After the bloody struggle of Eylau, in which thirty thousand men were
placed _hors de combat_, the Russians seemed desirous of avoiding a
conflict until they had received large reinforcements. In the mean time,
Napoleon collected about two hundred thousand men between the Vistula,
and the Memel, besieged and captured Dantzic, and was again in a
condition to strike a tremendous blow at the inferior forces of the
enemy. Early in June, 1807, the Russian general, Bennigsen, made the
first offensive movement. The division of Marshal Ney, stationed at
Gustadt, was attacked by a superior force, and that intrepid officer
retreated, fighting, as far as Deppen. But on the 8th of June, Napoleon
moved forward to extricate his lieutenant, and the Russians then fell
back upon Heilsberg. There a desperate action occurred, in which both
armies suffered terribly. The Russians were compelled to retreat, but
they retired unmolested. On the 13th, Bennigsen approached the town of
Friedland, situated on the west bank of the Alle, communicating with the
eastern bank by long wooden bridges. Here the decisive battle of the
next day was fought.
The course of the Alle, near the spot where the two armies were about to
meet, exhibits numerous windings. The French came up by the woody hills,
beyond which the ground gradually sinks to the banks of the Alle. The
ground at this season was covered with rye of great height. To the right
of the French, the river was seen pursuing its way through the plain,
then turning round Friedland, coming to the left, thus forming an elbow.
At daybreak on the morning of the 14th, Lannes, who commanded the
advanced division of the French army, reached Posthenen, whence he could
see the Russians marching across the bridges to deploy into the plain,
and drawing up in a line of battle facing the heights. A rivulet, called
the Mill Stream, there formed a small pond, after dividing the plain
into two unequal halves. Bennigsen imagined that he had to contend with
but one division of the French army, and, for the time, he had this
advantage. But the whole force under Napoleon’s immediate command was
coming up to support the gallant Lannes, and by crossing the bridges,
the Russian general fairly placed himself in the power of the Emperor.
For this Napoleon had manœuvred several days, and he now saw that the
victory would be one of that complete, decisive kind he loved.
Marshal Lannes, in his haste to march, had brought with him only
Oudinot’s voltigeurs and grenadiers, the 9th hussars, Grouchy’s
dragoons, and two regiments of Saxon cavalry. He could not oppose more
than ten thousand men to the enemy’s advanced guard, which, successively
reinforced, was treble that number, and was soon to be followed by the
whole Russian army. Fortunately for the French, the soil afforded
numerous resources to the skill and courage of their illustrious
marshal. In the centre of the position which it was necessary to occupy,
in order to bar the way against the Russians, was a village, that of
Posthenen, through which ran the Mill Stream to pursue its course to
Friedland. Somewhat in rear rose a plateau, from which the plain of the
Alle might be battered. Lannes placed his artillery there, and several
battalions of grenadiers to protect it. On the right, a thick wood, that
of Sortlack, protruded in a salient, and divided into two the space
comprised between the village of Posthenen and the banks of the Alle.
There Lannes posted two battalions of voltigeurs, which, dispersed as
tirailleurs, would be able to stop for a long time troops not numerous
and not very resolute. The 9th hussars, Grouchy’s dragoons, the Saxon
cavalry, amounted to three thousand horse, ready to fall upon any column
which should attempt to penetrate that curtain of tirailleurs. On the
left of Posthenen, the line of woody heights extended, gradually
lowering in the village of Heinrichsdorf, through which ran the high
road from Friedland to Konigsberg. This point was of great importance,
for the Russians, desirous to reach Konigsberg, would, of course,
obstinately dispute the road thither. Besides, this part of the field of
battle being more open, was naturally more difficult to defend. Lannes,
who had not yet troops sufficient to establish himself there, had placed
on his left, taking advantage of the woods and heights, the rest of his
battalions, thus approaching the houses of Heinrichsdorf without being
able to occupy them.
The fire, commenced at three in the morning, became all at once
extremely brisk. The artillery, placed on the plateau of Posthenen,
under the protection of Oudinot’s grenadiers, kept the Russians at a
distance, and made considerable havoc among them. On the right, the
voltigeurs, scattered on the skirt of the wood of Sortlack, stopped
their infantry by an incessant tirailleur fire, and the Saxon horse,
directed by General Grouchy, had made several unsuccessful charges
against their cavalry. The Russians having become threatening towards
Heinrichsdorf, General Grouchy, moving from the right to the left,
galloped thither, to dispute with them the Konigsberg road, the
important point for the possession of which torrents of blood were about
to be spilt.
Though, in these first moments, Marshal Lannes had but ten thousand men
to oppose twenty-five or thirty thousand, he maintained his ground,
thanks to great skill and energy, and also to the able concurrence of
General Oudinot, commanding the grenadiers, and of General Grouchy,
commanding the cavalry. But the enemy reinforced himself from hour to
hour, and General Bennigsen, on arriving at Friedland, had suddenly
formed the resolution to give battle—a very rash resolution, for it
would have been much wiser for him to have continued to descend the Alle
to the junction of that river with the Pregel, and to take a position
behind the latter, with his left to Wehlau, his right to Konigsberg. It
would have taken him, it is true, another day to reach Konigsberg; but
he would not have risked a battle against an army superior in number, in
quality, better officered, and in a very unfavorable situation for him,
since he had a river at his back, and he was very likely to be pushed
into the elbow of the Alle, with all that vigor of impulsion of which
the French army was capable.
He lost no time in having three bridges thrown over the Alle, one above
and two below Friedland, in order to accelerate the passage of his
troops, and also to furnish them with means of retreat. He lined with
artillery the right bank, by which he arrived, and which commanded the
left bank. Then, nearly his whole army having debouched, he disposed it
in the following manner:—In the plain around Heinrichsdorf, on the right
for him, on the left for the French, he placed four divisions of
infantry, under Lieutenant-General Gortschakoff, and the better part of
the cavalry under General Ouwarroff. The infantry was formed in two
lines. In the first were two battalions of each regiment deployed, and a
third drawn up in close column behind the two others, closing the
interval which separated them. In the second, the field of battle
gradually narrowing the further it extended into the angle of the Alle,
a single battalion was deployed and two were formed in close column. The
cavalry, ranged on the side and a little in advance, flanked the
infantry. On the left (the right of the French,) two Russian divisions,
of which the imperial guard formed part, increased by all the
detachments of chasseurs, occupied the portion of the ground comprised
between the Mill Stream and the Alle. They were drawn up in two lines,
but very near each other, on account of the want of room. Prince
Bagration commanded them. The cavalry of the guard was there, under
General Kollogribow. Four flying bridges had been thrown across the Mill
Stream, that it might interrupt the communications between the two wings
as little as possible. The fourth Russian division had been left on the
other side of the Alle, on the ground commanding the left bank, to
collect the army in case of disaster or to come and decide the victory,
if it obtained any commencement of success. The Russians had more than
two hundred pieces of cannon upon their front, besides those which were
either in reserve or in battery on the right bank. Their army, reduced
to eighty or eighty-two thousand men after Heilsberg, separated at this
time from Kamenski’s corps and from some detachments sent to Wehlau to
guard the bridges of the Alle, still amounted to seventy-two or
seventy-five thousand men. General Bennigsen caused the mass of the
Russian army to be moved forward in the order just described, so that,
on getting out of the elbow of the Alle, it might deploy, extend its
fires, and avail itself of the advantages of number which it possessed
at the beginning of the battle.
The situation of Lannes was perilous, for he had the whole Russian army
upon his hands. Fortunately, the time which had elapsed had procured him
some reinforcements. General Nansouty’s division of heavy cavalry,
composed of three thousand five hundred cuirassiers and carbineers,
Dupas’s division, which was the first of Mortier’s corps, and numbered
six thousand foot soldiers, lastly, Verdier’s division, which contained
seven thousand, and was the second of Lannes’s corps, marched off
successively, had come with all possible expedition. It was a force of
twenty-six or twenty-seven thousand men, to fight seventy-five thousand.
It was seven in the morning, and the Russians, preceded by a swarm of
Cossacks, advanced towards Heinrichsdorf, where they already had
infantry and cannon. Lannes, appreciating the importance of that post,
sent thither the brigade of Albert’s grenadiers, and ordered General
Grouchy to secure possession of it at any cost. General Grouchy, who had
been reinforced by the cuirassiers, proceeded immediately to the
village. Without stopping to consider the difficulty, he dispatched the
brigade of Milet’s dragoons to attack Heinrichsdorf, while Carrie’s
brigade turned the village, and the cuirassiers marched to support this
movement. Milet’s brigade passed through Heinrichsdorf at a gallop,
drove out the Russian foot-soldiers at the point of the sword, while
Carrie’s brigade, going round it, took or dispersed those who had saved
themselves by flight. Four pieces of cannon were taken. At this moment,
the enemy’s cavalry, coming to the assistance of the infantry, expelled
from Heinrichsdorf, rushed upon the dragoons and drove them back. But
Nansouty’s cuirassiers charged it in their turn, and threw it upon the
Russian infantry, which in this fray was obliged to withhold its fire.
During these occurrences, Dupas’s division entered into line. Marshal
Mortier, whose horse was killed by a cannon-ball, the moment he appeared
on the field of battle, placed that division between Heinrichsdorf and
Posthenen, and opened on the Russians a fire of artillery which, poured
upon deep masses, made prodigious havoc in their ranks. The arrival of
Dupas’s division rendered disposable those battalions of grenadiers
which had at first been drawn up to the left of Posthenen. Lannes drew
them nearer to him, and could oppose their closer ranks to the attacks
of the Russians, either before Posthenen or before the wood of Sortlack.
General Oudinot, who commanded them, taking advantage of all the
accidents of ground, sometimes from clumps of wood scattered here and
there, sometimes from pools of water, produced by the rains of the
preceding days, sometimes from above the corn, disputed the ground with
equal skill and energy. By turns he hid or exhibited his soldiers,
dispersed them as tirailleurs, or exposed them in a mass, bristling with
bayonets, to all the efforts of the Russians. Those brave grenadiers,
notwithstanding their inferiority in number, kept up the fight,
supported by their general, when, luckily for them, Verdier’s division
arrived. Marshal Lannes divided it into two movable columns, to be sent
alternately to the right, to the centre, to the left, wherever the
danger was most pressing. It was the skirt of the wood of Sortlack and
the village of the same name, situated on the Alle, that were the most
furiously disputed. In the end, the French remained masters of the
village, the Russians of the skirts of the wood.
Lannes was enabled to prolong till noon this conflict of twenty-six
thousand men against seventy-five thousand. But it was high time for
Napoleon to arrive with the rest of his army. Lannes, anxious to apprize
him of what was passing, had sent to him almost all his aides-de-camp,
one after another, ordering them to get back to him without loss of
time, if they killed their horses. They found him coming at a gallop to
Friedland, and full of a joy that was expressed in his countenance.
“This is the 14th of June,” he repeated to those whom he met; “it is the
anniversary of Marengo; it is a lucky day for us!” Napoleon,
outstripping his troops through the speed of his horse, had successively
passed the long files of the guard, of Ney’s corps, of Bernadotte’s
corps, all marching for Posthenen. He had saluted in passing, Dupont’s
fine division, which from Ulm to Braunsberg, had never ceased to
distinguish itself, though never in his presence, and he had declared
that it would give him great pleasure to see it fight for once.
The presence of Napoleon at Posthenen fired his soldiers and his
generals with fresh ardor. Lannes, Mortier, Oudinot, who had been there
since morning, and Ney, who had just arrived, surrounded him with the
most lively joy. The brave Oudinot hastening up with his coat perforated
by balls, and his horse covered with blood, exclaimed to the Emperor:
“Make haste, Sire, my grenadiers are knocked up; but, give me a
reinforcement, and I will drive all the Russians into the water.”
Napoleon, surveying with his glass the plain, where the Russians, backed
in the elbow of the Alle, were endeavoring in vain to deploy, soon
appreciated their perilous situation and the unique occasion offered him
by Fortune, swayed, it must be confessed, by his genius; for the fault
which the Russian army were committing had been inspired, as it were, by
him, when he pushed them from the other side of the Alle, and thus
forced them to pass in before him, in going to the relief of Konigsberg.
The day was far advanced, and it would take several hours to collect all
the French troops. Some of Napoleon’s lieutenants were, therefore, of
opinion that they ought to defer fighting a decisive battle till the
morrow. “No, no,” replied Napoleon, “one does not catch an enemy twice
in such a scrape.” He immediately made his dispositions for the attack.
They were worthy of his marvellous perspicacity.
To drive the Russians into the Alle was the aim which every individual,
down to the meanest soldier, assigned to the battle. But how to set
about it, how to ensure that result, and how to render it as great as
possible, was the question. At the farthest extremity of the elbow of
the Alle, in which the Russian army was engulphed, there was a decisive
point to occupy, namely, the little point of Friedland itself, situated
on the right, between the Mill Stream and the Alle. There were the four
bridges, the sole retreat of the Russian army, and Napoleon purposed to
direct his utmost efforts against that point. He destined for Ney’s
corps the difficult and glorious task of plunging into that gulf, of
carrying Friedland at any cost, in spite of the desperate resistance
which it would not fail to make, of wresting the bridges from them, and
thus barring against them the only way of safety. But at the same time
he resolved, while acting vigorously on his right, to suspend all
efforts on his left, to amuse the Russian army on that side with a
feigned fight, and not to push it briskly on the left till, the bridges
being taken on the right, he should be sure, by pushing it, to fling it
into a receptacle without an outlet.
Surrounded by his lieutenants, he explained to them, with that energy
and that precision of language which were usual with him, the part which
each of them had to act in that battle. Grasping the arm of Marshal Ney,
and pointing to Friedland, the bridges, the Russians crowded together in
front, “Yonder is the goal,” said he; “march to it without looking about
you: break into that thick mass whatever it costs you; enter Friedland,
take the bridges, and give yourself no concern about what may happen on
your right, on your left, or on your rear. The army and I shall be there
to attend to that.” Ney, boiling with ardor, proud of the formidable
task assigned to him, set out at a gallop to arrange his troops before
the wood of Sortlack. Struck with his martial attitude, Napoleon,
addressing Marshal Mortier, said, “That man is a lion!”
On the same ground, Napoleon had his dispositions written down from his
dictation, that each of his generals might have them bodily present to
his mind, and not be liable to deviate from them. He ranged, then,
Marshal Ney’s corps on the right, so that Lannes, bringing back
Verdier’s division upon Posthenen, could present two strong lines with
that and the grenadiers. He placed Bernadotte’s corps (temporarily
Victor’s) between Ney and Lannes, a little in advance of Posthenen, and
partly hidden by the inequalities of the ground. Dupont’s fine division
formed the head of this corps. On the plateau, behind Posthenen,
Napoleon established the imperial guard, the infantry in three close
columns, the cavalry in two lines. Between Posthenen and Henrichsdorf
was the corps of Marshal Mortier, posted as in the morning, but more
concentrated and augmented by the young fusiliers of the imperial guard.
A battalion of the 4th light infantry, and the regiment of the municipal
guard of Paris, had taken the place of the grenadiers of the Albert
brigade in Heinrichsdorf. Dumbrowski’s Polish division had joined
Dupas’s division, and guarded the artillery. Napoleon left to General
Grouchy the duty of which he had already so ably acquitted himself, that
of defending the plain of Heinrichsdorf. To the dragoons and the
cuirassiers commanded by that general he added the light cavalry of
Generals Beaumont and Colbert, to assist him to rid himself of the
Cossacks. Lastly, having two more divisions of dragoons to dispose of,
he placed that of General Latour Maubourg, reinforced by the Dutch
cuirassiers, behind the corps of Marshal Ney, and that of General La
Houssaye, reinforced by the Saxon cuirassiers, behind Victor’s corps.
The French in this imposing order amounted to no fewer than eighty
thousand men. The order was repeated to the left not to advance, but
merely to keep back the Russians till the success of the right was
decided. Napoleon required that before the troops recommenced firing,
they should wait for the signal from a battery of twenty pieces of
cannon placed above Posthenen.
The Russian general, struck by this deployment, discovered the mistake
which he had committed in supposing that he had to do with but the
single corps of Marshal Lannes; he was surprised, and naturally
hesitated. His hesitation had produced a sort of slackening in the
action. Scarcely did occasional discharges of artillery indicate the
continuance of the battle. Napoleon, who desired that all his troops
should have got into line, rested for at least an hour, and being
abundantly supplied with ammunition, was in no hurry to begin, and
resisted the impatience of his generals, well knowing that, at this
season, in this country, it was light till ten in the evening, he should
have time to subject the Russian army to the disaster that he was
preparing for it. At length, the fit moment appeared to him to have
arrived, he gave the signal. The twenty pieces of cannon of the battery
of Posthenen fired at once; the artillery of the army answered them
along the whole line; and at this impatiently awaited signal, Marshal
Ney moved off his _corps d’armee_.
From the wood of Sortlack issued Marchand’s division, advancing the
first to the right, Bisson’s division the second to the left. Both were
preceded by a storm of tirailleurs, who, as they approached the enemy,
fell back and returned into the ranks. These troops marched resolutely
up to the Russians, and took from them the village of Sortlack, so long
disputed. Their cavalry, in order to stop the offensive movement, made a
charge on Marchand’s division. But Latour Maubourg’s dragoons and the
Dutch cuirassiers, passing through the intervals of the battalions,
charged that cavalry in their turn, drove it back upon its infantry,
and, pushing the Russians against the Alle, precipitated a great number
into the deeply embanked bed of that river. Some saved themselves by
swimming; many were drowned. His right once appuyed on the Alle, Marshal
Ney slackened his march, and pushed forward his left, formed by Bisson’s
division, in such a manner as to thrust back the Russians into the
narrow space comprised between the Mill Stream and the Alle. When
arrived at this point, the fire of the enemy’s artillery redoubled. The
French had to sustain not only the fire of the batteries in front, but
also the fire of those on the right bank of the Alle; and it was
impossible to get rid of the latter by taking them, as they were
separated from them by the deep bed of the river. The columns, battered
at once in front and flank by the balls, endured with admirable coolness
this terrible convergence of fires. Marshal Ney, galloping from one end
of the line to the other, kept up the courage of his soldiers by his
heroic bearing. Meanwhile, whole files were swept away, and the fire
became so severe that the very bravest of the troops could no longer
endure it. At this sight, the cavalry of the Russian guard, commanded by
General Kollogribow, dashed off at a gallop, to try to throw into
disorder the infantry of Bisson’s division, which appeared to waver.
Staggered for the first time, that valiant infantry gave ground, and two
or three battalions threw themselves in rear. General Bisson, who, from
his stature, overlooked the lines of his soldiers, strove in vain to
detain them. They retired, grouping themselves around their officers.
The situation soon became most critical. Luckily, General Dupont, placed
at some distance on the left of Ney’s corps, perceived this commencement
of disorder, and without waiting for directions to march, moved off his
division, passing in front of it, reminding it of Ulm, Dirnstein and
Halle, and taking it to encounter the Russians. It advanced, in the
finest attitude, under the fire of that tremendous artillery, while
Latour Maubourg’s dragoons, returning to the charge, fell upon the
Russian cavalry, which had scattered in pursuit of the foot soldiers,
and succeeded in the attempt to drive it back. Dupont’s division,
continuing its movement on that open ground, and, supporting its left on
the Mill Stream, brought the Russian infantry at a stand. By its
presence it filled Ney’s soldiers with confidence and joy. Bisson’s
battalions formed anew, and the whole line, re-invigorated, began to
march forward again. It was necessary to reply to the formidable
artillery of the enemy, and Ney’s artillery was so very inferior in
number, that it could scarcely stand in battery before that of the
Russians. Napoleon ordered General Victor to collect all the guns of his
division, and to range them in mass on the front of Ney. The skilful and
intrepid General Senarmont commanded that artillery. He moved it off at
full trot, joined it to that of Marshal Ney, took it some hundred paces
ahead of the infantry, and, daringly placing himself in front of the
Russians, opened upon them a fire, terrible from the number of the
pieces and the accuracy of aim. Directing one of his batteries against
the right bank, he soon silenced those which the enemy had on that side.
Then, pushing forward his line of artillery, he gradually approached to
within grape-shot range, and, firing upon the deep masses, crowding
together as they fell back into the elbow of the Alle, he made frightful
havoc among them. The line of infantry followed this movement, and
advanced under the protection of General Senarmont’s numerous guns. The
Russians, thrust further and further back into this gulf, felt a sort of
despair, and made an effort to extricate themselves. Their imperial
guard, placed upon the Mill Stream, issued from that retreat, and
marched, with bayonet fixed, upon Dupont’s division, also placed along
the rivulet. The latter, without waiting for the imperial guard, went to
meet it, repulsed it with the bayonet, and forced it back to the ravine.
Thus driven, some of the Russians threw themselves beyond the ravine,
the others upon the suburbs of Friedland. General Dupont, with part of
his division, crossed the Mill Stream, drove before him all that he met,
found himself on the rear of the right wing of the Russians engaged with
the left in the plain of Heinrichsdorf, turned Friedland, and attacked
it by the Konigsberg road; while Ney, continuing to march straight
forward, entered by the Eylau road. A terrible conflict ensued at the
gates of the town. The assailants pressed the Russians in all quarters;
they forced their way into the street in pursuit of them; they drove
them upon the bridges of the Alle, which General Senarmont’s artillery,
left outside, enfiladed with its shot. The Russians crowded upon the
bridges to seek refuge in the ranks of the fourteenth division, left, in
reserve, on the other side of the Alle, by General Bennigsen. That
unfortunate general, full of grief, had hurried to this division, with
the intention of taking it to the bank of the river to the assistance of
his endangered army. Scarcely had some wrecks of his left wing passed
the bridges, when those bridges were destroyed—set on fire by the
French, and, by the Russians themselves, in their anxiety to stop
pursuit. Ney and Dupont, having performed their task, met in the heart
of Friedland in flames, and congratulated one another on this glorious
success.
Napoleon, placed in the centre of the divisions which he kept in
reserve, had never ceased to watch this grand sight. While he was
contemplating it attentively, a ball passed at the height of the
bayonets, and a soldier, from an instinctive movement, stooped his head.
“If that ball was intended for you,” said Napoleon, smiling, “though you
were to burrow a hundred feet under ground, it would be sure to find you
there.” Thus he wished to give currency to that useful belief that Fate
strikes the brave and the coward without distinction, and that the
coward who seeks a hiding-place disgraces himself to no purpose.
On seeing that Friedland was occupied and the bridges of the Alle
destroyed, Napoleon at length pushed forward his left upon the right
wing of the Russian army, deprived of all means of retreat, and having
behind it a river without bridges. General Gortschakoff, who commanded
that wing, perceived the danger with which he was threatened, and,
thinking to dispel the storm, made an attack on the French line,
extending from Posthenen to Heinrichsdorf, formed by the corps of
Marshal Lannes, by that of Mortier, and by General Grouchy’s cavalry.
But Lannes, with his grenadiers, made head against the Russians. Marshal
Mortier, with the 15th and the fusiliers of the guard, opposed to them
an iron barrier. Mortier’s artillery, in particular, directed by Colonel
Balbois and an excellent Dutch officer, M. Vanbriennen, made
incalculable havoc among them. At length, Napoleon, anxious to take
advantage of the rest of the day, carried forward his whole line.
Infantry, cavalry, artillery, started all at once. General Gortschakoff,
while he found himself thus pressed, was informed that Friedland was in
the possession of the French. In hopes of retaking it, he dispatched a
column of infantry to the gates of the town. That column penetrated into
it, and for a moment drove back Dupont’s and Ney’s soldiers; but these
repulsed in their turn the Russian column. A new fight took place in
that unfortunate town, and the possession of it was disputed by the
light of the flames that were consuming it. The French finally remained
masters, and drove Gortschakoff’s corps into that plain without
thoroughfare which had served it for field of battle. Gortschakoff’s
infantry defended itself with intrepidity, and threw itself into the
Alle rather than surrender. Part of the Russian soldiers were fortunate
enough to find fordable passages, and contrived to escape. Another
drowned itself in the river. The whole of the artillery was captured. A
column, the furthest on the right (right of the Russians) fled and
descended the Alle, under General Lambert, with a portion of the
cavalry. The darkness of the night and the disorder of victory
facilitated its retreat, and enabled it to escape.
It was half-past ten at night. The victory was complete on the right and
on the left. Napoleon, in his vast career, had not gained a more
splendid one. He had for trophies eighty pieces of cannon, few
prisoners, it is true, for the Russians chose rather to drown
themselves, than to surrender, but twenty-five thousand men, killed,
wounded, or drowned, covered with their bodies both banks of the Alle.
The right bank, to which great numbers of them had dragged themselves,
exhibited almost as frightful a scene of carnage as the left bank.
Several columns of fire, rising from Friedland and the neighboring
villages, threw a sinister light over that place, a theatre of anguish
for some, of joy for others. The French had to regret upwards of eight
thousand men, killed or wounded. The Russian army, deprived of
twenty-five thousand combatants, weakened, moreover, by a great number
of men who had lost their way, was thenceforward incapable of keeping
the field.
The French Emperor slept near the camp-fire, surrounded by his soldiers,
who continued to shout “_Vive l’Empereur!_” They had eaten nothing but a
ration of bread, which they had carried in their knapsacks, during their
hurried march. But their souls had drunk deeply of the intoxicating
nectar of glory, and they felt not the pang of hunger. The night was
clear and beautiful. The Russians were not pursued. If Napoleon had had
his entire cavalry, with Murat at their head, he could have captured the
whole force which, under command of General Lambert, descended the Alle.
But only half the cavalry were with the army, and the Russians were left
to escape as speedily as possible.
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[Illustration: THE CAMP-FIRE AT FRIEDLAND. Page 258.]
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Friedland was a decisive field. Konigsberg surrendered soon afterwards;
and the Russians were pursued till they took refuge beyond the Niemen.
Here ended that daring march of the French Emperor—the new
Alexander—from Boulogne to the Niemen, to crush the only power which
could offer any effectual resistance to his arms. In the transport of
triumph, the Emperor issued the following noble proclamation to his
soldiers:
Soldiers—On the 5th of June we were attacked in our cantonments by the
Russian army. The enemy had mistaken the causes of our inactivity. He
perceived too late that our repose was that of the lion: he repents of
having disturbed it.
“In the battles of Guttstadt and Heilsberg, and in that ever memorable
one of Friedland, in a campaign of ten days; in short, we have taken one
hundred and twenty pieces of cannon, seven colors, killed, wounded, or
made prisoners, sixty thousand Russians, taken from the enemy’s army all
its magazines, its hospitals, its _ambulances_, the fortress of
Konigsberg, the three hundred vessels which were in that port, laden
with all kinds of military stores, one hundred and sixty thousand
muskets which England was sending to arm our enemies.
“From the banks of the Vistula, we have come with the speed of the eagle
to those of the Niemen. You celebrated at Austerlitz the anniversary of
the coronation; this year you have worthily celebrated that of the
battle of Marengo, which put an end to the war of the second coalition.
“Frenchmen, you have been worthy of yourselves and of me. You will
return to France covered with laurels, and, after obtaining a glorious
peace, which carries with it the guarantee of its duration. It is high
time for our country to live in quiet, screened from the malignant
influence of England. My bounties shall prove to you my gratitude, and
the full extent of the love I feel for you.”
Then followed the interview of Napoleon and Alexander upon the Niemen,
and the treaty of Tilsit, by which the two emperors parcelled out Europe
as if it were their own. The star of Napoleon had reached its zenith,
and truly its lustre dazzled the eyes of the world.
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