The causes of the disagreement between Napoleon and the Emperor Alexander dated back to the Treaty of Tilsit. At that time, though personally full of enthusiasm for the French conqueror, Alexander looked with suspicion on the formation of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw as a possible first step towards the restoration of Poland. Napoleon pointed out to him that he could obtain compensation in the direction of Sweden and of Turkey—a suggestion which led to the conquest of Finland and eventually of Bessarabia. Though Alexander carried out the projects proposed to him, he continued to resent the creation of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, and still more the maintenance of French troops in that quarter. At the Congress of Erfurt Napoleon to some degree allayed the suspicions of his ally, but on his return to Russia there can be no doubt that Alexander looked upon himself as duped and badly treated. The war of 1809 widened the breach. Napoleon complained that the Russian troops promised for his assistance had not acted with vigour, and Alexander regarded with open discontent the cession of part of Austrian Galicia to the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. The dethronement of the Duke of Oldenburg, who had married Alexander’s favourite sister, the Grand Duchess Catherine, and the absorption of his Duchy into the French Empire, in 1810, was another and more personal cause of disagreement. The delay in granting a Russian grand duchess to him in marriage was looked on by Napoleon as a personal slight, and his interference in Spain appeared to the Russian Emperor a sign that Napoleon could maltreat even his most faithful ally. The carrying out of the Continental Blockade embittered the situation. Napoleon complained that the Russians did not adhere loyally to the arrangement for the exclusion of English commerce. Alexander on his side complained that his country was being ruined by the blockade, while the French Emperor granted many licences to Frenchmen to trade with England.

To these political reasons must be added the personal characters of the two emperors. Napoleon, though he had spoken at Tilsit of dividing Europe between France and Russia, began, as his power increased, to devise schemes for securing the Empire of Europe for himself and the exclusion of Russia from any share. Instead of restoring the Empires of the East and West, Napoleon arrogated to himself the position of ruler of Europe, and spoke of thrusting Russia back into Asia. In these views he was encouraged by many of those surrounding him. His marshals, finding no profits to be got from Spain, looked forward to enriching themselves in Russia. His statesmen, either from motives of their own or to please his personal wishes, declared that France could not be safe until Russia was crushed. Alexander on his side was surrounded by bitter enemies of Napoleon. His ministers never wearied of emphasizing the ruin caused to Russia by the Continental Blockade. The King of Prussia, whom he had made his personal friend, pleaded for the complete restoration of his dominions. His family, and especially his mother, regarded Napoleon as the enemy of the human race; English agents were perpetually inciting the Russians to declare for commercial freedom; and three of the most accomplished and most able statesmen in Europe constantly urged him to war with France, namely, Stein, whom Napoleon had ordered the King of Prussia to dismiss; Pozzo di Borgo, a Corsican, who had known Napoleon in his youth, and who hated him as a personal enemy; and Nesselrode, a skilled diplomatist and an intimate friend of Metternich.

These various causes, both political and personal, might not then have led to war had it not been for the direct intervention of the English by means of the new Prince Royal of Sweden, Bernadotte. Lord Castlereagh, in January 1812, returned to office. He advocated the carrying on of the war against Napoleon, not only by reinforcing Wellington in the Peninsula, but by subsidizing the monarchs of the Continent. He therefore despatched three diplomatists to the three chief courts of the Continent, to endeavour to form a fresh coalition against Napoleon. These were his brother, Sir Charles Stewart, ambassador to Berlin, Lord Aberdeen to Vienna, and Lord Cathcart to St. Petersburg. Lord Cathcart was a distinguished military officer, and strenuously urged Alexander to declare war, and he brought with him several English officers to assist in reorganizing the Russian army, of whom the best known is Sir Robert Wilson. But it was rather through Sweden than directly that Castlereagh influenced the Emperor Alexander. Bernadotte, on being elected Prince Royal, had applied to Sweden the Continental Blockade against England, but he soon perceived how ruinous that policy was to his new country, and inclined to make some arrangement with England. Being unable to break with Napoleon by himself, Bernadotte acted as the intermediary between England and Russia, and in April 1812 signed a secret treaty with Alexander at Abo, by which Sweden renounced all claims on Finland on condition that Russia should promise Norway in its stead. Both England and Russia approved of this scheme. Frederick VI. of Denmark, who had succeeded his father, Christian VII., in 1808, had, after the capture of the Danish fleet in 1807, formed a most intimate alliance with Napoleon, and Alexander at Abo held out to Bernadotte, not only a hope that he might have the whole of Denmark as a result of successful war against the French, but even an expectation that he might eventually receive the throne of France as a reward for his services. Not less important than the English intervention in Sweden was the effect of English influence in Turkey; for it was through English mediation that the Treaty of Bucharest was signed in May 1812, which allowed the Emperor of Russia to concentrate all his military power against Napoleon.

Between France and Russia there remained, however, Austria, Poland, and Prussia. Though Napoleon’s direct domain extended to Lübeck along the coast, he had not ventured to annex Germany proper, which lies between the Elbe and the Rhine, or to accept the title of German Emperor, in addition to that of the Emperor of the French and King of Italy, as had been suggested by the Prince Primate, Dalberg. Yet Germany proper, owing to his creation of the Confederation of the Rhine and the Kingdom of Westphalia, was so thoroughly under his influence that, from a military point of view, it might be regarded as part of his Empire. Austria, Poland, and Prussia were, however, more independent, and his first effort, when he decided to attack Russia, was to secure their active co-operation. The Emperor Francis, since the campaign of Wagram, had abandoned the idea of resistance. He feared and disliked the Russians; Napoleon was his son-in-law, and he did not intend to oppose his wishes. He therefore promised willingly enough that an Austrian army should invade Russia to the south of the direct French invasion. In the Grand Duchy of Warsaw the Poles cared little for their Grand Duke, the King of Saxony; they looked to Napoleon for the restoration of their complete independence, and delighted in the thought of striking a blow at their old foes, the Russians. In Prussia the position was more complicated. Reduced as the kingdom was, the reforms of Stein and Scharnhorst had created a national feeling, which could not as yet be utilised in attacks on the French soldiers who occupied the Prussian fortresses. Stein himself had been driven from Prussia by Napoleon’s orders, but a successor, Hardenberg, completed his work. It is significant that when Hardenberg was reappointed State Chancellor in 1810, he did not undertake the Foreign Office, as he had done in 1806, but the ministries of the Finance and the Interior. It was Hardenberg who in 1810 made the nobles subject to taxation, and brought Stein’s promised Representative Assemblies into partial use; who, on 23rd January 1811, suppressed the Teutonic Order, and made its possessions part of the national domain; and who, on 11th September 1811, achieved the logical result of Stein’s edict abolishing serfdom by granting the peasants power to become absolute proprietors of two-thirds of their holdings on surrendering the other third to the lords in full recognition of all feudal dues and servitudes.

Hardenberg’s most ardent coadjutor was William von Humboldt. As Stein and Hardenberg had done the work of the French Revolution in Prussia by abolishing feudalism and securing equality before the law, so William von Humboldt established a national system of education in many respects similar to Napoleon’s creation in France, and reformed the whole department of public instruction. At the head of the system was founded the University of Berlin. Prussia had deeply felt the loss of the University of Halle when that city was separated from Prussia by the Treaty of Tilsit. Königsberg, though made famous by Kant, was too distant from the centre of the reduced kingdom to fill its place, and the new national spirit was concentrated in the new University of Berlin. Learned men came from all parts of Germany. Savigny, Fichte, Wolf, Buttmann, Boeckh, Schleiermacher, and Niebuhr all enrolled themselves as professors; and Germany, not merely Prussia, found a worthy representative in the world of thought.

In the resurrection of Prussia King Frederick William III. merely acquiesced in the reforms of Stein and Hardenberg. But his former leaning to neutrality had given place to a desire for revenge on the French. In July 1810 he lost his patriotic wife, Queen Louise, and her death only exasperated his feelings. Nevertheless, he refused to declare himself on the side of Russia in 1812. The Emperor Alexander announced his policy of allowing the French to invade, and his intention of thus drawing Napoleon far from his base, and Frederick William felt that he was not strong enough to openly oppose the French Emperor. He was even constrained by the occupation of his fortresses to go further, and, on 24th February 1812, he signed an offensive and defensive alliance with Napoleon. By this treaty Prussia was not only to feed the French armies passing through her dominions to invade Russia, but to send an army of 30,000 men to act with them. Alexander was not displeased by this behaviour. He knew that Prussia could not help itself; he felt a sincere friendship for the hapless king; he understood that beneath the surface, not only Prussia, but all Germany was boiling with indignation against the French; and in 1812, when war was at hand, he summoned the inspirer of German national feeling, the great Prussian minister, Stein, from his exile in Austria to become his adviser and coadjutor in his German policy.

Without any actual declaration of war, Russia entered into negotiations with England, and Napoleon assembled a vast army on the banks of the Vistula. In May 1812 he entered Germany to take the command, and at Dresden had interviews with the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Austria. Of the 325,000 men with whom he crossed the river Niémen and invaded Russia only 155,000 were French; the remainder were foreign contingents. He detached to his left Marshal Macdonald, with the Prussian contingent and some Westphalians and Poles, to attack Riga and advance on St. Petersburg, with the hope of joining Bernadotte and the Swedes; he was supported on his right by the Austrian subsidiary force, and with the centre of his army he advanced in person into Lithuania. That province being occupied, Napoleon crossed the Dnieper, and on the 18th of August he took Smolensk, in spite of the efforts of a Russian army of 80,000 men to cover the city. On his extreme right the Austrian army, under Prince Schwartzenberg, was checked by the arrival of the Russian army, set free by the Peace of Bucharest. The Russian generals, Barclay de Tolly and Bagration, in the centre, steadily retreated.

This military policy soon reduced the efficiency and numbers of the French army; for it was drawn further from its base into a barren country, in which it was harassed by peasants and guerillas, and it was necessary to leave large divisions to protect the communications. The Emperor Alexander had approved of this policy, and as the Russian army retired the people abandoned their villages, as the Portuguese had done during the invasion of Masséna in 1810. But the Russian soldiers grumbled at this politic retreat, and the Emperor Alexander resolved to strike one blow for his capital. Barclay de Tolly was replaced by Kutuzov, and the Russian army suddenly halted on the banks of the Mosková. On the 7th of September a most terrible battle was fought there, which is known as the battle of Borodino. The Russians are said to have lost 50,000 men, including General Bagration, and it is certain that the French lost more than 30,000. Nevertheless, the French loss was proportionately the most; for Napoleon was far away from any reinforcements, whereas the Russians were fighting in their fatherland. On the 14th of September the French army occupied Moscow. On the 16th, either by accident or on purpose, fire broke out in the Russian capital. It raged for three days and three nights, and more than three-fifths of the city was utterly destroyed. The Emperor Alexander then entered into negotiations with Napoleon, and, whether he intended it or not, he kept the French Emperor from moving until too late for his safety. It was not until the 15th of October that Napoleon saw that negotiating was waste of time, and started from Moscow. The winter was an early one. Snow fell heavily. When Smolensk was reached, it was found that all the provisions stored there had been destroyed. The retreating army, now in a state of disorganisation, was hunted through the country, not only by the Russian soldiers, but by the peasantry returning to their homes. Marshal Ney covered the retreat, and won on this occasion his title of ‘the bravest of the brave.’ Napoleon, on being informed that a conspiracy against him, headed by General Malet, had been discovered in Paris, left the retreating army early in December. After his departure the cold increased. The retreat became a rout; Murat, who succeeded to the command, could not keep the army together; and but very few of the 155,000 Frenchmen who had invaded Russia recrossed the river Niémen.

While Napoleon was wrecking one army in Russia, Wellington was defeating another French army in Spain. Marmont, who had succeeded Masséna, failed to prevent the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo in January, or that of Badajoz in April, and after a long course of intricate manœuvres, gave Wellington the opportunity to attack and defeat him at the battle of Salamanca, July 22, 1812. The victory was complete. Joseph Bonaparte evacuated Madrid, and withdrawing all his troops from Andalusia fell back behind the Ebro. Wellington occupied Madrid on August 12, and then with his main army advanced on Burgos. Burgos, however, resisted all his assaults. The Anglo-Portuguese army had to retire once more into Portugal, and Joseph Bonaparte for the last time returned to his capital. While this campaign was being fought Lord William Bentinck, who commanded the English garrison in Sicily, was requested to send troops to the eastern coast of Spain to effect a diversion. But the operations were badly combined; Sir John Murray was driven from before Tarragona; and at a subsequent date Lord William Bentinck himself failed to make an impression on Suchet’s army at Alicante. The victory of Salamanca was a proof of the insecure foundation on which the throne of Joseph Bonaparte rested. Owing to it alone he had to leave Madrid, and evacuate the whole of southern Spain; the military policy of the English ministers was justified; and though Salamanca cannot be compared with the disasters in Russia, it yet had its effect in showing the increasing weakness of the French military power.

The retreat of the French and their passage of the Niémen enabled Prussia to throw off the mask of alliance with France. The Prussian contingent, amounting to 18,000 men, had been placed under the command of Marshal Macdonald, and was occupied in the siege of Riga. Napoleon had hoped that this detached army upon his left would be joined by Bernadotte at the head of the Swedes. But Bernadotte, as has been seen, had forgotten his French nationality in accepting the position of heir to the Swedish throne. His first idea was to make himself popular in Sweden by securing the conquest of Norway to take the place of Finland, and behind it lay the hope of possibly succeeding Napoleon himself. In his original communications with the Emperor Alexander, he had demanded the assistance of a Russian army for the conquest of Norway as the price of his adhesion to the coalition against Napoleon. When Alexander would not make a definite promise, Bernadotte applied to his former sovereign in June 1812, and promised to assist in the French invasion of Russia, if Napoleon would guarantee to him the possession of Norway. But the French Emperor would make no compact with his former marshal, and hoped that he would lend his assistance to the occupation of St. Petersburg in return for vague promises. Bernadotte therefore remained neutral, and Macdonald, without the expected help from Sweden, could get no further than Riga. The retreat of the main French army from Moscow made it necessary for Macdonald likewise to fall back, and in the course of his retreat the Prussian contingent, under the command of General York, deserted, and that general signed the Convention of Tauroggen, on 30th December 1812, by which he abandoned France without definitely declaring himself upon the side of Russia. Macdonald, with his Westphalians and Poles, managed to leave Russia in safety, and to join the remnants of the main army. But the desertion of York was a symptom of what was to follow. Stein summoned the Estates of East Prussia at Königsberg; the Prussians rose en masse, and the French army, pursued by the Russian troops and these new enemies, retreated behind the Vistula.

Frederick William of Prussia at last threw off the mask, and, on the 7th of February 1813, he called out the reserve which had been formed by the skilful military policy of Scharnhorst, and ordered the Landwehr and the Landsturm to join the colours; on 27th February he signed the Treaty of Kalisch with Russia, promising alliance; on 16th March he declared war against France; and he joined the headquarters of his friend Alexander, and lived in his company until the termination of the war. Prussian enthusiasm grew to its height; the reserves fell in from every city and district, and the broken French army, which was now left under the command of Eugène de Beauharnais, retreated first behind the Oder and then behind the Elbe, leaving powerful garrisons in Dantzic, Stettin, and the chief Prussian fortresses. The Russians of the army of the right pursued vigorously, and after driving the French from Berlin, the Russian generals, Chernishev and Tetterborn, took Hamburg. The resurrection of Prussia and the rapid retreat of the French caused Bernadotte to declare himself openly on the side of the allies, and he crossed the Baltic and entered Germany at the head of a Swedish army of 12,000 men. The King of Prussia’s declaration of war with France was received with enthusiasm. Two separate Prussian armies were formed, the first under Bülow to act with the Swedes, and the Russian army of the right, and to defend Berlin, the other under Blücher in Silesia to co-operate with the second invading army of the left from Russia. The command in chief of this latter army was, after the death of Kutuzov in May, conferred on Barclay de Tolly, while Wittgenstein commanded the Russian contingent.

In the spring of 1813 Napoleon started for Germany to face the new coalition. His Westphalian, Bavarian, and Saxon allies were still true to him and increased their contingents. He called to his assistance the old soldiers who were employed in the garrisons of Holland and Northern Germany, and he raised a large number of fresh conscripts, who, in spite of their youth and inexperience, were at once directed upon Germany. At the head of 250,000 men, eventually increased to 300,000, he invaded Saxony. He defeated Wittgenstein at Lutzen or Gross Görschen on the 2d of May, at which battle his friend, Marshal Bessières was killed, and Scharnhorst was mortally wounded, and reoccupied Saxony. He defeated the whole of the allied army of Silesia at Bautzen on the 20th of May, and established his headquarters at Dresden. Meanwhile Vandamme had recaptured Hamburg, and, after placing it in a state of defence, joined the Emperor in Saxony. After these vigorous blows both sides desired a rest, and on the 3d of June the Armistice of Pleswitz was signed, and it was agreed that a congress should be held at Prague to consider if terms of peace could not be arranged. The important point to be decided at Prague was the position to be adopted by Austria; and both sides prepared to offer a high price for her active assistance, for her intervention would probably settle the result of the war. Napoleon trusted that his father-in-law, the Emperor Francis, would not abandon him, and counted upon the assistance of an Austrian army. He relied also upon the hereditary hatred of Austria for Prussia, and promised his father-in-law, as the price of his active assistance, not only the restoration of the Illyrian provinces, but of the whole of Silesia, which Frederick the Great had torn from Maria Theresa. Napoleon was even sanguine enough to count upon the former friendship which the Emperor Alexander had felt for him, and he hoped that the invasion of Russia would be forgiven if he guaranteed the possession of the whole of Poland. The country which would be sacrificed by these arrangements was Prussia. Napoleon projected the entire extinction of the Prussian kingdom, and suggested that the kingdom of Westphalia should be extended to the Oder. That he should venture to offer such terms showed how entirely Napoleon misunderstood his position. The Emperor Francis, although his daughter was Napoleon’s wife, could not forget the humiliations that Austria had undergone, and allowed his feelings as an Austrian to outweigh his sentiments as a father. The Emperor Alexander had been entirely cured by the invasion of Russia of his former infatuation, and now distrusted the French Emperor as much as he had formerly believed in him; he had struck up an intimacy with the King of Prussia, and had promised him his restoration to the whole of his dominions.

Meanwhile the rulers of Austria, Russia, and Prussia signed a treaty at Reichenbach on 17th June 1813, by which Austria assumed the position of a mediator and promised to declare war against France, if the conditions of peace, which she should offer, were rejected. In return for this attitude, Austria was given a free hand to negotiate with the South German States, and the idea of rousing a national German feeling against France, which was strongly advocated by Stein, was abandoned. Metternich had no liking for the national idea; it seemed to him to bear the imprint of the spirit of the French Revolution, and could only end in disaster to Austria. The rising of Prussia had indeed been a success, but if it spread through Germany, it might end in a united Germany with Prussia at its head, and the consequent depreciation of the Austrian power. The example of Spain, which Stein and patriotic Germans pointed to, seemed to cut in two ways; if, on the one hand, it had raised a people in arms against Napoleon, on the other it had encouraged revolutionary ideas. Both the Emperor Alexander and King Frederick William felt the weight of these arguments, and the conception of the war changed from a national uprising to a coalition of the usual type. Under these circumstances, Napoleon’s propositions were ignored, and proposals were made to him on the other hand that he should be content with the natural limits of France, namely, the Rhine and the Alps; that he should restore the Bourbons to Spain and the independence of Holland; that he should abandon his position as head of the Confederation of the Rhine and allow the Pope to return to Rome. Murat was to remain at Naples, and Jerome on the throne of Westphalia, and the terms offered were by no means unfavourable to France, though perhaps hardly justified by the military position of the allies. Metternich, who perceived that Austria held the key to the position, brought these terms to Napoleon’s headquarters at Dresden, and informed the Emperor that if they were not accepted, Austria would join the coalition against him.

Napoleon refused with scorn; Castlereagh, through the English ambassador, Lord Aberdeen, promised large subsidies to Austria; and on the 1st of August 1813, the Emperor of Austria promised definitely to join the allies with 200,000 men if Napoleon refused to accept the terms offered to him. The Congress met at Prague. Caulaincourt, the French plenipotentiary, stated that he had no power to accept the terms offered by Francis, and Austria, on the 12th of August, declared war against France. On the 14th of August, when it was too late, Napoleon declared his acceptance of the terms, and received the answer that the whole matter must be referred to the allied monarchs. War in fact was inevitable, and the Armistice of Pleswitz was at an end.

The intervention of Austria not only deprived Napoleon of an expected ally, but endangered his military position in Saxony, as a strong Austrian army was being concentrated in Bohemia under the command of Prince Charles von Schwartzenberg. Nevertheless the French Emperor refused to retire, and prepared at the head of 300,000 men to make face against the allies in spite of their great superiority in number. The plan of campaign of the allies was drawn up by Moreau, who had been induced to leave America and give the advantage of his advice to the Czar of Russia. There was also upon the staff of the Russian army one of the ablest strategists in Europe who, like Moreau, had formerly been an officer in the French army, General Jomini. The plan was to direct an army from the north, of Prussians, Russians and Swedes, under Bülow, Chernishev, and Bernadotte, an army from the east of Russians, called the Army of Poland, which was being formed under Benningsen, an army from Silesia, of Prussians under Blücher, and Russians under Wittgenstein, and finally an army of Austrians under Schwartzenberg, assisted by the Russian main army of Barclay de Tolly, and the Russian Imperial Guard under the Grand Duke Constantine, upon Dresden. But Napoleon with his accustomed rapidity of action determined to strike first, and he detached three corps under Oudinot, Macdonald and Vandamme, against Bernadotte, Blücher, and Schwartzenberg; Benningsen was too far in the rear to be dangerous. Oudinot and Macdonald were defeated by Bernadotte and Blücher at Gross-Beeren and the Katzbach respectively, on the 23d and 25th of August, and Schwartzenberg, instead of waiting for the other armies, attacked the French centre at Dresden. On the 26th and 27th of August a terrible battle was fought, in which Moreau was mortally wounded. Napoleon was successful, but he suffered severe losses which he was unable to repair. Three days later he received the news that Vandamme’s army, which had penetrated into Bohemia to cut off Schwartzenberg’s communications, had been forced to capitulate at Kulm to the Russians under Barclay de Tolly. The battle of Dresden proved to the allies that it was impossible for one of their armies to overthrow Napoleon unassisted, and they therefore recurred to their original plan. Napoleon once more endeavoured to break from his defensive position and struck at Berlin; but Marshal Ney was defeated by Bernadotte and Bülow at Dennewitz, on 6th September, and he had to wait while the ring formed round him. The Emperor’s losses during the first part of this campaign had been immense. He had lost over 10,000 men by the capitulation of Kulm; his young soldiers had been decimated at the Katzbach and Dennewitz; and the troops of the German contingents deserted en masse. In fact when the operations of the allies were completed and their armies had concentrated around Leipzig, to which place he had withdrawn, he had not more than 160,000 men, whose confidence was shaken by repeated defeats, to oppose to more than double that number.

After the battle of Dresden, the army of Schwartzenberg retired into Bohemia, and the allied monarchs determined to define their position as to the future. The enormous armies they were concentrating made them feel sure of success, if they held together. On 9th September the important Treaty of Töplitz was signed. By this treaty it was agreed that Prussia and Austria should be restored as nearly as possible to the limits they had held in 1805, that the Confederation of the Rhine should be dissolved, and that entire independence should be granted to the states of southern and western Germany. This decision overcame the lingering hesitation of the south German monarchs, who had feared retaliation from the allies for their consistent adhesion to Napoleon. Of these states, Bavaria was the chief, and on 8th October the Treaty of Ried was signed between Austria and Bavaria, by which Bavaria promised the aid of 36,000 men in return for complete indemnity and the recognition of complete sovereignty in her dominions. Then the allies in their full strength attacked Napoleon. For three days, from the 16th to the 19th of October, the terrible battle of Leipzig was fought. The result was a foregone conclusion, and even without the desertion of the Saxons in the course of the battle, the ruin of the French army was certain. Napoleon’s forces were not only defeated, they were destroyed, and in the utmost disorder the routed French divisions fled in a state of disorganisation across Germany. At this moment Maximilian Joseph of Bavaria, whom Napoleon had made a king, declared against him as he had promised, and not only withdrew the Bavarian contingent, but endeavoured to check the French retreat. At the battle of Hanau on October the 30th, however, the remnant of the French army broke through the Bavarians, and it eventually found safety behind the Rhine.

The battle of Leipzig was followed by a general rising throughout central Europe against the French. The secret societies which had been formed to promote the idea of the freedom of Germany acted in every direction. Many isolated regiments of the French army were cut off and the French garrisons in the various German cities were closely besieged. The benefits which had been conferred by French administration were forgotten and the people thought only of the humiliation of the French occupation. Nor was this spirit confined to Germany. The Dutch rose in rebellion, and declared in all the chief cities of Holland for the Prince of Orange. That prince at once left England and set himself at the head of the insurgents, and Lord Castlereagh a few months later sent to his assistance an English force under the command of Sir Thomas Graham to reduce the few Dutch fortresses still occupied by French garrisons. In Italy also an almost universal insurrection broke out against the French domination. Lord William Bentinck, who commanded the English army which occupied Sicily, sailed to Genoa with a powerful force and encouraged the insurgents in that quarter. Meanwhile an Austrian army under General Hiller invaded Italy from the north-east and defeated Eugène de Beauharnais at Valsarno on the 26th of October. Against this unanimity of national opposition Napoleon could make but little headway; the French people were tired of the conscription; they had not approved of the invasion of Russia; and were indisposed at the moment of crisis to support the Emperor.

While the French armies were suffering the succession of disasters which expelled them from Germany, a similar series of catastrophes occurred in Spain. Wellington broke up from his quarters in the summer of 1813, and marching in a north-easterly direction attempted to cut off all communication between France and Madrid. This movement completely overthrew the French domination in Spain. Joseph Bonaparte with all the troops he could collect fled from Madrid. He was unable to defend himself behind the Ebro as in 1812, for the positions on that river had been skilfully turned. Wellington eventually came up with the French army at Vittoria. There Marshal Jourdan, who commanded for King Joseph, endeavoured to resist, but he was completely defeated by the Anglo-Portuguese army on the 21st of June 1813. This victory drove the French back into France, for Suchet was likewise obliged to abandon his conquests in Valencia, and to retire into the mountains of Arragon and Catalonia. The victory in the field was followed as in Germany by a burst of national enthusiasm. The Spanish guerillas destroyed every isolated French post, and even managed to place some serviceable divisions at the disposition of Wellington. The English general took up a position on the French frontier between Pampeluna and San Sebastian, blockading the former and besieging the latter place. To face him Soult was sent to the south-west of France to defend the frontier. On the 31st of August San Sebastian was stormed; Pampeluna speedily fell; and Wellington was able to establish a new base of operations, and to invade France. On the 10th of November the Anglo-Portuguese army drove Soult from his positions on the Nivelle, and after the battles of the Nive or Saint Pierre from the 9th to the 13th of December Wellington invested Bayonne.

These repeated disasters in different quarters induced Napoleon to consider the advisability of concluding a peace. He was now only too ready to accept the terms offered to him at the Congress of Prague. The allies were by no means so united as they seemed. The Austrian Minister Metternich, in particular, was not desirous of destroying the power of France. England had no wish to come to any conclusion which should disproportionately increase the strength of Russia, and the aim of all the allied monarchs was to allow France to develop in her own way as long as she withdrew her pretensions to interfere in Europe. Metternich’s proposals, in November 1813, were that France should preserve her natural limits of the Rhine and the Alps, but should restore all former rulers in Holland, Italy, and Spain. Napoleon gave evidence of his desire for peace at this period by the dismissal of his Foreign Secretary, Maret, Duc de Bassano, and the appointment of Caulaincourt, Duc de Vicenza, who was known to be in favour of peace and was also a personal friend of the Emperor Alexander, at whose Court he had been ambassador during the palmy days of the alliance between France and Russia. The terms of peace offered by Metternich, which are known as the Proposals of Frankfort, at which city the allied monarchs were residing, were confided to M. de Saint-Aignan, a French diplomatist who had been taken prisoner during the advance of the allies and who was the brother-in-law of Caulaincourt. The proposals were definitely acceded to by Lord Aberdeen on the part of England and by Hardenberg on the part of Prussia. The favourable nature of them was dictated by the fear entertained by the allied monarchs that France would rise in her might as she had done in 1793 if her borders were invaded. For this reason the allies remained for some weeks upon the right bank of the Rhine, concentrating their forces and hesitating to advance. Napoleon, however, could not understand that he was beaten. Instead of replying at once to the Proposals of Frankfort, which were dated the 9th of November, it was not until late in December that he instructed Caulaincourt to go to the allied quarters and discuss them. His instructions to Caulaincourt showed how little he appreciated the position of affairs. He demanded that, in addition to the natural limits of France, he should hold the cities of Wesel, Cassel opposite Mayence, and Kehl opposite Strasbourg on the right bank of the Rhine, which fairly signified that he did not abandon his projects on Germany. He further demanded that a kingdom should be formed for his brother Jerome in Germany, and for Eugène de Beauharnais in Italy. Before these counter-propositions reached the headquarters of the allied monarchs, they had resolved to invade France, and the opportunity was gone for ever for France to attain her natural limits under the sanction of Europe.

The attitude of the allies, as indicated in the Proposals of Frankfort, was mainly dictated by Metternich, who did not desire to see his Emperor’s son-in-law dethroned or to see France greatly weakened. But the Emperor Alexander and his friend, the King of Prussia, soon repented of the assent they had given to Metternich’s ideas. Alexander desired to invade France as a reply to the invasion of Russia in 1812, and hoped to occupy Paris as Napoleon had occupied Moscow. The King of Prussia, and still more his generals and ministers, had felt most keenly the humiliating condition to which Prussia had been degraded, and desired to wreak their vengeance on France. It was therefore agreed that since the Proposals of Frankfort had not been promptly accepted, the result of a successful invasion of France should be the return of that country into the limits she possessed at the beginning of the wars of the Revolution. The attitude of Russia and Prussia was that adopted by England. Lord Castlereagh heard with dismay, that it was intended to allow France the limits of the Rhine, for by that concession she would hold Belgium and Antwerp, which it had been the consistent policy of all English Ministers for many generations to keep independent of France. The barrier treaties of former days, and the wars against Louis XIV. had been sustained for the purpose of keeping France out of the Belgian Netherlands, and the English cabinet resolved to continue this classic policy. For this purpose, Lord Castlereagh was in person despatched to the headquarters of the allied monarchs, with the greatest powers ever granted to a British statesman. He was given ‘full powers to negotiate and conclude of his own authority, and without further consultation with the government, all conventions or treaties, either for the prosecution of war or for the restoration of peace.’[12]

Lord Castlereagh sailed from Harwich on the 31st of December 1813, on which day Blücher with the main Prussian army, known as the Army of Silesia, crossed the Rhine in three columns at Coblentz, Mannheim, and Mayence. Blücher was supported by three Russian corps d’armée, but it was further south that the main Russian army in conjunction with the Austrians invaded France under the command of Schwartzenberg. It was not without some difficulty that the Emperor Alexander was induced to consent to the violation of the neutrality of Switzerland. But the military arguments put forward by his generals overcame his scruples. By marching through Switzerland, Schwartzenberg’s army was enabled to turn the mountains of the Jura, and to leave the French fortresses on the Rhine, behind him. This invasion on two distinct lines gave Napoleon the opportunity of carrying out one of the military manœuvres of which he was most fond. He concentrated between the two invading armies a force of between 50,000 and 70,000 men. This was a terrible falling off from the vast armies with which he had invaded Russia in 1812, and fought the allies in Saxony in 1813; it was a falling off not only in numbers, but in military efficiency, for with the exception of the remnant of the Guard, he had only under his command some regiments of conscripts and national guards untrained to war. At this period Napoleon bitterly repented the mistake he had made, in leaving over 150,000 veteran soldiers as garrisons in the various fortresses in Europe. The presence of these men would very likely have turned the scale. He had left, for instance, 12,000 men in Hamburg under the command of Marshal Davout, 16,000 in Magdeburg, 8000 in Dantzic, and large garrisons in other distant cities, such as Stettin. These fortresses were blockaded by local militia; their occupation did not withdraw many regular troops from the allied armies, while it fatally weakened the resources of France.

Nevertheless, with his boy conscripts and his Guard, Napoleon fought one of his greatest campaigns. Blücher foolishly scattered his troops, after his entry into Champagne. Napoleon quickly took advantage of his mistake. He cut up division after division of Blücher’s army at Brienne, Champaubert, Montmirail, and Vauchamps, between the 29th of January and the 14th of February, and then turning against Schwartzenberg, who had also scattered his forces, he defeated a Russian division at Nangis, and an Austrian division at Montereau on the 17th and 18th of February. These rapid blows startled and disconcerted the allies. Blücher’s army was practically destroyed; Schwartzenberg fell back, and asked for an armistice; and proposals were made for the evacuation of France. It was only the constancy of the Emperor Alexander and the determination of Lord Castlereagh which induced the allies to persist. Two corps d’armée, one of Prussians under Bülow, the other of Russians under Wintzingerode, were on Lord Castlereagh’s sole authority detached from Bernadotte’s army and ordered to reinforce Blücher. Meanwhile, Alexander insisted that Schwartzenberg should concentrate instead of retiring. In reality, Napoleon’s successes were more fatal to himself than to the allies, for they induced him to break off the negotiations at the Congress of Châtillon.