“The British Islanders,” said this famous edict of reprisal, “are declared in a state of blockade. All commerce and all correspondence with them are forbidden.” All letters or packets addressed to an Englishman or written in English were to be seized; every English subject found in any country controlled by France was to be made a prisoner of war; all commerce in English merchandise was forbidden, and all ships coming from England or her colonies were to be refused admittance to any port.
It is hardly necessary to speak here of the distress caused, alike in Europe and elsewhere, by this war upon commerce, in which England did not fail to meet the harsh decrees of her opponent by others equally severe. The effect of these edicts upon American commerce is well known. The commerce of neutral nations was almost swept from the seas. One result was the American war of 1812, which for a time seemed as likely to be directed against France as Great Britain.
Meanwhile Frederick William of Prussia was a fugitive king. He refused to accept the harsh terms of the armistice offered by Napoleon, and in despair resolved to seek, with the remnant of his army, some 25,000 in number, the Russian camp, and join his forces with those of Alexander of Russia, still in arms against France.
Napoleon, not content while an enemy remained in arms, with inflexible resolution resolved to make an end of all his adversaries, and meet in battle the great empire of the north. The Russian armies then occupied Poland, whose people, burning under the oppression and injustice to which they had been subjected, gladly welcomed Napoleon’s specious offers to bring them back their lost liberties, and rose in his aid when he marched his armies into their country.
Here the French found themselves exposed to unlooked-for privations. They had dreamed of abundant stores of food, but discovered that the country they had invaded was, in this wintry season, a desert; a series of frozen solitudes incapable of feeding an army, and holding no reward for them other than that of battle with and victory over the hardy Russians.
Napoleon advanced to Warsaw, the Polish capital. The Russians were entrenched behind the Narew and the Ukra. The French continued to advance. The Russians were beaten and forced back in every battle, several furious encounters took place, and Alexander’s army fell back upon the Pregel, intact and powerful still, despite the French successes. The wintry chill and the character of the country seriously interfered with Napoleon’s plans, the troops being forced to make their way through thick and rain-soaked forests, and march over desolate and marshy plains. The winter of the north fought against them like a strong army and many of them fell dead without a battle. Warlike movements became almost impossible to the troops of the south, though the hardy northerners, accustomed to the climate, continued their military operations.
By the end of January the Russian army was evidently approaching in force, and immediate action became necessary. The cold increased. The mud was converted into ice. On January 30, 1807, Napoleon left Warsaw and marched in search of the enemy. General Bennigsen retreated, avoiding battle, and on the 7th of February entered the small town of Eylau, from which his troops were pushed by the approaching French. He encamped outside the town, the French in and about it; it was evident that a great battle was at hand.
The weather was cold. Snow lay thick upon the ground and still fell in great flakes. A sheet of ice covering some small lakes formed part of the country upon which the armies were encamped, but was thick enough to bear their weight. It was a chill, inhospitable country to which the demon of war had come.
Before daybreak on the 8th Napoleon was in the streets of Eylau, forming his line of battle for the coming engagement. Soon the artillery of both armies opened, and a rain of cannon balls began to decimate the opposing ranks. The Russian fire was concentrated on the town, which was soon in flames. That of the French was directed against a hill which the emperor deemed it important to occupy. The two armies, nearly equal in numbers,—the French having 75,000 to the Russian 70,000,—were but a short distance apart, and the slaughter from the fierce cannonade was terrible.
A series of movements on both sides began, Davout marching upon the Russian flank and Augereau upon the centre, while the Russians manœuvred as if with a purpose to outflank the French on the left. At this interval an unlooked-for obstacle interfered with the French movements, a snow-fall beginning, which grew so dense that the armies lost sight of each other, and vision was restricted to a few feet. In this semi-darkness the French columns lost their way, and wandered about uncertainly. For half an hour the snow continued to fall. When it ceased the French army was in a critical position. Its cohesion was lost; its columns were straggling about and incapable of supporting one another; many of its superior officers were wounded. The Russians, on the contrary, were on the point of executing a vigorous turning movement, with 20,000 infantry, supported by cavalry and artillery.
“Are you going to let me be devoured by these people?” cried Napoleon to Murat, his eagle eye discerning the danger.
He ordered a grand charge of all the cavalry of the army, consisting of eighty squadrons. With Murat at their head, they rushed like an avalanche on the Russian lines, breaking through the infantry and dispersing the cavalry who came to its support. The Russian infantry suffered severely from this charge, its two massive lines being rent asunder, while the third fell back upon a wood in the rear. Finally Davout, whose movement had been hindered by the weather, reached the Russian rear, and in an impetuous charge drove them from the hilly ground which Napoleon wished to occupy.
The battle seemed lost to the Russians. They began a retreat, leaving the ground strewn thickly with their dead and wounded. But at this critical moment a Prussian force, some 8,000 strong, which was being pursued by Marshal Ney, arrived on the field and checked the French advance and the Russian retreat. Benningsen regained sufficient confidence to prepare for final attack, when he was advised of the approach of Ney, who was two or three hours behind the Prussians. At this discouraging news a final retreat was ordered.
The French were left masters of the field, though little attempt was made to pursue the menacing columns of the enemy, who withdrew in military array. It was a victory that came near being a defeat, and which, indeed, both sides claimed. Never before had Napoleon been so stubbornly withstood. His success had been bought at a frightful cost, and Königsberg, the old Prussian capital, the goal of his march, was still covered by the compact columns of the allies. The men were in no condition to pursue. Food was wanting, and they were without shelter from the wintry chill. Ney surveyed the terrible scene with eyes of gloom. “What a massacre,” he exclaimed; “and without result.”
So severe was the exhaustion on both sides from this great battle that it was four months before hostilities were resumed. Meanwhile Danzig, which had been strongly besieged, surrendered, and more than 30,000 men were released to reinforce the French army. Negotiations for peace went slowly on, without result, and it was June before hostilities again became imminent.
Eylau, which now became Napoleon’s headquarters, presented a very different aspect at this season from that of four months before. Then all was wintry desolation; now the country presented a beautiful scene of green woodland, shining lakes, and attractive villages. The light corps of the army were in motion in various directions, their object being to get between the Russians and their magazines and cut off retreat to Königsberg. On June 13th Napoleon, with the main body of his army, marched towards Friedland, a town on the River Alle, in the vicinity of Königsberg, towards which the Russians were marching. Here, crossing the Alle, Benningsen drove from the town a regiment of French hussars which had occupied it, and fell with all his force on the corps of Marshal Lannes, which alone had reached the field.
Lannes held his ground with his usual heroic fortitude, while sending successive messengers for aid to the emperor. Noon had passed when Napoleon and his staff reached the field at full gallop, far in advance of the troops. He surveyed the field with eyes of hope. “It is the 14th of June, the anniversary of Marengo,” he said; “it is a lucky day for us.”
“Give me only a reinforcement,” cried Oudinot, “and we will cast all the Russians into the water.”
This seemed possible. Bennigsen’s troops were perilously concentrated within a bend of the river. Some of the French generals advised deferring the battle till the next day, as the hour was late, but Napoleon was too shrewd to let an advantage escape him.
“No,” he said, “one does not surprise the enemy twice in such a blunder.” He swept with his field-glass the masses of the enemy before him, then seized the arm of Marshal Ney. “You see the Russians and the town of Friedland,” he said. “March straight forward; seize the town; take the bridges, whatever it may cost. Do not trouble yourself with what is taking place around you. Leave that to me and the army.”
The troops were coming in rapidly, and marching to the places assigned them. The hours moved on. It was half-past five in the afternoon when the cannon sounded the signal of the coming fray.
Meanwhile Ney’s march upon Friedland had begun. A terrible fire from the Russians swept his ranks as he advanced. Aided by cavalry and artillery, he reached a stream defended by the Russian Imperial Guard. Before those picked troops the French recoiled in temporary disorder; but the division of General Dupont, marching briskly up, broke the Russian guard, and the pursuing French rushed into the town. In a short time it was in flames and the fugitive Russians were cut off from the bridges, which were seized and set on fire.
The Russians made a vigorous effort to recover their lost ground, General Gortschakoff endeavoring to drive the French from the town, and other corps making repeated attacks on the French centre. All their efforts were in vain. The French columns continued to advance. By ten o’clock the battle was at an end. Many of the Russians had been drowned in the stream, and the field was covered with their dead, whose numbers were estimated by the boastful French bulletins at 15,000 or 18,000 men, while they made the improbable claim of having lost no more than 500 dead. Königsberg, the prize of victory, was quickly occupied by Marshal Soult, and yielded the French a vast quantity of food, and a large store of military supplies which had been sent from England for Russian use. The King of Prussia had lost the whole of his possessions with the exception of the single town of Memel.
Victorious as Napoleon had been, he had found the Russians no contemptible foes. At Eylau he had come nearer defeat than ever before in his career. He was quite ready, therefore, to listen to overtures for peace, and early in July a notable interview took place between him and the Czar of Russia at Tilsit, on the Niemen, the two emperors meeting on a raft in the centre of the stream. What passed between them is not known. Some think that they arranged for a division of Europe between their respective empires, Alexander taking all the east and Napoleon all the west. However that was, the treaty of peace, signed July 8th, was a disastrous one for the defeated Prussian king, who was punished for his temerity in seeking to fight Napoleon alone by the loss of more than half his kingdom, while in addition a heavy war indemnity was laid upon his depleted realms.
He was forced to yield all the countries between the Rhine and the Elbe, to consent to the establishment of a dukedom of Warsaw, under the supremacy of the king of Saxony, and to the loss of Danzig and the surrounding territory, which were converted into a free State. A new kingdom, named Westphalia, was founded by Napoleon, made up of the territory taken from Prussia and the states of Hesse, Brunswick and South Hanover. His youngest brother, Jerome Bonaparte, was made its king. It was a further step in his policy of founding a western empire.
Louisa, the beautiful and charming queen of Frederick William, sought Tilsit, hoping by the seduction of her beauty and grace of address to induce Napoleon to mitigate his harsh terms. But in vain she brought to bear upon him all the resources of her intellect and her attractive charm of manner. He continued cold and obdurate, and she left Tilsit deeply mortified and humiliated.
In northern Europe only one enemy of Napoleon remained. Sweden retained its hostility to France, under the fanatical enmity of Gustavus IV., who believed himself the instrument appointed by Providence to reinstate the Bourbon monarchs upon their thrones. Denmark, which refused to ally itself with England, was visited by a British fleet, which bombarded Copenhagen and carried off all the Danish ships of war, an outrage which brought this kingdom into close alliance with France. The war in Sweden must have ended in the conquest of that country, had not the people revolted and dethroned their obstinate king. Charles XIII., his uncle, was placed on the throne, but was induced to adopt Napoleon’s marshal Bernadotte as his son. The latter, as crown prince, practically succeeded the incapable king in 1810.
Events followed each other rapidly. Napoleon, in his desire to add kingdom after kingdom to his throne, invaded Portugal and interfered in the affairs of Spain, from whose throne he removed the last of the Bourbon kings, replacing him by his brother, Joseph Bonaparte. The result was a revolt of the Spanish people which all his efforts proved unable to quell, aided, as they were eventually, by the power of England. In Italy his intrigues continued. Marshal Murat succeeded Joseph Bonaparte on the throne of Naples. Eliza, Napoleon’s sister, was made queen of Tuscany. The temporal sovereignty of the Pope was seriously interfered with and finally, in 1809, the pontiff was forcibly removed from Rome and the states of the Church were added to the French territory, Pius VII., the pope, was eventually brought to France and obliged to reside at Fontainebleau, where he persistently refused to yield to Napoleon’s wishes or perform any act of ecclesiastical authority while held in captivity.
These various arbitrary acts had their natural result, that of active hostility. The Austrians beheld them with growing indignation, and at length grew so exasperated that, despite their many defeats, they decided again to dare the power and genius of the conqueror. In April, 1809, the Vienna Cabinet once more declared war against France and made all haste to put its armies in the field. Stimulated by this, a revolt broke out in the Tyrol, the simple-minded but brave and sturdy mountaineers gathering under the leadership of Andreas Hofer, a man of authority among them, and welcoming the Austrian troops sent to their aid.
As regards this war in the Tyrol, there is no need here to go into details. It must suffice to say that the bold peasantry, aided by the natural advantages of their mountain land, for a time freed themselves from French dominion, to the astonishment and admiration of Europe. But their freedom was of brief duration, fresh troops were poured into the country, and though the mountaineers won more than one victory, they proved no match for the power of their foes. Their country was conquered, and Hofer, their brave leader, was taken by the French and remorselessly put to death by the order of Napoleon.
The struggle in the Tyrol was merely a side issue in the new war with Austria, which was conducted on Napoleon’s side with his usual celerity of movement. The days when soldiers are whisked forward at locomotive speed had not yet dawned, yet the French troops made extraordinary progress on foot, and war was barely declared before the army of Napoleon covered Austria. This army was no longer made up solely of Frenchmen. The Confederation of the Rhine practically formed part of Napoleon’s empire, and Germans now fought side by side with Frenchmen; Marshal Lefebvre leading the Bavarians, Bernadotte the Saxons, Augereau the men of Baden, Wurtemberg, and Hesse. On the other hand, the Austrians were early in motion, and by the 10th of April the Archduke Charles had crossed the Inn with his army and the King of Bavaria, Napoleon’s ally, was in flight from his capital.
The quick advance of the Austrians had placed the French army in danger. Spread out over an extent of twenty-five leagues, it ran serious risk of being cut in two by the rapidly marching troops of the Archduke. Napoleon, who reached the front on the 17th, was not slow to perceive the peril and to take steps of prevention. A hasty concentration of his forces was ordered and vigorously begun.
“Never was there need for more rapidity of movement than now,” he wrote to Massena. “Activity, activity, speed!”
Speed was the order of the day. The French generals ably seconded the anxious activity of their chief. The soldiers fairly rushed together. A brief hesitation robbed the Austrians of the advantage which they had hoped to gain. The Archduke Charles, one of the ablest tacticians ever opposed to Napoleon, had the weakness of over-prudence, and caution robbed him of the opportunity given him by the wide dispersion of the French.
He was soon and severely punished for his slowness. On the 19th Davout defeated the Austrians at Fangen and made a junction with the Bavarians. On the 20th and 21st Napoleon met and defeated them in a series of engagements. Meanwhile the Archduke Charles fell on Ratisbon, held by a single French regiment, occupied that important place, and attacked Davout at Eckmühl. Here a furious battle took place. Davout, outnumbered, maintained his position for three days. Napoleon, warned of the peril of his marshal, bade him to hold on to the death, as he was hastening to his relief with 40,000 men. The day was well advanced when the emperor came up and fell with his fresh troops on the Austrians, who, still bravely fighting, were forced back upon Ratisbon. During the night the Archduke wisely withdrew and marched for Bohemia, where a large reinforcement awaited him. On the 23d Napoleon attacked the town, and carried it in spite of a vigorous defence. His proclamation to his soldiers perhaps overestimated the prizes of this brief but active campaign, which he declared to be a hundred cannon, forty flags, all the enemy’s artillery, 50,000 prisoners, a large number of wagons, etc. Half this loss would have fully justified the Archduke’s retreat.
In Italy affairs went differently. Prince Eugene Beauharnais, for the first time in command of a French army, found himself opposed by the Archduke John, and met with a defeat. On April 16th, seeking to retrieve his disaster, he attacked the Archduke, but the Austrians bravely held their positions, and the French were again obliged to retreat. General Macdonald, an officer of tried ability, now joined the prince, who took up a defensive position on the Adige, whither the Austrians marched. On the 1st of May Macdonald perceived among them indications of withdrawal from their position.
“Victory in Germany!” he shouted to the prince. “Now is our time for a forward march!”
He was correct, the Archduke John had been recalled in haste to aid his brother in the defence of Vienna, on which the French were advancing in force.
The campaign now became a race for the capital of Austria. During its progress several conflicts took place, in each of which the French won. The city was defended by the Archduke Maximilian with an army of over 15,000 men, but he found it expedient to withdraw, and on the 13th the troops of Napoleon occupied the place. Meanwhile Charles had concentrated his troops and was marching hastily towards the opposite side of the Danube, whither his brother John was advancing from Italy.
It was important for Napoleon to strike a blow before this junction could be made. He resolved to cross the Danube in the suburbs of the capital itself, and attack the Austrians before they were reinforced. In the vicinity of Vienna the channel of the river is broken by many islets. At the island of Lobau, the point chosen for the attempt, the river is broad and deep, but Lobau is separated from the opposite bank by only a narrow branch, while two smaller islets offered themselves as aids in the construction of bridges, there being four channels, over each of which a bridge was thrown.
The work was a difficult one. The Danube, swollen by the melting snows, imperilled the bridges, erected with difficulty and braced by insufficient cordage. But despite this peril the crossing began, and on May 20th Marshal Massena reached the other side and posted his troops in the two villages of Aspern and Essling, and along a deep ditch that connected them.
As yet only the vanguard of the Austrians had arrived. Other corps soon appeared, and by the afternoon of the 21st the entire army, from 70,000 to 80,000 strong, faced the French, still only half their number, and in a position of extreme peril, for the bridge over the main channel of the river had broken during the night, and the crossing was cut off in its midst.
Napoleon, however, was straining every nerve to repair the bridge, and Massena and Lannes, in command of the advance, fought like men fighting for their lives. The Archduke Charles, the ablest soldier Napoleon had yet encountered, hurled his troops in masses upon Aspern, which covered the bridge to Lobau. Several times it was taken and retaken, but the French held on with a death grip, all the strength of the Austrians seeming insufficient to break the hold of Lannes upon Essling. An advance in force, which nearly cut the communication between the two villages, was checked by an impetuous cavalry charge, and night fell, leaving the situation unchanged.
At dawn of the next day more than 70,000 French had crossed the stream; Marshal Davout’s corps, with part of the artillery and most of the ammunition, being still on the right bank. At this critical moment the large bridge, against which the Austrians had sent fireships, boats laden with stone and other floating missiles, broke for the third time, and the engineers of the French army were again forced to the most strenuous and hasty exertions for its repair.
The struggle of the day that had just begun was one of extraordinary valor and obstinacy. Men went down in multitudes; now the Austrians, now the French, were repulsed; the Austrians, impetuously assailed, slowly fell back; and Lannes was preparing for a vigorous movement designed to pierce their centre, when word was brought Napoleon that the great bridge had again yielded to the floating débris, carrying with it a regiment of cuirassiers, and cutting off the supply of ammunition. Lannes was at once ordered to fall back upon the villages, and simultaneously the Austrians made a powerful assault on the French centre, which was checked with great difficulty. Five times the charge was renewed, and though the enemy was finally repelled, it became evident that Napoleon, for the first time in his career, had met with a decided check. Napoleon Forced to his First RetreatNight fell at length, and reluctantly he gave the order to retreat. He had lost more than a battle, he had lost the brilliant soldier Lannes, who fell with a mortal wound. Back to the island of Lobau marched the French; Massena, in charge of the rear-guard, bringing over the last regiments in safety. More than 40,000 men lay dead and wounded on that fatal field, which remained in Austrian hands. Napoleon, at last, was obliged to acknowledge a repulse, if not a defeat, and the nations of Europe held up their heads with renewed hope. It had been proved that the Corsican was not invincible.
Some of Napoleon’s generals, deeply disheartened, advised an immediate retreat, but the emperor had no thought of such a movement. It would have brought a thousand disasters in its train. On the contrary, he held the island of Lobau with a strong force, and brought all his resources to bear on the construction of a bridge that would defy the current of the stream. At the same time reinforcements were hurried forward, until by the 1st of July, he had around Vienna an army of 150,000 men. The Austrians had probably from 135,000 to 140,000. The archduke had, moreover, strongly fortified the positions of the recent battle, expecting the attack upon them to be resumed.
Napoleon had no such intention. He had selected the heights ranging from Neusiedl to Wagram, strongly occupied by the Austrians, but not fortified, as his point of attack, and on the night of July 4th bridges were thrown from the island of Lobau to the mainland, and the army which had been gathering for several days on the island began its advance. It moved as a whole against the heights of Wagram, occupying Aspern and Essling in its advance.
The great battle began on the succeeding day. It was hotly contested at all points, but attention may be confined to the movement against the plateau of Wagram, which had been entrusted to Marshal Davout. The height was gained after a desperate struggle; the key of the battlefield was held by the French; the Austrians, impetuously assailed at every point, and driven from every point of vantage, began a retreat. The Archduke Charles had anxiously looked for the coming of his brother John, with the army under his command. He waited in vain, the laggard prince failed to appear, and retreat became inevitable. The battle had already lasted ten hours, and the French held all the strong points of the field; but the Austrians withdrew slowly and in battle array, presenting a front that discouraged any effort to pursue. There was nothing resembling a rout.
The Archduke Charles retreated to Bohemia. His forces were dispersed during the march, but he had 70,000 men with him when Napoleon reached his front at Znaim, on the road to Prague, on the 11th of July. Further hostilities were checked by a request for a truce, preliminary to a peace. The battle, already begun, was stopped, and during the night an armistice was signed. The vigor of the Austrian resistance and the doubtful attitude of the other powers made Napoleon willing enough to treat for terms.
The peace, which was finally signed at Vienna, October 14, 1809, took from Austria 50,000 square miles of territory and 3,000,000 inhabitants, together with a war contribution of $85,000,000, while her army was restricted to 150,000 men. The overthrow of the several outbreaks which had taken place in north Germany, the defeat of a British expedition against Antwerp, and the suppression of the revolt in the Tyrol, ended all organized opposition to Napoleon, who was once more master of the European situation.
Raised by this signal success to the summit of his power, lord paramount of Western Europe, only one thing remained to trouble the mind of the victorious emperor. His wife, Josephine, was childless; his throne threatened to be left without an heir. Much as he had seemed to love his wife, the companion of his early days, when he was an unknown and unconsidered subaltern, seeking humbly enough for military employment in Paris, yet ambition and the thirst for glory were always the ruling passions in his nature, and had now grown so dominant as to throw love and wifely devotion utterly into the shade. He resolved to set aside his wife and seek a new bride among the princesses of Europe, hoping in this way to leave an heir of his own blood as successor to his imperial throne.
Negotiations were entered into with the courts of Europe to obtain a daughter of one of the proud royal houses as the spouse of the plebeian emperor of France. No maiden of less exalted rank than a princess of the imperial families of Russia or Austria was high enough to meet the ambitious aims of this proud lord of battles, and negotiations were entered into with both, ending in the selection of Maria Louisa, daughter of the Emperor Francis of Austria, who did not venture to refuse a demand for his daughter’s hand from the master of half his dominions.
Napoleon was not long in finding a plea for setting aside the wife of his days of poverty and obscurity. A defect in the marriage was alleged, and the transparent farce went on. The divorce of Josephine has awakened the sympathy of a century. It was, indeed, a piteous example of state-craft, and there can be no doubt that Napoleon suffered in his heart while yielding to the dictates of his unbridled ambition. The marriage with Maria Louisa, on the 2d of April, 1810, was conducted with all possible pomp and display, no less than five queens carrying the train of the bride in the august ceremony. The purpose of the marriage did not fail; the next year a son was born to Napoleon. But this imperial youth, who was dignified with the title of King of Rome, was destined to an inglorious life, as an unconsidered tenant of the gilded halls of his imperial grandfather of Austria.
Ambition, unrestrained by caution, uncontrolled by moderation, has its inevitable end. An empire built upon victory, trusting solely to military genius, prepares for itself the elements of its overthrow. This fact Napoleon was to learn. In the outset of his career he opposed a new art of war to the obsolete one of his enemies, and his path to empire was over the corpses of slaughtered armies and the ruins of fallen kingdoms. But year by year they learned his art, in war after war their resistance grew more stringent, each successive victory was won with more difficulty and at greater cost, and finally, at the crossing of the Danube, the energy and genius of Napoleon met their equal, and the standards of France went back in defeat. It was the tocsin of fate. His career of victory had culminated. From that day its decline began.
It is interesting to find that the first effective check to Napoleon’s victorious progress came from one of the weaker nations of Europe, a power which the conqueror contemned and thought to move as one of the minor pieces in his game of empire. Spain at that time had reached almost the lowest stage of its decline. Its king was an imbecile; the heir to the throne a weakling; Godoy, the “Prince of the Peace,” the monarch’s favorite, an ambitious intriguer. Napoleon’s armies had invaded Portugal and forced its monarch to embark for Brazil, his American domain. A similar movement was attempted in Spain. This country the base Godoy betrayed to Napoleon, and then, frightened by the consequences of his dishonorable intrigues, sought to escape with the king and court to the Spanish dominions in America. His scheme was prevented by an outbreak of the people of Madrid, and Napoleon, ambitiously designing to add the peninsula to his empire, induced both Charles IV. and his son Ferdinand to resign from the throne. He replaced them by his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, who, on June 6, 1808, was named King of Spain.
Hitherto Napoleon had dealt with emperors and kings, whose overthrow carried with it that of their people. In Spain he had a new element, the people itself, to deal with. The very weakness of Spain proved its strength. Deprived of their native monarchs, and given a king not of their own choice, the whole people rose in rebellion and defied Napoleon and his armies. An insurrection broke out in Madrid in which 1,200 French soldiers were slain. Juntas were formed in different cities, which assumed the control of affairs and refused obedience to the new king. From end to end of Spain the people sprang to arms and began a guerilla warfare which the troops of Napoleon sought in vain to quell. The bayonets of the French were able to sustain King Joseph and his court in Madrid, but proved powerless to put down the people. Each city, each district, became a separate centre of war, each had to be conquered separately, and the strength of the troops was consumed in petty contests with a people who avoided open warfare and dealt in surprises and scattered fights, in which victory counted for little and needed to be repeated a thousand times.
The Spanish did more than this. They put an army in the field which was defeated by the French, but they revenged themselves brilliantly at Baylen, in Andalusia, where General Dupont, with a corps 20,000 strong, was surrounded in a position from which there was no escape, and forced to surrender himself and his men as prisoners of war.
This undisciplined people had gained a victory over France which none of the great powers of Europe could match. The Spaniards were filled with enthusiasm; King Joseph hastily abandoned Madrid; the French armies retreated across the Ebro. Soon encouraging news came from Portugal. The English, hitherto mainly confining themselves to naval warfare and to aiding the enemies of Napoleon with money, had landed an army in that country under Sir Arthur Wellesley (afterwards Lord Wellington) and other generals, which would have captured the entire French army had it not capitulated on the terms of a free passage to France. For the time being the peninsula of Spain and Portugal was free from Napoleon’s power.
The humiliating reverse to his arms called Napoleon himself into the field. He marched at the head of an army into Spain, defeated the insurgents wherever met, and reinstated his brother on the throne. The city of Saragossa, which made one of the most heroic defences known in history, was taken, and the advance of the British armies was checked. And yet, though Spain was widely overrun, the people did not yield. The junta at Cadiz defied the French, the guerillas continued in the field, and the invaders found themselves baffled by an enemy who was felt oftener than seen.
The Austrian war called away the emperor and the bulk of his troops, but after it was over he filled Spain with his veterans, increasing the strength of the army there to 300,000 men, under his ablest generals, Soult, Massena, Ney, Marmont, Macdonald and others. They marched through Spain from end to end, yet, though they held all the salient points, the people refused to submit, but from their mountain fastnesses kept up a petty and annoying war.
Massena, in 1811, invaded Portugal, where Wellington with an English army awaited him behind the strong lines of Torres Vedras, which the ever-victorious French sought in vain to carry by assault. Massena was compelled to retreat, and Soult, by whom the emperor replaced him, was no more successful against the shrewd English general. At length Spain won the reward of her patriotic defence. The Russian campaign of 1812 compelled the emperor to deplete his army in that country, and Wellington came to the aid of the patriots, defeated Marmont at Salamanca, entered Madrid, and forced King Joseph once more to flee from his unquiet throne.
For a brief interval he was restored by the French army under Soult and Suchet, but the disasters of the Russian campaign brought the reign of King Joseph to a final end, and forced him to give up the pretence of reigning over a people who were unflinchingly determined to have no king but one of their own choice. The story of the Spanish war ends in 1813, when Wellington defeated the French at Vittoria, pursued them across the Pyrenees, and set foot upon the soil of France.
While these events were taking place in Spain the power of Napoleon was being shattered to fragments in the north. On the banks of the Niemen, a river that flows between Prussia and Poland, there gathered near the end of June, 1812, an immense army of more than 600,000 men, attended by an enormous multitude of non-combatants, their purpose being the invasion of the empire of Russia. Of this great army, made up of troops from half the nations of Europe, there reappeared six months later on that broad stream about 16,000 armed men, almost all that were left of that stupendous host. The remainder had perished on the desert soil or in the frozen rivers of Russia, few of them surviving as prisoners in Russian hands. Such was the character of the dread catastrophe that broke the power of the mighty conqueror and delivered Europe from his autocratic grasp.
The breach of relations between Napoleon and Alexander was largely due to the arbitrary and high-handed proceedings of the French emperor, who was accustomed to deal with the map of Europe as if it represented his private domain. He offended Alexander by enlarging the duchy of Warsaw—one of his own creations—and deeply incensed him by extending the French empire to the shores of the Baltic, thus robbing of his dominion the Duke of Oldenburg, a near relative of Alexander. On the other hand the Czar declined to submit the commercial interests of his country to the rigor of Napoleon’s “continental blockade,” and made a new tariff, which interfered with the importation of French and favored that of English goods. These and other acts in which Alexander chose to place his own interests in advance of those of Napoleon were as wormwood to the haughty soul of the latter, and he determined to punish the Russian autocrat as he had done the other monarchs of Europe who refused to submit to his dictation.
For a year or two before war was declared Napoleon had been preparing for the greatest struggle of his life, adding to his army by the most rigorous methods of conscription and collecting great magazines of war material, though still professing friendship for Alexander. The latter, however, was not deceived. He prepared, on his part, for the threatened struggle, made peace with the Turks, and formed an alliance with Bernadotte, the crown prince of Sweden, who had good reason to be offended with his former lord and master. Napoleon, on his side, allied himself with Prussia and Austria, and added to his army large contingents of troops from the German states. At length the great conflict was ready to begin between the two autocrats, the Emperors of the East and the West, and Europe resounded with the tread of marching feet.
In the closing days of June the grand army crossed the Niemen, its last regiments reaching Russian soil by the opening of July. Napoleon, with the advance, pressed on to Wilna, the capital of Lithuania. On all sides the Poles rose in enthusiastic hope, and joined the ranks of the man whom they looked upon as their deliverer. Onward went the great army, marching with Napoleon’s accustomed rapidity, seeking to prevent the concentration of the divided Russian forces, and advancing daily deeper into the dominions of the czar.
The French emperor had his plans well laid. He proposed to meet the Russians in force on some interior field, win from them one of his accustomed brilliant victories, crush them with his enormous columns, and force the dismayed czar to sue for peace on his own terms. But plans need two sides for their consummation, and the Russian leaders did not propose to lose the advantage given them by nature. On and on went Napoleon, deeper and deeper into that desolate land, but the great army he was to crush failed to loom up before him, the broad plains still spread onward empty of soldiers, and disquiet began to assail his imperious soul as he found the Russian hosts keeping constantly beyond his reach, luring him ever deeper into their vast territory. In truth Barclay de Tolly, the czar’s chief in command, had adopted a policy which was sure to prove fatal to Napoleon’s purpose, that of persistently avoiding battle and keeping the French in pursuit of a fleeting will-of-the-wisp, while their army wasted away from natural disintegration in that inhospitable clime.
He was correct in his views. Desertion, illness, the death of young recruits who could not endure the hardships of a rapid march in the severe heat of midsummer, began their fatal work. Napoleon’s plan of campaign proved a total failure. The Russians would not wait to be defeated, and each day’s march opened a wider circle of operations before the advancing host, whom the interminable plain filled with a sense of hopelessness. The heat was overpowering, and men dropped from the ranks as rapidly as though on a field of battle. At Vitebsk the army was inspected, and the emperor was alarmed at the rapid decrease in his forces. Some of the divisions had lost more than a fourth of their men, in every corps the ranks were depleted, and reinforcements already had to be set on the march.
Onward they went, here and there bringing the Russians to bay in a minor engagement, but nowhere meeting them in numbers. Europe waited in vain for tidings of a great battle, and Napoleon began to look upon his proud army with a feeling akin to despair. He was not alone in his eagerness for battle. Some of the high-spirited Russians, among them Prince Bagration, were as eager, but as yet the prudent policy of Barclay de Tolly prevailed.