_Death of Pitt--He is succeeded by Fox as Prime
Minister--Negotiation with France--The Earl of Lauderdale sent to
Paris as the British Negotiator--Negotiation broken off, in
consequence of the refusal of England to cede Sicily to
France--Temporizing Policy of Prussia--An attempt made by her to
form a Confederacy in opposition to that of the Rhine, defeated by
Napoleon--General Disposition of the Prussians to War--Legal Murder
of Palm, a bookseller--The Emperor Alexander again visits
Berlin--Prussia begins to arm in August 1806, and, after some
Negotiation, takes the field in October, under the Duke of
Brunswick--Impolicy of the Plans of the Campaign--Details--Action at
Saalfeld--Battle of Auerstadt, or Jena, on 14th October--Duke of
Brunswick mortally wounded--Consequences of this total
Defeat--Buonaparte takes possession of Berlin on the
25th--Situations of Austria and Prussia, after their several
Defeats--Reflections on the fall of Prussia._
[Sidenote: DEATH OF PITT.]
The death of William Pitt [23d Jan.] was accelerated by the campaign of
Ulm and Austerlitz, as his health had been previously injured by the
defeat of Marengo. Great as he was as a statesman, ardent in patriotism,
and comprehensive in his political views, it had been too much the habit
of that great minister, to trust, for some re-establishment of the
balance of power on the continent, to the exertions of the ancient
European governments, whose efforts had gradually become fainter and
fainter, and their spirits more and more depressed, when opposed to the
power of Buonaparte, whose blows, like the thunderbolt, seemed to
inflict inevitable ruin wherever they burst. But, while resting too much
hope on coalitions, placing too much confidence in foreign armies, and
too little considering, perhaps, what might have been achieved by our
own, had sufficient numbers been employed on adequate objects, Pitt
maintained with unabated zeal the great principle of resistance to
France, unless France should be disposed to show, that, satisfied with
the immense power which she possessed, her Emperor was willing to leave
to the rest of Europe such precarious independence as his victorious
arms had not yet bereft them of.
The British prime minister was succeeded, upon his death, by the
statesman to whom, in life, he had waged the most uniform opposition.
Charles Fox, now at the head of the British Government, had uniformly
professed to believe it possible to effect a solid and lasting peace
with France, and, in the ardour of debate, had repeatedly thrown on his
great adversary the blame that such had not been accomplished. When he
himself became possessed of the supreme power of administration, he was
naturally disposed to realize his predictions, if Napoleon should be
found disposed to admit a treaty upon any thing like equal terms. In a
visit to Paris during the peace of Amiens, Mr. Fox had been received
with great distinction by Napoleon. The private relations betwixt them
were, therefore, of an amicable nature, and gave an opening for friendly
intercourse.
The time, too, appeared favourable for negotiation; for whatever
advantages had been derived by France from her late triumphant campaign
on the continent, were, so far as Britain was concerned, neutralized and
outbalanced by the destruction of the combined fleets. All possibility
of invasion--which appears before this event to have warmly engrossed
the imagination of Napoleon--seemed at an end and for ever. The delusion
which represented a united navy of fifty sail of the line triumphantly
occupying the British Channel, and escorting an overpowering force to
the shores of England, was dispelled by the cannon of 21st October. The
gay dreams, which painted a victorious army marching to London,
reforming the state of England by the destruction of her aristocracy,
and reducing her to her natural condition, as Napoleon termed it, of
such a dependency on France as the island of Oleron or of Corsica, were
gone. After the battle of Trafalgar, all hopes were extinguished, that
the fair provinces of England could, in any possible event, have been
cut up into new fiefs of the French empire. It was no longer to be
dreamed, that _Dotations_, as they were termed, might be formed upon the
Royal Exchange for the payment of annuities by hundreds of thousands,
and by millions, for rewarding the soldiers of the Great Nation. To work
purses for the French officers, that they might be filled with British
gold, had of late been a favourite amusement among the fair ladies of
France; but it was now evident that they had laboured in vain. All these
hopes and projects were swallowed up in the billows which entombed the
wrecks of Trafalgar.
In a word, if Austria had fallen in the contest of 1805, Britain stood
more pre-eminent than ever; and it might have been rationally expected,
that the desire of war, on the part of Napoleon, should have ended, when
every prospect of bringing that war to the conclusive and triumphant
termination which he meditated, had totally disappeared. The views of
the British Cabinet, also, we have said, were now amicable, and an
incident occurred for opening a negotiation, under circumstances which
seemed to warrant the good faith of the English ministers.
[Sidenote: NEGOTIATION WITH ENGLAND.]
A person pretending to be an adherent of the Bourbons, but afterwards
pretty well understood to be an agent of the French Government, acting
upon the paltry system of espionage which had infected both their
internal and exterior relations, obtained an audience of Mr. Fox, for
the purpose, as he pretended, of communicating to the British minister a
proposal for the assassination of Buonaparte. It had happened, that Mr.
Fox, in conversation with Napoleon, while at Paris, had indignantly
repelled a charge of this kind, which the latter brought against some of
the English Ministry. "Clear your head of that nonsense," was said to be
his answer, with more of English bluntness than of French politeness.
Perhaps Buonaparte was desirous of knowing whether his practice would
keep pace with his principles, and on this principle had encouraged the
spy. Fox, as was to be expected, not only repelled with abhorrence the
idea suggested by this French agent, but caused it to be communicated to
the French Emperor;[223] and this gave rise to some friendly
communication, and finally to a negotiation for peace. Lord Yarmouth,
and afterwards Lord Lauderdale, acted for the British Government;
Champagny and General Clarke for the Emperor of France. Napoleon, who,
like most foreigners, had but an inaccurate idea of the internal
structure of the British constitution, had expected to find a French
party in the bosom of England, and was surprised to find that a few
miscreants of the lowest rank, whom he had been able to bribe, were the
only English who were accessible to foreign influence; and that the
party which had opposed the war with France in all its stages, were
nevertheless incapable of desiring to see it cease on such terms as were
dishonourable to the country.
The French commissioners made several concessions, and even intimated,
in verbal conference with Lord Yarmouth, that they would be content to
treat upon the principle of _uti possidetis_; that is, of allowing each
party to retain such advantages as she had been able to gain by her arms
during the war. But when the treaty was farther advanced, the French
negotiators resisted this rule, and showed themselves disposed to deny
that they had ever assented to it.
They were, indeed, willing to resign a long contested point, and
consented that the island of Malta, with the Cape of Good Hope, and
other possessions in the East and West Indies, should remain under the
dominion of Great Britain. But then they exacted the surrender of Sicily
and Naples, proposing that Frederick IV. should be indemnified at the
expense of Spain by the cession of the Balearic isles. Britain could not
implicitly consent to this last proposition, either in policy, or in
justice to her unfortunate ally. Naples was indeed occupied by the
French, and had received Joseph Buonaparte as her King; but the insular
situation of Sicily rendered it easy for Britain to protect that rich
island, which was still in the possession of its legitimate monarch. The
principle of _uti possidetis_ was, therefore, in favour of the English,
so far as Sicily was concerned, as it was in that of the French in the
case of Naples. The English envoy, for this reason, refused an
ultimatum, in which the cession of Sicily was made an indispensable
article. Lord Lauderdale, at the same time, demanded his passports,
which, however, he did not receive for several days, as if there had
been some hopes of renewing the treaty.[224]
Buonaparte was put to considerable inconvenience by the shrewdness and
tenacity of the noble negotiator, and had not forgotten them when, in
1815, he found himself on board the Bellerophon, commanded by a relation
of the noble earl.[225] It is indeed probable, that, had Mr. Fox lived,
the negotiation might have been renewed. That eminent statesman, then in
his last illness, was desirous to accomplish two great objects--peace
with France, and the abolition of the slave trade. But although
Buonaparte's deference for Fox might have induced him to concede some of
the points in dispute, and although the British statesman's desire of
peace might have made him relinquish others on the part of England,
still, while the two nations retained their relative power and
positions, the deep jealousy and mutual animosity which subsisted
between them would probably have rendered any peace which could have
been made a mere suspension of arms--a hollow and insincere truce, which
was almost certain to give way on the slightest occasion. Britain could
never have seen with indifference Buonaparte making one stride after
another towards universal dominion; and Buonaparte could not long have
borne with patience the neighbourhood of our free institutions and our
free press; the former of which must have perpetually reminded the
French of the liberty they had lost, while the latter was sure to make
the Emperor, his government, and his policy, the daily subject of the
most severe and unsparing criticism. Even the war with Prussia and
Russia, in which Napoleon was soon afterwards engaged, would, in all
probability, have renewed the hostilities between France and England,
supposing them to have been terminated for a season by a temporary
peace. Yet Napoleon always spoke of the death of Fox as one of the
fatalities on which his great designs were shipwrecked;[226] which makes
it the more surprising that he did not resume intercourse with the
administration formed under his auspices, and who might have been
supposed to be animated by his principles even after his decease. That
he did not do so may be fairly received in evidence to show, that peace,
unless on terms which he could dictate, was not desired by him.
[Sidenote: PRUSSIA.]
As the conduct of Prussia had been fickle and versatile during the
campaign of Austerlitz, the displeasure of Napoleon was excited in
proportion against her. She had, it is true, wrenched from him an
unwilling acquiescence in her views upon Hanover. By the treaty which
Haugwitz had signed at Vienna, after the battle of Austerlitz, it was
agreed that Prussia should receive the electoral dominions of the King
of England, his ally, instead of Anspach, Bareuth, and Neufchatel, which
she was to cede to France. The far superior value of Hanover was to be
considered as a boon to Prussia, in guerdon of her neutrality. But
Napoleon did not forgive the hostile disposition which Prussia had
manifested, and it is probable he waited with anxiety for the
opportunity of inflicting upon her condign chastisement. He continued to
maintain a large army in Swabia and Franconia, and, by introducing
troops into Westphalia, intimated, not obscurely, an approaching rupture
with his ally. Meantime, under the influence of conflicting councils,
Prussia proceeded in a course of politics which rendered her odious for
her rapacity, and contemptible for the shortsighted views under which
she indulged it.
It was no matter of difficulty for the Prussian forces to take
possession of Hanover, which, when evacuated by Bernadotte and his army,
lay a prey to the first invader, with the exception of the fortress of
Hamelen, still occupied by a French garrison. The electorate, the
hereditary dominions of the King of Great Britain, with whom Prussia was
at profound peace, was accordingly seized upon, and her Cabinet
pretended to justify that usurpation by alleging, that Hanover, having
been transferred to France by the rights of war, had been ceded to the
Prussian Government in exchange for other districts. At the same time,
an order of the Prussian monarch shut his ports in the Baltic against
the admission of British vessels. These measures, taken together, were
looked upon by England as intimating determined and avowed hostility;
and Fox described, in the House of Commons, the conduct of Prussia, as a
compound of the most hateful rapacity with the most contemptible
servility.[227] War was accordingly declared against her by Great
Britain; and her flag being banished from the ocean by the English
cruizers, the mouth of the Elbe and the Prussian seaports were declared
in a state of blockade, and her trade was subjected to a corresponding
degree of distress.
Meantime, it was the fate of Prussia to find, that she held by a very
insecure tenure that very electorate, the price of her neutrality at
Austerlitz, and which was farther purchased at the expense of war with
England. Her ministers, while pressing France to confirm the cession of
Hanover, had the mortification to discover that Napoleon, far from
regarding the Prussian right in it as indefeasible, was in fact
negotiating for a general peace upon the condition, amongst others, that
the electorate should be restored to the King of England, its
hereditary sovereign. While the disclosure of this double game showed
Frederick William upon what insecure footing he held the premium
assigned to Prussia by the treaty of Vienna, farther discovery of the
projects of France seemed to impel him to change the pacific line of his
policy.
Hitherto the victories of Napoleon had had for their chief consequences
the depression of Austria, and the diminution of that power which was
the natural and ancient rival of the House of Brandenburg. But now, when
Austria was thrust back to the eastward, and deprived of her influence
in the south-west of Germany, Prussia saw with just alarm that France
was assuming that influence herself, and that, unless opposed, she was
likely to become as powerful in the north of Germany, as she had
rendered herself in the south-western circles. Above all, Prussia was
alarmed at the Confederacy of the Rhine, an association which placed
under the direct influence of France, so large a proportion of what had
been lately component parts of the Germanic empire. The dissolution of
the Germanic empire itself was an event no less surprising and
embarrassing; for, besides all the other important points, in which the
position of Prussia was altered by the annihilation of that ancient
confederacy, she lost thereby the prospect of her own monarch being,
upon the decline of Austria, chosen to wear the imperial crown, as the
most powerful member of the federation.
One way remained, to balance the new species of power which France had
acquired by these innovations on the state of Europe. It was possible,
by forming the northern princes of the German empire into a league of
the same character with the Confederacy of the Rhine, having Prussia
instead of France for its protector, to create such an equilibrium as
might render it difficult or dangerous for Buonaparte to use his means,
however greatly enlarged, to disturb the peace of the north of Europe.
It was, therefore, determined in the Prussian Cabinet to form a league
on this principle.
This proposed Northern Confederacy, however, could not well be
established without communication with France; and Buonaparte, though
offering no direct opposition to the formation of a league, sanctioned
by the example of that of the Rhine, started such obstacles to the
project in detail, as were likely to render its establishment on an
effectual footing impossible. It was said by his ministers, that
Napoleon was to take the Hanseatic towns under his own immediate
protection; that the wise prince who governed Saxony showed no desire to
become a member of the proposed Confederacy; and that France would
permit no power to be forced into such a measure. Finally, the Landgrave
of Hesse Cassel, who was naturally reckoned upon as an important member
of the proposed Northern League, was tampered with to prevail upon him
to join the Confederacy of the Rhine, instead of that which was
proposed to be formed under the protectorate of Prussia. This prince,
afraid to decide which of these powerful nations he should adhere to,
remained in a state of neutrality, notwithstanding the offers of France;
and, by doing so, incurred the displeasure of Napoleon, from which in
the sequel he suffered severely.
By this partial interruption and opposition, Napoleon rendered it
impossible for Prussia to make any effectual efforts for combining
together those remaining fragments of the German empire, over which her
military power and geographical position gave her natural influence.
This disappointment, with the sense of having been outwitted by the
French Government, excited feelings of chagrin and resentment in the
Prussian Cabinet, which corresponded with the sentiments expressed by
the nation at large. In the former, the predominant feeling was, despite
for disappointed hopes, and a desire of revenge on the sovereign and
state by whom they had been over-reached; in the latter, there prevailed
a keen and honourable sense that Prussia had lost her character through
the truckling policy of her Administration.
Whatever reluctance the Cabinet of Berlin had shown to enter into
hostilities with France, the court and country never appear to have
shared that sensation. The former was under the influence of the young,
beautiful, and high-spirited Queen, and of Louis of Prussia, a prince
who felt with impatience the decaying importance of that kingdom, which
the victories of the Great Frederick had raised to such a pitch of
glory. These were surrounded by a numerous band of noble youths,
impatient for war, as the means of emulating the fame of their fathers;
but ignorant how little likely were even the powerful and
well-disciplined forces of Frederick, unless directed by his genius, to
succeed in opposition to troops not inferior to themselves, and
conducted by a leader who had long appeared to chain victory to his
chariot wheels. The sentiments of the young Prussian noblesse were
sufficiently indicated, by their going to sharpen their sabres on the
threshold of La Foret, the ambassador of Napoleon, and the wilder frolic
of breaking the windows of the ministers supposed to be in the French
interest. The Queen appeared frequently in the uniform of the regiment
which bore her name, and sometimes rode at their head, to give
enthusiasm to the soldiery. This was soon excited to the highest pitch;
and had the military talents of the Prussian generals borne any
correspondence to the gallantry of the officers and soldiers, an issue
to the campaign might have been expected far different from that which
took place. The manner in which the characters of the Queen, the King,
and Prince Louis, were treated in the _Moniteur_, tended still more to
exasperate the quarrel; for Napoleon's studious and cautious exclusion
from the government paper of such political articles as had not his own
previous approbation, rendered him in reason accountable for all which
appeared there.
The people of Prussia at large were clamorous for war. They, too, were
sensible that the late versatile conduct of their Cabinet had exposed
them to the censure, and even the scorn of Europe; and that Buonaparte,
seeing the crisis ended in which the firmness of Prussia might have
preserved the balance of Europe, retained no longer any respect for
those whom he had made his dupes, but treated with total disregard the
remonstrances, which, before the advantages obtained at Ulm and
Austerlitz, he must have listened to with respect and deference.
Another circumstance of a very exasperating character took place at this
time. One Palm, a bookseller at Nuremberg, had exposed to sale a
pamphlet,[228] containing remarks on the conduct of Napoleon, in which
the Emperor and his policy were treated with considerable severity. The
bookseller was seized upon for this offence by the French gendarmes, and
transferred to Braunau, where he was brought before a military
commission, tried for a libel on the Emperor of France, found guilty,
and shot to death [Aug. 26] in terms of his sentence. The murder of this
poor man, for such it literally was, whether immediately flowing from
Buonaparte's mandate,[229] or the effects of the furious zeal of some of
his officers, excited deep and general indignation.[230]
The constitution of many of the states in Germany is despotic; but,
nevertheless, the number of independent principalities, and the
privileges of the free towns, have always ensured to the nation at large
the blessings of a free press, which, much addicted as they are to
literature, the Germans value as it deserves. The cruel effort now made
to fetter this unshackled expression of opinion, was, of course, most
unfavourable to his authority by whom it had been commanded. The
thousand presses of Germany continued on every possible opportunity to
dwell on the fate of Palm; and, at the distance of six or seven years
from his death, it might be reckoned among the leading causes which
ultimately determined the popular opinion against Napoleon. It had not
less effect at the time when the crime was committed; and the eyes of
all Germany were turned upon Prussia, as the only member of the late
Holy Roman League, by whom the progress of the public enemy of the
liberties of Europe could be arrested in its course.
Amidst the general ferment of the public mind, Alexander once more
appeared in person at the court of Berlin, and, more successful than on
the former occasion, prevailed on the King of Prussia at length to
unsheath the sword. The support of the powerful hosts of Russia was
promised; and, defeated on the fatal field of Austerlitz in his attempt
to preserve the south-east of Germany from French influence, Alexander
now stood forth to assist Prussia as the Champion of the North. An
attempt had indeed been made through means of D'Oubril, a Russian envoy
at Paris, to obtain a general peace for Europe, in concurrence with that
which Lord Lauderdale was endeavouring to negotiate on the part of
Britain; but the treaty entirely miscarried.
While Prussia thus declared herself the enemy of France, it seemed to
follow, as a matter of course, that she should become once more the
friend of Britain; and, indeed, that power lost no time in manifesting
an amicable disposition on her part, by recalling the order which
blockaded the Prussian ports, and annihilated her commerce. But the
Cabinet of Berlin evinced, in the moment when about to commence
hostilities, the same selfish insincerity which had dictated all their
previous conduct. While sufficiently desirous of obtaining British money
to maintain the approaching war, they showed great reluctance to part
with Hanover, an acquisition made in a manner so unworthy; and the
Prussian minister, Lucchesini, did not hesitate to tell the British
ambassador, Lord Morpeth, that the fate of the electorate would depend
upon the event of arms.
Little good could be augured from the interposition of a power, who,
pretending to arm in behalf of the rights of nations, refused to part
with an acquisition which she herself had made, contrary to all the
rules of justice and good faith. Still less was a favourable event to be
hoped for, when the management of the war was intrusted to the same
incapable or faithless ministers, who had allowed every opportunity to
escape of asserting the rights of Prussia, when, perhaps, her assuming a
firm attitude might have prevented the necessity of war altogether. But
the resolution which had been delayed, when so many favourable occasions
were suffered to escape unemployed, was at length adopted with an
imprudent precipitation, which left Prussia neither time to adopt the
wisest warlike measures, nor to look out for those statesmen and
generals by whom such measures could have been most effectually
executed.
[Sidenote: PRUSSIA ARMS AGAINST FRANCE.]
About the middle of August, Prussia began to arm. Perhaps there are few
examples of a war declared with the almost unanimous consent of a great
and warlike people, which was brought to an earlier and more unhappy
termination. On the 1st of October, Knobelsdorff, the Prussian envoy,
was called upon by Talleyrand to explain the cause of the martial
attitude assumed by his state. In reply, a paper was delivered,
containing three propositions, or rather demands. First, That the French
troops which had entered the German territory, should instantly recross
the Rhine. Secondly, That France should desist from presenting obstacles
to the formation of a league in the northern part of Germany, to
comprehend all the states, without exception, which had not been
included in the Confederation of the Rhine. Thirdly, That negotiations
should be immediately commenced, for the purpose of detaching the
fortress of Wesel from the French empire, and for the restitution of
three abbeys,[231] which Murat had chosen to seize upon as a part of his
Duchy of Berg. With this manifesto[232] was delivered a long explanatory
letter, containing severe remarks on the system of encroachment which
France had acted upon. Such a text and commentary, considering their
peremptory tone, and the pride and power of him to whom they were
addressed in such unqualified terms, must have been understood to amount
to a declaration of war. And yet, although Prussia, in common with all
Europe, had just reason to complain of the encroachments of France, and
her rapid strides to universal empire, it would appear that the two
first articles in the King's declaration, were subjects rather of
negotiation than grounds of an absolute declaration of war; and that the
fortress of Wesel, and the three abbeys, were scarce of importance
enough to plunge the whole empire into blood for the sake of them.
Prussia, indeed, was less actually aggrieved than she was mortified and
offended. She saw she had been outwitted by Buonaparte in the
negotiation of Vienna; that he was juggling with her in the matter of
Hanover; that she was in danger of beholding Saxony and Hesse withdrawn
from her protection, to be placed under that of France; and under a
general sense of these injuries, though rather apprehended than really
sustained, she hurried to the field. If negotiations could have been
protracted till the advance of the Russian armies, it might have given a
different face to the war; but in the warlike ardour which possessed the
Prussians, they were desirous to secure the advantages which, in
military affairs, belong to the assailants, without weighing the
circumstances which, in their situation, rendered such precipitation
fatal.
Besides, such advantages were not easily to be obtained over Buonaparte,
who was not a man to be amused by words when the moment of action
arrived. Four days before the delivery of the Prussian note to his
minister, Buonaparte had left Paris, and was personally in the field
collecting his own immense forces, and urging the contribution of those
contingents which the Confederate Princes of the Rhine were bound to
supply. His answer to the hostile note of the King of Prussia was
addressed, not to that monarch, but to his own soldiers. "They have
dared to demand," he said, "that we should retreat at the first sight of
their army. Fools! could they not reflect how impossible they found it
to destroy Paris, a task incomparably more easy than to tarnish the
honour of the Great Nation! Let the Prussian army expect the same fate
which they encountered fourteen years ago, since experience has not
taught them, that while it is easy to acquire additional dominions and
increase of power, by the friendship of France, her enmity, on the
contrary, which will only be provoked by those who are totally destitute
of sense and reason, is more terrible than the tempests of the ocean."
The King of Prussia had again placed at the head of his armies the Duke
of Brunswick. In his youth, this general had gained renown under his
uncle Prince Ferdinand. But it had been lost in the retreat from
Champagne in 1792, where he had suffered himself to be out-manœuvred
by Dumouriez and his army of conscripts. He was seventy-two years old,
and is said to have added the obstinacy of age to others of the
infirmities which naturally attend it. He was not communicative, nor
accessible to any of the other generals, excepting Mollendorf; and this
generated a disunion of councils in the Prussian camp, and the personal
dislike of the army to him by whom it was commanded.
[Sidenote: PLANS OF THE CAMPAIGN.]
The plan of the campaign, formed by this ill-fated prince, seems to have
been singularly injudicious, and the more so, as it is censurable on
exactly the same grounds as that of Austria in the late war. Prussia
could not expect to have the advantage of numbers in the contest. It
was, therefore, her obvious policy to procrastinate and lengthen out
negotiation, until she could have the advantage of the Russian forces.
Instead of this, it was determined to rush forward towards Franconia,
and oppose the Prussian army alone to the whole force of France,
commanded by their renowned Emperor.
The motive, too, was similar to that which had determined Austria to
advance as far as the banks of the Iller. Saxony was in the present
campaign, as Bavaria in the former, desirous of remaining neuter; and
the hasty advance of the Prussian armies was designed to compel the
Elector Augustus to embrace their cause. It succeeded accordingly; and
the sovereign of Saxony united his forces, though reluctantly, with the
left wing of the Prussians, under Prince Hohenloe. The conduct of the
Prussians towards the Saxons bore the same ominous resemblance to that
of the Austrians to the Bavarians. Their troops behaved in the country
of Saxony more as if they were in the land of a tributary than an ally,
and while the assistance of the good and peaceable prince was sternly
exacted, no efforts were made to conciliate his good-will, or soothe the
pride of his subjects. In their behaviour to the Saxons in general, the
Prussians showed too much of the haughty spirit that goes before a fall.
The united force of the Prussian army, with its auxiliaries, amounted to
one hundred and fifty thousand men,[233] confident in their own
courage, in the rigid discipline which continued to distinguish their
service, and in the animating recollections of the victorious career of
the Great Frederick. There were many generals and soldiers in their
ranks who had served under him; but, amongst that troop of veterans,
Blucher alone was destined to do distinguished honour to the school.
Notwithstanding these practical errors, the address of the Prussian King
to his army was in better taste than the vaunting proclamation of
Buonaparte, and concluded with a passage, which, though its
accomplishment was long delayed, nevertheless proved at last
prophetic:--"We go," said Frederick William, "to encounter an enemy, who
has vanquished numerous armies, humiliated monarchs, destroyed
constitutions, and deprived more than one state of its independence, and
even of its very name. He has threatened a similar fate to Prussia, and
proposes to reduce us to the dominion of a strange people, who would
suppress the very name of Germans. The fate of armies, and of nations,
is in the hands of the Almighty; but constant victory, and durable
prosperity, are never granted, save to the cause of justice."
While Buonaparte assembled in Franconia an army considerably superior in
number to that of the Prussians, the latter occupied the country in the
vicinity of the river Saale, and seemed, in doing so, to renounce all
the advantage of making the attack on the enemy ere he had collected his
forces. Yet, to make such an attack was, and must have been, the
principal motive of their hasty and precipitate advance; especially
after they had secured its primary object, the accession of Saxony to
the campaign. The position which the Duke of Brunswick occupied was
indeed very strong as a defensive one, but the means of supporting so
large an army were not easily to be obtained in such a barren country as
that about Weimar; and their magazines and depôts of provisions were
injudiciously placed, not close in the rear of the army, but at
Naumburg, and other places, upon their extreme left, and where they were
exposed to the risk of being separated from them. It might be partly
owing to the difficulty of obtaining forage and subsistence, that the
Prussian army was extended upon a line by far too much prolonged to
admit of mutual support. Indeed, they may be considered rather as
disposed in cantonments than as occupying a military position; and as
they remained strictly on the defensive, an opportunity was gratuitously
afforded to Buonaparte to attack their divisions in detail, of which he
did not fail to avail himself with his usual talent. The headquarters of
the Prussians, where were the King and Duke of Brunswick, were at
Weimar; their left, under Prince Hohenloe, were at Schleitz; and their
right extended as far as Muhlhausen, leaving thus a space of ninety
miles betwixt the extreme flanks of their line.
Buonaparte, in the meantime, commenced the campaign, according to his
custom, by a series of partial actions fought on different points, in
which his usual combinations obtained his usual success; the whole
tending to straiten the Prussians in their position, to interrupt their
communications, separate them from their supplies, and compel them to
fight a decisive battle from necessity, not choice, in which dispirited
troops, under baffled and outwitted generals, were to encounter with
soldiers who had already obtained a foretaste of victory, and who fought
under the most renowned commanders, the combined efforts of the whole
being directed by the master spirit of the age.
Upon the 8th October, Buonaparte gave vent to his resentment in a
bulletin, in which he complained of having received a letter of twenty
pages, signed by the King of Prussia, being, as he alleged, a sort of
wretched pamphlet, such as England engaged hireling authors to compose
at the rate of five hundred pounds sterling a-year. "I am sorry," he
said, "for my brother, who does not understand the French language, and
has certainly never read that rhapsody." The same publication contained
much in ridicule of the Queen and Prince Louis.[234] It bears evident
marks of Napoleon's own composition, which was as singular, though not
so felicitous, as his mode of fighting; but it was of little use to
censure either the style or the reasoning of the lord of so many
legions. His arms soon made the impression which he desired upon the
position of the enemy.
The French advanced, in three divisions, upon the dislocated and
extended disposition of the large but ill-arranged Prussian army. It was
a primary and irretrievable fault of the Duke of Brunswick, that his
magazines, and reserves of artillery and ammunition were placed at
Naumburg, instead of being close in the rear of his army, and under the
protection of his main body. This ill-timed separation rendered it easy
for the French to interpose betwixt the Prussians and their supplies,
providing they were able to clear the course of the Saale.
[Sidenote: ACTION AT SAALFIELD.]
With this view the French right wing, commanded by Soult and Ney,
marched upon Hof. The centre was under Bernadotte and Davoust, with the
guard commanded by Murat. They moved on Saalburg and Schleitz. The left
wing was led by Augereau against Coburg and Saalfield. It was the object
of this grand combined movement to overwhelm the Prussian right wing,
which was extended farther than prudence permitted; and, having beaten
this part of the army, to turn their whole position, and possess
themselves of their magazines. After some previous skirmishes, a serious
action took place at Saalfield, where Prince Louis of Prussia commanded
the advanced guard of the Prussian left wing.
In the ardour and inexperience of youth, the brave prince, instead of
being contented with defending the bridge on the Saale, quitted that
advantageous position, to advance with unequal forces against Lannes,
who was marching upon him from Graffenthal. If bravery could have atoned
for imprudence, the battle of Saalfield would not have been lost. Prince
Louis showed the utmost gallantry in leading his men when they advanced,
and in rallying them when they fled. He was killed fighting hand to hand
with a French subaltern, who required him to surrender, and, receiving a
sabre-wound for reply, plunged his sword into the prince's body. Several
of his staff fell around him.[235]
The victory of Saalfield opened the course of the Saale to the French,
who instantly advanced on Naumburg. Buonaparte was at Gera, within half
a day's journey from the latter city, whence he sent a letter to the
King of Prussia, couched in the language of a victor, (for victorious he
already felt himself by his numbers and position,) and seasoned with the
irony of a successful foe. He regretted his good brother had been made
to sign the wretched pamphlet which had borne his name, but which he
protested he did not impute to him as his composition. Had Prussia asked
any practicable favour of him, he said he would have granted it; but she
had asked his dishonour, and ought to have known there could be but one
answer. In consideration of their former friendship, Napoleon stated
himself to be ready to restore peace to Prussia and her monarch; and,
advising his good brother to dismiss such counsellors as recommended the
present war and that of 1792, he bade him heartily farewell.[236]
Buonaparte neither expected nor received any answer to this missive,
which was written under the exulting sensations experienced by the
angler, when he feels the fish is hooked, and about to become his secure
prey. Naumburg and its magazines were consigned to the flames, which
first announced to the Prussians that the French army had gotten
completely into their rear, had destroyed their magazines, and, being
now interposed betwixt them and Saxony, left them no alternative save
that of battle, which was to be waged at the greatest disadvantage with
an alert enemy, to whom their supineness had already given the choice
of time and place for it. There was also this ominous consideration,
that, in case of disaster, the Prussians had neither principle, nor
order, nor line of retreat. The enemy were betwixt them and Magdeburg,
which ought to have been their rallying point; and the army of the Great
Frederick was, it must be owned, brought to combat with as little
reflection or military science, as a herd of school-boys might have
displayed in a mutiny.
[Sidenote: AUERSTADT.]
Too late determined to make some exertion to clear their communications
to the rear, the Duke of Brunswick, with the King of Prussia in person,
marched with great part of their army to the recovery of Naumburg. Here
Davoust, who had taken the place, remained at the head of a division of
six-and-thirty thousand men, with whom he was to oppose nearly double
the number. The march of the Duke of Brunswick was so slow, as to lose
the advantage of this superiority. He paused on the evening of the
thirteenth on the heights of Auerstadt, and gave Davoust time to
reinforce the troops with which he occupied the strong defile of Koesen.
The next morning, Davoust, with strong reinforcements, but still unequal
in numbers to the Prussians, marched towards the enemy, whose columns
were already in motion. The vanguard of both armies met, without
previously knowing that they were so closely approaching each other, so
thick lay the mist upon the ground.
The village of Hassen-Hausen, near which the opposite armies were first
made aware of each other's proximity, became instantly the scene of a
severe conflict, and was taken and retaken repeatedly. The Prussian
cavalry, being superior in numbers to that of the French, and long
famous for its appointments and discipline, attacked repeatedly, and was
as often resisted by the French squares of infantry, whom they found it
impossible to throw into disorder, or break upon any point. The French,
having thus repelled the Prussian horse, carried, at the point of the
bayonet, some woods and the village of Spilberg, and remained in
undisturbed possession of that of Hassen-Hausen. The Prussians had by
this time maintained the battle from eight in the morning till eleven,
and being now engaged on all points, with the exception of two divisions
of the reserve, had suffered great loss. The Generalissimo, Duke of
Brunswick, wounded in the face by a grape-shot, was carried off; so was
General Schmettau, and other officers of distinction. The want of an
experienced chief began to be felt; when, to increase the difficulties
of their situation, the King of Prussia received intelligence, that
General Mollendorf, who commanded his right wing, stationed near Jena,
was in the act of being defeated by Buonaparte in person. The King took
the generous but perhaps desperate resolution, of trying, whether in one
general charge he could not redeem the fortune of the day, by defeating
that part of the French with which he was personally engaged. He ordered
the attack to be made along all the line, and with all the forces which
he had in the field; and his commands were obeyed with gallantry enough
to vindicate the honour of the troops, but not to lead to success. They
were beaten off, and the French resumed the offensive in their turn.
Still the Prussian monarch, who seems now to have taken the command upon
himself, endeavouring to supply the want of professional experience by
courage, brought up his last reserves, and encouraged his broken troops
rather to make a final stand for victory, than to retreat in face of a
conquering army. This effort also proved in vain. The Prussian line was
attacked every where at once; centre and wings were broken through by
the French at the bayonet's point; and the retreat, after so many
fruitless efforts, in which no division had been left unengaged, was of
the most disorderly character. But the confusion was increased tenfold,
when, as the defeated troops reached Weimar, they fell in with the right
wing of their own army, fugitives like themselves, and who were
attempting to retreat in the same direction. The disorder of two routed
armies meeting in opposing currents, soon became inextricable. The roads
were choked up with artillery and baggage waggons; the retreat became a
hurried flight; and the King himself, who had shown the utmost courage
during the battle of Auerstadt, was at length, for personal safety,
compelled to leave the high-roads, and escape across the fields,
escorted by a small body of cavalry.
[Sidenote: BATTLE OF JENA.]
While the left of the Prussian army were in the act of combating Davoust
at Auerstadt, their right, as we have hinted, were with equally bad
fortune engaged at Jena. This second action, though the least important
of the two, has always given the name to the double battle; because it
was at Jena that Napoleon was engaged in person.
[Sidenote: Oct. 14.]
The French Emperor had arrived at this town, which is situated upon the
Saale, on the 13th of October, and had lost no time in issuing those
orders to his mareschals, which produced the demonstrations of Davoust,
and the victory of Auerstadt. His attention was not less turned to the
position he himself occupied, and in which he had the prospect of
fighting Mollendorf, and the right of the Prussians, on the next
morning. With his usual activity, he formed or enlarged, in the course
of the night, the roads by which he proposed to bring up his artillery
on the succeeding day, and by hewing the solid rock, made a path
practicable for guns to the plateau, or elevated plain in the front of
Jena, where his centre was established.[237] The Prussian army lay
before them, extended on a line of six leagues, while that of Napoleon,
extremely concentrated, showed a very narrow front, but was well secured
both in the flanks and in the rear. Buonaparte, according to his custom,
slept in the bivouac, surrounded by his guards.[238] In the morning he
harangued his soldiers, and recommended to them to stand firm against
the charges of the Prussian cavalry, which had been represented as very
redoubtable. As before Ulm, he had promised his soldiers a repetition of
the battle of Marengo, so now he pointed out to his men that the
Prussians, separated from their magazines, and cut off from their
country, were in the situation of Mack at Ulm. He told them, that the
enemy no longer fought for honour and victory, but for the chance of
opening a way to retreat; and he added, that the corps which should
permit them to escape would lose their honour. The French replied with
loud shouts, and demanded instantly to advance to the combat. The
Emperor ordered the columns destined for the attack to descend into the
plain. His centre consisted of the Imperial Guard, and two divisions of
Lannes. Augereau commanded the right, which rested on a village and a
forest; and Soult's division, with a part of Ney's, were upon the left.
General Mollendorf advanced on his side, and both armies, as at
Auerstadt, were hid from each other by the mist, until suddenly the
atmosphere cleared, and showed them to each other within the distance of
half-cannon shot. The conflict instantly commenced. It began on the
French right, where the Prussians attacked with the purpose of driving
Augereau from the village on which he rested his extreme flank. Lannes
was sent to support him, by whose succour he was enabled to stand his
ground. The battle then became general; and the Prussians showed
themselves such masters of discipline, that it was long impossible to
gain any advantage over men, who advanced, retired, or moved to either
flank, with the regularity of machines. Soult at length, by the most
desperate efforts, dispossessed the Prussians opposed to him of the
woods from which they had annoyed the French left; and at the same
conjuncture the division of Ney, and a large reserve of cavalry,
appeared upon the field of battle. Napoleon, thus strengthened, advanced
the centre, consisting in a great measure of the Imperial Guard, who,
being fresh and in the highest spirits, compelled the Prussian army to
give way. Their retreat was at first orderly; but it was a part of
Buonaparte's tactics to pour attack after attack upon a worsted enemy,
as the billows of a tempestuous ocean follow each other in succession,
till the last waves totally disperse the fragments of the bulwark which
the first have breached. Murat, at the head of the dragoons and the
cavalry of reserve, charged, as one who would merit, as far as bravery
could merit, the splendid destinies which seemed now opening to him. The
Prussian infantry were unable to support the shock, nor could their
cavalry protect them. The rout became general.[239] Great part of the
artillery was taken, and the broken troops retreated in disorder upon
Weimar, where, as we have already stated, their confusion became
inextricable, by their encountering the other tide of fugitives from
their own left, which was directed upon Weimar also. All leading and
following seemed now lost in this army, so lately confiding in its
numbers and discipline. There was scarcely a general left to issue
orders, scarcely a soldier disposed to obey them; and it seems to have
been more by a sort of instinct, than any resolved purpose, that several
broken regiments were directed, or directed themselves, upon Magdeburg,
where Prince Hohenloe endeavoured to rally them.
The French accounts state that 20,000 Prussians were killed and taken in
the course of this fatal day; that three hundred guns fell into their
power, with twenty generals, or lieutenant-generals, and standards and
colours to the number of sixty.[240]
The mismanagement of the Prussian generals in these calamitous battles,
and in all the manœuvres which preceded them, amounted to
infatuation. The troops also, according to Buonaparte's evidence,
scarcely maintained their high character, oppressed probably by a sense
of the disadvantages under which they combated. But it is unnecessary to
dwell on the various causes of a defeat, when the vanquished seem
neither to have formed one combined and general plan of attack in the
action, nor maintained communication with each other while it endured,
nor agreed upon any scheme of retreat when the day was lost. The Duke of
Brunswick, too, and General Schmettau, being mortally wounded early in
the battle, the several divisions of the Prussian army fought
individually, without receiving any general orders, and consequently
without regular plan or combined manœuvres. The consequences of the
defeat were more universally calamitous than could have been
anticipated, even when we consider, that no mode of retreat having been
fixed on, or general rallying place appointed, the broken army resembled
a covey of heathfowl, which the sportsman marks down and destroys in
detail and at his leisure.
Next day after the action, a large body of the Prussians, who, under the
command of Mollendorf had retired to Erfurt, were compelled to surrender
to the victors, and the marshal, with the Prince of Orange Fulda, became
prisoners. Other relics of this most unhappy defeat met with the same
fate. General Kalkreuth, at the head of a considerable division of
troops, was overtaken and routed in an attempt to cross the Hartz
mountains. Prince Eugene of Wirtemberg commanded an untouched body of
sixteen thousand men, whom the Prussian general-in-chief had suffered to
remain at Memmingen, without an attempt to bring them into the field.
Instead of retiring when he heard all was lost, the prince was rash
enough to advance towards Halle, as if to put the only unbroken division
of the Prussian army in the way of the far superior and victorious hosts
of France. He was accordingly attacked and defeated by Bernadotte.
[Sidenote: PRINCE HOHENLOE--BLUCHER.]
The chief point of rallying, however, was Magdeburg, under the walls of
which strong city Prince Hohenloe, though wounded, contrived to assemble
an army amounting to fifty thousand men, but wanting every thing, and in
the last degree of confusion. But Magdeburg was no place of rest for
them. The same improvidence, which had marked every step of the
campaign, had exhausted that city of the immense magazines which it
contained, and taken them for the supply of the Duke of Brunswick's
army. The wrecks of the field of Jena were exposed to famine as well as
the sword. It only remained for Prince Hohenloe to make the best escape
he could to the Oder, and, considering the disastrous circumstances in
which he was placed, he seems to have displayed both courage and skill
in his proceedings. After various partial actions, however, in all of
which he lost men, he finally found himself, with the advanced guard and
centre of his army, on the heights of Prenzlow, without provisions,
forage, or ammunition. Surrender became unavoidable; and at Prenzlow and
Passewalk, nearly twenty thousand Prussians laid down their arms.
The rear of Prince Hohenloe's army did not immediately share this
calamity. They were at Boitzenburg when the surrender took place, and
amounted to about ten thousand men, the relics of the battle in which
Prince Eugene of Wirtemberg had engaged near Weimar, and were under the
command of a general whose name hereafter was destined to sound like a
war trumpet--the celebrated Blucher.
In the extremity of his country's distresses, this distinguished soldier
showed the same indomitable spirit, the same activity in execution and
daringness of resolve, which afterwards led to such glorious results. He
was about to leave Boitzenburg on the 29th, in consequence of his orders
from Prince Hohenloe, when he learned that general's disaster at
Prenzlow. He instantly changed the direction of his retreat, and, by a
rapid march towards Strelitz, contrived to unite his forces with about
ten thousand men, gleanings of Jena and Auerstadt, which, under the
Dukes of Weimar and of Brunswick Oels, had taken their route in that
direction. Thus reinforced, Blucher adopted the plan of passing the Elbe
at Lauenburg, and reinforcing the Prussian garrisons in Lower Saxony.
With this view he fought several sharp actions, and made many rapid
marches. But the odds were too great to be balanced by courage and
activity. The division of Soult which had crossed the Elbe, cut him off
from Lauenburg, that of Murat interposed between him and Stralsund,
while Bernadotte pressed upon his rear. Blucher had no resource but to
throw himself and his diminished and dispirited army into Lubeck. The
pursuers came soon up, and found him like a stag at bay. A battle was
fought on the 6th of November, in the streets of Lubeck, with extreme
fury on both sides, in which the Prussians were overpowered by numbers,
and lost many slain, besides four thousand prisoners. Blucher fought his
way out of the town, and reached Schwerta. But he had now retreated as
far as he could, without violating the neutrality of the Danish
territory, which would only have raised up new enemies to his
unfortunate master.
On the 7th November, therefore, he gave up his good sword, to be resumed
under happier auspices, and surrendered with the few thousand men which
remained under his command.[241] But the courage which he had
manifested, like the lights of St. Elmo amid the gloom of the tempest,
showed that there was at least one pupil of the Great Frederick worthy
of his master, and afforded hopes, on which Prussia long dwelt in
silence, till the moment of action arrived.
[Sidenote: SURRENDER OF FORTRESSES.]
The total destruction, for such it might almost be termed, of the
Prussian army, was scarcely so wonderful, as the facility with which the
fortresses which defend that country, some of them ranking among the
foremost in Europe, were surrendered by their commandants, without
shame, and without resistance, to the victorious enemy. Strong towns,
and fortified places, on which the engineer had exhausted his science,
provided too with large garrisons, and ample supplies, opened their
gates at the sound of a French trumpet, or the explosion of a few bombs.
Spandau, Stettin, Custrin, Hamelen, were each qualified to have
arrested the march of invaders for months, yet were all surrendered on
little more than a summons. In Magdeburg was a garrison of twenty-two
thousand men, two thousand of them being artillerymen; and nevertheless
this celebrated city capitulated with Mareschal Ney at the first flight
of shells. Hamelen was garrisoned by six thousand troops, amply supplied
with provisions, and every means of maintaining a siege. The place was
surrendered to a force scarcely one-third in proportion to that of the
garrison. These incidents were too gross to be imputed to folly and
cowardice alone. The French themselves wondered at their conquests, yet
had a shrewd guess at the manner in which they were rendered so easy.
When the recreant governor of Magdeburg was insulted by the students of
Halle for treachery as well as cowardice, the French garrison of the
place sympathized, as soldiers, with the youthful enthusiasm of the
scholars, and afforded the sordid old coward but little protection
against their indignation. From a similar generous impulse, Schoels, the
commandant of Hamelen, was nearly destroyed by the troops under his
orders. In surrendering the place, he had endeavoured to stipulate,
that, in case the Prussian provinces should pass by the fortune of war
to some other power, the officers should retain their pay and rank. The
soldiers were so much incensed at this stipulation, which carried
desertion in its front, and a proposal to shape a private fortune to
himself amid the ruin of his country, that Schoels only saved himself by
delivering up the place to the French before the time stipulated in the
articles of capitulation.
It is believed that, on several of these occasions, the French
constructed a golden key to open these iron fortresses, without being
themselves at the expense of the precious metal which composed it. Every
large garrison has of course a military chest, with treasure for the
regular payment of the soldiery; and it is said, that more than one
commandant was unable to resist the proffer, that, in case of an
immediate surrender, this deposit should not be inquired into by the
captors, but left at the disposal of the governor, whose accommodating
disposition had saved them the time and trouble of a siege.[242]
While the French army made this uninterrupted progress, the new King of
Holland, Louis Buonaparte, with an army partly composed of Dutch and
partly of Frenchmen, possessed himself with equal ease of Westphalia,
great part of Hanover, Emden, and East Friesland.[243]
[Sidenote: Oct. 25.]
To complete the picture of general disorder which Prussia now exhibited,
it is only necessary to add, that the unfortunate King, whose personal
qualities deserved a better fate, had been obliged, after the battle, to
fly into East Prussia, where he finally sought refuge in the city of
Königsberg. L'Estocq, a faithful and able general, was still able to
assemble out of the wreck of the Prussian army a few thousand men, for
the protection of his sovereign. Buonaparte took possession of Berlin on
the 25th October, eleven days after the battle of Jena. The mode in
which he improved his good fortune, we reserve for future consideration.
[Sidenote: FALL OF PRUSSIA.]
The fall of Prussia was so sudden and so total, as to excite the general
astonishment of Europe. Its prince was compared to the rash and
inexperienced gambler, who risks his whole fortune on one desperate
cast, and rises from the table totally ruined. That power had, for three
quarters of a century, ranked among the most important of Europe; but
never had she exhibited such a formidable position as almost immediately
before her disaster, when, holding in her own hand the balance of
Europe, she might, before the day of Austerlitz, have inclined the scale
to which side she would. And now she lay at the feet of the antagonist
whom she had rashly and in ill time defied, not fallen merely, but
totally prostrate, without the means of making a single effort to arise.
It was remembered that Austria, when her armies were defeated, and her
capital taken, had still found resources in the courage of her subjects,
and that the insurrections of Hungary and Bohemia had assumed, even
after Buonaparte's most eminent successes, a character so formidable, as
to aid in procuring peace for the defeated Emperor on moderate terms.
Austria, therefore, was like a fortress repeatedly besieged, and as
often breached and damaged, but which continued to be tenable, though
diminished in strength, and deprived of important outworks. But Prussia
seemed like the same fortress swallowed up by an earthquake, which
leaves nothing either to inhabit or defend, and where the fearful agency
of the destroyer reduces the strongest bastions and bulwarks to crumbled
masses of ruins and rubbish.
The cause of this great distinction between two countries which have so
often contended against each other for political power, and for
influence in Germany, may be easily traced.
The empire of Austria combines in itself several large kingdoms, the
undisturbed and undisputed dominions of a common sovereign, to whose
sway they have been long accustomed, and towards whom they nourish the
same sentiments of loyalty which their fathers entertained to the
ancient princes of the same house. Austria's natural authority
therefore rested, and now rests, on this broad and solid base, the
general and rooted attachment of the people to their prince, and their
identification of his interests with their own.
Prussia had also her native provinces, in which her authority was
hereditary, and where the affection, loyalty, and patriotism of the
inhabitants were natural qualities, which fathers transmitted to their
sons. But a large part of her dominions consist of late acquisitions,
obtained at different times by the arms or policy of the great
Frederick; and thus her territories, made up of a number of small and
distant states, want geographical breadth, while their disproportioned
length stretches, according to Voltaire's well-known simile, like a pair
of garters across the map of Europe. It follows as a natural
consequence, that a long time must intervene betwixt the formation of
such a kingdom, and the amalgamation of its component parts, differing
in laws, manners, and usages, into one compact and solid monarchy,
having respect and affection to their king, as the common head, and
regard to each other as members of the same community. It will require
generations to pass away, ere a kingdom, so artificially composed, can
be cemented into unity and strength; and the tendency to remain
disunited, is greatly increased by the disadvantages of its geographical
situation.
These considerations alone might explain, why, after the fatal battle of
Jena, the inhabitants of the various provinces of Prussia contributed no
important personal assistance to repel the invader; and why, although
almost all trained to arms, and accustomed to serve a certain time in
the line, they did not display any readiness to exert themselves against
the common enemy. They felt that they belonged to Prussia only by the
right of the strongest, and therefore were indifferent when the same
right seemed about to transfer their allegiance elsewhere. They saw the
approaching ruin of the Prussian power, not as children view the danger
of a father, which they are bound to prevent at the hazard of their
lives, but as servants view that of a master, which concerns them no
otherwise than as leading to a change of their employers.
There were other reasons, tending to paralyse any effort at popular
resistance, which affected the hereditary states of Prussia, as well as
her new acquisitions. The power of Prussia had appeared to depend almost
entirely upon her standing army, established by Frederick, and modelled
according to his rules. When, therefore, this army was at once
annihilated, no hope of safety was entertained by those who had so long
regarded it as invincible. The Prussian peasant, who would gladly have
joined the ranks of his country while they continued to keep the field,
knew, or thought he knew, too much of the art of war, to have any hope
in the efforts which might be made in a desultory guerilla warfare;
which, however, the courage, devotion, and pertinacity of an invaded
people have rendered the most formidable means of opposition even to a
victorious army.
The ruin of Prussia, to whatever causes it was to be attributed, seemed,
in the eyes of astonished Europe, not only universal, but irremediable.
The King, driven to the extremity of his dominions, could only be
considered as a fugitive, whose precarious chance of restoration to the
crown depended on the doubtful success of his ally of Russia, who now,
as after the capture of Vienna, had upon his hands, strong as those
hands were, not the task of aiding an ally, who was in the act of
resistance to the common enemy, but the far more difficult one of
raising from the ground a prince who was totally powerless and
prostrate. The French crossed the Oder--Glogau and Breslau were
invested. Their defence was respectable; but it seemed not the less
certain that their fall involved almost the last hopes of Prussia, and
that a name raised so high by the reign of one wise monarch, was like to
be blotted from the map of Europe by the events of a single day.
Men looked upon this astonishing calamity with various sentiments,
according as they considered it with relation to the Prussian
administration alone, or as connected with the character of the King and
kingdom, and the general interests of Europe. In the former point of
view, the mind could not avoid acknowledging, with a feeling of
embittered satisfaction, that the crooked and selfish policy of
Prussia's recent conduct,--as shortsighted as it was grasping and
unconscientious,--had met in this present hour of disaster with no more
than merited chastisement. The indifference with which the Prussian
Cabinet had viewed the distresses of the House of Austria, which their
firm interposition might probably have prevented--the total want of
conscience and decency with which they accepted Hanover from France, at
the moment when they meditated war with the power at whose hand they
received it--the shameless rapacity with which they proposed to detain
the Electorate from its legal owner, at the very time when they were
negotiating an alliance with Britain--intimated that contempt of the
ordinary principles of justice, which, while it renders a nation
undeserving of success, is frequently a direct obstacle to their
attaining it. Their whole procedure was founded on the principles of a
felon, who is willing to betray his accomplice, providing he is allowed
to retain his own share of the common booty. It was no wonder, men said,
that a government setting such an example to its subjects, of greediness
and breach of faith in its public transactions, should find among them,
in the hour of need, many who were capable of preferring their own
private interests to that of their country. And if the conduct of this
wretched administration was regarded in a political instead of a moral
point of view, the disasters of the kingdom might be considered as the
consequence of their incapacity, as well as the just remuneration of
their profligacy. The hurried and presumptuous declaration of war,
after every favourable opportunity had been suffered to escape, and
indeed the whole conduct of the campaign, showed a degree of folly not
far short of actual imbecility, and which must have arisen either from
gross treachery, or something like infatuation. So far, therefore, as
the ministers of Prussia were concerned, they reaped only the reward due
to their political want of morality, and their practical want of
judgment.
Very different, indeed, were the feelings with which the battle of Jena
and its consequences were regarded, when men considered that great
calamity in reference not to the evil counsellors by whom it was
prepared, but to the prince and nation who were to pay the penalty. "We
are human," and, according to the sentiment of the poet, on the
extinction of the state of Venice,[244] "must mourn, even when the
shadow of that which has once been great passes away." But the apparent
destruction of Prussia was not like the departure of the aged man, whose
life is come to the natural close, or the fall of a ruined tower, whose
mouldering arches can no longer support the incumbent weight. These are
viewed with awe indeed, and with sympathy, but they do not excite
astonishment or horror. The seeming fate of the Prussian monarchy
resembled the agonizing death of him who expires in the flower of
manhood. The fall of the House of Brandenburgh was as if a castle, with
all its trophied turrets strong and entire, should be at once hurled to
the earth by a superhuman power. Men, alike stunned with the extent and
suddenness of the catastrophe, were moved with sympathy for those
instantly involved in the ruin, and struck with terror at the demolition
of a bulwark, by the destruction of which all found their own safety
endangered. The excellent and patriotic character of Frederick William,
on whose rectitude and honour even the misconduct of his ministers had
not brought any stain; the distress of his interesting, high-spirited,
and beautiful consort; the general sufferings of a brave and proud
people, accustomed to assume and deserve the name of Protectors of the
Protestant Faith and of the Liberties of Germany, and whose energies,
corresponding with the talents of their leader, had enabled them in
former times to withstand the combined force of France, Austria, and
Russia--excited deep and general sympathy.
Still wider did that sympathy extend, and more thrilling became its
impulse, when it was remembered that in Prussia fell the last state of
Germany, who could treat with Napoleon in the style of an equal; and
that to the exorbitant power which France already possessed in the south
of Europe, was now to be added an authority in the north almost equally
arbitrary and equally extensive. The prospect was a gloomy one; and they
who felt neither for the fallen authority of a prince, nor the destroyed
independence of a kingdom, trembled at the prospect likely to be
entailed on their own country by a ruin, which seemed as remediless as
it was extensive and astounding.
"But yet the end was NOT."--
Providence, which disappoints presumptuous hopes by the event, is often
mercifully pleased to give aid when human aid seems hopeless. Whatever
may be thought of the doctrine of an intermediate state of sufferance
and purification in an after stage of existence, it is evident from
history, that in this world, kingdoms, as well as individuals, are often
subjected to misfortunes arising from their own errors, and which prove
in the event conducive to future regeneration. Prussia was exposed to a
long and painful discipline in the severe school of adversity, by which
she profited in such a degree as enabled her to regain her high rank in
the republic of Europe, with more honour perhaps to her prince and
people, than if she had never been thrust from her lofty station. Her
government, it may be hoped, have learned to respect the rights of other
nations, from the sufferings which followed the destruction of their
own--her people have been taught to understand the difference between
the dominion of strangers and the value of independence. Indeed, the
Prussians showed in the event, by every species of sacrifice, how fully
they had become aware, that the blessing of freedom from foreign control
is not to be secured by the efforts of a regular army only, but must be
attained and rendered permanent by the general resolution of the nation,
from highest to lowest, to dedicate their united exertions to the
achievement of the public liberty at every risk, and by every act of
self-devotion. Their improvement under the stern lessons which calamity
taught them, we shall record in a brighter page. For the time, the cloud
of misfortune sunk hopelessly dark over Prussia, of which not merely the
renown, but the very national existence seemed in danger of being
extinguished for ever.
FOOTNOTES:
[223] See Mr. Fox's letter to M. Talleyrand, February 20, 1806;
Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, vol. viii., p. 92; Annual Register,
vol. xlviii., p. 708. After reading it, Napoleon's first words were, "I
recognise here the principles of honour and of virtue, by which Mr. Fox
has ever been actuated. Thank him on my part."
[224] For copies of the "Papers relative to the Negotiation with
France," see Parliamentary Debates, vol. viii., p. 92; Annual Register,
vol. xlviii., p. 708.
[225] Captain Maitland.
[226] "Certainly the death of Fox was one of the fatalities of my
career. Had his life been prolonged, affairs would have taken a totally
different turn; the cause of the people would have triumphed, and we
should have established a new order of things in Europe."--NAPOLEON,
_Las Cases_, tom. vii., p. 97.
[227] Parliamentary Debates, vol. vi., p. 887.
[228] The pamphlet was intitled, "L'Allemagne dans son profond
Abaissement," and was attributed to the pen of M. Gentz. Palm was
offered his pardon, upon condition that he gave up the author of the
work; which he refused to do.
[229] "All that I recollect about Palm is, that he was arrested by order
of Davoust, I believe, tried, condemned, and shot, for having, while the
country was in possession of the French, and under military occupation,
not only excited rebellion amongst the inhabitants, and urged them to
rise and massacre the soldiers, but also attempted to instigate the
soldiers themselves to refuse obedience to their orders, and to mutiny
against their generals. I believe that he met with a fair
trial."--NAPOLEON, _Voice_, &c., vol. i., p. 432.
[230] A subscription was set on foot in Germany, and also in England,
for his widow and three children.
[231] Essen, Werden, and Elten.
[232] See Annual Register, vol. xlviii., p. 800.
[233] Jomini, tom. ii., p. 276.
[234] "'Marshal,' said the Emperor, on the 7th, to Berthier, 'they give
us a rendezvous of honour for the 8th. They say a handsome queen is
there, who desires to see battles; let us be polite, and march without
delay for Saxony!' The Emperor was correctly informed; for the Queen of
Prussia is with the army, equipped like an Amazon, wearing the uniform
of her regiment of dragoons, and writing twenty letters a-day to all
parts of the kingdom, to excite the inhabitants against the French. It
appears like the conduct of the frenzied Armida, setting fire to her own
palace. Next to her Majesty, Prince Louis of Prussia, a brave young man,
incited by the war faction, vainly hopes to gain honours and renown in
the vicissitudes of war."--_First Bulletin of the Grand Army._
[235] "Prince Louis urged and hastened hostilities, and feared to let
the opportunity escape. He was, besides, a man of great courage and
talent; all accounts agreed on that point. Napoleon, who did not dislike
such petulant eagerness, was conversing with us one evening respecting
the generals of the enemy's army; some one present happened to mention
Prince Louis; 'As for him,' said he, 'I foretell that he will be killed
this campaign.' Who could have thought that the prediction would so soon
have been fulfilled."--_Mémoires de RAPP_, p. 66.
[236] See Fifteenth Bulletin of the Grand Army.
[237] "Before the Emperor lay down, he descended the hill of Jena on
foot, to be certain that no ammunition-waggon had been left at the
bottom. He there found the whole of Marshal Lannes's artillery sticking
in a ravine, which, in the obscurity of the night had been mistaken for
a road. The Emperor was excessively angry, but showed his displeasure
only by a cold silence. Without wasting time in reproaches, he set to
work himself to do the duty of an artillery officer. He collected the
men, made them get their park-tools, and light the lanterns; one of
which he held for the convenience of those whose labours he directed.
Never shall I forget the expression of the countenances of the men on
seeing the Emperor lighting them with a lantern, nor the heavy blows
with which they struck the rocks."--SAVARY, tom. ii., p. 180.
[238] "The night before the battle of Jena, the Emperor said, he had run
the greatest risk. He might then have disappeared without his fate being
clearly known. He had approached the bivouacs of the enemy, in the dark,
to reconnoitre them; he had only a few officers with him. The opinion
which was then entertained of the Prussian army kept every one on the
alert: it was thought that the Prussians were particularly given to
nocturnal attacks. As the Emperor returned, he was fired at by the first
sentinel of his camp; this was a signal for the whole line; he had no
resource but to throw himself flat on his face, until the mistake was
discovered. But his principal apprehension was, that the Prussian line,
which was near him, would act in the same manner."--LAS CASES, tom. i.,
p. 143.
[239] "The Emperor, at the point where he stood, saw the flight of the
Prussians, and our cavalry taking them by thousands. Night was
approaching; and here, as at Austerlitz, he rode round the field of
battle. He often alighted from his horse to give a little brandy to the
wounded; and several times I observed him putting his hand into the
breast of a soldier to ascertain whether his heart beat, because, in
consequence of having seen some slight appearance of colour in his
cheeks, he supposed he might not be dead. In this manner I saw him two
or three times discover men who were still alive. On these occasions he
gave way to a joy which it is impossible to describe."--SAVARY, tom.
ii., p. 184.
[240] Fifth Bulletin of the Grand Army; Jomini, tom. ii., p. 281;
Savary, tom. ii., p. 181.
[241] "So jealous was Blucher of any tarnish being attached to his
character, in consequence of this surrender, that the capitulation was
at one time on the point of being broken off, because Bernadotte would
not consent that the reasons which compelled him to surrender, viz. a
want of powder and other necessaries, should be stated, as Blucher
insisted, among the articles drawn up between them."--See GENTZ,
_Journal des Quatorze Jours de la Monarchie Prussienne_.
[242] "The war with Prussia--a war which had been hatching since the
battle of Austerlitz--was less caused by the counsels of the cabinet,
than by the compilers of secret memoirs. They began by representing the
Prussian monarchy as ready to fall at the least puff, like a house built
with cards. I can affirm, that, for the last three months, this war was
prepared like a _coup de théâtre_; all the chances and vicissitudes had
been calculated, and weighed, with the greatest exactness. I considered
it ill becoming the dignity of crowned heads, to see a cabinet so ill
regulated. The Prussian monarchy, whose safeguard it should have been,
depended upon the cunning of some intriguers, and the energy of a few
subsidized persons, who were the very puppets of our will. Jena! history
will one day develope thy secret causes."--FOUCHÉ, tom. i., p. 304.
[243] Documens sur la Hollande, tom. i., p. 282.
[244]
"Men are we, and must grieve even when the shade
Of that which once was great is pass'd away."
WORDSWORTH.--S.