one of the most insidious, and consequently one of the most dangerous, of his foes. He tried to buy her silence, through Fouché's intermediation, by the offer not merely of a place as lady in waiting, but of the influence she might hope to exercise over himself. Her persistent refusal was really the cause of her husband's bankruptcy, for the Bank of France refused him assistance in his straits. She was not one of Mme. de Staël's intimate friends, although Necker's great daughter, when banished from Paris, had visited her at Écouen. But many of those who had frequented her salon adored that "rascally Mme. de Staël," as Napoleon, in a letter to Fouché, called the exile, who since her retirement to Switzerland had played her rôle so well as to render herself almosta divinity to her followers. These made annual pilgrimages to Coppet, returning to Mme. Récamier's drawing-room with new arrows of spite and wit to discharge against the Empire. In the end both the hostess herself and the frequenters of her husband's house were therefore visited with condign punishment, on the charge that they had excited public alarm and discredited the Bank of France. With several of her friends the great lady was banished from Paris, and later was sent into exile. From 1806 onward every word uttered about the state was apparently overheard by the police, and high and low alike suffered for any indiscretion. This made clear to the ancient aristocracy and gentry that criticism of the new court must cease; and under the influence of fear many gave their daughters in marriage to the imperial generals. The most conspicuous wedding of this sort was that of Savary: man of mystery at the Due d'Enghien's execution, conspirator suspected of complicity in the deaths of Pichegru and Captain Wright, he nevertheless married Mlle. de Coigny, a great heiress, and the daughter of a most ancient family.
The Prussian Despotism — State of Society — The Patriots — The Liberals — The Execution of Palm — The Prussian Court and the Nation — Demoralization of the Army — The Conduct of Napoleon — War Inevitable — The French Army — Napoleon's Strategic Plan — Prussian Feebleness — Napoleon's System of Travel — His Life in the Field — Another Campaign of Marching — The Affair at Schleiz — The Prussians Outflanked — French Soldiers in the Leash — The Battle of Jena — Davout and Bernadotte — The Battle of Auerstädt — Rout of the Prussian Army.
1806
Frederick William I of Prussia built up a system of admirable simplicity and economy in civil administration, which enabled him to lavish proportionately large sums on the finest army of the day. This instrument his brilliant son, Frederick the Great, used to increase the Prussian territories by an area of seventy-five thousand square miles; and when he died, having pursued his father's policy, he left his country without a debt, with a reserve of nearly forty-five million dollars in her treasury, and with a greatly increased income. His nephew and successor, Frederick WilliamII, was also a despot, but a feeble one. Under him throve the disgraceful system of irresponsible cabinet government whereby both religious and intellectual liberty were necessarily diminished, if not destroyed. By a shameful subserviency to Austria he increased his territories, securing a small share in the disreputable partitions of Poland; but on his death in 1797 the people were sluggish, the nation was in debt, and the army was disorganized. Frederick William III was a good citizen, but a poor king. Inheriting the policy of neutrality, he had obstinately clung to it, surrounding himself with irregular privy councilors who hampered the ministers in their functions, and prevented the king from putting confidence in his legal advisers; his court was rent by factions, and but for one circumstance, shortly to be noted, would have been utterly out of touch with the nation.
In 1806, therefore, Prussia had not come under the influence of modern ideas to any appreciable degree. Serfdom of a degrading sort still existed, although not in its worst forms; the old estates of the middle ages still existed also, for the law not only upheld the division of land into noble, burgher, and peasant holdings, but even drew a corresponding distinction between various occupations, forbidding any man to pass from one class to the other, or to transfer real estate from one category to another. The towns still rested on their respective charter rights; the medieval restrictions of trade and communication were not yet entirely abolished; the common schools founded by Frederick William I were as narrow and rigid as either the craft or cathedral schools of the middle ages. Society in the smaller towns and in the country was stagnant, and the position of the individual was immobile, for he was without the spur of ambition. The land-owners were a castewhich, having asserted itself as the guarantor of public order after the Thirty Years' War, and having undone the good work of the Reformation by the usurpation of feudal privilege, still held manorial courts. Though they no longer wrung their quota of the taxes from the peasants, they were haughty, exclusive, and tenacious of many petty and annoying privileges.
The one illuminated spot in this picture was small but brilliant. The young and beautiful Queen Louisa was pious, thoughtful, and high-spirited. About her was a small court party of intelligent men and women, who understood the true mission of Prussia, and were therefore eager for a declaration of war against the aggrandizing policy of Napoleon. Many of them were young and ardent, like the princes Louis and Henry; others were mature and cautious like Hardenberg and Stein, to whose efforts as alternating heads of Frederick William's cabinet Germany eventually owed her regeneration. Besides them, there were in this reform party Müller, Humboldt, Blücher, the Princess Radziwill, and others of less renown. The efforts of this little band were soon seconded by those of a somewhat larger one. The universities, having been founded in the principles of liberty, were never entirely mute. Many of the professors appreciated the backwardness of Germany, and the students formed secret associations for the destruction of local prejudice and the promotion of a large patriotism. In the greater cities, which had not entirely forgotten their former struggles with feudalism, there were also burghers in considerable number who received such doctrines kindly, and rendered invaluable service in keeping the embers of liberty from extinction.
Among the indifferent millions there was also a remnant who, having been at first enthusiastic for the liberalizing side of the French Revolution, were nowopposed to its conquering and domineering tendency as represented by the Empire, and looked for the realization of their ideals in the regeneration of their own country. Early in 1806 their leading men began to be heard: Schleiermacher among the clergy; Fichte, the sometime admirer of the revolutionary movement, among the philosophers; E. M. Arndt among the men of letters. By the middle of 1806 the new doctrines had mildly permeated the whole nation. The few earnest spirits who still believed in the cosmopolitan equality of all men as the goal of humanity, who longed for Augustine's city of God on earth, without the rivalry of nations and the tumults of exaggerated patriotism, were soon reduced to silence. If Napoleon were, as thousands believed, the appointed agent for this end, they might still hope, but they could no longer speak.
The faith of these idealists must have been rudely shaken by various pieces of news received during the summer. In the very midst of the seething agitation, Murat, the Grand Duke Joachim I of Berg, dashing and irresponsible, spoke of a kingdom soon to be his, possibly meaning the Hanseatic cities; or perhaps he looked for Sweden, whose royal house, one of the most despotic in Europe, was so hated by Napoleon that it was merely a question of time when it would cease to reign. This feeling had recently been intensified by a fatuous attempt to besiege Hameln and drive the French from Hanover, made in the previous November by the Duke of Södermanland, then regent for Gustavus Adolphus IV, but afterward King Charles XIII. The noisy Augereau, too, had exasperated the people of Ansbach, where he was in command, by drinking toasts in public to the success of the French in their coming war with Prussia. These and a thousand other minor irritations combined with the occupation of Wesel toraise the tide of popular feeling still higher. The Emperor of the French was dismayed, but he could think of no other remedy than severity. Accordingly, Berthier was instructed to proceed against the authors and publishers of "political libels" by martial law, on the plea that a commander must care for his army, and that those who stir up the people against it are worthy of death. This might be well enough in war, but it was an absurd and wicked pretext not only in a time of peace, but during an illegal occupation. A certain Ansbacher, Yelin, had but lately written a plain, truth-telling pamphlet entitled, "Germany in her Deepest Humiliation," and it was circulated, though not exactly published, by Palm, a bookseller of Nuremberg. The author was unknown to the French authorities, but Palm was arrested, hastily court-martialed, and shot. He met death with the fortitude of a martyr, conscious that his blood was the seed of patriots. The news of this murder traveled like wildfire; excitement and indignation reached their highest pitch, and the uprising against Napoleon became national in the widest sense. It was long before the officials of Prussia realized the vital importance of the popular feeling thus aroused.
For some weeks after ratifying the treaty which Napoleon substituted for that of Schönbrunn the Berlin cabinet simply fretted in impotence. The young officers of the war party were sharpening their swords on the steps of the French embassy and demanding the disgrace of Haugwitz; there was even insubordination, and the King, with tears streaming from his eyes, threatened to abdicate. His cup of bitterness was more than full. When the Confederation of the Rhine was formed, he besought the Czar to guarantee the integrity of Turkey, hoping that this apple of discord between Russia and France being removed, Prussia would be secure. ButAlexander, trusting to gain French neutrality and carry out his schemes of Oriental aggrandizement by slight concessions in the Oubril negotiations as to Naples, Sardinia, and Hanover, refused, vaguely promising to do all in his power to protect the integrity of Prussia, provided Prussia would not attack Russia should he go to war with France about Turkey. The privy councilors of Frederick William, blind to the national feeling which would gladly support a war against Napoleon's tyranny, proposed thereupon to form what French diplomacy skilfully suggested, a League of the North. The King and his advisers at first thought such a federation would be an offset to the menace of their dangerous neighbor on the West. Although kept in ignorance of the Russian and English negotiations at Paris, they heard in August that Hanover had been offered to Great Britain, and felt that the French occupation of southern Germany was intolerable. Accordingly the King opened negotiations with Napoleon for the formation of a North German Confederation to include Saxony, the two Mecklenburgs, Oldenburg, Hesse-Cassel, the Hanseatic towns, and a number of minor principalities. The Emperor could not well give a categorical refusal, and consented on condition that Prussia should disarm. In this interval Alexander contemptuously rejected the extraordinary conditions granted by Oubril in a paper which not only abandoned the Naples Bourbons, the house of Savoy, and the Hanoverian question, but also guaranteed the integrity of the Ottoman Empire! This attitude of the Czar made the disarmament of Prussia essential to Napoleon's supremacy in Germany, the more so because, by the demise of the German-Roman Empire, Russia had lost her right of intervention in Germany, and would probably seek a new pretext to recover it.
The warlike attitude of England and Russia was a strong support to Prussia. After the terrible treaty with France, just signed, her army was more demoralized than ever. Like that of Austria, it had been resting on old traditions and on laurels won by a former generation. The antiquated system virtually made slaves of the common soldiers. Every captain maintained his own company, farming it to the government. One half of the men must be Prussians, the other were the scum of Europe; nearly all were secured by forced enlistment or crimping, and they were all compelled to serve until superannuation released them, when, instead of a pension, they were given a license to beg! It was the interest of every captain to secure the highest efficiency at the least expense, and his soldiers, like costly chattels, were too precious to be risked except under compulsion. The companies had no moral cohesion, and the discipline was necessarily very severe, corporal punishment being inflicted without stint. The principal officers had become venerable creatures of routine. There were majors in the hussars not less than sixty years of age. The Duke of Brunswick, commander-in-chief,—the same who had sold nearly six thousand mercenaries to George III for use in the war of the American Revolution,—a spendthrift, a loose liver, and a martinet, was seventy-one; Möllendorf was over eighty, Kalkreuth was sixty-six, and even Blücher, the exception, the most youthful and fiery general of them all, was over sixty. The staff having occupied itself for years with an absurd refinement and development of Frederick the Great's system, there were only a few of the younger officers who understood Napoleon's revolutionary tactics and strategy. Unfortunately for the country, the aristocratic pride of their class kept them from setting a just value on the efficiency of the French democrats.
But, as the summer advanced, the foolish ardor of the war party combined with the rising sentiment of nationality and the threatening tenor of Napoleon's language to influence the government. To other imperial aggressions was added a new one—the seizure of valuable abbey lands lying on the border of Berg, which had been assigned to Prussia in 1802, and the cool suggestion that, in order to indemnify herself, Prussia should stir up strife with Sweden and seize Pomerania. It was reported that the French were reinforcing the Wesel garrison and had occupied Würzburg; it was even said that they were advancing against Saxony. At last, when assured that Napoleon had actually offered Hanover to England, the King yielded to the solicitations of his people, which grew louder and more angry when they too heard of Napoleon's perfidy. On August ninth, the same day on which Lord Lauderdale demanded his passports from the French minister of war, orders were given to mobilize the Prussian army. Napoleon was not even yet clear as to his own readiness, and, in view of the Czar's still uncertain attitude, would ostensibly have been glad to purchase Prussian disarmament by agreeing to the formation of the North German Confederation. In Talleyrand's despatch of July twenty-second to the French envoy at Berlin the suggestion was flatly made that Prussia should federate the states "still belonging to the Germanic Empire, and install the imperial crown in the house of Brandenburg." At the same time the French minister urged the Elector of Saxony to declare himself an independent prince, and his influence was shown in the fact that neither the Hanseatic towns nor Hesse-Cassel would give a direct answer to Prussia.
There is, however, reason to believe that Napoleon still hoped for peace. As late as August twenty-sixthhe wrote to Berthier that he really intended to evacuate Germany; but a week later the Czar's rejection of the Oubril treaty, in a note dated August fifteenth, was formally announced at the same time with the demand of Frederick William for the evacuation of Germany. The French army was left where it stood, for it seemed clear to Napoleon that a new coalition must have been formed. If Prussia was arming merely from fear, she must be stopped; if she was arming to make ready for war in conjunction with England and Russia, he must lose no time in order to prevent a united movement. In reality, matters had not advanced so far, as Prussia was still nominally at war with Great Britain on account of Hanover, and there could be no coalition without English subsidies. With his usual vacillation, Frederick William repented almost immediately of the course he had taken, and on August twenty-fourth vainly suggested to his cabinet the revocation of his orders for mobilization. Pending these hesitancies Napoleon again took up the thread of negotiation with Lord Lauderdale, who had not yet left Paris. This was a feint to gain time, for he began to prepare at the utmost speed for a war which, believing in England's exhaustion and Russia's timidity, he had not expected, and which he accepted as an almost fatal necessity. As yet the renown of Frederick the Great's armies had not been forgotten in France. Moreover, both in 1802 and in 1805 Prussian officers had been able to observe the outlines of his system, and would be forewarned. "I believe," he said at the time, "that we have a more difficult task than with the Austrians; we shall have to move the earth." "The reputation of the Prussian troops was high," he said later to Mme. de Rémusat; "there was much talk about the excellence of their cavalry, while ours commanded no respect, and our officers expected a sturdy resistance."
Accordingly he mustered his arms in double strength—eight army corps and the guard, a powerful cavalry force under Murat, and an auxiliary army from Bavaria. At once his officers began to study the possible roads from central to northern Germany, and the best appeared both to him and to them to be by the way of Bamberg. By September twenty-fifth the new levies of a hundred thousand well-drilled recruits were ready, and on that day the Emperor left Paris for Mainz with all possible secrecy. On the other hand, the Prussian king knew not whither to turn. The Bavarian agent in Paris recorded it as his opinion that Frederick William yielded to the war party in order that, having been defeated in one battle, his people would understand the impossibility of resistance and permit him to make the best terms possible. Whether this be true or not, the unhappy and unready King, unable any longer either to secure advantage from the misfortune of his neighbors, or to pursue a policy of weakness and indecision, with England still hostile and Russia not ardent, finally decided for war. On September twenty-fourth he arrived at his headquarters in Naumburg, and on October first the Prussian minister in Paris presented his sovereign's ultimatum to France. Germany must be evacuated, Wesel restored, and no obstacle be thrown in the way of a North German Confederation. The term set for a reply was October eighth. Napoleon received the paper on October seventh, in Bayreuth, and his columns were already marching. The answer was, of course, in the facts, which were a quite sufficient refusal.
In single combat, with equal arms, the prowess of the victor must be measured by the resistance of his foe. This is not necessarily true in warfare. Knowing, as we now do, the weakness of Prussia in 1806, it is a cheapand simple method of belittling Napoleon to belittle his enemy. But this is unfair as well as unhistoric. Moral courage is more admirable than physical daring, and considering the high renown of the Prussian soldiery it was a deed of great bravery to provoke a conflict. Moreover, skill went hand in hand with pluck, for Napoleon's preparations were better than any hitherto made, and his strategic plan was one of the greatest conceptions so far formed by a master in that department of military science. It is not so striking as some others, because tremendous geographical obstacles like the Alps play no part in it: but it is quite as novel as any, and probably shows the best possible adaptation of means to an end; it has, moreover, the superlative merit of having been overwhelmingly successful—too much so, in fact, for its author's reputation, since it appears to illustrate the proverb of using a sledgehammer to crush an egg-shell. For the sake of estimating Napoleon's power, it is necessary to apprehend at least the outlines of his great design, and further still, if possible, to grasp certain portions of otherwise uninteresting professional detail. In the first place, the Emperor of the French completely metamorphosed himself into the commander-in-chief of the French armies, and for a few weeks gave his undivided attention to the matter in hand. In the second place, he conceived and sketched a form of advance into Germany so far untried in the annals of European warfare, and then proceeded to work it out to the minutest detail. Finally, he developed the principles of Austerlitz into a scheme of open formation, venturesome to a degree, large in outline, and dependent for success upon complete knowledge and a perfect coördination of all the parts. We already begin to feel that nothing less than the Napoleonic concentration of Napoleonic powers couldassure the completion of such a design. Choosing the fortress of Würzburg, and later that of Forchheim, as his point of support, he determined to concentrate his force on the extreme right of his line and infold the enemy from the east. To this end he risked abandoning direct connection with France by way of Mainz, but in return he made sure of an indirect one by way of Forchheim, Würzburg, and Mannheim, reserving as his line of retreat that into the Danube valley. If unexpectedly the Prussians should extend their front farther to the eastward, he had in hand the alternative of driving his own mass through their center—an old and favorite manœuver. In order to secure the Rhine, Louis, his brother, was ordered to throw the strongest possible garrison into Wesel, and hold himself ready to attack the Prussians in case they should attempt to turn the French left. As a further safeguard, a corps of fifteen thousand men under Mortier was to occupy Mainz and to make demonstrations as far as Frankfort-on-the-Main. The preliminary stages were all successfully completed before the end of September. The troops behaved admirably, the officers, though anxious, were obedient and trustworthy, and Napoleon was confident of success.
The contrast between the majestic, imperial plan of Napoleon and the petty, inharmonious scheme of Prussia is incredible. On September thirtieth the aged Duke of Brunswick and the King with his staff were at Naumburg with the main army, fifty thousand strong. This body was to be reinforced by twelve thousand more who were coming in, but at a distance of several days' march. The Prince of Hohenlohe was at Chemnitz with nineteen thousand men, awaiting the arrival of twenty thousand Saxons who were not yet even mobilized! General Rüchel was between Erfurt and Eisenachwith a nominal force of eighteen thousand men, but many of this number had not yet arrived from Westphalia. All three commanders were alike ignorant of the French positions, and without an idea as to the enemy's purpose; not one of them had a trustworthy map of the country. "They are a set of wiseacres" were Napoleon's own words.
The admirable celerity and accuracy of Napoleon's movements in the field were due to the excellent arrangements by which they were governed. His two inseparable companions were the grand marshal Duroc and Caulaincourt, master of the horse. The latter had always the map of the country through which they were driving or riding ready for instant use. The seats of the imperial carriage could be converted into a couch for the Emperor's frequent night journeys, but ordinarily Berthier and Murat took turns in sitting at his side, while Caulaincourt rode close beside the door. Behind, and as near the wheels as possible, rode seven adjutants, fourteen ordnance officers, and four pages, who must be ready on the instant to receive and carry orders. Two of the officers must be familiar with the speech of the country. Rustan, his Egyptian body-servant, rode with them. There were also two mounted lackeys, each carrying maps, papers, and writing-materials. This escort was protected by a body of mounted chasseurs. In case the Emperor alighted for any purpose, four of these instantly did likewise, and, surrounding him with fixed bayonets or loaded pistols pointed outward to the four points of the compass, preserved this relative position as he moved. Last of all came the grooms with extra horses; for the Emperor's personal use there were from seven to nine. These were substantially the arrangements still in vogue during the Prussian campaign. Thereafter his distrustof those about him gradually increased, until toward the end of his career it became acute, and then, as a consequence, the numbers of his suite were much diminished. Whenever there was need of post-haste the Emperor found relays of nine saddle-horses or six carriage-horses prepared at intervals of from seven to ten miles along his route. In this way he often journeyed at the rate of fourteen miles an hour for six hours at a time. Similar arrangements on a much smaller scale were made for the staff.
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE AS FIRST CONSULFrom a marble bas-relief brought to America by Joseph Bonaparte.
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE AS FIRST CONSUL
From a marble bas-relief brought to America by Joseph Bonaparte.
Arriving at his night quarters, the Emperor found his office ready—a tent or room with five tables, one in the center for himself, and one at each corner for his private secretaries. On his own was a map oriented, and dotted with colored pins which marked the position of each body of his troops. For this campaign he had the only one in existence, prepared long in advance, by his own orders. As soon as possible was arranged the Emperor's bed-chamber, across the door of which Rustan slept, and adjoining it was another for the officers on duty. Dinner occupied less than twenty minutes, for in the field Napoleon ate little, and that rapidly. By seven in the evening he was asleep. At one in the morning the commander-in-chief arose, entered his office, where the secretaries were already at work, found all reports from the divisions ready at his hand, and then, pacing the floor, dictated his despatches and the orders for the coming day. There is an accepted tradition that he often simultaneously composed and uttered in alternate sentences two different letters, so that two secretaries were busy at the same time in writing papers on different topics. The orders, when completed and revised, were handed to Berthier. By three in the morning they were on their way, and reached the separate corps fresh from headquarters just beforethe soldiers set out on their march. It was by such perfect machinery that accuracy in both command and obedience was assured.
Colonel Scharnhorst of the Prussian staff had prepared in advance a plan whereby his sovereign's forces should cross the Thuringian hills and secure their position a fortnight before the arrival of the French, in order to take the offensive, and use their fine cavalry to advantage on the plains below. The plan was rejected, for the King still feebly hoped that his ultimatum might be accepted. When at last the reluctant monarch set out for the seat of war to join Brunswick, he took with him a numerous suite from the sanguine and even exultant court party. On their arrival at headquarters an antipodal divergence between the ideas of the King's followers and those of the conservative Brunswick was instantly developed, and the latter's command soon became nominal. In spite of the Queen's noble efforts to infuse spirit into her husband, the divided councils of his advisers produced in him an infectious incapacity which spread rapidly throughout the Prussian camp. The results were seen in the wretched disposition of the forces at the crucial moment. After considerable wrangling among the staff, their conference lasting three entire days, the army finally, on October seventh, took position, not on the southern, but on the northern slopes of the Thuringian hills—Brunswick with the main army at Erfurt, Hohenlohe at Blankenhain, and Rüchel, to whose reinforcement Blücher was advancing from Cassel, at Eisenach. Pickets were thrown out into the passes in front. This position was virtually divined by Napoleon on the fifth, and, believing that the Prussians would mass at Erfurt to strike his left, he immediately set his troops in motion. There were three columns; on the eighth the left wing, under Lannes,was at Coburg, with Augereau one day's march behind; of the center, Murat was already over the hills at Saalburg, Bernadotte and Davout were in the very heart of them at Lobenstein and Nordhalben respectively; the guard was at Kronach; and, of the two divisions of the right, one, under Soult, was at Münchberg; the other, with Ney, was at Bayreuth, one day's march behind. By these movements, the campaign was virtually won on the ninth, and that on the plan as at first conceived. The connection of the Prussians with their base of supplies by way of the Elbe was in danger, the process of turning was well advanced, and it could be a matter of a few days only before it would be complete.
When Napoleon's whereabouts finally became known in the Prussian camp, on the ninth, Brunswick and Scharnhorst wished to march eastward and meet the enemy's powerful right with the whole army; but the King seems still to have had in mind a flank move toward the west, as originally contemplated, and would only consent that Hohenlohe should advance to check the French. The first hostile meeting, therefore, occurred on that day, at Schleiz, between Hohenlohe's troops and those of Bernadotte. The conflict was short, and resulted in the withdrawal of Hohenlohe to defend the pass through the hills at Saalfeld. Napoleon was still in comparative ignorance of his enemy's larger movements; but he was constantly strengthened in his hypothesis that his right wing was not really opposed by any substantial force. Next day the advance-guard of Hohenlohe was driven from its post, and the highway to Erfurt was cleared. The fighting was sharp, for the confident Prussian soldiery had not yet lost courage; but Prince Louis, the pride of the army, fell, and his loss was more disheartening to the men than a great defeat.
Throughout the tenth and the eleventh the Frenchcolumns continued their advance northward. As they encountered no resistance, Napoleon concluded that the Prussian main army was still west of the Saale, and resolved to advance in that direction. The whole French army suddenly turned on the twelfth, and began to move westward toward the river valley. All that day they met no resistance, and pushed rapidly on, Lannes reaching Jena, crossing the stream, and driving a strong body of reconnoitering Prussians over the steep heights beyond. A general halt was ordered for the thirteenth, to give the troops a needed rest. Throughout the campaign they had been marching at a rate one third higher than that laid down by the regulations, fighting, as a current phrase ran, with their legs instead of with their bayonets. Napoleon himself, however, hurried on to Jena. The Saxons having been forced into their alliance with Prussia, there were many in that town well affected toward Napoleon. One of these gladly pointed out a pass up the heights of the Landgrafenberg available for infantry. A force was immediately set to work improving it, and the Emperor pushed forward unaccompanied to within gunshot of the Prussian lines. After a rapid survey with his telescope, both of their situation and his own vantage-ground, he determined to fight next morning, and believing the main Prussian army to be confronting him, he immediately sent orders to Lefebvre, Soult, Ney, and Augereau to bring up their respective commands as swiftly as possible. Before morning they were all either on the battle-field or within easy reach. Davout and Bernadotte were at Naumburg, Murat with the cavalry near them. All three were to march toward Jena if they heard the noise of battle. The Prussians were already nearly surrounded, but it took nine hours' wrangling at the headquarters in Weimar to make theirleaders understand it. Finally they concluded that Brunswick with the main army should draw back northward down the Saale toward Freiburg to guard the line of supply, that Hohenlohe should cover the retreat, and that Rüchel should concentrate at Weimar. The French having used this long interval of debate to the utmost advantage, it was then too late to avoid a collision. Hohenlohe, therefore, was opposite Napoleon; Brunswick came upon Davout at Auerstädt.
In the misty dawn of October fourteenth the Emperor put himself at the head of Lannes's troops, and, calling upon them to remember their success with Mack the previous year under similar circumstances, began the attack. As he had correctly estimated, there were between forty and fifty thousand in the opposing ranks, but owing to the fog there was much confusion among them. Thinking there might be more in the mist behind, he was convinced that he had before him the main army of the Prussians. The response of Lannes's men to his appeal was so hearty that with the help of Ney's van they were able to engage and hold the enemy for over two hours. This was a precious interval for Napoleon, enabling him to secure further reserves and to complete his careful dispositions for a crushing final attack. It was a characteristic delay, for, realizing how impotent to control the close of a battle even he himself would be under his system, he was correspondingly obdurate in dominating its beginning to the least detail. To hold straining columns of eager soldiers in a leash for two hours is serious work. On this occasion, as the Emperor stood by his guard, a nervous voice from the ranks called out, "Forward!" "That must be a beardless boy," said he, "who wishes to forestall what I am about to do. Let him wait until he has commanded in twenty battles before he dares to give me advice."
Meanwhile Hohenlohe had put his troops in motion to protect Brunswick's rear; there was much desultory fighting along the straggling line, with a momentary advantage for Hohenlohe. Nothing in the least decisive occurred, however, during the morning or early afternoon. By the arrival of Rüchel at two the Prussian line was somewhat strengthened, but, on the other hand, it was both weakened and demoralized by the steady, galling fire of the French, who were hourly increasing in numbers and deploying their new strength on the plateau. About midday Napoleon had finally felt strong enough to begin the real day's work. At that time Soult, Lefebvre, and Augereau were ordered to advance. For two long hours the Prussians made a brave, stubborn resistance against tremendous odds; even on Rüchel's arrival, Hohenlohe's line was so exhausted that the reinforcement was of no avail. The newcomers were quickly overmatched and compelled to retreat, for Napoleon was then overwhelmingly superior in point of numbers. It is estimated that, first and last, he had nearly a hundred thousand men to oppose to Hohenlohe's forty-five thousand and Rüchel's twenty-seven thousand. By four in the afternoon the field was won. The Prussians strove to reform and make a stand at Weimar, but they were quickly overtaken by Ney's corps with the cavalry reserve that had just come up. These not only dislodged their opponents, but pursued them for some distance. In the evening Napoleon returned to Jena with the conviction that he had destroyed the main body of the Prussian army.
This was far from the truth; but notwithstanding his misapprehension as to his enemy, the moral results of what he had really done were most important. In the early morning of the fourteenth, Brunswick and theKing had brought their troops as far as Auerstädt, beyond which they hoped to cross the Saale and make a stand on its right bank to the eastward. They had thirty-five thousand men, excluding the reserve of eighteen thousand. Bernadotte, according to Napoleon's orders, was marching from Gera to Dornburg in order to get in the rear of the deserted Prussian line; but he had not driven his troops, and was still in communication with Davout. Davout had received later orders, based upon Napoleon's conviction that Hohenlohe's was the main Prussian army, to turn in farther south for the same purpose, and march with his division of thirty-three thousand to Apolda. There was a sentence to the effect that if Bernadotte were near by, they could march together; but the Emperor hoped that the latter had already reached his station at Dornburg. Bernadotte was accordingly informed; but recalling the Emperor's dissatisfaction with him the previous year for his inactivity, he did not feel justified in disregarding the letter and obeying the spirit of his orders. Keeping the line of march formally prescribed, he was not only himself absent from both the battles of the fourteenth, but exposed Davout's single corps to destruction by the Prussian main army, numbering, with the reserve, fifty-three thousand.
Napoleon claimed to have sent an order during the night with directions for Bernadotte to reinforce Davout. This was a double-meaning statement intended to place the blame for Davout's exposure on Bernadotte's slow movements. Bernadotte denied having received any message, and the consequence was an increased bitterness between him and Napoleon, destined to grow still stronger, and finally to become of historic importance.
Davout was crossing the river Saale about six o'clock in the morning of the fourteenth, and was well overwith about two thirds of his corps, when suddenly his advance-guard found itself facing a portion of the enemy at the hamlet of Hassenhausen. It was the Prussian van. At first the thick mist concealed the armies from each other, but Davout hurried his columns forward and deployed them by the right for a simultaneous attack; those of the Prussians advanced and deployed so slowly that they came into action successively and lost the advantage of their superior numbers. The action began by a charge of Blücher's cavalry against the French right; but the men, unable to withstand the steady fire of the French infantry, recoiled and fell back in confusion. The Prussian right then moved around the French left by the flank, and drove their opponents into the village for shelter. They could not, however, dislodge them, and were left standing in the open field for two hours under a murderous fire. By this time it was noon; Davout's last companies had crossed the river, and the brave general, putting himself at their head, charged with them at double quick. The Duke of Brunswick fell, blinded in both eyes and mortally wounded; the King, though intervening with energy, could not keep the troops in line. At the same time his left was also attacked by a fresh force, and he determined to fall back on the reserve, which, owing to Brunswick's disability and consequent failure to give the necessary orders, had remained stationary in the critical moment at Gernstädt. The French followed, and the running fight continued through and beyond Auerstädt, until at five in the evening Davout called a halt. Frederick William did not, as was entirely possible, turn back with the reserve and strive to overwhelm his exhausted foe, but marched onward, expecting to unite with Hohenlohe and renew the conflict next day at Weimar.
But it was foes, not friends, that he found; for Bernadotte had passed Dornburg, and was in control of the Weimar road, having reached Apolda with his van. The awful disappointment unnerved and demoralized both the King and his army; throughout the terrible day the Prussian soldiers had justified their renown, fighting bravely and stubbornly; but now discipline was at an end, and with one or two exceptions the squadrons dissolved and turned into a flying horde. Hohenlohe drew off ten thousand men in good order, marched in swift but dignified retreat through Nordhausen to Magdeburg, and thence continued by Neu-Ruppin to Prenzlau. Blücher escaped with a body of cavalry. The battle of Auerstädt was tactically a separate affair from that of Jena, but strategically and morally they were one. Professional students find in this campaign almost the first complete realization of the hazardous and delicate manœuver known as turning the enemy—common sense shows that the turner, if careless or slow, is himself liable to be turned. The campaign as a whole was never for a moment endangered, because the unprecedented marches of the French made their leader's strategy impregnable. But Bernadotte's conduct, though technically justifiable, would, with any less efficiency on Davout's part, have jeopardized the battle as it was fought. The success of Napoleon was due in part to the fact that, as he himself said, "while others were taking counsel the French army was marching," in part to the still undiminished devotion and capacity of the marshals. Great ventures generally succeed by narrow margins and fail by broad ones. The Prussian campaign was a great one; its successors were to be of even larger dimensions as to conception. When they were successful it was by an even narrower chance; when disastrous, it was with frightful completeness.
The Effects of Jena and Auerstädt — Degeneracy of the French Soldiers — Napoleon's Abuse of Queen Louisa — The Occupation of Berlin — Conduct of the French Generals — Turkey and Russia at War — Prussia and Russia — Treatment of Minor German States — Napoleon as the Liberator of Poland — Condition of the Country — The Retort to Trafalgar.
The moral effect of Jena upon Prussia was pitiful. All the years of irresponsible government, of absolutism and militarism, seemed revenged upon monarchy at a single blow. The nation, with no experience of independent action, was stunned, and did not run to arms, except in a few abortive instances. In his flight Frederick William had with difficulty kept together his royal state, and the day after Jena he sent an envoy to ask for an armistice. This was ostensibly a reply to Napoleon's suggestions of a peace sent three days earlier to the King, probably as a ruse; but the Emperor now declared that he would dictate his terms only from Berlin, and his army continued its advance. The Prussian court, with a few thousand men under Lestocq, retreated through West Prussiaand took refuge in Königsberg. So thoroughly did Napoleon organize the pursuit, and so carefully did he estimate the total result of his victory, that nothing escaped him. The French soldiers carried everything before them. A Prussian reserve corps was easily beaten at Halle by Bernadotte, and fled for refuge to the unprovisioned fortress of Magdeburg. Lannes seized Dessau; Davout, Wittenberg; while Murat, Soult, and Ney proceeded to invest Magdeburg, which for those days was the strategic key of the Elbe valley. It resisted until November, but eventually fell, as did also Erfurt. In fact, the French ransacked the land. Even Hohenlohe did not escape them. Being overtaken by the infantry of Lannes and the cavalry of Murat, he was first driven from Prenzlau, and then, on October twenty-eighth, he surrendered, being a victim partly to the duplicity of Murat, who declared that a hundred thousand French were closing in on him, and partly to the stupidity of his own messenger, who asserted that the tale was true. Frederick William himself would have been captured at Weissensee but for Blücher, who brazenly declared to Klein, the French commander, that an armistice had been granted—a pure falsehood. Stettin capitulated to Lasalle's cavalry on the thirtieth, and Küstrin soon opened its doors. The fortresses of Spandau and Hameln followed their example, all four being surrendered with suspicious facility; in two instances the French and Prussian soldiers actually joined to hiss and execrate the governors,who were undoubtedly both recreant and venal. Blücher, after many gallant but fruitless attempts to collect a force, had reached Lübeck, through many dangers, with his cavalry; but driven thence after a gallant and exceptional resistance, he too surrendered. There remained no organized Prussian force in the lands between the Elbe and the Oder.
It had been accurate foresight which enabled Napoleon to say, in the decree issued from Jena on October fifteenth, that in the battle of the previous day he had conquered all the Prussian lands west of the Vistula. Before long the demoralization of the nation was as complete as the conquest of their country. The treatment of the people by the victorious soldiery was the climax of the long career of French officers and men as plunderers. As Napoleon's success kept pace with his ever-growing schemes of conquest, he laid less and less stress on the means to his end, ever more and more on its accomplishment. The army was once again scattered to obtain subsistence, and it left no opportunity for spoil neglected. As one of the most enthusiastic officers reluctantly declared: "From the moment Napoleon obtained supreme power the soldiers' morals changed, the union of hearts among them disappeared with their poverty, a desire for luxury and the comforts of life began. The Emperor considered it politic to favor this degeneracy. He thought it advantageous and shrewd to make the army absolutely dependent upon him."
The shocking details of Prussia's treatment by Napoleon and his army have been often told. On October twenty-fourth the Emperor arrived at the Hohenzollern residence of Potsdam, and publicly visited the tomb of Frederick the Great. Uttering words expressive of profound reverence for the great general, he nevertheless sent the old hero's sword, belt, and hat as trophies toornament the Invalides at Paris. "His intellect, his genius, and his affections were kin to those of our nation, which he so esteemed," was the pretext for this act of spoliation. He was equally unscrupulous in his shameful treatment of the unfortunate Queen. Recognizing by swift penetration that in her resided the true spirit not alone of Prussian but of German nationality, that hers was the genius of reform, the temperament of the patriot, and the grace of perseverance, he selected her as the target of his spite. He loathed the use of feminine charm in statecraft, resented her endowment of beauty and intellect, and seems to have feared her influence. In bulletin after bulletin he heaped lying abuse on her devoted head. In one he depicted her as having a sufficiently pretty face, but little wit; in another he asked what mystery had led a woman hitherto absorbed in the serious occupations of her toilet to meddle with politics, stir up the King, and kindle everywhere the fire with which she was herself possessed. The answer, he insinuated, was to be found in the Czar's personal visits to Berlin.
On October twenty-seventh Napoleon made his triumphal entry into the Prussian capital with the utmost splendor he could devise, and at the head of the largest military force he could muster. Coignet, one of his soldiers, wrote of the scene: "The Emperor was grand in his plain clothes, with his little hat and a penny cockade. His staff, on the contrary, wore their dress uniform; and for strangers it was a queer sight to see, in the one man most meanly clad of all, the leader of so fine an army." The city of Berlin, populace, burghers, and aristocracy, was strangely apathetic at the approach and presence of the French. Its general aspect seemed to the invaders one of childish curiosity. But the Emperor was about to launch some of his most far-reachingthunderbolts and scorned any appearance of clemency. To "show himself terrible at the first moment," as he had advised Joseph to do at Naples, an order was issued for the seizure of Prince Hatzfeldt, governor of the capital and the most distinguished Prussian nobleman within reach. He was to be tried by a court-martial on the charge of being a traitor and a spy, his crime being that he had written to his King a letter giving an account of the French entry into Berlin. The epistle was so harmless in its nature that its writer had intrusted it to the mail, in which it was seized and then shown to Napoleon. The prince escaped the first blast of the storm by hiding; his life was afterward granted to the personal and tearful solicitations of his wife as an act of great clemency. As in Italy, the galleries, libraries, collections, and public monuments were stripped of their finest treasures to enrich Paris.
The French soldiers needed no example. Lübeck, which, as was claimed, had been taken by storm, was handed over to the men to work their will, just as Pavia had been. Wherever the troops were billeted, they had but to demand from their terrified entertainers what they desired and their behest was done. They were not modest, and before long both rapine and lust worked their will among the angry but helpless populations. The French generals were too much like their men, and, as in Italy and Austria, the gratification of their boundless greed seemed to meet the Emperor's approval. The castles of the nobility and the houses of the wealthy citizens were of course chosen by them as quarters. It would have been hard for their owners to refuse the unbidden guests any object which met with their expressed approval, and the French officers openly admired many valuable things. All these irregularities, the Emperor believed, attached his generals to himself;and at the same time a threat of examination into their accounts would, he knew, instantly check any manifestations of independence. Masséna was the most avaricious of all; nothing but the love of money could influence him, wrote Napoleon, and "where at first little sums sufficed, now milliards are not sufficient." At another time he said, more generously, that one must bow the knee before Masséna's gifts as a soldier, although he had his faults like another. Bernadotte, on the occasion of a certain surprise, lost the wagon which contained his Lübeck booty. He was inconsolable, and it was considered a delicious joke when he explained that he was so depressed because the loss "prevented him from paying a gratification in money to the men of his corps." Davout before long filled all Poland with the terror of his name. Napoleon's brother Jerome, finding a bin of choice Tokay in a Polish castle, loaded the contents in his baggage-train, and carried them away.
With Prussia thus shattered, disintegrated, and almost annihilated, Napoleon proceeded without the loss of a moment to use his new vantage against both Russia and England. In the Oriental question he could strike both with a single blow. As a result of the thorough knowledge of the East obtained in 1803 through Sebastiani, he had virtually determined to assert his supremacy over Turkey. To this end, however, he must for the present spare the sensibilities of Austria, which, though humbled to the dust, was again rising to her feet; her curiously assorted, heterogeneous peoples showed more spirit than the Prussians, displaying resources and courage comparable to those of France. During the summer of 1806, apparently of his own motion, but in reality by French suggestion, the Sultan Selim III had on August twenty-fourth dismissed the viceroys ofMoldavia and Wallachia, both of whom had made themselves conspicuous by their Russian proclivities. At once the Czar Alexander I sent an army to cross the Pruth. The Sultan was terrified when the Russians occupied Bucharest, but on November eleventh, 1806, at the very climax of his peril, he was officially notified that Napoleon now had three hundred thousand men free to attack Russia and save Turkey; the Emperor would himself operate from the Vistula, and a Turkish army must simultaneously appear on the Dniester. The Sultan at once obeyed, and the Czar consequently sent eighty thousand men against the Turks. Two British expeditions were despatched in coöperation, one to Constantinople, one to Egypt: both were failures. Russia was soon fully occupied in her offensive campaign against Napoleon and correspondingly disabled in the East, while the Sultan's janizaries by low intrigue rendered active operations on his part impossible. Austria, mindful, apparently, of Russia's desertion after Austerlitz, displayed neither resentment nor alarm at the course taken by France, and Napoleon, whose material gain was slight, nevertheless won the diplomatic move and felt himself a step nearer both to victory over Russia and to such a protectorate of Turkey as would be a serious menace to England's Eastern empire.
As to Prussia, the ultimate arrangements were held in suspense. Napoleon's first response to a request for peace had been that he would make terms only in Berlin, and shortly after his triumphal entry negotiations were opened. The terms proposed by his ministers at the outset were far in excess of what the Prussian plenipotentiaries thought reasonable; but as one fortress after another opened its gates the demands grew more and more exorbitant. Although other counsels prevailed in the end, there was actually a moment when Napoleoncontemplated the extinction of the Hohenzollern power, and the partition among his vassal states of that dynasty's variously acquired and strangely assorted lands, which had so little territorial unity that they extended in two separate parallel lines from northeast to southwest. Voltaire said they stretched over Europe like a pair of garters. The best offer that could be wrung from Napoleon—and, in view of Prussia's absolute prostration, he thought his proposition not ungenerous—was for an armistice, during which the French should occupy all Prussia as far as the Bug; and Frederick William should order the now advancing Russians off his soil. The Prussian minister actually signed this paper, but his sovereign, whose hopes were rising in proportion as the Russian army drew nearer, refused to ratify it. Owing to the general readjustment of the international relations so rudely shattered by the rise of French empire, neither Great Britain nor Russia could settle upon a definite policy, much less Prussia, distracted alike by internal dissensions and the smiting of ruthless foes.
It is not difficult to conceive the desperation of Frederick William as he learned the ominous disposition made of the lands belonging to his allies. The Elector of Hesse-Cassel had remained ostensibly neutral in the war, having requested and been refused membership in the Rhine Confederation. But he had mustered about twenty thousand men on a war footing: his heir was in the Prussian lines. He was rightly suspected of trimming to both currents: his people loathed and despised him. The day after Jena he was informed that the Emperor had been aware of his secret sympathy with the coalition, and that his feelings had been evidenced by the permission granted the Prussian troops to pass through his domain while his own army wasready for action. This conduct made it necessary to occupy his states. Mortier, the French commander at Mainz, was ordered to seize the prince and imprison him in Metz; on November fourth it was curtly announced that the house of Hesse had ceased to reign. The fact was, the territories of that house were needed for a new subsidiary kingdom, the formation of which had been for some time in contemplation. The Elector of Saxony, whose troops had fought with the Prussians at Jena, was, on the other hand, offered the privilege of neutrality, and, abandoning his former ally, he eagerly accepted. The dukes of Saxe-Gotha and Saxe-Weimar followed his example, and obtained immunity by submission. The Duke of Brunswick had withdrawn to his capital. Thence he appealed to his conqueror for mercy in behalf of his dominions. Napoleon's reply was pitiless, recalling the duke's notorious proclamation of 1792 against the French republic, and declaring that it was he also who had been the real instigator of the present war. The sting of this retort was in its truth and the humbled warrior in mortal agony betook himself to Altona, where he expired. Brunswick, Hanover, Hamburg, and their domains were all occupied by French troops and put under martial law.
In the treatment which Hesse-Cassel received, the Emperor of the French, though with much provocation, was simply a despot. In the case of Prussia he could not well pose as a liberator, for as yet there was no widespread sense of oppression and little national spirit among the people. In his dealings with Saxony and the Saxon duchies he appeared in a better light, for among their inhabitants there was a very extended sympathy with the liberal ideas, both political and ecclesiastical, which he was still supposed to represent. But there was a nation of Eastern Europe which longedfor him as for a savior, and to whom he was far more than a representative liberal. Unhappy in her constitution, feeble in her political life, assassinated by a conspiracy of her neighbors, Poland was nevertheless still alive, and in her longing for a deliverer the majority of her people had fixed their eyes on Napoleon. From this fact he was anxious to draw the utmost advantage, and that right speedily, for the Czar with ninety thousand men was steadily marching toward the Prussian frontier. On November nineteenth a deputation of Polish nobility arrived in Berlin, and Napoleon, after treating them with impressive distinction, dismissed them with the statement that as France had never acknowledged the partition of their country, it was his interest as Emperor of the French to restore their independence and reconstruct a kingdom which, since it originated with him, would be permanent. A week later he proceeded to Posen, and, entering the city under an arch erected to "the liberator of Poland," awakened such enthusiasm that it far outran his own progress; a volunteer movement was almost instantly set on foot in Warsaw, which resulted in the enlistment of sixty thousand men as a national guard. It is idle to discuss whether Napoleon could or would have resuscitated Poland. Kosciusko and the more enlightened Poles believed not. Some of the Polish nobles demanded an immediate and formal recognition of their country's independence as the antecedent condition of their support. But among the masses the old ideals were revived, and the old spasmodic, misdirected energy was awakened in the service of the new Western Empire.
Such proceedings could not but arouse anxiety in Austria concerning the stability of her authority in the Polish lands under her crown. Andréossy, the French ambassador at Vienna, was instructed to say that suchinsurgent movements were a necessary consequence of the Emperor's presence in Posen, and that he had no intention of meddling with Austrian Poland; but that, nevertheless, if the Emperor of Austria felt uneasy, he might perhaps be willing to consider the acceptance of a part of Silesia as indemnity for the portion of Poland under Austrian rule. By this sly offer Francis was rendered powerless, for he could not accept Silesia, nor even a portion of it, without embroiling himself with England and Russia, and thereby entering into a virtual partnership with France. In spite of the unwearied efforts to stir up strife made by Napoleon's Corsican countryman, Pozzo di Borgo, who now represented the Czar at Vienna, Francis resolved to preserve a strict neutrality. The Poles were hopelessly divided, one party—that of Kosciusko—holding altogether aloof, a second under Poniatowski throwing themselves heartily on Napoleon's good will, a third under Czartoryski preferring to secure their country's resurrection through the Czar, who passed for an enlightened idealist. Here, as so often before, Napoleon concealed his intentions and movements behind the cloud of contradictory sentiments which he inspired in different classes of men by the assumption of a colorless magnanimity, just as the octopus blinds all alike, the indifferent as well as the hostile, in the inky fluid with which it darkens the clear waters round about.
Perplexity as to continental policies was, however, in marked contrast to the directness of his attack on England. This was in the form of a paper fulmination, a proclamation and a decree; mere print, but for all that a bolt, forged, to be sure, from the substance of French policies, yet novel in the daring with which it was now launched.