Chapter IX: Part XXII: The Great Wars with France (8)

[Footnote 5: His birth was celebrated by numerous German poets and by general public rejoicings, but with the basest adulation in Switzerland. Meyer of Knonau relates, in his History of Switzerland, that the king of Rome was at one of the festivals termed "the blessed infant." Goethe's poem in praise of Napoleon appeared at this time. The clergy also emulated each other in servility.]

[Footnote 6: At that time the noble-hearted poet, Seume, who had formerly been a victim of native tyranny, died of sorrow and disgust at the rule of the foreigner in Germany, at Toeplitz, 1810.]

[Footnote 7: This regiment was merely rewarded by Napoleon for its gallantry with 15 gros (1s. 6-1/4d.) per man, in order to drink to his health on his birthday.--_Von Seebach_.]

[Footnote 8: What the feeling among the Germans was is plainly shown by the charge against General Beurmann for general ill-treatment of his countrymen, whom he was accused of having allowed to perish in the hospitals, in order to save the expense of their return home. Out of seventy officers and two thousand four hundred and twenty-three privates belonging to the Saxon regiment, but thirty-nine officers and three hundred and nineteen privates returned to their native country. Vide Jacob's Campaigns of the Gotha-Altenburgers and Von Seebach's History of the Campaigns of the Saxony Infantry. Von Seebach, who was taken prisoner on his return from Manresa, has given a particularly detailed and graphic account of the campaign.]

[Footnote 9: Beamish has recounted their exploits in detail. The "Recollections of a Legionary," Hanover, 1826, is also worthy of perusal.]

[Footnote 10: The gallant acts of the Finlanders and the brutality of the Russians are brought forward in Arndt's "Swedish Histories."]

[Footnote 11: When regent, on the death of Gustavus III., he had spared his murderers and released those criminated in the conspiracy. On the present occasion, he yielded in everything to the aristocracy, and voted for the dethronement of his own house, which, as he had no children, infallibly ensued on the exclusion of the youthful Gustavus.]

[Footnote 12: An extremely suspicious accident, which gave rise to many reports.]

[Footnote 13: Vide Posselt's Sixth Annual.]

[Footnote 14: This castle was haunted by the ghost of King Eric XIV., who had long pined here in close imprisonment, and who had once before, during a sumptuous entertainment given by Gustavus Adolphus IV. to his brother-in-law, the Margrave of Baden, struck the whole court with terror by his shrieks and groans.]

[Footnote 15: Wimpfen, History of Schleswig.]

CCLIX. The Russian Campaign

An enormous comet that, during the whole of the hot summer of 1811, hung threatening in the heavens, appeared as the harbinger of great and important vicissitudes to the enslaved inhabitants of the earth, and it was in truth by an act of Divine providence that a dispute arose between the two giant powers intent upon the partition of Europe.

Napoleon was over-reached by Russia, whose avarice, far from being glutted by the possession of Finland, great part of Prussian and Austrian Poland, Moldavia, and Wallachia, still craved for more, and who built her hopes of Napoleon's compliance with her demands on his value for her friendship. Belgrade was seized, Servia demanded, and the whole of Turkey in Europe openly grasped at. Napoleon was, however, little inclined to cede the Mediterranean to his Russian ally, to whose empire he gave the Danube as a boundary. Russia next demanded possession of the duchy of Warsaw, which was refused by Napoleon. The Austrian marriage was meanwhile concluded. Napoleon, prior to his demand for the hand of the archduchess Maria Louisa, had sued for that of the grandduchess Anna, sister to the emperor Alexander, who was then in her sixteenth year, but, being refused by her mother, the empress Maria, a princess of Wurtemberg, and Alexander delaying a decisive answer, he formed an alliance with the Habsburg. This event naturally led Russia to conclude that she would no longer be permitted to aggrandize herself at the expense of Austria, and Alexander consequently assumed a threatening posture and condescended to listen to the complaints, hitherto condemned to silence, of the agricultural and mercantile classes. No Russian vessel durst venture out to sea, and a Russian fleet had been seized by the British in the harbors of Lisbon. At Riga lay immense stores of grain in want of a foreign market. On the 31st of December, 1810, Alexander published a fresh tariff permitting the importation of colonial products under a neutral flag (several hundred English ships arrived under the American flag), and prohibiting the importation of French manufactured goods. Not many weeks previously, on the 13th of December, Napoleon had annexed Oldenburg to France. The duke, Peter, was nearly related to the emperor of Russia, and Napoleon, notwithstanding his declared readiness to grant a compensation, refused to allow it to consist of the grandduchy of Warsaw, and proposed a duchy of Erfurt, as yet uncreated, which Russia scornfully rejected.

The alliance between Russia, Sweden, and England was now speedily concluded. Sweden, who had vainly demanded from Napoleon the possession of Norway and a large supply of money, assumed a tone of indignation, threw open her harbors to the British merchantmen, and so openly carried on a contraband trade in Pomerania that Napoleon, in order to maintain the continental system, was constrained to garrison Swedish-Pomerania and Rugen, and to disarm the Swedish inhabitants. Bernadotte, upon this, ranged himself entirely on the side of his opponents, without, however, coming to an open rupture, for which he awaited a declaration on the part of Russia. The expressions made use of by Napoleon on the birth of the king of Rome at length filled up the measure of provocation. Intoxicated with success, he boasted, in an address to the mercantile classes, that he would in despite of Russia maintain the continental system, for he was lord over the whole of continental Europe; that if Alexander had not concluded a treaty with him at Tilsit he would have compelled him to do so at Petersburg.--The pride of the haughty Russian was deeply wounded, and a rupture was nigh at hand.

Two secret systems were at this period undermining each other in Prussia, that of the _Tugendbund_ founded by Stein and Scharnhorst, whose object being the liberation of Germany at all hazards from the yoke of Napoleon, consequently, favored Russia, and that of Hardenberg, which aimed at a close union with France. Hardenberg, whose position as chancellor of state gave him the upper hand, had compromised Prussia by the servility with which he sued for an alliance long scornfully refused and at length conceded on the most humiliating terms by Napoleon.[1]

Russia had, meanwhile, made preparations for a war unanticipated by Napoleon. As early as 1811, a great Russian army stood ready for the invasion of Poland, and might, as there were at that time but few French troops in Germany, easily have advanced as far as the Elbe. It remained, nevertheless, in a state of inactivity.[2] Napoleon instantly prepared for war and fortified Dantzig. His continual proposals of peace, ever unsatisfactory to the ambition of the czar, remaining at length unanswered, he declared war. The Rhenish confederation followed as usual in his train, and Austria, from an interested motive, the hope of regaining in the East by Napoleon's assistance all she had lost by opposing him in the West, or that of regaining her station as the third European power when the resources of the two ruling powers, whose coalition had threatened her existence, had been exhausted by war. Prussia also followed the eagles of Napoleon: the Hardenberg party, with a view of conciliating him, and, like the Rhenish confederation, from motives of gain: the _Tugendbund_, which predominated in the army, with silent but implacable hate.

In the spring of 1812, Napoleon, after leaving a sufficient force to prosecute the war with activity in Spain and to guard France, Italy, and Germany,[3] led half a million men to the Russian frontiers. Before taking the field, he convoked all the princes of Germany to Dresden, where he treated them with such extreme insolence as even to revolt his most favored and warmest partisans. Tears were seen to start in ladies' eyes, while men bit their lips with rage at the petty humiliations and affronts heaped on them by their powerful but momentary lord. The empress of Austria[4] and the king of Prussia[5] appear, on this occasion, to have felt this most acutely.

For the first time--an event unknown in the history of the world--the whole of Germany was reduced to submission. Napoleon, greater than conquering Attila, who took the field at the head of one-half of Germany against the other, dragged the whole of Germany in his train. The army led by him to the steppes of Russia was principally composed of German troops, who were so skilfully mixed up with the French as not to be themselves aware of their numerical superiority. The right wing, composed of thirty thousand Austrians under Schwarzenberg, was destined for the invasion of Volhynia; while the left wing, consisting of twenty thousand Prussians under York and several thousand French, under the command of Marshal Macdonald, was ordered to advance upon the coasts of the Baltic and without loss of time to besiege Riga. The centre or main body consisted of the troops of the Rhenish confederation, more or less mixed up with French; of thirty-eight thousand Bavarians under Wrede and commanded by St. Cyr; of sixteen thousand Wurtembergers under Scheeler, over whom Marshal Ney was allotted the chief command; single regiments, principally cavalry, were drawn off in order more thoroughly to intermix the Germans with the French; of seventeen thousand Saxons under Reynier; of eighteen thousand Westphalians under Vandamme; also of Hessians, Badeners, Frankforters, Wurzburgers, Nassauers, in short, of contingents furnished by each of the confederated states. The Swiss were mostly concentrated under Oudinot. The Dutch, Hanseatic, Flemish, in fine, all the Germans on the left bank of the Rhine, were at that time crammed among the French troops. Upward of two hundred thousand Germans, at the lowest computation, marched against Russia, a number far superior to that of the French in the army, the remainder of which was made up by several thousand Italians, Portuguese, and Spaniards, who had been pressed into the service.[6]

The Prussians found themselves in the most degraded position. Their army, weak as it was in numbers, was placed under the command of a French general. The Prussian fortresses, with the exception of Colberg, Graudenz, Schweidnitz, Neisse, and Glatz, were already garrisoned with French troops, or, like Pillau near Koenigsberg, newly occupied by them. In Berlin, the French had unlimited sway. Marshal Augereau was stationed with sixty thousand men in Northern Germany for the purpose of keeping that part of the country, and more particularly Prussia, in check to Napoleon's rear; the Danish forces also stood in readiness to support him in case of necessity. Napoleon's entire army moreover marched through Prussia and completely drained that country of its last resources. Napoleon deemed it unnecessary to take measures equal in severity toward Austria, where the favor of the court seemed to be secured by his marriage, and the allegiance of the army by the presence of Schwarzenberg, who neither rejected nor returned his confidence. A rich compensation was, by a secret compact, secured to Austria in case the cession of Galicia should be necessitated by the expected restoration of the kingdom of Poland, with which Napoleon had long flattered the Poles, who, misled by his promises, served him with the greatest enthusiasm. But, notwithstanding the removal of the only obstacle, the jealousy of Austria in regard to Galicia, by this secret compact, his promises remained unfulfilled, and he took possession of the whole of Poland without restoring her ancient independence. The petitions addressed to him on this subject by the Poles received dubious replies, and he pursued toward his unfortunate dupes his ancient system of dismembering and intermingling nations, of tolerating no national unity. Napoleon's principal motive, however, was his expectation of compelling the emperor by a well-aimed blow to conclude peace, and of forming with him an alliance upon still more favorable terms against the rest of the European powers. The friendship of Russia was of far more import to him than all the enthusiasm of the Poles.

The deep conviction harbored by Napoleon of his irresistible power led him to repay every service and to regard every antagonist with contempt. Confident of victory, he deviated from the strict military discipline he had at one time enforced and of which he had given an example in his own person, dragged in his train a multitude of useless attendants fitted but for pomp and luxury, permitted his marshals and generals to do the same, and an incredible number of private carriages, servants, women, etc., to follow in the rear of the army, to hamper its movements, create confusion, and aid in consuming the army stores, which being, moreover, merely provided for a short campaign, speedily became insufficient for the maintenance of the enormous mass. Even in Eastern Prussia, numbers of the soldiery were constrained by want to plunder the villages.--On the 24th of June, 1812, Napoleon crossed the Niemen, the Russian frontier, not far from Kowno. The season was already too far advanced. It may be that, deceived by the mildness of the winter of 1806 to 1807, he imagined it possible to protract the campaign without peril to himself until the winter months. No enemy appeared to oppose his progress. Barclay de Tolly,[7] the Russian commander-in-chief, pursued the system followed by the Scythians against Darius, and, perpetually retiring before the enemy, gradually drew him deep into the dreary and deserted steppes. This plan originated with Scharnhorst, by whom General Lieven was advised not to hazard an engagement until the winter, and to turn a deaf ear to every proposal of peace.[8] General Lieven, on reaching Barclay's headquarters, took Colonel Toll, a German, Barclay's right hand, and Lieutenant-Colonel Clausewitz, also a German, afterward noted for his strategical works, into his confidence. General Pfull, another German, at that time high in the emperor's confidence, and almost all the Russian generals opposed Scharnhorst's plan and continued to advance with a view of giving battle; but, on Napoleon's appearance at the head of an army greatly their superior in number before the Russians had been able to concentrate their forces, they were naturally compelled to retire before him, and, on the prevention, for some weeks, of the junction of a newly-levied Russian army under Prince Bragation with the forces under Barclay, owing to the rapidity of Napoleon's advance, Scharnhorst's plan was adopted as the only one feasible.

Napoleon, in the hope of overtaking the Russians and of compelling them to give battle, pushed onward by forced marches; the supplies were unable to follow, and numbers of the men and horses sank from exhaustion owing to over-fatigue, heat, and hunger.[9] On the arrival of Napoleon in Witebst, of Schwarzenberg in Volhynia, of the Prussians before Riga, the army might have halted, reconquered Poland have been organized, the men put into winter quarters, the army have again taken the field early in the spring, and the conquest of Russia have been slowly but surely completed. But Napoleon had resolved upon terminating the war in one rapid campaign, upon defeating the Russians, seizing their metropolis, and dictating terms of peace, and incessantly pursued his retreating opponent, whose footsteps were marked by the flames of the cities and villages and by the devastated country to their rear. The first serious opposition was made at Smolensko,[10] whence the Russians, however, speedily retreated after setting the city on fire. On the same day, the Bavarians, who had diverged to one side during their advance, had a furious encounter--in which General Deroy, formerly distinguished for his services in the Tyrol, was killed--at Poloczk with a body of Russian troops under Wittgenstein. The Bavarians remained stationary in this part of the country for the purpose of watching the movements of that general, while Napoleon, careless of the peril with which he was threatened by the approach of winter and by the multitude of enemies gathering to his rear, advanced with the main body of the grand army from Smolensko across the wasted country upon Moscow, the ancient metropolis of the Russian empire.

Russia, at that time engaged in a war with Turkey, whose frontiers were watched by an immense army under Kutusow, used her utmost efforts, in which she was aided by England, to conciliate the Porte in order to turn the whole of her forces against Napoleon. By a master-stroke of political intrigue,[11] the Porte, besides concluding peace at Bucharest on the 28th of May, ceded the province of Bessarabia (not Moldavia and Wallachia) to Russia. A Russian army under Tschitschakow was now enabled to drive the Austrians out of Volhynia, while a considerable force under Kutusow joined Barclay. Had the Russians at this time hazarded an engagement, their defeat was certain. Moscow could not have been saved. Barclay consequently resolved not to come to an engagement, but to husband his forces and to attack the French during the winter. The intended surrender of Moscow without a blow was, nevertheless, deeply resented as a national disgrace; the army and the people[12] raised a clamor, the venerable Kutusow was nominated commander-in-chief, and, taking up a position on the little river Moskwa near Borodino, about two days' journey from Moscow, a bloody engagement took place there on the 7th of September, in which Napoleon, in order to spare his guards, neglected to follow up his advantage with his usual energy and allowed the defeated Russians, whom he might have totally annihilated, to escape. Napoleon triumphed; but at what a price! After a fearful struggle, in which he lost forty thousand men in killed and wounded,[13] the latter of whom perished almost to a man, owing to want and neglect.[14]

Moscow was now both defenceless and void of inhabitants. Napoleon traversed this enormous city, containing two hundred and ninety-five churches and fifteen hundred palaces rising from amid a sea of inferior dwellings, and took possession of the residence of the czars, the 14th of November, 1812. The whole city was, however, deserted, and scarcely had the French army taken up its quarters in it than flames burst from the empty and closely shut-up houses, and, ere long, the whole of the immense city became a sea of fire and was reduced, before Napoleon's eyes, to ashes. Every attempt to extinguish the flames proved unavailing. Rostopchin, the commandant of Moscow, had, previously to his retreat, put combustible materials, which were ignited on the entrance of the French by men secreted for that purpose, into the houses.[15] A violent wind aided the work of destruction. The patriotic sacrifice was performed, nor failed in its object. Napoleon, instead of peace and plenty, merely found ashes in Moscow.

Instead of pursuing the defeated Russians to Kaluga, where, in pursuance of Toll's first laid-down plan, they took up a position close upon the flank of the French and threatened to impede their retreat; instead of taking up his winter quarters in the fertile South or of quickly turning and fixing himself in Lithuania in order to collect reinforcements for the ensuing year, Napoleon remained in a state of inaction at Moscow until the 19th of October, in expectation of proposals of peace from Alexander. The terms of peace offered by him on his part to the Russians did not even elicit a reply. His cavalry, already reduced to a great state of exhaustion, were, in the beginning of October, surprised before the city of Tarutino and repulsed with considerable loss. This at length decided Napoleon upon marching upon Kaluga, but the moment for success had already passed. The reinforced and inspirited Russians made such a desperate resistance at Malo-Jaroslawez that he resolved to retire by the nearest route, that by which he had penetrated up the country, marked by ashes and pestilential corpses, into Lithuania. Winter had not yet set in, and his ranks were already thinned by famine.[16] Kutusow, with the main body of the Russian army, pursued the retreating French and again overtook them at Wiazma, the 3d November. Napoleon's hopes now rested on the separate _corps d'armée_ left to his rear on his advance upon Moscow, but they were, notwithstanding the defeat of Wittgenstein's corps by the Bavarians under Wrede, kept in check by fresh Russian armies and exposed to all the horrors of winter.[17] In Volhynia, Schwarzenberg had zealously endeavored to spare his troops,[18] and had, by his retreat toward the grandduchy of Warsaw, left Tschitschakow at liberty to turn his arms against Napoleon, against whom Wittgenstein also advanced in the design of blocking up his route, while Kutusow incessantly assailed his flank and rear. On the 6th of November, the frost suddenly set in. The horses died by thousands in a single night; the greater part of the cavalry was consequently dismounted, and it was found necessary to abandon part of the booty and artillery. A deep snow shortly afterward fell and obstructed the path of the fugitive army. The frost became more and more rigorous; but few of the men had sufficient strength left to continue to carry their arms and to cover the flight of the rest. Most of the soldiers threw away their arms and merely endeavored to preserve life. Napoleon's grand army was scattered over the boundless snow-covered steppes, whose dreary monotony was solely broken by some desolate half-burned village. Gaunt forms of famine, wan, hollow-eyed, wrapped in strange garments of misery, skins, women's clothes, etc., and with long-grown beards, dragged their faint and weary limbs along, fought for a dead horse whose flesh was greedily torn from the carcass, murdered each other for a morsel of bread, and fell one after the other in the deep snow, never again to rise. Bones of frozen corpses lay each morn around the dead ashes of the night fires.[19] Numbers were seen to spring, with a horrid cry of mad exultation, into the flaming houses. Numbers fell into the hands of the Russian boors, who stripped them naked and chased them through the snow. Smolensko was at length reached, but the loss of the greater part of the cannon, the want of ammunition and provisions, rendered their stay in that deserted and half-consumed city impossible. The flight was continued, the Russians incessantly pursuing and harassing the worn-out troops, whose retreat was covered by Ney with all the men still under arms. Cut off at Smolensko, he escaped almost by miracle, by creeping during the night along the banks of the Dnieper and successively repulsing the several Russian corps that threw themselves in his way.[20] A thaw now took place, and the Beresina, which it was necessary to cross, was full of drift-ice, its banks were slippery and impassable, and moreover commanded by Tschitschakow's artillery, while the roar of cannon to the rear announced Wittgenstein's approach. Kutusow had this time failed to advance with sufficient rapidity, and Napoleon, the river to his front and enclosed between the Russian armies, owed his escape to the most extraordinary good luck. The _corps d'armée_ under Oudinot and Victor, that had been left behind on his advance upon Moscow, came at the moment of need with fresh troops to his aid. Tschitschakow quitted the bank at the spot where Napoleon intended to make the passage of the Beresina under an idea of the attempt being made at another point. Napoleon instantly threw two bridges across the stream, and all the able-bodied men crossed in safety. At the moment when the bridges, that had several times given way, were choked up by the countless throng bringing up the rear, Wittgenstein appeared and directed his heavy artillery upon the motionless and unarmed crowd. Some regiments, forming the rearguard, fell, together with all still remaining on the other side of the river, into the hands of the Russians.

The fugitive army was, after this fearful day, relieved, but the temperature again fell to twenty-seven degrees below zero, and the stoutest hearts and frames sank. On the 5th of December, Napoleon, placing himself in a sledge, hurried in advance of his army, nay, preceded the news of his disaster, in order at all events to insure his personal safety and to pass through Germany before measures could be taken for his capture.[21] His fugitive army shortly afterward reached Wilna, but was too exhausted to maintain that position. Enormous magazines, several prisoners, and the rest of the booty, besides six million francs in silver money, fell here into the hands of the Russians. Part of the fugitives escaped to Dantzig, but few crossed the Oder; the Saxons under Reynier were routed and dispersed in a last engagement at Calisch; Poniatowsky and the Poles retired to Cracow on the Austrian frontier, as it were, protected by Schwarzenberg, who remained unassailed by the Russians, and whose neutrality was, not long afterward, formally recognized.

The Prussians, who had been, meanwhile, occupied with the unsuccessful siege of Riga, and who, like the Austrians, had comparatively husbanded their strength,[22] were now the only hope of the fugitive French. The troops under Macdonald, accordingly, received orders to cover the retreat of the grand army, but York, instead of obeying, concluded a neutral treaty with the Russians commanded by Diebitsch of Silesia and remained stationary in Eastern Prussia. The king of Prussia, at that time still at Berlin and in the power of the French, publicly[23] disapproved of the step taken by his general,[24] who was, on the evacuation of Berlin by the French, as publicly rewarded.

The immense army of the conqueror of the world was totally annihilated. Of those who entered Moscow scarcely twenty thousand, of the half million of men who crossed the Russian frontier but eighty thousand, returned.

[Footnote 1: Vide Bignon.]

[Footnote 2: From a letter of Count Minister in Hormayr's Sketches of Life, it appears that Russia still cherished the hope of great concessions being made by Napoleon in order to avoid war and was therefore still reserved in her relations with England and the Prussian patriots.]

[Footnote 3: French troops garrisoned German fortresses and perpetually passed along the principal roads, which were for that purpose essentially improved by Napoleon. In 1810, a great part of the town of Eisenach was destroyed by the bursting of some French powder-carts that were carelessly brought through, and by which great numbers of people were killed.]

[Footnote 4: Who was far surpassed in splendor by her stepdaughter of France.]

[Footnote 5: Segur relates that he was received politely but with distant coolness by Napoleon. There is said to have been question between them concerning the marriage of the crown prince of Prussia with one of Napoleon's nieces, and of an incorporation of the still unconquered Russian provinces on the Baltic, Livonia, Courland, and Esthonia, with Prussia. All was, however, empty show. Napoleon hoped by the rapidity of his successes to constrain the emperor of Russia to conclude not only peace, but a still closer alliance with France, in which case it was as far from his intention to concede the above-mentioned provinces to Prussia as to emancipate the Poles.]

[Footnote 6: Napoleon said at that time to a Russian, "Si vous perdez cinq Russes, ne perds qu un Francais et quatre cochons."]

[Footnote 7: This general, on the opening of the war, published a proclamation to the Germans, summoning them to throw off the yoke of Napoleon.--_Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 327_. Napoleon replied with, "Whom are you addressing? There are no Germans, there are only Austrians, Prussians, Bavarians, etc."--_All. Zeitung, No. 228._]

[Footnote 8: Vide Clausewitz's Works.]

[Footnote 9: At each encampment the men were left in such numbers in hastily erected hospitals that, of thirty-eight thousand Bavarians, for instance, but ten thousand, of sixteen thousand Würtembergers, but thirteen hundred, reached Smolensko.]

[Footnote 10: The Würtembergers distinguished themselves here by storming the faubourgs and the bridges across the Dnieper.]

[Footnote 11: The Greek prince, Moruzi, who at that time conducted Turkish diplomacy, accepted a bribe, and concluded peace in the expectation of becoming Prince of Moldavia and Wallachia. Sultan Mahmud refusing to ratify this disgraceful treaty, gold was showered upon the Turkish army, which suddenly dispersed, and the deserted sultan was compelled to yield. Moruzi was deprived of his head, but the Russians had gained their object. It must, moreover, be considered that Napoleon was regarded with distrust by the Porte, against which he had fought in Egypt, which he had afterward enticed into a war with Russia, and had, by the alliance formed at Erfurt with that power, abandoned.]

[Footnote 12: Colonel Toll was insulted during the discussion by Prince Bragation for the firmness with which he upheld Scharnhorst's plan, and avoided hazarding a useless engagement. Prince Bragation was killed in the battle.]

[Footnote 13: A Russian redoubt, the key of the field of battle, was taken and again lost. A Würtemberg regiment instantly pushed through the fugitive French, retook the redoubt and retained possession of it. It also, on this occasion, saved the life of the king of Naples and delivered him out of the hands of the Russians, who had already taken him prisoner.--_Ten Campaigns of the Wurtembergers._]

[Footnote 14: Everything was wanting, lint, linen, even necessary food. The wounded men lay for days and weeks under the open sky and fed upon the carcasses of horses.]

[Footnote 15: This combustible matter had been prepared by Schmid, the Dutchman, under pretext of preparing an enormous balloon from which fire was to be scattered upon the French army.]

[Footnote 16: As early as the 2d of November the remainder of the Würtembergers tore off their colors and concealed them in their knapsacks.--_Roos's Memorabilia of 1812._]

[Footnote 17: On the 18th of October, the Bavarians, who were intermixed with Swiss, performed prodigies of valor, but were so reduced by sufferings of every description as to be unable to maintain Poloczk. Segur says in his History of the War that St. Cyr left Wrede's gallant conduct unmentioned in the military despatches, and that when, on St. Cyr's being disabled by his wounds, Wrede applied for the chief command, which naturally reverted to him, the army being almost entirely composed of Bavarians, Napoleon refused his request. Völderndorf says in his Bavarian Campaigns that St. Cyr faithlessly abandoned the Bavarians in their utmost extremity, and when all peril was over returned to Poland in order to retake the command. During the retreat from Poloczk he had ordered the bridges to be pulled down, leaving on the other side a Bavarian park of artillery with the army chest and two-and-twenty ensigns, which for better security had been packed upon a carriage. The whole of these trophies fell, owing to St. Cyr's negligence or ill-will, into the hands of the Russians. "The Bavarians with difficulty concealed their antipathy toward the French." On St. Cyr's flight, Wrede kept the remainder of the Bavarians together, covered Napoleon's retreat, and, in conjunction with the Westphalians and Hessians, stood another encounter with the Russians at Wilna. Misery and want at length scattered his forces; he, nevertheless, reassembled them in Poland and was able to place four thousand men, on St. Cyr's return, under his command. He returned home to Bavaria sick. Of these four thousand Bavarians but one thousand and fifty were led by Count Rechberg back to their native soil. A great number of Bavarians, however, remained under General Zoller to garrison Thorn, and about fifteen hundred of them returned home.--At the passage of the Beresina, the Würtembergers had still about eighty men under arms, and in Poland about three hundred assembled, the only ones who returned free. Some were afterward liberated from imprisonment in Russia.]

[Footnote 18: This was Austria's natural policy. In the French despatches, Schwarzenberg was charged with having allowed Tschitschakow to escape in order to pursue the inconsiderable force under Sacken.]

[Footnote 19: The following anecdote is related of the Hessians commanded by Prince Emilius of Darmstadt. The prince had fallen asleep in the snow, and four Hessian dragoons, in order to screen him from the north wind, held their cloaks as a wall around him and were found next morning in the same position--frozen to death. Dead bodies were seen frozen into the most extraordinary positions, gnawing their own hands, gnawing the torn corpses of their comrades. The dead were often covered with snow, and the number of little heaps lying around alone told that of the victims of a single night.]

[Footnote 20: Napoleon said, "There are two hundred millions lying in the cellars of the Tuileries; how willingly would I give them to save Ney!"]

[Footnote 21: He passed with extreme rapidity, incognito, through Germany. In Dresden he had a short interview with the king of Saxony, who, had he shut him up in Königstein, would have saved Europe a good deal of trouble.--Napoleon no sooner reached Paris in safety than, in his twenty-ninth bulletin, he, for the first time, acquainted the astonished world, hitherto deceived by his false accounts of victory, with the disastrous termination of the campaign. This bulletin was also replete with falsehood and insolence. In his contempt of humanity he even said, "Merely the cowards in the army were depressed in spirit and dreamed of misfortune, the brave were ever cheerful." Thus wrote the man who had both seen and caused all this immeasurable misery! The bulletin concluded with, "His Imperial Majesty never enjoyed better health."]

[Footnote 22: In the French despatches, General Hünerbein was accused of not having pursued the Russians under General Lewis.]

[Footnote 23: The secret history of those days is still not sufficiently brought to light. Bagnon speaks of fresh treaties between Hardenberg and Napoleon, in which he is corroborated by Fain. These two Frenchmen, the former of whom was a diplomatist, the other one of Napoleon's private secretaries, admit that Prussia's object at that time was to take advantage of Napoleon's embarrassment and to offer him aid on certain important considerations. Prussian historians are silent in this matter. In Von Rauschnik's biographical account of Blücher, the great internal schism at that time caused in Prussia by the Hardenberg party and that of the _Tugendbund_ is merely slightly hinted at; the former still managed diplomatic affairs, while York, a member of the latter, had already acted on his own responsibility. Shortly afterward affairs took a different aspect, as if Hardenberg's diplomacy had merely been a mask, and he placed himself at the head of the movement against France. In a memorial of 1811, given by Hormayr in the Sketches from the War of Liberation, Hardenberg declared decisively in favor of the alliance with Russia against France.]

[Footnote 24: Hans Louis David von York, a native of Pomerania, having ventured, when a lieutenant in the Prussian service, indignantly to blame the base conduct of one of his superiors in command, became implicated in a duel, was confined in a fortress, abandoned his country, entered the Dutch service, visited the Cape and Ceylon, fought against the Mahrattas, was wounded, returned home and re-entered the Prussian service in 1794.]

CCLX. The Spring of 1813

The king of Prussia had suddenly abandoned Berlin, which was still in the hands of the French, for Breslau, whence he declared war against France. A conference also took place between him and the emperor Alexander at Calisch, and, on the 28th of February, 1813, an offensive and defensive alliance was concluded between them. The hour for vengeance had at length arrived. The whole Prussian nation, eager to throw off the hated yoke of the foreigner, to obliterate their disgrace in 1806, to regain their ancient name, cheerfully hastened to place their lives and property at the service of the impoverished government. The whole of the able-bodied population was put under arms. The standing army was increased: to each regiment were appended troops of volunteers, _Joegers_, composed of young men belonging to the higher classes, who furnished their own equipments: a numerous _Landwehr_, a sort of militia, was, as in Austria, raised besides the standing army, and measures were even taken to call out, in case of necessity, the heads of families and elderly men remaining at home, under the name of the _Landsturm_.[1] The enthusiastic people, besides furnishing the customary supplies and paying the taxes, contributed to the full extent of their means toward defraying the immense expense of this general arming. Every heart throbbed high with pride and hope. Who would not wish to have lived at such a period, when man's noblest and highest energies were thus called forth! More loudly than even in 1809 in Austria was the German cause now discussed, the great name of the German empire now invoked in Prussia, for in that name alone could all the races of Germany be united against their hereditary foe. The following celebrated proclamation, promising external and internal liberty to Germany, was, with this view, published at Calisch, by Prussia and Russia, on the 25th of March, 1813. It was signed by Prince Kutusow and drawn up by Baron Rehdiger of Silesia.

"The victorious troops of Russia, together with those of his Majesty the king of Prussia, having set foot on German soil, the emperor of Russia and his Majesty the king of Prussia announce simultaneously the return of liberty and independence to the princes and nations of Germany. They come with the sole and sacred purpose of aiding them to regain the hereditary and inalienable national rights of which they have been deprived, to afford potent protection and to secure durability to a newly-restored empire. This great object, free from every interested motive and therefore alone worthy of their Majesties, has solely induced the advance and solely guides the movements of their armies.--These armies, led by generals under the eyes of both monarchs, trust in an omnipotent, just God, and hope to free the whole world and Germany irrevocably from the disgraceful yoke they have so gloriously thrown off. They press forward animated by enthusiasm. Their watchword is 'Honor and Liberty.' May every German, desirous of proving himself worthy of the name, speedily and spiritedly join their ranks. May every individual, whether prince, noble, or citizen, aid the plans of liberation, formed by Russia and Prussia, with heart and soul, with person and property, to the last drop of his blood!--The expectation cherished by their Majesties of meeting with these sentiments, this zeal, in every German heart, they deem warranted by the spirit so clearly betokened by the victories gained by Russia over the enslaver of the world.--They therefore demand faithful cooperation, more especially from every German prince, and willingly presuppose that none among them will be found, who, by being and remaining apostate to the German cause, will prove himself deserving of annihilation by the power of public opinion and of just arms. The Rhenish alliance, that deceitful chain lately cast by the breeder of universal discord around ruined Germany to the destruction of her ancient name, can, as the effect of foreign tyranny and the tool of foreign influence, be no longer tolerated. Their Majesties believe that the declaration of the dissolution of this alliance being their fixed intention will meet the long-harbored and universal desire with difficulty retained within the sorrowing hearts of the people.--The relation in which it is the intention of his Majesty, the emperor of all the Russias, to stand toward Germany and toward her constitution is, at the same time, here declared. From his desire to see the influence of the foreigner destroyed, it can be no other than that of placing a protecting hand on a work whose form is committed to the free, unbiased will of the princes and people of Germany. The more closely this work, in principle, features and outline, coincides with the once distinct character of the German nation, the more surely will united Germany retake her place with renovated and redoubled vigor among the empires of Europe.--His Majesty and his ally, between whom there reigns a perfect accordance in the sentiments and views hereby explained, are at all times ready to exert their utmost power in pursuance of their sacred aim, the liberation of Germany from a foreign yoke.--May France, strong and beauteous in herself, henceforward seek to consolidate her internal prosperity! No external power will disturb her internal peace, no enemy will encroach upon her rightful frontiers.--But may France also learn that the other powers of Europe aspire to the attainment of durable repose for their subjects, and will not lay down their arms until the independence of every state in Europe shall have been firmly secured."

Nor was the appeal vain. It found an echo in every German heart, and such plain demonstrations of the state of the popular feeling on this side the Rhine were made that Davoust sent serious warning to Napoleon, who contemptuously replied, "Pah! Germans never can become Spaniards!" With his customary rapidity, he levied in France a fresh army three hundred thousand strong, with which he so completely awed the Rhenish confederation as to compel it once more to take the field with thousands of Germans against their brother Germans. The troops, however, reluctantly obeyed, and even the traitors were but lukewarm, for they doubted of success. Mecklenburg alone sided with Prussia. Austria remained neutral.

A Russian corps under General Tettenborn had preceded the rest of the troops and reached the coasts of the Baltic. As early as the 24th of March, 1813, it appeared in Hamburg and expelled the French authorities from the city. The heavily oppressed people of Hamburg,[2] whose commerce had been totally annihilated by the continental system, gave way to the utmost demonstrations of delight, received their deliverers with open arms, revived their ancient rights, and immediately raised a Hanseatic corps, destined to take the field against Napoleon. Dornberg, the ancient foe to France, with another flying squadron took the French division under Morand prisoner, and the Prussian, Major Hellwig (the same who, in 1806, liberated the garrison of Erfurt), dispersed, with merely one hundred and twenty hussars, a Bavarian regiment one thousand three hundred strong and captured five pieces of artillery. In January, the peasantry of the upper country had already revolted against the conscription,[3] and, in February, patriotic proclamations had been disseminated throughout Westphalia under the signature of the Baron von Stein. In this month, also, Captain Maas and two other patriots, who had attempted to raise a rebellion, were executed. As the army advanced, Stein was nominated chief of the provisional government of the still unconquered provinces of Western Germany.

The first Russian army, seventeen thousand strong, under Wittgenstein, pushed forward to Magdeburg, and, at Mokern, repulsed forty thousand French, who were advancing upon Berlin. The Prussians, under their veteran general, Blucher, entered Saxony and garrisoned Dresden, on the 27th of March, 1813; an arch of the fine bridge across the Elbe having been uselessly blown up by the French. Blucher, whose gallantry in the former wars had gained for him the general esteem, and whose kind and generous disposition had won the affection of the soldiery, was nominated generalissimo of the Prussian forces, but subordinate in command to Wittgenstein, who replaced Kutusow[4] as generalissimo of the united forces of Russia and Prussia. The emperor of Russia and the king of Prussia accompanied the army and were received with loud acclamations by the people of Dresden and Leipzig. The allied army was merely seventy thousand strong, and Blucher had not formed a junction with Wittgenstein when Napoleon invaded the country by Erfurt and Merseburg at the head of one hundred and sixty thousand men. Ney attacked, with forty thousand men, the Russian vanguard under Winzingerode, which, after gallantly defending a defile near Weissenfels, made an orderly retreat before forces far their superior in number. The French, on this occasion, lost Marshal Bessieres. Napoleon, incredulous of attack, marched in long columns upon Leipzig, and Wittgenstein, falling upon his right flank, committed great havoc among the forty thousand men under Ney, which he had first of all encountered, at Gross-Gorschen. This place was alternately lost and regained owing to his ill-judged plan of attack by single brigades, instead of breaking Napoleon's lines by charging them at once with the whole of his forces. The young Prussian volunteers here measured their strength in a murderous conflict, hand to hand, with the young French conscripts, and excited by their martial spirit the astonishment of the veterans. Wittgenstein's delay and Blucher's too late arrival on the field[5] gave Napoleon time to wheel his long lines round and to encircle the allied forces, which immediately retired. On the eve of the bloody engagement of the 2d of May, the allied cavalry attempted a general attack in the dark, which was also unsuccessful on account of the superiority of the enemy's forces. The allies had, nevertheless, captured some cannons, the French, none. The most painful loss was that of the noble Scharnhorst, who was mortally wounded. Bulow had, on the same day, stormed Halle with a Prussian corps, but was now compelled to resolve upon a retreat, which was conducted in the most orderly manner by the allies. At Koldiz, the Prussian rearguard repulsed the French van in a bloody engagement on the 5th of May. The allies marched through Dresden[6] and took up a firm position in and about Bautzen, after being joined by a reinforcement of eighty thousand Bavarians. Napoleon was also reinforced by a number of French, Bavarian, Wurtemberg, and Saxon troops,[7] and despatched Lauriston and Ney toward Berlin; but the former encountering the Russians under Barclay de Tolly at Konigswartha, and the latter the Prussians under York at Weissig, both were constrained to retreat. Napoleon attacked the position at Bautzen from the 19th to the 21st of May, but was gloriously repulsed by the Prussians under Kleist, while Blücher, who was in danger of being completely surrounded, undauntedly defended himself on three sides. The allies lost not a cannon, not a single prisoner, although again compelled to retire before the superior forces of the enemy. The French had suffered an immense loss; eighteen thousand of their wounded were sent to Dresden. Napoleon's favorite, Marshal Duroc, and General Kirchner, a native of Alsace, were killed, close to his side, by a cannon ball. The allied troops, forced to retire after an obstinate encounter, neither fled nor dispersed, but withdrew in close column and repelling each successive attack.[8] The French avant-garde under Maison was, when in close pursuit of the allied force, almost entirely cut to pieces by the Prussian cavalry, which unexpectedly fell upon it at Heinau. The main body of the Russo-Prussian army, on entering Silesia, took a slanting direction toward the Riesengebirge and retired behind the fortress of Schweidnitz. In this strong position they were at once partially secure from attack, and, by their vicinity to the Bohemian frontier, enabled to keep up a communication, and, if necessary, to form a junction with the Austrian forces. The whole of the lowlands of Silesia lay open to the French, who entered Breslau on the 1st of June.[9] Berlin was also merely covered by a comparatively weak army under General Bulow,[10] who, notwithstanding the check given by him to Marshal Oudinot in the battles of Hoyerswerda and Luckau, was not in sufficient force to offer assistance to the main body of the French in case Napoleon chose to pass through Berlin on his way to Poland. Napoleon, however, did not as yet venture to make use of his advantage. By the seizure of Prussia and Poland, both of which lay open to him, the main body of the allied army and the Austrians, who had not yet declared themselves, would have been left to the rear of his right flank and could easily have cut off his retreat. His troops, principally young conscripts, were moreover worn out with fatigue, nor had the whole of his reinforcements arrived. To his rear was a multitude of bold partisans, Tettenborn, the Hanseatic legion, Czernitscheff, who, at Halberstadt, captured General Ochs together with the whole of the Westphalian corps and fourteen pieces of artillery, Colomb, the Herculean captain of horse, who took a convoy and twenty-four guns at Zwickau, and the Black Prussian squadron under Lutzow. Napoleon consequently remained stationary, and, with a view of completing his preparations and of awaiting the decision of Austria, demanded an armistice, to which the allies, whose force was still incomplete and to whom the decision of Austria was of equal importance, gladly assented.

On this celebrated armistice, concluded on the 4th of June, 1813, at the village of Pleisswitz, the fate of Europe was to depend. To the side that could raise the most powerful force, that on which Austria ranged herself, numerical superiority insured success. Napoleon's power was still terrible; fresh victory had obliterated the disgrace of his flight from Russia; he stood once more an invincible leader on German soil. The French were animated by success and blindly devoted to their emperor. Italy and Denmark were prostrate at his feet. The Rhenish confederation was also faithful to his standard. Councillor Crome published at Giessen, in obedience to Napoleon's mandate and with the knowledge of the government at Darmstadt, a pamphlet entitled "Germany's Crisis and Salvation," in which he declared that Germany was saved by the fresh victories of Napoleon, and promised mountains of gold to the Germans if they remained true to him.[11] Crome was at that time graciously thanked in autograph letters by the sovereigns of Bavaria and Wurtemberg. Lutzow's volunteer corps was, during the armistice, surprised at Kitzen by a superior corps of Wurtembergers under Normann and cut to pieces. Germans at that period opposed Germans without any feeling for their common fatherland.[12] The king of Saxony, who had already repaired to Prague under the protection of Austria, also returned thence, was received at Dresden with extreme magnificence by Napoleon, and, in fresh token of amity, ceded the fortress of Torgau to the French.[13] These occurrences caused the Saxon minister, Senfft von Pilsach, and the Saxon general, Thielmann, who had already devoted themselves to the German cause, to resign office. The Polish army under Prince Poniatowsky (vassal to the king of Saxony, who was also grandduke of Warsaw) received permission (it had at an earlier period fallen back upon Schwarzenberg) to march, unarmed, through the Austrian territory to Dresden, in order to join the main body of the French under Napoleon. The declaration of the emperor of Austria in favor of his son-in-law, who, moreover, was lavish of his promises, and, among other things, offered to restore Silesia, was, consequently, at the opening of the armistice, deemed certain.

The armistice was, meanwhile, still more beneficial to the allies. The Russians had time to concentrate their scattered troops, the Prussians completed the equipment of their numerous _Landwehren_, and the Swedes also took the field. Bernadotte landed on the 18th of May in Pomerania, and advanced with his troops into Brandenburg for the purpose, in conjunction with Bulow, of covering Berlin. A German auxiliary corps, in the pay of England, was also formed, under Wallmoden, on the Baltic. The defence of Hamburg was extremely easy; but the base intrigues of foreigners, who, as during the time of the thirty years' war, paid themselves for their aid by the seizure of German provinces and towns, delivered that splendid city into the hands of the French. Bernadotte had sold himself to Russia for the price of Norway, which Denmark refused to cede unless Hamburg and Lubeck were given in exchange. This agreement had already been made by Prince Dolgorucki in the name of the emperor Alexander, and Tettenborn yielded Hamburg to the Danes, who marched in under pretext of protecting the city and were received with delight by the unsuspecting citizens. The non-advance of the Swedes proceeded from the same cause. The increase of the Danish marine by means of the Hanse towns, however, proved displeasing to England; the whole of the commerce was broken up, and the Danes, hastily resolving to maintain faith with Napoleon, delivered luckless Hamburg to the French, who instantly took a most terrible revenge. Davoust, as he himself boasted, merely sent twelve German patriots to execution,[14] but expelled twenty-five thousand of the inhabitants from the city, while he pulled down their houses and converted them into fortifications, at which the principal citizens were compelled to work in person. Dissatisfied, moreover, with a contribution of eighteen millions, he robbed the great Hamburg bank, treading underfoot every private and national right, all, as he, miserable slave as he was,[15] declared, in obedience to the mandate of his lord.