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 Eugene, 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 Neufchatel and a truly princely fortune.[69]

Thus was founded the Napoleonic nobility; and thus was fulfilled Mme. de Stael'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 Schoenbrunn 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 Schoenbrunn 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 Schoenbrunn. 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 Schoenbrunn 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 Schoenbrunn 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 Neufchatel: 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 Decres 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 Legislatif, 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 (Luebeck, 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 Luebeck 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 AEneas 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 mediaeval 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 mediaeval 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 Napoleon. 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."

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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 Massena, after reducing the fortress of Gaeta 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 Bluecher 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 Bluecher's conduct, commencing with the familiar address, Mon frere.

Bluecher 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 Eugene 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 regime 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 Wuerzburg. 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 Wuerzburg 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 Ruechel 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 Mueffling:

"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 Ruechel, that "several were equal to M. de Bonaparte." Events were to prove that Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, and Bluecher 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 Ruechel 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 melee 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 Ruechel 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]



On the south the heights sink away into a wider valley, the Muehl-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 Muehl-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 Muehl-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 Muehl-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 Ruechel 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 Ruechel'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 Auerstaedt 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 Auerstaedt to make good their retreat on the Elbe, when their foremost horsemen, led by the gallant Bluecher, 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 Bluecher 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 Auerstaedt 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 Auerstaedt, 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 Bluecher 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] Bluecher meanwhile stubbornly retreated to the north; but, with Murat, Soult, and Bernadotte dogging his steps, he finally threw himself into Luebeck, 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, Kuestrin, 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 Koenigsberg, 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 Koenigsberg, 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]