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.
[Illustration: The Battle of Friedland
By Horace Vernet]
“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.