THE CONTINENTAL SYSTEM: FRIEDLAND
"I know full well that London is a corner of the world, and that
Paris is its centre."--_Letter of Napoleon_, August 18th, 1806.
On the 21st of November, 1806, Napoleon issued at Berlin the decree
which proclaimed open and unrelenting war on English industry and
commerce, a war that was to embroil the whole civilized world and
cease only with his overthrow. After reciting his complaints against
the English maritime code, he declared the British Isles to be in a
state of blockade, interdicted all commerce with them, threatened
seizure and imprisonment to English goods and subjects wherever found
by French or allied troops, forbade all trade in English and colonial
wares, and excluded from French and allied ports any ship that had
touched at those of Great Britain; while any ship that connived at the
infraction of the present decree was to be held a good prize of
war.[113] This ukase, which was binding for France, Italy,
Switzerland, Holland, and the Rhenish Confederation, formed the
foundation of the Continental System, a term applicable to the sum
total of the measures that aimed at ruining England by excluding her
goods from the Continent.
The plan of strangling Britain by her own wealth was not peculiar to
Napoleon. In common with much of his political stock-in-trade he had
it from the Jacobins, who stoutly maintained that England's wealth was
fictitious and would collapse as soon as her commerce was attacked in
the Indies and excluded from the Rhine and Elbe. At first the
fulminations of Parisian legislators fell idly on the stately pile of
British industry; but when the young Bonaparte appeared on the scene,
the commercial warfare became serious. As soon as his victories in
Italy widened the sphere of French influence, the Directory banned the
entry of all our products, counting all cotton and woollen goods as
English unless the contrary could be proved by certificates of
origin.[114] Public opinion in France, which, unless held in by an
intelligent monarch, has always swung towards protection or
prohibition, welcomed that vigorous measure; and great was the outcry
of manufacturers when it was rumoured in 1802 that Napoleon was about
to make a commercial treaty with the national enemy. Tradition and
custom, therefore, were all on his side, when, after Trafalgar, he
concentrated all his energy on his "coast-system."[115]
Ostensibly the Berlin Decree was a retort to our Order in Council of
May 16th, 1806, which declared all the coast between Brest and the
Elbe in a state of blockade; and French historians have defended it on
this ground, asserting that it was a necessary reply to England's
aggressive action.[116] But this plea can scarcely be maintained. The
aggressor, surely, was the man who forced Prussia to close the neutral
North German coast to British goods (February, 1806). Besides, there
is indirect proof that Napoleon looked on our blockade of the northern
coasts as not unreasonable. In his subsequent negotiations with us, he
raised no protest against it, and made no difficulty about our
maritime code: if we would let him seize Sicily, we might, it seems,
have re-enacted that code in all its earlier stringency. Far from
doing so, Fox and his successors relaxed the blockade of North
Germany; and by an order dated September 25th, the coast between the
Elbe and the Ems was declared free.
Napoleon's grievance against us was thereby materially lessened, and
his protest against fictitious blockades in the preamble of the Berlin
Decree really applied only to our action on the coast between the
Helder and Brest, where our cruisers were watching the naval
preparations still going on. His retort in the interests of outraged
law was certainly curious; he declared our 3,000 miles of coast in a
state of blockade--a mere _brutum fulmen_ in point of fact, but
designed to give a show of legality to his Continental System. Yet,
apart from this thin pretext, he troubled very little about law.
Indeed, blockade is an act of war; and its application to this or that
part or coast depends on the will and power of the belligerents.
Napoleon frankly recognized that fact; and, however much his preambles
appealed to law, his conduct was decided solely by expediency. When he
wanted peace (along with Sicily) he said nothing about our maritime
claims: when the war went on, he used them as a pretext for an action
that was ten times as stringent.
The gauntlet thrown down by him at Berlin was promptly taken up by
Great Britain. An Order in Council of January 7th, 1807, forbade
neutrals to trade between the ports of France and her allies, or
between ports that observed the Berlin Decree, under pain of seizure
and confiscation of the ship and cargo. In return Napoleon issued from
Warsaw (January 27th) a decree, ordering the seizure in the Hanse
Towns of all English goods and colonial produce. By way of reprisal
England reimposed a strict blockade on the North German coast (March
11th); and after the Peace of Tilsit laid the Continent at the feet of
Napoleon, he frankly told the diplomatic circle at Fontainebleau that
he would no longer allow any commercial or political relations between
the Continent and England. "The sea must be subdued by the land." In
these words Napoleon pithily summed up his enterprise; and whatever
may be thought of the means which he adopted, the design is not
without grandeur. Granted that Britannia ruled the waves, yet he ruled
the land; and the land, as the active fruitful element, must overpower
the barren sea. Such was the notion: it was fallacious, as will appear
later on; but it appealed strongly to the French imagination as
providing an infallible means of humbling the traditional foe.
Furthermore, it placed in Napoleon's hands a potent engine of
government, not only for assuring his position in France, but for
extending his sway over North Germany and all coasts that seemed
needful to the success of the experiment.
Indirectly also it seems to have fed, without satisfying, his
ever-growing love of power. Here we touch on the difficult question of
motive; and it is perhaps impossible, except for dogmatists, to
determine whether the enterprises that led to his ruin--the partition
of Portugal, which slid easily into the occupation of Spain, together
with his Moscow adventure--were prompted by ambition or by a
semi-fatalistic feeling that they were necessary to the complete
triumph of his Continental System. He himself, with a flash of almost
uncanny insight, once remarked to Roederer that his ambition was
different from that of other men: for they were slaves to it, whereas
it was so interwoven with the whole texture of his being as to
interfere with no single process of thought and will. Whether that is
possible is a question for psychologists and casuists; but every
open-minded student of Napoleon's career must at times pause in utter
doubt, whether this or that act was prompted by mad ambition, or
followed naturally, perhaps inevitably, from that world-embracing
postulate, the Continental System.
England also derived some secondary advantages from this war of the
elements. In order to stalemate her mighty foe, she pushed on her
colonial conquests so as to control the resources of the tropics, and
thus prevent that deadly tilting of the balance landwards which
Napoleon strove to effect. And fate decreed that the conquests of
English seamen and settlers were to be more enduring than those of
Napoleon's legions. While the French were gaining barren victories
beyond the Vistula and Ebro, our seamen seized French and Dutch
colonies and our pioneers opened up the interior of Australia and
South Africa.
We also used our maritime monopoly to depress neutral commerce. We
have not space to discuss the complex question of the rights of
neutrals in time of war, which would involve an examination of the
"rule of 1756" and the compromises arrived at after the two Armed
Neutrality Leagues. Suffice it to say that our merchants had recently
been indignant at the comparative immunity enjoyed by neutral ships,
and had pressed for more vigorous action against such as traded to
French ports.[117] Yet the statement that our Orders in Council were
determined by the clamour of the mercantile class is an exaggeration:
they were reprisals against Napoleon's acts, following them in almost
geometrical gradations. To his domination over the industrial
resources of the Continent we had nothing to oppose but our
manufacturing skill, our supremacy in the tropics, and our control of
the sea. The methods used on both sides were alike brutal, and, when
carried to their logical conclusion at the close of the year, crushed
the neutrals between the upper and the nether millstone. But it is
difficult to see what other alternative was open to an insular State
that was all-powerful at sea and weak on land. Our very existence was
bound up with maritime commerce; and an abandonment of the carrying
trade to neutrals would have been the tamest of surrenders, at a time
when surrender meant political extinction.
We turn now to follow the chief steps in Napoleon's onward march,
which enabled him to impose his system on nearly the whole of the
Continent. While encamped in the Prussian capital he decreed the
deposition of the Elector of Hesse-Cassel, and French and Dutch troops
forthwith occupied that Electorate. Towards Saxony he acted with
politic clemency; and on December 11th, 1806, the Elector accepted the
French alliance, entered the Confederation of the Rhine, and received
the title of King.[118]
Meanwhile Frederick William, accompanied by his grief-stricken
consort, was striving to draw together an army in his eastern
provinces. Some overtures with a view to peace had been made after
Jena; but Napoleon finally refused to relax his pursuit unless the
Prussians retired beyond the Vistula, and yielded up to him all the
western parts of the kingdom, with their fortresses. Besides, he let
it be known that Prussia must join him in a close alliance against
Russia, with a view to checking her ambitious projects against Turkey;
for the Czar, resenting the Sultan's deposition of the hospodars of
the Danubian Principalities, an act suggested by the French, had sent
an army across the River Pruth, even when the Porte timidly revoked
its objectionable firman.[119] The Eastern Question having been thus
reopened, Napoleon suggested a Franco-Prussian alliance so as to avert
a Russian conquest of the Balkan Peninsula. But now, as ever, his
terms to Prussia were too exacting. The King deigned not to stoop to
such humiliation, but resolved to stake his all on the courage of his
troops and the fidelity of the Czar.
The Russians, though delayed by their distrust of Haugwitz, and by
their insensate war with Turkey, were now marching, 73,000 strong,
into Prussian Poland, but were too late to save the Silesian
fortresses, most of which surrendered to the French. The fighting in
the open also went against the allies, though at Pultusk, a town north
of Warsaw, the Russians claimed that the contest had been drawn in
their favour.
At the close of the year the armies went into winter-quarters. It was
high time. The French were ill supplied for a winter campaign amid the
desolate wastes of Poland. Snow and rain, frosts and thaws had turned
the wretched tracks into muddy swamps, where men sank to their knees,
horses to their bellies, and carriages beyond their axles. The
carriage conveying Talleyrand was a whole night stuck fast, in spite
of the efforts of ten horses to drag it out. The opinion of the
soldiery on Poland and the Poles is well expressed by that prince of
_raconteurs_, Marbot: "Weather frightful, victuals very scarce, no
wine, beer detestable, water muddy, no bread, lodgings shared with
cows and pigs. 'And they call this their country,' said our soldiers."
Yet Polish patriotism had been a mighty power in the world; and
Napoleon, ever on the watch for the weak places of his foes, saw how
effective a lever it might be. This had been his constant practice: he
had pitted Italians against Austrians, Copts against Mamelukes, Druses
against Turks, Irish against English, South Germans against the
Hapsburgs and Hohenzollerns, and for the most part with success. But,
except in the case of the Italian people and the South German princes,
he rarely, if ever, bestowed boons proportionate to the services
rendered. It is very questionable whether he felt more warmly for
Irish nationalists than for Copts and Druses.[120] Except in regard to
his Italian kindred, none of the nationalist aspirations that were to
mould the history of the century touched a responsive chord in his
nature. In this, as in other affairs of state, he held "true policy"
to be "nothing else than the calculation of combinations and chances."
It was in this spirit that he surveyed the Polish Question. Arising
out of the partitions of that unhappy land by Russia, Austria, and
Prussia, it had distracted the repose of Europe scarcely less than the
French Revolution; and now the heir to the Revolution, after hewing
his way through the weak monarchies of Central Europe, was about to
probe this ulcer of Christendom. As usual, nothing had been done to
forestall him. Czartoryski had begged Alexander to declare Russian
Poland an autonomous kingdom united with Russia only by the golden
link of the crown, but this timely proposal was rejected;[121] and the
Czar displayed the weakness of his judgment and the strength of his
vanity by plunging into war with Turkey and Persia, at a time when
Poland was opening her arms to the victor of a hundred fights. It was,
therefore, easy for Napoleon to surround Russia with foes; and, as
will shortly appear, he took steps to invigorate even the remote
Persian Empire.
But, above all, he spurred on the Poles to take up arms. His
encouragements were discreetly vague. True, he countenanced Polish
proclamations, which spoke grandiloquently of national liberty; but
proclamations he ever viewed as the _ballons d'essai_ of politics. He
also warned Murat not to promise the Poles too much: "My greatness
does not depend on the aid of a few thousand Poles. Let them show a
firm resolve to be independent: let them pledge themselves to support
the King that will be given to them, and then I will see what is to be
done."
There were two reasons for this caution. His Marshals found no very
general disposition among the Poles to take up arms for France; and he
desired not to offend Austria by revolutionizing Galicia and her
districts south and east of Warsaw. Already the Hapsburgs were
nervously mustering their troops, and Napoleon had no wish to tempt
fortune by warring against three Powers a thousand miles away from his
own frontiers. He therefore calmed the Court of Vienna by promising
that he would discourage any rising in Austrian Poland, and he held
forth the prospect of regaining Silesia. This tempting offer was made
secretly and conditionally; and evoked no expression of thanks, but
rather a redoubling of precautions. Yet, despite the efforts of
England and Russia, the Hapsburg ruler refused to join the allies: he
preferred to play the waiting game which had ruined Prussia.[122]
The campaign was reopened amidst terrible weather by a daring move of
Bennigsen's Russians westwards, in the hope of saving Danzig and
Graudenz from the French. At first a screen of forests well concealed
his advance. But, falling in with Bernadotte near the River Passarge,
his progress was checked and his design revealed. At once Napoleon
prepared to march northwards and throw the Russians into the sea, a
plan which in its turn was foiled by the seizure of a French despatch
by Cossacks. Bennigsen, now aware of his danger, at once retreated
towards Königsberg, but at Eylau turned on his pursuers and fought the
bloodiest battle fought in Europe since Malplaquet. The numbers on
both sides were probably about equal, numbering some 75,000 men, the
Russians having a slight superiority in men and still more in
artillery. Driven from Eylau on the night of February 7th after
confused fighting, the Muscovite withdrew to a strong position formed
by an irregular line of hills, which he crowned with cannon.
As the dawn peered through the snow-laden clouds, guns began to deal
death amongst the hostile masses, and heavy columns moved forward.
Davoust, on the French right, began to push back the Russians on that
side, whereupon Napoleon ordered Augereau's corps to complete the
advantage by driving in the enemy's centre. Gallantly the French
advanced. Their leading regiment, the 14th, had seized a hillock which
commanded the enemy's lines,[123] when, amidst a whirlwind of snow
that beat in their faces, a deadly storm of grape and canister almost
annihilated the corps. Its shattered lines fell back, leaving the 14th
to its fate. But a cloud of Cossacks now swept on the retiring
companies, stabbing with their long spears; and it was a scanty band
that found safety in their former position. Russian cannon and cavalry
also stopped the advance of Davoust, and the fighting for a time
resolved itself into confused but murderous charges at close quarters.
As if to increase the horrors of the scene, snowstorms again swept
over the field, dazing the French and shrouding with friendly wings
the fierce charges of Cossacks. Yet the Grand Army fought on with
devoted heroism; and the chief, determined to snatch at victory,
launched eighty squadrons of horse against the Russian centre.
Sweeping aside the Cossacks, and defying the cannon that riddled their
files, they poured upon the first line of Russian infantry: for a time
they were stemmed, but, finding some weaker places, the cuirassiers
burst through, only to be thrown back by the second line; and, when
furiously charged by Cossacks, they fell back in disorder. "These
Russians fight like bulls," said the French. The simile was just. Even
while Murat was hacking at their centre a column of 4,000 Russian
grenadiers, detaching itself from their mangled line, marched straight
forward on the village of Eylau. With the same blind courage that
nerved Solmes' division at Steinkirk, they beat aside the French light
horse and foot, and were now threatening the cemetery where Napoleon
and his staff were standing.
"I never was so much struck with anything in my life," said
General Bertrand at St. Helena, "as by the Emperor at Eylau when
he was almost trodden under foot by the Russian column. He kept
his ground as the Russians advanced, saying frequently, 'What
boldness.'"
But, when all around him trembled, and Berthier ordered up the horses
as if for retreat, he himself quietly signalled for his Guards. These
sturdy troops, long fuming at their inaction, marched forward with a
stern joy. As at Steinkirk the French Household Brigade disdained to
fire on the bull-dogs, so now the Guards rushed on the Muscovites with
the cold steel. The shock was terrible; but the pent-up fury of the
French carried all before it, and the grenadiers were wellnigh
destroyed. The battle might still have ended in a French victory; for
Davoust was obstinately holding the village which he had seized in the
morning, and even threatened the rear of Bennigsen's centre. But when
both sides were wellnigh exhausted, the Prussian General Lestocq with
8,000 men, urged on by the counsels of Scharnhorst, hurried up from
the side of Königsberg, marched straight on Davoust, and checked his
forward movements. Ney followed Lestocq, but at so great a distance
that his arrival at nightfall served only to secure the French left.
Thus darkness closed over some 100,000 men, who wearily clung to their
posts, and over snowy wastes where half that number lay dead, dying,
or disabled. Well might Ney exclaim: "What a massacre, and without any
issue!" Each side claimed the victory, and, as is usual in such cases,
began industriously to minimize its own and to magnify the enemy's
losses. The truth seems to be that both sides had about 25,000 men
_hors de combat_; but, as Bennigsen lacked tents, supplies, and above
all, the dauntless courage of Napoleon, he speedily fell back, and
this enabled the Emperor to claim a decisive victory.[124]
Exhausted by this terrific strife, the combatants now relaxed their
efforts for a brief space; but while Napoleon used the time of respite
in hurrying up troops from all parts of his vast dominions, the allies
did little to improve their advantage. This inertness is all the more
strange as Prussia and Russia came to closer accord in the Treaty of
Bartenstein (April 26th, 1807).[125]
The two monarchs now recur to the generous scheme of a European peace,
for which the Czar and William Pitt had vainly struggled two years
before. The present war is to be fought out to the end, not so as to
humble France and interfere in her internal concerns, but in order to
assure to Europe the blessings of a solid peace based on the claims of
justice and of national independence. France must be satisfied with
reasonable boundaries, and Prussia be restored to the limits of 1805
or their equivalent. Germany is to be freed from the dictation of the
French, and become a "constitutional federation," with a boundary
"parallel to the Rhine." Austria is to be asked to join the present
league, regaining Tyrol and the Mincio frontier. England and Sweden
must be rallied to the common cause. The allies will also take steps
to cause Denmark to join the league. For the rest, the integrity of
Turkey is to be maintained, and the future of Italy decided in concert
with Austria and England, the Kings of Sardinia and Naples being
restored. Even should Austria, England, and Sweden not join them, yet
Russia and Prussia will continue the struggle and not lay down their
arms save by mutual consent.
Had all the Powers threatened by Napoleon at once come forward and
acted with vigour, these ends might, even now, have been attained. But
Austria merely renewed her offers of mediation, a well-meaning but
hopeless proposal. England, a prey to official incapacity, joined the
league, promised help in men and money, and did little or nothing
except send fruitless expeditions to Alexandria and the Dardanelles
with the aim of forcing the Turks to a peace with Russia. In Sicily we
held our own against Joseph's generals, but had no men to spare for a
diversion against Marmont's forces in Dalmatia, which Alexander urged.
Still less could we send from our own shores any force for the
effective aid of Prussia. Though we had made peace with that Power,
and ordinary prudence might have dictated the taking of steps to save
the coast fortresses, Danzig and Colberg, from the French besiegers,
yet our efforts were limited to the despatch of a few cruisers to the
former stronghold. Even more urgent was the need of rescuing
Stralsund, the chief fortress of Swedish Pomerania. Such an expedition
clearly offered great possibilities with the minimum of risk. From the
Isle of Rügen Mortier's corps could be attacked; and when Stralsund
was freed, a dash on Stettin, then weakly held by the French, promised
an easy success that would raise the whole of North Germany in
Napoleon's rear.[126]
But arguments were thrown away upon the Grenville Ministry, which
clung to its old plan of doing nothing and of doing it expensively.
The Foreign Secretary, Lord Howick, replied that the allies must not
expect any considerable aid from our land forces. Considering that the
Income or War Tax of 2s. in the £ had yielded close on £20,000,000,
and that the army numbered 192,000 men (exclusive of those in India),
this declaration did not shed lustre on the Ministry of all the
Talents. That bankrupt Cabinet, however, was dismissed by George III.
in March, 1807, because it declined to waive the question of Catholic
Emancipation, and its place was filled by the Duke of Portland, with
Canning as Foreign Minister. Soon it was seen that Pitt's cloak had
fallen on worthy shoulders, and a new vigour began to inspirit our
foreign policy. Yet the bad results of frittering away our forces on
distant expeditions could not be wiped out at once. In fact, our
military expert, Lord Cathcart, reported that only some 12,000 men
could at present be spared for service in the Baltic; and, as it would
be beneath our dignity to send so small a force, it would be better to
keep it at home ready to menace any part of the French coast. As to
Stralsund, he thought that plan was more feasible, but that, even
there, the allies would not make head against Mortier's corps.[127]
This is a specimen of the reasoning that was fast rendering Britain
contemptible alike to friends and foes. It is not surprising that such
timorous selfishness should have at last moved the Czar to say to our
envoy: "Act where you please, provided that you act at all."[128] In
the end the new Ministry did venture to act: it engaged to send 20,000
men to the succour of Stralsund; but, with the fatality that then
dogged our steps, that decision was formed on June the 17th, three
days after the Coalition was shattered by the mighty blow of
Friedland.
In striking contrast to the faint-hearted measures of the allies was
the timely energy of Napoleon in bringing up reinforcements. These
were drawn partly from Mortier's corps in Pomerania, now engaged in
watching the Swedes, who made a truce; partly from the Bavarians and
Saxons; but mostly from French troops already in Central Germany,
their places being taken by Italians, Spaniards, Swiss, and Dutch. In
France a new levy of conscripts was ordered--the third since the
outbreak of war with Prussia. The Turks were encouraged to press on
the war against Russia and England; and a mission was sent to the Shah
of Persia to strengthen his arms against the Czar. To this last we
will now advert.
For some time past Napoleon had been coquetting with Persia, and an
embassy from the Shah now came to the castle of Finkenstein, a
beautiful seat not far from the Vistula, where the Emperor spent the
months of spring. A treaty was drawn up, and General Gardane was
deputed to draw closer the bonds of friendship with the Court of
Teheran. The instructions secretly issued to this officer are of great
interest. He is ordered to proceed to Persia by way of Constantinople,
to concert an alliance between Sultan and Shah, to redouble Persia's
efforts against her "natural enemy," Russia, and to examine the means
of invading India. For this purpose a number of officers are sent with
him to examine the routes from Egypt or Syria to Delhi, as also to
report on the harbours in Persia with a view to a maritime expedition,
either by way of Suez or the Cape of Good Hope. The Shah is to be
induced to form a corps of 12,000 men, drilled on the European model
and armed with weapons sold by France. This force will attack the
Russians in Georgia and serve later in an expedition to India. With a
view to the sending of 20,000 French troops to India, Gardane is to
communicate with the Mahratta princes and prepare for this enterprise
by every possible means.
We may note here that Gardane proceeded to Persia and was urging on
the Shah to more active measures against Russia when the news of the
Treaty of Tilsit diverted his efforts towards the east. At the close
of the year, he reported to Napoleon that, for the march overland from
Syria to the Ganges, Cyprus was an indispensable base of supplies: he
recommended the route Bir, Mardin, Teheran, Herat, Cabul, and
Peshawar: forty to fifty thousand French troops would be needed, and
thirty or forty thousand Persians should also be taken up. Nothing
came of these plans; but it is clear that, even when Napoleon was face
to face with formidable foes on the Vistula, his thoughts still turned
longingly to the banks of the Ganges.[129]
The result of Napoleon's activity and the supineness of his foes were
soon apparent. Danzig surrendered to the French on May the 24th, and
Neisse in Silesia a little later; and it was not till the besiegers of
these fortresses came up to swell the French host that Bennigsen
opened the campaign. He was soon to rue the delay. His efforts to
drive the foe from the River Passarge were promptly foiled, and he
retired in haste to his intrenched camp at Heilsberg. There, on June
the 10th, he turned fiercely at bay and dealt heavy losses to the
French vanguard. In vain did Soult's corps struggle up towards the
intrenchments; his men were mown down by grapeshot and musketry: in
vain did Napoleon, who hurried up in the afternoon, launch the
fusiliers of the Guard and a division of Lannes' corps. The Muscovites
held firm, and the day closed ominously for the French. It was Eylau
over again on a small scale.
But Bennigsen was one of those commanders who, after fighting with
great spirit, suffer a relapse. Despite the entreaties of his
generals, he had retreated after Eylau; and now, after a day of
inaction, his columns filed off towards Königsberg under cover of the
darkness. In excuse for this action it has been urged that he had but
two days' supply of bread in the camp, and that a forward move of
Davoust's corps round his right flank threatened to cut him off from
his base of supplies, Königsberg.[130]
The first excuse only exposes him to greater censure. The Russian
habit at that time usually was to live almost from hand to mouth; but
that a carefully-prepared position like that of Heilsberg should be
left without adequate supplies is unpardonable. On the two next days
the rival hosts marched northward, the one to seize, the other to
save, Königsberg. They were separated by the winding vale of the Alle.
But the course of this river favoured Napoleon as much as it hindered
Bennigsen. The Alle below Heilsberg makes a deep bend towards the
north-east, then northwards again towards Friedland, where it comes
within forty miles of Königsberg, but in its lower course flows
north-east until it joins the Pregel.
An army marching from Heilsberg to the old Prussian capital by the
right bank would therefore easily be outstripped by one that could
follow the chord of the arc instead of the irregular arc itself.
Napoleon was in this fortunate position, while the Russians plodded
amid heavy rains over the semicircular route further to the east.
Their mistake in abandoning Heilsberg was now obvious. The Emperor
halted at Eylau on the 13th for news of the Prussians in front and of
Bennigsen on his right flank. Against the former he hurled his chief
masses under the lead of Murat in the hope of seizing Königsberg at
one blow.[131] But, foreseeing that the Russians would probably pass
over the Alle at Friedland he despatched Lannes to Domnau to see
whether they had already crossed in force. Clearly, then, Napoleon did
not foresee what the morrow had in store for him: his aim was to drive
a solid wedge between Bennigsen and the defenders of Königsberg, to
storm that city first, and then to turn on Bennigsen. The claim of
some of Napoleon's admirers that he laid a trap for the Russians at
Friedland, as he had done at Austerlitz, is therefore refuted by the
Emperor's own orders.
None the less did Bennigsen walk into a trap, and one of his own
choosing. Anxious to thrust himself between Napoleon and the old
Prussian capital, he crossed the river at Friedland and sought to
strengthen his position on the left bank by driving Lannes' vanguard
back on Domnau, by throwing three bridges over the stream, and by
crowning the hills on the right bank with a formidable artillery. But
he had to deal with a tough and daring opponent. Throughout the winter
Lannes had been a prey to ill-health and resentment at his chief's
real or fancied injustice: but the heats of summer re-awakened his
thirst for glory and restored him to his wonted vigour. Calling up the
Saxon horse, Grouchy's dragoons, and Oudinot's grenadiers, he held his
ground through the brief hours of darkness. Before dawn he posted his
10,000 troops among the woods and on the plateau of Posthenen that
lies to the west of Friedland and strove to stop the march of 40,000
Russians. After four hours of fighting, his men were about to be
thrust back, when the divisions of Verdier and Dupas--the latter from
Mortier's corps--shared the burden of the fight until the sun was at
its zenith. When once more the fight was doubtful, the dense columns
of Ney and Victor were to be seen, and by desperate efforts the French
vanguard held its ground until this welcome aid arrived.
Napoleon, having received Lannes' urgent appeals for help, now rode up
in hot haste, and in response to the cheers of his weary troops
repeatedly exclaimed: "Today is a lucky day, the anniversary of
Marengo." Their ardour was excited to the highest pitch, Oudinot
saluting his chief with the words: "Quick, sire! my grenadiers can
hold no longer: but give me reinforcements and I'll pitch the Russians
into the river."[132] The Emperor cautiously gave them pause: the
fresh troops marched to the front and formed the first line, those who
had fought for nine hours now forming the supports. Ney held the post
of honour in the woods on the right flank, nearly above Friedland;
behind him was the corps of Bernadotte, which, since the disabling of
that Marshal by a wound had been led by General Victor: there too were
the dragoons of Latour-Maubourg, and the imposing masses of the Guard.
In the centre, but bending in towards the rear, stood the remnant of
Lannes' indomitable corps, now condemned for a time to comparative
inactivity; and defensive tactics were also enjoined on
Mortier and Grouchy on the left wing, until Ney and Victor should
decide the fortunes of the second fight. The Russians, as if bent on
favouring Napoleon's design, continued to deploy in front of
Friedland, keeping up the while a desultory fight; and Bennigsen,
anxious now about his communications with Königsberg, detached 6,000
men down the right bank of the river towards Wehlau. Only 46,000 men
were thus left to defend Friedland against a force that now numbered
80,000: yet no works were thrown up to guard the bridges--and this
after the arrival of Napoleon with strong reinforcements was known by
the excitement along the enemy's front.
[Illustration: BATTLE OF FRIEDLAND]
Nevertheless, as late as 3 p.m., Napoleon was in doubt whether he
should not await the arrival of Murat. At his instructions, Berthier
ordered that Marshal to leave Soult at Königsberg and hurry back with
Davoust and the cavalry towards Friedland: "If I perceive at the
beginning of this fight that the enemy is in too great force, I might
be content with cannonading to-day and awaiting your arrival." But a
little later the Emperor decides for instant attack. The omens are all
favourable. If driven back the Russians will fight with their backs to
a deep river. Besides, their position is cut in twain by a mill-stream
which flows in a gulley, and near the town is dammed up so as to form
a small lake. Below this lies Friedland in a deep bend of the river
itself. Into this _cul-de-sac_ he will drive the Russian left, and
fling their broken lines into the lake and river.
At five o'clock a salvo of twenty guns opened the second and greater
battle of Friedland. To rush on the Muscovite van and clear it from
the wood of Sortlack was for Ney's leading division the work of a
moment; but on reaching the open ground their ranks were ploughed by
the shot of the Russian guns ranged on the hills beyond the river.
Staggered by this fire, the division was wavering, when the Russian
Guards and their choicest squadrons of horse charged home with deadly
effect. But Ney's second division, led by the gallant Dupont, hurried
up to restore the balance, while Latour-Maubourg's dragoons fell on
the enemy's horsemen and drove them pell-mell towards Friedland.
The Russian artillery fared little better: Napoleon directed Sénarmont
with thirty-six guns to take it in flank and it was soon overpowered.
Freed now from the Russian grapeshot and sabres, Ney held on his
course like a torrent that masters a dam, reached the upper part of
the lake, and threw the bewildered foe into its waters or into the
town. Friedland was now a death-trap: huddled together, plied by
shell, shot and bayonet, the Russians fought from street to street
with the energy of despair, but little by little were driven back on
the bridges. No help was to be found there; for Sénarmont, bringing up
his guns, swept the bridges with a terrific fire: when part of the
Russian left and centre had fled across, they burst into flames, a
signal that warned their comrades further north of their coming doom.
On that side, too, a general advance of the French drove the enemy
back towards the steep banks of the river. But on those open plains
the devotion and prowess of the Muscovite cavalry bore ampler fruit:
charging the foe while in the full swing of victory, these gallant
riders gave time for the infantry to attempt the dangers of a deep
ford: hundreds were drowned, but others, along with most of the guns,
stole away in the darkness down the left bank of the river.
On the morrow Bennigsen's army was a mass of fugitives straggling
towards the Pregel and fighting with one another for a chance to cross
its long narrow bridge. Even on the other side they halted not, but
wandered on towards the Niemen, no longer an army but an armed mob. On
its banks they were joined by the defenders of Königsberg, who after a
stout stand cut their way through Soult's lines and made for Tilsit.
There, behind the broad stream of the Niemen, the fugitives found
rest.
It will always be a mystery why Bennigsen held on to Friedland after
French reinforcements arrived; and the feeling of wonder and
exasperation finds expression in the report of our envoy, Lord
Hutchinson, founded on the information of two British officers who
were at the Russian headquarters:
"Many of the circumstances attending the Battle of Friedland are
unexampled in the annals of war. We crossed the River Alle, not
knowing whether we had to contend with a corps or the whole French
army. From the commencement of the battle it was manifest that we
had a great deal to lose and probably little to gain: ... General
Bennigsen would, I believe, have retired early in the day from
ground which he ought never to have occupied; but the corps in our
front made so vigorous a resistance that, though occasionally we
gained a little ground, yet we were never able to drive them from
the woods or the village of Heinrichsdorf."[133]
This evidence shows the transcendent services of Lannes, Oudinot, and
Grouchy in the early part of the day; and it is clear that, as at
Jena, no great battle would have been fought at all but for the valour
and tenacity with which Lannes clung to the foe until Napoleon came
up.
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