The Story of Napoleon

CHAPTER XIX
The Polish Campaign
(1806–7)

Having deprived the Elector of Hesse-Cassel, the Duke of Brunswick, and the Prince of Orange of their possessions; concluded an alliance with Saxony, whose Elector was raised to the dignity of King and joined the Rhenish Confederacy; and compelled the Prussian provincial authorities to swear allegiance preparatory to leaving General Clarke as Governor-General, Napoleon turned his unwearied attention to Poland. There he anticipated meeting the slow-moving Russian army before it reached Germany. The Commander-in-chief of the Czar’s forces was Marshal Kamenskoi, a man of eighty years of age, who shortly afterwards became insane, and was succeeded by Bennigsen, on whom the soldiers placed considerably more reliance.

The partition of Poland by Russia, Austria and Prussia in 1795—a wound by no means healed—afforded an opportunity, had Napoleon decided to take advantage of it, for an appeal to the national spirit of the Poles to assert itself to regain their country’s independence, an aspiration which is alive to-day. The Emperor sought to temporise, and when an influential deputation waited upon him to ask his assistance for the Poles, he evaded the point by a skilful answer which neither said yea nor nay to their request, but was nicely calculated to secure their enthusiasm on his behalf. The truth is, that while Napoleon did not disdain Polish recruits for the French army, he perceived that it would have been dangerous to further exasperate Russia, Prussia, and Austria. Indeed, Austria was arming already, Prussia was endeavouring to recuperate, and Russia was preparing a surprise.

The numerical strength of the various armies was, as far as can be ascertained, as follows: France, 145,000; Russia, 100,000; Prussia, 15,000. The Emperor’s first headquarters were at Posen, but on Murat entering Warsaw at the end of November 1806, after some desultory fighting, he decided to move to that city, where he arrived with his staff on the 18th December. At Pultusk, Lannes experienced a severe check at the hands of Bennigsen, whose troops outnumbered the French by 5000. A violent snow-storm made the work doubly heavy for both contestants, but the Russians had fewer difficulties to contend with than the attacking party, which was obliged to wade through slush that numbed the soldiers to the bone. They quitted themselves well, however, and forced the enemy to retreat until the cavalry and reserve were brought into action, when the French were forced to give up the unequal contest with the loss of 6000 men, one thousand more than that of the Russians. At Golymin, a somewhat similar disaster occurred to Davout, Augereau, and Murat, and these two misfortunes largely determined Napoleon to suspend hostilities for a time. Both armies therefore took up winter quarters, Napoleon on the forest-clad banks of the Vistula, the Russians near the Narew.

Bennigsen, now in chief command, knowing the almost desperate situation of the King of Prussia, who was shut up in Königsberg, upon which the divisions of Ney and Bernadotte were slowly closing, saw what he thought was an excellent opportunity to surprise Napoleon. He would assume the offensive, relieve the important fortress of Graudentz, then feebly held by a Prussian garrison, and protect Königsberg. But the Emperor, whilst enjoying the social life of Warsaw, was not to be caught quite so easily, and was speedily on the march. Through a despatch from Bernadotte, which was intercepted by a band of Cossacks, the Russian general got to know of the enemy’s movements, and perforce had to give up his former plan or run the risk of a disastrous defeat. Many a game of military hide-and-seek followed, often accompanied by severe losses. Matters were brought to a crisis on the 7th February 1807, when both armies bivouaced within sight of each other at Eylau, the French to the number of 50,000 entering the town after an affray with the Russians, who probably totalled about 75,000. The corps under Ney, Bernadotte, and Davout, having been ordered to join the main force, were expected to afford valuable help.

Never was there a more keenly-contested field. It was snowing heavily when the first shells began to plough the opposing ranks. In a single charge nearly half the men in Augereau’s corps were annihilated, and their commander wounded. Davout returned the compliment, and was on the point of succeeding when the Russians received reinforcements and compelled him to fall back. Ney, who had duly arrived, and Murat, were more successful, but at the end of eighteen hours’ fighting it was difficult to tell who had secured the advantage. Napoleon frankly confessed that it was quite possible he might have retreated, but when the next morning dawned, leaden and sullen, it was found that the Russians had disappeared, leaving him in possession of the field. On the 14th, Napoleon wrote to the Empress: “The country is covered with the dead and the wounded. This is not the pleasant part of war,” while to his brother Joseph, he related some of the hardships of the campaign. “The officers of the staff,” he says, “have not undressed for two months, many not for four months. I myself have not taken off my boots for a fortnight. We are in the midst of snow and mud, without wine, brandy, or bread. We have nothing but potatoes to eat; we make long marches and counter-marches—no pleasant experience. We have to fight with the bayonet under a tremendous fire of grape, the wounded have then to be carried back 150 miles in open sleighs.”

An incident which occurred at this period exemplifies very clearly how Napoleon could rebuke an officer and show at the same time that he had not forfeited his trust in him. It should be added that the Emperor did not always deal so leniently with a subordinate as he did with this particular individual.

One evening a bundle of despatches was delivered to Napoleon. “Surely these despatches have been a long time on their way!” he remarked to his attendant. “How is this? Tell the orderly officer who brought them that I wish to speak to him.”

The officer entered, mud-bespattered and obviously ill at ease.

“Sir,” said the Emperor, “at what hour were these despatches placed in your hands?”

“At eight o’clock in the evening, sire.”

“And how many leagues had you to ride?”

“I do not know precisely, sire.”

“But you ought to know, sir. An orderly officer ought to know that. I know it. You had twenty-seven miles to ride, and you set off at eight o’clock. Look at your watch, sir. What o’clock is it, now?”

“Half-past twelve, sire. The roads were in a terrible state. In some places the snow obstructed my passage–”

“Poor excuses, sir—poor excuses. Retire, and await my orders.”

As the door closed behind the unfortunate messenger, whose unhappy frame of mind it is not difficult to realise, Napoleon remarked, “This cool, leisurely gentleman wants stimulating. The reprimand I have given him will make him spur his horse another time. Let me see—my answer must be delivered in two hours. I have not a moment to lose.”

He replied to the communications and recalled the officer who had brought the despatches.

“Set off immediately, sir,” said the Emperor; “these despatches must be delivered with the utmost speed. General Lasalle must receive my orders by three o’clock. You understand?”

“Sire, by half-past two the general shall have the orders of which I have the honour to be the bearer.”

“Very well, sir, mount your horse—but stop!” he added, as the officer was about to make his exit. “Tell General Lasalle,” and a magnetic smile lit up the Emperor’s face for an instant, “that it will be agreeable to me that you should be the person selected to announce to me the success of these movements.”

After the terrible fight at Eylau, which proved that the French arms were not invincible and added considerably to the prestige of the Russian army, Napoleon felt compelled to concentrate his forces still further. Although he was within an easy march of Königsberg, upon which Bennigsen had retreated, and had promised his soldiers before the action that “their fatigue will be compensated by a luxurious and honourable repose” at that city, he determined to try Fortune no further. He put down the sword of war and took up the pen of peace, writing a letter to the King of Prussia calculated to woo him from his allies. After the triumph of Jena Napoleon had asked half of Prussia as the price of peace, now he was willing to give back all the conquered territory east of the river Elbe, and at the same time to release Prussia from any future strife he might have with Russia.

We have already noted that Frederick William III. possessed little strength of will, of which fact the Czar as well as Napoleon was fully aware. Alexander determined to make the alliance between Russia and Prussia still more binding, feeling confident that Eylau was the beginning of the end so far as the Corsican upstart was concerned. The diplomacy of Napoleon received a check, and a treaty between Russia and Prussia was arranged at Bartenstein in April 1807, which, while it provided for eventualities which might follow the defeat of Napoleon, had the more immediate effect of strengthening the wavering purpose of the Prussian monarch.

CHAPTER XX
Friedland and Tilsit
(1807)

Napoleon saw every reason for a speedy and more vigorous prosecution of the war, which threatened to be prolonged indefinitely. The ranks of his army had been seriously thinned, and although he had obtained 80,000 conscripts but five months before, he found it necessary to call for a second levy of the same number, a very serious drain on the resources of France, for in the natural order of things the young men would not have been called upon until September 1808, eighteen months later. The urgency of the demand is shown in the Emperor’s despatch to Cambacérès: “It is very important that this measure should be adopted with alacrity. A single objection raised in the Council of State or in the Senate would weaken me in Europe, and will bring Austria upon us. Then, it will not be two conscriptions, but three, or four, which we shall be obliged to decree, perhaps to no purpose, and to be vanquished at last.” To talk of defeat was not usual with Napoleon, and although he added that he was not going “to wage war with boys,” he most certainly did so. In June 1807 the total force at his disposal amounted to 310,000 troops, that of the allies 130,000 men.

The capture of Königsberg not being practicable at the moment, the fall of Danzig, an important strategic point, was eagerly anticipated by Napoleon. The place had already endured several notable sieges, and notwithstanding Lefebvre’s energetic measures he was not able to send the good news that he had accomplished his purpose until the end of May 1807. The slow progress was partly due to the number of young, inexperienced soldiers with whom Lefebvre had to work, and also to a certain jealousy he manifested towards the engineers, the grenadiers being his favourites. “Your glory is in taking Danzig,” Napoleon wrote to the old spit-fire. As 900 pieces of artillery were captured on the fall of the great fortress at the mouth of the Vistula, it must be conceded that the work was done well, if all too slowly for the patience of the Chief.

On the 5th June Ney was surprised by a Russian force, the Marshal losing 2000 men. Five days later the troops under St Cyr and Legrand met with disaster, and 12,000 of the rank and file were killed, wounded, or taken prisoners. These reverses were followed by the frightful field of Friedland, fought on the 14th June, the situation for France being alone saved by the intrepidity of Victor. The Russians under Bennigsen, seconded by Prince Bagration, behaved with exceptional bravery, retreating through water which reached nearly as high as their arms. Fifteen thousand of the enemy, including many who were drowned in their last desperate attempt to reach the opposite shore, were slain on this the anniversary of Marengo, and nearly 8000 Frenchmen fell.

Jackson, who had remained in the ill-fated city of Königsberg until the last moment, tells the story of Friedland in his Diary, and as he had every opportunity of obtaining facts at first hand, we will let him relate further particulars of the tragedy:—

“However great the loss sustained by the allies at Friedland, and it cannot be put at less than twenty-four thousand in killed, wounded, prisoners and missing, yet everything that valour and bravery could effect was achieved by them; and had the activity and ability of their leader borne any proportion to the courage of his troops, this battle, as disastrous as that of Austerlitz or Auerstädt, would have been as glorious for us, and as important in its consequences, as those were for the French; but these reflections are now as useless as they are sad. On the night of the 11th, Bennigsen, crossing the Alle, began his retreat from Heilsberg, which, with little intermission, he continued until he arrived on the evening of the 13th opposite Friedland. There he found a few squadrons of the enemy, who were driven across the river without much difficulty. He himself followed, and took up his quarters that night in the town, in front of which is a plain flanked by a wood; detaching a few regiments just before Friedland, to secure the safety of his quarters.

“At between three and four in the morning, the enemy, masked and covered by the wood, began his attack on the right wing, supported by troops that came by degrees from the other side of the river; over which there was but one bridge and two pontoons. Notwithstanding these disadvantages, the Russians each time successfully repulsed the attacks of the French, both on their right and centre, with great loss to the enemy—with the one exception of a battery, carried in the first instance but immediately retaken—until seven in the evening, when Bonaparte came up with ten thousand fresh troops against their left. This decided the fate of the day. The Russians, worn out, as well by their late hard marchings and want of food, as by the fourteen hours of incessant fighting they had sustained, could not make a stand against this new shock, and in less than an hour began a very disorderly retreat. The general confusion was increased by the difficulty of recrossing the Alle, and the necessity of again passing through the town, which was on fire in several parts from the enemy’s shells. Numbers were drowned in fording the river; being hardly pressed by the French.

“The extent of our losses both in men and cannon should be attributed to these circumstances rather than to any decided superiority of the French in the field. Their effect, too, on the troops, who had fought and had borne up so bravely through the day, was discouragement and dismay, and converted what might still have been, under abler leadership, a well-conducted retreat into a disorderly rout and precipitated flight.

“The Russian officers were unanimous in their reprobation of Bennigsen, who has betrayed the army, they say, if not by downright treachery, at least by the grossest ignorance and utter want of energy. ‘If he is not removed,’ says every military man, even the warmest of the war party, ‘we had better make peace to-morrow; for to attempt to fight a battle with him as their leader is only to sacrifice the lives of brave men without any possible chance of success.’… The French entered Tilsit yesterday afternoon, and commenced firing at the Russians across the river. The fate of Europe is probably decided.”

The immediate effects of the battle of Friedland was the capitulation on the 15th June of Königsberg, which had been admirably defended by the Prussian general L’Estocq, and an armistice between the French and Russians, in which Prussia was graciously allowed to share several days later when Napoleon and Alexander had talked over the matter together. Their meeting-place was a raft in the river Niemen, where they remained for nearly an hour alone, the conference being extended two hours longer on the admittance of the Grand Duke Constantine, Bennigsen, and Kalkreuth. King Frederick William, who had left Königsberg for Memel a short time before the fall of the former town, had to content himself with riding up and down the shore in the rain. A more humiliating position for a successor to the throne of the hero of the Seven Years’ War, who never received an insult tamely, is difficult to conceive. Napoleon despised the weak monarch, and by his subsequent conduct showed that he had no better liking for the beautiful Queen Louisa. On the following day the King was admitted to the Council, but when the fate of Europe was under discussion the two Emperors repaired to their raft alone.

Napoleon paid delicate attentions to the Autocrat of all the Russias. He walked about with him arm in arm, and reviewed his troops before him, a compliment which Alexander duly returned.

Méneval, one of Napoleon’s secretaries, who was present at Tilsit, affords us an interesting little glimpse of the two monarchs as they fraternised. “So intimate did the two Emperors become,” he says, “that, when on returning from their excursions the Czar was to dine with Napoleon, the latter would not allow him to go home to change his dress. He used to send somebody to the house where Alexander lived to fetch the things he needed. He used to send him his own cravats and handkerchief through his valet. He placed his big gold travelling bag at his disposal, and as Alexander had praised the carvings of the various fittings, and the way in which the bag was arranged, Napoleon made him a present of it before they separated. When they returned before the dinner hour it was for the sake of a free tête-a-tête. On such occasions they used to leave the King of Prussia, and go into a little gallery which adjoined the Emperor’s work-room. Sometimes Napoleon would bring the Czar into his study and ask for his maps, which included one of Turkey in Europe. I have seen them bending over this map and then continuing their conversation as they walked up and down. Schemes of partition were occupying them. Constantinople was the only point on which they were not visibly agreed.”

It seemed like a case of love at first sight, but the wooer sought more than peace and good-will; he aimed at a definite alliance with Russia. This he achieved, and although the Czar is to be blamed for having broken faith with Great Britain and Austria so speedily, much must be forgiven him if only because both Powers had done little more than applaud the performer in the great war drama which had just ended. Prussia, as might be expected, came off very badly in the final settlement. Silesia and the provinces on the right bank of the Elbe were given back to her; those on the left bank, with the Duchy of Brunswick and the Electorate of Hesse-Cassel were formed into the Kingdom of Westphalia and handed over to Jerome Bonaparte; nearly the whole of Prussian Poland was added to the possessions of the King of Saxony, and became the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. The remaining province, that of Bialystok, was added to the Czar’s territory. The war which had been proceeding between Russia and Turkey was to end, Russia withdrawing from the Sultan’s Danubian Provinces. French troops were no longer to be quartered in Prussia.

These are the chief clauses of the famous Peace of Tilsit, signed between France and Russia on the 7th July 1807, and between France and Prussia two days later. A secret treaty was also assented to by Alexander and Napoleon, who not only agreed to join their armies in mutual support should either of them decide to make war on any European Power, but mapped out the Eastern Hemisphere as future spoil, Napoleon’s particular plunder being Egypt and the coasts of the Adriatic Sea, which would be extremely useful in French designs against England. The reigning Kings of Spain and Portugal were to be deposed for the special benefit of the Bonaparte family. The Czar also promised that if peace were not made with Great Britain, whereby she recognised the equality of all nations on the ocean highway and handed back the conquests made by her since the year of Trafalgar, Russia and France would together renew the war against England. In that event Denmark, Sweden, Austria and Portugal would also be compelled to join the allies and close their ports against British ships. If the great Sea Power consented to the arrangements so thoughtfully made on her behalf, Hanover was to be given back to George III. England successfully disposed of, the complete domination of the Eastern Hemisphere might come within the range of practical politics.