THE DEVASTATION OF PRUSSIA[38]
[Footnote 38: References: As before, and especially for
1806-07 Bailleu: Diplomatische Correspondenzen, and the
"Briefwechsel" of Frederick William and Louisa with the Czar;
the Russian archives published by Woronzoff and Tratchefski;
Stern: Abhandlungen und Aktenstuecke aus der Preussischen
Reformzeit; the published memoirs, correspondence, and lives
of Metternich, Gagern, Gentz, Hardenberg, Montgelas, Ompteda,
Stein, Varnhagen von Ense, Archduke Charles, Schwarzenberg,
Frederick William III, Queen Louisa, Alexander I, Bluecher,
Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, Czartoryski, Nesselrode, Speranski,
and Toll; the general histories of Oncken, Hassel, Haeusser,
Perthes, Treitschke, Beer, Fournier, Krones, Wertheimer,
Bernhardi, Bogdanowitch, Golovine, Schiemann, Schilder,
Lelewel, and Oginski; Duncker: Preussen waehrend der
Franzoesischen Okkupation; Muffling: Aus meinem Leben.
Lettow-Vorbeck: Der Krieg von 1806-07; Foucart: Campagne de
Prusse.]
The Effects of Jena and Auerstaedt -- Degeneracy of the French
Soldiers -- Napoleon's Abuse of Queen Louisa -- The Occupation of
Berlin -- Conduct of the French Generals -- Turkey and Russia at
War -- Prussia and Russia -- Treatment of Minor German States --
Napoleon as the Liberator of Poland -- Condition of the Country
-- The Retort to Trafalgar.
The moral effect of Jena upon Prussia was pitiful. All the years of
irresponsible government, of absolutism and militarism, seemed
revenged upon monarchy at a single blow. The nation, with no
experience of independent action, was stunned, and did not run to
arms, except in a few abortive instances. In his flight Frederick
William had with difficulty kept together his royal state, and the day
after Jena he sent an envoy to ask for an armistice. This was
ostensibly a reply to Napoleon's suggestions of a peace sent three
days earlier to the King, probably as a ruse; but the Emperor now
declared that he would dictate his terms only from Berlin, and his
army continued its advance. The Prussian court, with a few thousand
men under Lestocq, retreated through West Prussia and took refuge in
Koenigsberg. So thoroughly did Napoleon organize the pursuit, and so
carefully did he estimate the total result of his victory, that
nothing escaped him. The French soldiers carried everything before
them. A Prussian reserve corps was easily beaten at Halle by
Bernadotte, and fled for refuge to the unprovisioned fortress of
Magdeburg. Lannes seized Dessau; Davout, Wittenberg; while Murat,
Soult, and Ney proceeded to invest Magdeburg, which for those days was
the strategic key of the Elbe valley. It resisted until November, but
eventually fell, as did also Erfurt. In fact, the French ransacked the
land. Even Hohenlohe did not escape them. Being overtaken by the
infantry of Lannes and the cavalry of Murat, he was first driven from
Prenzlau, and then, on October twenty-eighth, he surrendered, being a
victim partly to the duplicity of Murat, who declared that a hundred
thousand French were closing in on him, and partly to the stupidity of
his own messenger, who asserted that the tale was true. Frederick
William himself would have been captured at Weissensee but for
Bluecher, who brazenly declared to Klein, the French commander, that an
armistice had been granted--a pure falsehood. Stettin capitulated to
Lasalle's cavalry on the thirtieth, and Kuestrin soon opened its doors.
The fortresses of Spandau and Hameln followed their example, all four
being surrendered with suspicious facility; in two instances the
French and Prussian soldiers actually joined to hiss and execrate the
governors, who were undoubtedly both recreant and venal. Bluecher,
after many gallant but fruitless attempts to collect a force, had
reached Luebeck, through many dangers, with his cavalry; but driven
thence after a gallant and exceptional resistance, he too surrendered.
There remained no organized Prussian force in the lands between the
Elbe and the Oder.
It had been accurate foresight which enabled Napoleon to say, in the
decree issued from Jena on October fifteenth, that in the battle of
the previous day he had conquered all the Prussian lands west of the
Vistula. Before long the demoralization of the nation was as complete
as the conquest of their country. The treatment of the people by the
victorious soldiery was the climax of the long career of French
officers and men as plunderers. As Napoleon's success kept pace with
his ever-growing schemes of conquest, he laid less and less stress on
the means to his end, ever more and more on its accomplishment. The
army was once again scattered to obtain subsistence, and it left no
opportunity for spoil neglected. As one of the most enthusiastic
officers reluctantly declared: "From the moment Napoleon obtained
supreme power the soldiers' morals changed, the union of hearts among
them disappeared with their poverty, a desire for luxury and the
comforts of life began. The Emperor considered it politic to favor
this degeneracy. He thought it advantageous and shrewd to make the
army absolutely dependent upon him."
The shocking details of Prussia's treatment by Napoleon and his army
have been often told. On October twenty-fourth the Emperor arrived at
the Hohenzollern residence of Potsdam, and publicly visited the tomb
of Frederick the Great. Uttering words expressive of profound
reverence for the great general, he nevertheless sent the old hero's
sword, belt, and hat as trophies to ornament the Invalides at Paris.
"His intellect, his genius, and his affections were kin to those of
our nation, which he so esteemed," was the pretext for this act of
spoliation. He was equally unscrupulous in his shameful treatment of
the unfortunate Queen. Recognizing by swift penetration that in her
resided the true spirit not alone of Prussian but of German
nationality, that hers was the genius of reform, the temperament of
the patriot, and the grace of perseverance, he selected her as the
target of his spite. He loathed the use of feminine charm in
statecraft, resented her endowment of beauty and intellect, and seems
to have feared her influence. In bulletin after bulletin he heaped
lying abuse on her devoted head. In one he depicted her as having a
sufficiently pretty face, but little wit; in another he asked what
mystery had led a woman hitherto absorbed in the serious occupations
of her toilet to meddle with politics, stir up the King, and kindle
everywhere the fire with which she was herself possessed. The answer,
he insinuated, was to be found in the Czar's personal visits to
Berlin.
On October twenty-seventh Napoleon made his triumphal entry into the
Prussian capital with the utmost splendor he could devise, and at the
head of the largest military force he could muster. Coignet, one of
his soldiers, wrote of the scene: "The Emperor was grand in his plain
clothes, with his little hat and a penny cockade. His staff, on the
contrary, wore their dress uniform; and for strangers it was a queer
sight to see, in the one man most meanly clad of all, the leader of so
fine an army." The city of Berlin, populace, burghers, and
aristocracy, was strangely apathetic at the approach and presence of
the French. Its general aspect seemed to the invaders one of childish
curiosity. But the Emperor was about to launch some of his most
far-reaching thunderbolts and scorned any appearance of clemency. To
"show himself terrible at the first moment," as he had advised Joseph
to do at Naples, an order was issued for the seizure of Prince
Hatzfeldt, governor of the capital and the most distinguished Prussian
nobleman within reach. He was to be tried by a court-martial on the
charge of being a traitor and a spy, his crime being that he had
written to his King a letter giving an account of the French entry
into Berlin. The epistle was so harmless in its nature that its writer
had intrusted it to the mail, in which it was seized and then shown to
Napoleon. The prince escaped the first blast of the storm by hiding;
his life was afterward granted to the personal and tearful
solicitations of his wife as an act of great clemency. As in Italy,
the galleries, libraries, collections, and public monuments were
stripped of their finest treasures to enrich Paris.
The French soldiers needed no example. Luebeck, which, as was claimed,
had been taken by storm, was handed over to the men to work their
will, just as Pavia had been. Wherever the troops were billeted, they
had but to demand from their terrified entertainers what they desired
and their behest was done. They were not modest, and before long both
rapine and lust worked their will among the angry but helpless
populations. The French generals were too much like their men, and, as
in Italy and Austria, the gratification of their boundless greed
seemed to meet the Emperor's approval. The castles of the nobility and
the houses of the wealthy citizens were of course chosen by them as
quarters. It would have been hard for their owners to refuse the
unbidden guests any object which met with their expressed approval,
and the French officers openly admired many valuable things. All these
irregularities, the Emperor believed, attached his generals to
himself; and at the same time a threat of examination into their
accounts would, he knew, instantly check any manifestations of
independence. Massena was the most avaricious of all; nothing but the
love of money could influence him, wrote Napoleon, and "where at first
little sums sufficed, now milliards are not sufficient." At another
time he said, more generously, that one must bow the knee before
Massena's gifts as a soldier, although he had his faults like another.
Bernadotte, on the occasion of a certain surprise, lost the wagon
which contained his Luebeck booty. He was inconsolable, and it was
considered a delicious joke when he explained that he was so depressed
because the loss "prevented him from paying a gratification in money
to the men of his corps." Davout before long filled all Poland with
the terror of his name. Napoleon's brother Jerome, finding a bin of
choice Tokay in a Polish castle, loaded the contents in his
baggage-train, and carried them away.
With Prussia thus shattered, disintegrated, and almost annihilated,
Napoleon proceeded without the loss of a moment to use his new vantage
against both Russia and England. In the Oriental question he could
strike both with a single blow. As a result of the thorough knowledge
of the East obtained in 1803 through Sebastiani, he had virtually
determined to assert his supremacy over Turkey. To this end, however,
he must for the present spare the sensibilities of Austria, which,
though humbled to the dust, was again rising to her feet; her
curiously assorted, heterogeneous peoples showed more spirit than the
Prussians, displaying resources and courage comparable to those of
France. During the summer of 1806, apparently of his own motion, but
in reality by French suggestion, the Sultan Selim III had on August
twenty-fourth dismissed the viceroys of Moldavia and Wallachia, both
of whom had made themselves conspicuous by their Russian proclivities.
At once the Czar Alexander I sent an army to cross the Pruth. The
Sultan was terrified when the Russians occupied Bucharest, but on
November eleventh, 1806, at the very climax of his peril, he was
officially notified that Napoleon now had three hundred thousand men
free to attack Russia and save Turkey; the Emperor would himself
operate from the Vistula, and a Turkish army must simultaneously
appear on the Dniester. The Sultan at once obeyed, and the Czar
consequently sent eighty thousand men against the Turks. Two British
expeditions were despatched in cooeperation, one to Constantinople, one
to Egypt: both were failures. Russia was soon fully occupied in her
offensive campaign against Napoleon and correspondingly disabled in
the East, while the Sultan's janizaries by low intrigue rendered
active operations on his part impossible. Austria, mindful,
apparently, of Russia's desertion after Austerlitz, displayed neither
resentment nor alarm at the course taken by France, and Napoleon,
whose material gain was slight, nevertheless won the diplomatic move
and felt himself a step nearer both to victory over Russia and to such
a protectorate of Turkey as would be a serious menace to England's
Eastern empire.
As to Prussia, the ultimate arrangements were held in suspense.
Napoleon's first response to a request for peace had been that he
would make terms only in Berlin, and shortly after his triumphal entry
negotiations were opened. The terms proposed by his ministers at the
outset were far in excess of what the Prussian plenipotentiaries
thought reasonable; but as one fortress after another opened its gates
the demands grew more and more exorbitant. Although other counsels
prevailed in the end, there was actually a moment when Napoleon
contemplated the extinction of the Hohenzollern power, and the
partition among his vassal states of that dynasty's variously acquired
and strangely assorted lands, which had so little territorial unity
that they extended in two separate parallel lines from northeast to
southwest. Voltaire said they stretched over Europe like a pair of
garters. The best offer that could be wrung from Napoleon--and, in
view of Prussia's absolute prostration, he thought his proposition not
ungenerous--was for an armistice, during which the French should
occupy all Prussia as far as the Bug; and Frederick William should
order the now advancing Russians off his soil. The Prussian minister
actually signed this paper, but his sovereign, whose hopes were rising
in proportion as the Russian army drew nearer, refused to ratify it.
Owing to the general readjustment of the international relations so
rudely shattered by the rise of French empire, neither Great Britain
nor Russia could settle upon a definite policy, much less Prussia,
distracted alike by internal dissensions and the smiting of ruthless
foes.
It is not difficult to conceive the desperation of Frederick William
as he learned the ominous disposition made of the lands belonging to
his allies. The Elector of Hesse-Cassel had remained ostensibly
neutral in the war, having requested and been refused membership in
the Rhine Confederation. But he had mustered about twenty thousand men
on a war footing: his heir was in the Prussian lines. He was rightly
suspected of trimming to both currents: his people loathed and
despised him. The day after Jena he was informed that the Emperor had
been aware of his secret sympathy with the coalition, and that his
feelings had been evidenced by the permission granted the Prussian
troops to pass through his domain while his own army was (p.~443)
ready for action. This conduct made it necessary to occupy his states.
Mortier, the French commander at Mainz, was ordered to seize the
prince and imprison him in Metz; on November fourth it was curtly
announced that the house of Hesse had ceased to reign. The fact was,
the territories of that house were needed for a new subsidiary
kingdom, the formation of which had been for some time in
contemplation. The Elector of Saxony, whose troops had fought with the
Prussians at Jena, was, on the other hand, offered the privilege of
neutrality, and, abandoning his former ally, he eagerly accepted. The
dukes of Saxe-Gotha and Saxe-Weimar followed his example, and obtained
immunity by submission. The Duke of Brunswick had withdrawn to his
capital. Thence he appealed to his conqueror for mercy in behalf of
his dominions. Napoleon's reply was pitiless, recalling the duke's
notorious proclamation of 1792 against the French republic, and
declaring that it was he also who had been the real instigator of the
present war. The sting of this retort was in its truth and the humbled
warrior in mortal agony betook himself to Altona, where he expired.
Brunswick, Hanover, Hamburg, and their domains were all occupied by
French troops and put under martial law.
In the treatment which Hesse-Cassel received, the Emperor of the
French, though with much provocation, was simply a despot. In the case
of Prussia he could not well pose as a liberator, for as yet there was
no widespread sense of oppression and little national spirit among the
people. In his dealings with Saxony and the Saxon duchies he appeared
in a better light, for among their inhabitants there was a very
extended sympathy with the liberal ideas, both political and
ecclesiastical, which he was still supposed to represent. But there
was a nation of Eastern Europe which longed for him as for a savior,
and to whom he was far more than a representative liberal. Unhappy in
her constitution, feeble in her political life, assassinated by a
conspiracy of her neighbors, Poland was nevertheless still alive, and
in her longing for a deliverer the majority of her people had fixed
their eyes on Napoleon. From this fact he was anxious to draw the
utmost advantage, and that right speedily, for the Czar with ninety
thousand men was steadily marching toward the Prussian frontier. On
November nineteenth a deputation of Polish nobility arrived in Berlin,
and Napoleon, after treating them with impressive distinction,
dismissed them with the statement that as France had never
acknowledged the partition of their country, it was his interest as
Emperor of the French to restore their independence and reconstruct a
kingdom which, since it originated with him, would be permanent. A
week later he proceeded to Posen, and, entering the city under an arch
erected to "the liberator of Poland," awakened such enthusiasm that it
far outran his own progress; a volunteer movement was almost instantly
set on foot in Warsaw, which resulted in the enlistment of sixty
thousand men as a national guard. It is idle to discuss whether
Napoleon could or would have resuscitated Poland. Kosciusko and the
more enlightened Poles believed not. Some of the Polish nobles
demanded an immediate and formal recognition of their country's
independence as the antecedent condition of their support. But among
the masses the old ideals were revived, and the old spasmodic,
misdirected energy was awakened in the service of the new Western
Empire.
Such proceedings could not but arouse anxiety in Austria concerning
the stability of her authority in the Polish lands under her crown.
Andreossy, the French ambassador at Vienna, was instructed to say that
such insurgent movements were a necessary consequence of the
Emperor's presence in Posen, and that he had no intention of meddling
with Austrian Poland; but that, nevertheless, if the Emperor of
Austria felt uneasy, he might perhaps be willing to consider the
acceptance of a part of Silesia as indemnity for the portion of Poland
under Austrian rule. By this sly offer Francis was rendered powerless,
for he could not accept Silesia, nor even a portion of it, without
embroiling himself with England and Russia, and thereby entering into
a virtual partnership with France. In spite of the unwearied efforts
to stir up strife made by Napoleon's Corsican countryman, Pozzo di
Borgo, who now represented the Czar at Vienna, Francis resolved to
preserve a strict neutrality. The Poles were hopelessly divided, one
party--that of Kosciusko--holding altogether aloof, a second under
Poniatowski throwing themselves heartily on Napoleon's good will, a
third under Czartoryski preferring to secure their country's
resurrection through the Czar, who passed for an enlightened idealist.
Here, as so often before, Napoleon concealed his intentions and
movements behind the cloud of contradictory sentiments which he
inspired in different classes of men by the assumption of a colorless
magnanimity, just as the octopus blinds all alike, the indifferent as
well as the hostile, in the inky fluid with which it darkens the clear
waters round about.
Perplexity as to continental policies was, however, in marked contrast
to the directness of his attack on England. This was in the form of a
paper fulmination, a proclamation and a decree; mere print, but for
all that a bolt, forged, to be sure, from the substance of French
policies, yet novel in the daring with which it was now launched.