NAPOLEON AGAINST RUSSIA. 
 
 The Campaign of 1806— 1807, December to June. 
 By T, Miller Maguire, LL.D. 
 
 The fact that the Russians in spite of their desperate tenacity, 
 ■have succumbed for a period to the organising energy and superior 
 skill and scientific accuracy in details of the Japanese may be the 
 reason why the authorities have selected the Campaign of 1806 — 
 1807 in Poland, and in the North-East of Germany for the Staff 
 College Entrance Examinations. 
 
 The soldiers of Benningsen set an example of dogged and 
 -Kilesperate resolution to the soldiers of Kuropatkin, and Napoleon 
 was even more amazed that the semi-savages of Sarmatia should 
 dare to resist all his most strenuous efforts for six months, and to 
 ■ place his vast armies in situations of the utmost peril than were 
 the Russians themselves when Kuroki and Oku and Nodsu 
 threatened their communications between" the Yalu and Mukden. 
 Napoleon after Eylau was almost in as serious a position as was 
 Kuropatkin after the Sha Ho. 
 
 But there are other lessons. After Eylau the British system 
 of Party Government was fatal not only to the interests of our 
 nation but also to the hopes of our Allies. Russia was induced by 
 offers of effective British aid to attack Napoleon after his victories 
 of Jena and Auerstadt and his occupation of Berlin, 1806, and, had 
 the British made efficient use of their Fleet, w^ith absolute mastery 
 of the Seas, and the very fine Army which was idling at home or 
 wasted on petty expeditions to South America and Egypt, they 
 would have turned the Eylau reverse into a ruinous catastrophe. 
 They could easily have got astride Napoleon's line of communica- 
 tions with the Rhine by landing at the Mouth of the Elbe or 
 helping the Swedes in Pomerania. No wonder the Czar Alex- 
 ander I., after the defeat of Friedland compelled the evacuation of 
 Konigsberg and an armistice, bitterly complained of the perversity 
 and folly of his Allies. The youngest students of the elements 
 of strategy can see for themselves that, had Austria moved from 
 Bohemia to the Oder after the battle of Eylau, the fortresses of 
 
 fi 5 5 ;") 8 7 
 
Willi THf.-rMOS^Qj,'jy:o'' fleeT IN WAR. Gi<)^ 
 
 stoiMvhiIcthc.stafbp*na-iicrcw, fly.ingAtill, brings the ship over with 
 a heavy ] ist. •' " '• * •*':.•':•.•' " :'...:.••■.• . .' 
 
 But she has circled as rapidly as the destro)cr>, which now are 
 racing on tiie starboard side. 
 
 Great sliafts of lumincncc leap across the water as the opponents 
 direct their searchhghts on each other. There is the roar of guns, 
 the shriek of projectiles, a splash of flame where one of ours has 
 struck the foredeck of a destroyer. 
 
 But it is not for this they came, and now they arc off with a 
 last defiant, futile shot. 
 
 Shall we follow ? Scarcely. Has not the third destroyer which 
 disappeared so mysteriously gone off to give the alarm .? Are not 
 these two trying to draw us to our doom .? How skilful was their 
 effort to force us ahead of our charge, and then, relying on 
 superior steering powers, to circle and destroy the sheltering 
 craft ! Away they go back into the filmy smoke, from which once 
 more leap out the Dragon eyes, that now grow smaller and smaller 
 until at length they disappear. 
 
 The whole incident has taken place so rapidly you hardly 
 realise how it has l^appened. For the first time, however you 
 understand how finals the margin between triumph and disaster- 
 how absolutely upo/n quick wit and steady nerve rests the whole 
 structure of the Empire. It is something to have witnessed such 
 a sight as that just passed ; to have felt, even in a small decree the 
 strain that must be borne by a single mind, watching the move- 
 ments of an enertiy ; striving to read aright their purport, and to 
 answer them with counter-moves requiring the instant control of 
 scores of men stationed in different parts of the ship. This in play 
 is perilous ; think what now it means in war ! 
 
 Alexander Graha.m-Simpsox. 
 {To be continued.) 
 
NAPOLEON AGAINST RUSSIA. 
 
 621 
 
 Silesia would have been saved, and hence Napoleon's line to Berlin 
 across the Vistula and Oder would have been rendered insecure, 
 and if the British had seized the northern line he would have 
 been almost in as bad a case as was Joseph at Vittoria, especially 
 
 with clouds of Cossacks hovering around his defeated army. 
 Perchance the Beresina would have been anticipated at Frankfort 
 on that river or at Kustrin. 
 
 When making terms the Czar justified himself on the ground 
 that he had been betrayed by the English, who were only ready to 
 
 VOL. CLIV. 
 
 [vol. xxxiii. new series.] 
 
 43 
 
622 THE UNITED SERVICE MAGAZINE. 
 
 send out an army when the success of Napoleon was complete, 
 and he had more than compensated by Friedland for the repulse 
 of Eylau. 
 
 Any student of British Imperial Strategy, and of the possibility 
 of effective interposition by our navy and military forces, if well 
 organised at decisive moments, should study this campaign care- 
 fully. In 1807 our Cabinet ministers declared that they could 
 never interfere effectively in European struggles, yet they sent 
 Moore and Wellesley to the Peninsula the next year, and Marl- 
 borough had been on the Danube, 1704, and Ligonier had 
 charged at Dettingen, on the Maine, in 1743. 
 
 But the modern Darius, in his invasion of the north-east of 
 Europe, defended by the fierce soldiery of Scythia, led his guards 
 and his horsemen and long lines of splendidly served artillery 
 into very different scenes from those rich and fertile and well- 
 populated valleys and hills of Italy and South Germany and 
 Saxony, which were the scenes of his brilliant campaigns of June, 
 1800 and 1805, and of October, 1806. 
 
 No wonder that Lannes wished to sacrifice to fortune by 
 moderation, and to arrest the tide of victory which had flowed 
 without check from Boulogne to Austerlitz, and thence to Berlin, 
 Lubeck, and Stettin, on the banks of the Oder. 
 
 The heroic Duke of Montebello would not advise the invasion 
 of the realms of the Poles and of the Cossacks, or disturbing the 
 gloom of the Masurien, or quartering the gay soldiers of Touraine 
 and Provence in the midst of the cold and dreary marshes and 
 woodlands of that terrible Hyrcanian forest, which appalled the 
 legionaries of the ablest Caesars. The corps of Napoleon were 
 almost as dismayed in the territory between the Oder and the Vistula 
 as were the legions of Augustus between the Ems and the Elbe. 
 
 To the intoxication subsequent on the victories of Jena 
 succeeded a mental disquietude, when, instead of the cantonments 
 and repose which they expected, they found themselves dragged 
 in the depths of winter to begin a new campaign amidst pathless 
 snows, and gloomy and miserable and unpopulated districts, skies 
 ever gloomy, and with the dread Baltic on their left flank, afford- 
 ing easy supplies to the enemy by numerous ports and river 
 mouths, while all their requisitions, gathered at the expense of 
 the inhabitants, might at any moment be cut off by a British 
 expedition. 
 
 Strange to say, this campaign was really directed against the 
 British, as was proved by the Emperor's establishment of that 
 continental blockade against our commerce which, embodied first 
 in the Berlin Decree of i8c6, was definitely established as. part of 
 
NAPOLEON AGAINST RUSSIA. 623 
 
 the policy of the whole European Continent for years by the Treaty 
 of Tilsit, July, 1807. 
 
 It was to the overthrow of the British power by the Ganges 
 that a campaign was undertaken in the depths of winter on the 
 banks of the Vistula. Let me quote one of Napoleon's brilliant 
 orations, which, composed after the style of the harangues of Greek 
 and Roman generals, his models in art and eloquence and war, 
 remind us of the brilliant rhetoric of Xenophon and Alexander, 
 and of many a Caesar in the very crest of prosperity, or when his 
 fortitude was tried by the fiercest buffets of adversity. A Caesar or 
 Napoleon was equal to either extremity of fortune. And Napoleon, 
 like Hannibal, was never greater than in adversity ; for example, in 
 the spring of 1807 or in the winter of 18 13. Si fr actus illabitur 
 orbis^ impavidum ferient ruincu. 
 
 "Soldiers, we shall not lay down our arms till a general peace 
 has secured the power of our allies and restored to our commerce 
 liberty and its Colonies. On the Elbe and the Oder we have 
 conquered Pondicherry, our establishments in the Eastern Seas, 
 the Cape of Good Hope, and the Spanish Colonies. Who has 
 given the Russians hope that they can balance the weight of 
 destiny ? " 
 
 Thus amidst the ice and snow of Northern Europe the thoughts 
 of the Emperor were fixed on the maritime power of England 
 and her Empire in Asia. But the imagination of the French 
 people and soldiery were also captivated by another mirage, the 
 (revival of the empire of the Poles. 
 
 It is not our province to discuss the political institutions of 
 Poland, nor how it was that Western Europe had allowed its 
 partition, nor how the fell Suwarrowhad caused not only Freedom, 
 but the poet Campbell to shriek when Kusciosko fell. Suffice it to 
 say that the French had felt a warm interest in the fortunes of this 
 forlorn and very peculiar aristocracy of horsemen and democracy 
 ■of soldiers, and Napoleon's aspirations were inflamed by unsettled 
 plans for the revival of its proud position under his own sway 
 and of making it a bulwark against Russia, from which he honestly 
 believed Europe had much to fear. Nor was he at all adverse to 
 ■cultivating the softer traits of the character of Alexander and of 
 Caesar, and forgetting for a while, in the society of the most 
 ■charming of womenkind, the cares of Empire and the toils of war. 
 
 This design of using Poland as a basis of operations against 
 Russia, Austria, and ultimately India, so seducing, so generous, if 
 it had been practicable, was one of those enterprises with which 
 the quick imagination of Napoleon would be smitten at that moment, 
 .and one of the imposing spectacles which it was consonant with 
 
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624 THE UNITED SERVICE MAGAZINE. 
 
 his rrrcatncss to give to the world. In marching into the midst of 
 Poland, he added, it is true, to the difficulties of the actual war, the 
 graver difficulties of all, those of climate and distance ; but he took 
 from Russia and Prussia the resources of the Polish provinces,. 
 resources very considerable in men and grain ; he sapped the basis 
 of the Russian power ; he essayed rendering Europe the service 
 the most signal that he had ever rendered her ; he added new 
 pledges to those of which he was already possessed, which would 
 serve him to obtain from England maritime restitutions by means 
 of continental ones. The vast countries placed on the road from 
 the Rhine to the Vistula, the causes of weakness with an ordinary 
 general, would become, under the greatest of soldiers, abundant 
 resources of the things necessary in the war ; he would soon procure, 
 thanks to an able administration, provisions, ammunition, arms, 
 horses, and money. As to the climate, so formidable in those 
 countries in November and December, he, no doubt, considered it ; 
 but he had resolved in this campaign to halt on the Vistula. If 
 they gave him this river under the proposed armistice, he had the 
 design to establish himself there ; if, on the contrary, they contested 
 it with him, he would conquer it in a few marches, and encamp his 
 troops there during the winter, feed them with the corn of Poland, 
 warm them with the wood of its forests, recruit them with the new 
 soldiers coming from the Rhine, and, in the following spring, depart 
 from the Vistula to go deeper into the North than any man had 
 ever dared to go. 
 
 He held Austria aloof from the war by diplomacy, and succeeded 
 by the skill of Sebastiani in gaining the co-operation of the Sultan 
 Selim against Russia and the English, whose fleet, under Duckworth, 
 met with a reverse in the Dardanelles, 
 
 Moreover, Marmont occupied Dalmatia, and was ready to help 
 Turkey if need be against Russia. Hence the Czar Alexander was 
 obliged to detach 60,000 men to the Pruth when they might have 
 turned the tables against Napoleon on the line of the Vistula. 
 Nothing escaped the far-reaching eyes of the Emperor. He took 
 in the whole situation from London to Constantinople, and from 
 the Adriatic to the Gulf of Bothnia, at a glance. He even brought 
 distant Persia into his sphere of influence, and proposed to organise 
 its resources and use them against the Allies. He raised the 
 strength of the army, by antedating the conscription of 1807, to 
 580,000 men. 
 
 Having by the Berlin decree, November 21st, 1S06, declared the 
 British Isles in a state of blockade, though he might as well have 
 bombarded the planet Mars, and, having secured his lines of com- 
 munications, he :>tartcd for the Polish provinces of Prussia. He 
 
NAPOLEON AGAINST RUSSIA. 625 
 
 entered Posen on the 27th November, and was at Warsaw on tie 
 20th December. Various Polish leaders joined him ; but some of 
 the wisest, like Kusciosko, stood aloof. At the same time, aided 
 by the skill of General Sebastiani, the Sultan Selim declared war 
 on the Russians, thus diverting many other troops to the south ; 
 and the English fleet under Duckworth, though for a while it 
 ■dominated the Golden Horn, retired past the fortifications of the 
 Dardanelles with loss. 
 
 I can only give a very concise summary of this marvellous 
 campaign, and I must refer my readers to Jomini, or Dumas, or 
 Thiers, and many other writers in French ; to Lettovv-Vorbeck in 
 German — he gives splendid maps ; would that I could reproduce 
 them — or to Alison in English. As to the latter, he fills me with 
 enthusiasm, and I wish I were allowed simply to quote him page 
 by page. My readers would then have stores of eloquence and 
 wisdom, as well as brilliant descriptions, seldom found in the 
 monotonous dry-as-dusts, now called historians, as if history were 
 a matter of quantitative analysis, or the philosophy of liquid films, 
 or a study in conic sections. History is a matter of mind and 
 soul, of poesy and imagination, and romance, of the fiercest pulsa- 
 tions of life, and of the most appalling hecatombs of death ; as at 
 Heilsberg and Eylau. The historian does not deal with atoms, 
 nor gaze on the dead and the dry bones of osteology ; he deals with 
 the aspirations and prejudices, hopes and fears, virtues and crime, 
 and food supply of living men — men in action, men in hordes. 
 
 On the passions, and on the endeavours of these men, one verse 
 of an old song, one inspiriting phrase of an ardent hero, one fanatic 
 invocation to Allah, one reminiscence of international hate, one 
 glance of a good and lovely, or even of an unprincipled and leering 
 female eye, would produce more potent influences than would all the 
 calculations of all the philosophers from Democritus to Darwin. 
 
 From the ancient fortresses of Byzantium to the home of Virgil 
 by the Eridanus, from the wall of Hadrian in North Britain to the 
 gate of the Holy War in Servia, and to that plain where Gustavus 
 Adolphus the Swede, at the beginning of a new era of European 
 civilisation, taught a new art of war ; through all peoples as dissimilar 
 as the Italians, and Bavarians, and Spanish, who fought for him, 
 and the Scandinavians, and Britons, and Cossacks, who fought 
 against him in North Germany, the name of the Corsican was 
 -everything : — everything to British seamen, to the Hetman of the 
 Don, the ambassador of the Shah, the Prussian student, the 
 Hungarian hussar. Nor, indeed, did Napoleon ever occupy a more 
 prominent place in the minds of men than to-day, a hundred years 
 after he reached the Maine on his march to the ruin of Prussia. 
 
626 THE UNITED SERVICE MAGAZINE. 
 
 \^ Napoleon said that the "art of war is nothing but the art of 
 subsisting." After Eylau, he wrote to Talleyrand that "the fate 
 of Europe and all our vast calculations hinge upon the means of 
 subsistence."! To beat the Russians, if I have bread enough, is 
 mere chiltfr; play. Biscuit and brandy are all I require ; they 
 will defeat all the efforts of our enemies." There was nothing new 
 in the principles which were the bases upon which he and his 
 brilliant Marshals, and his able opponents, Benningsen, and 
 Lcstocq. and Bagration, and Platoff, founded all their orders to the 
 myriads under their command. My readers will find that these 
 principles are old and easily remembered. They were adopted by 
 his predecessors — Xenophon, Alexander, Hannibal, Csesar, Zenglis, 
 Tamerlane, and the great Sultans of Islam, as well as by Gustavus, 
 Turenne, Marlborough, and Frederick : " To keep one's forces 
 together, to bear speedily on any point, to be nowhere vulnerable 
 — such arc the principles that ensure victory. To inspire fear by 
 the reputation of one's arms ; — that is what maintains the fidelity 
 of allies and the obedience of conquered nations." 
 
 Do my readers require further illustrations of the principles > 
 We have set them forth in the campaigns of Wellington ; and Lee 
 and Moltke and Oyama have illustrated them in more recent 
 times. 
 
 Would my readers wish for the very antitheses of these 
 principles "i Well, then, let them carefully peruse the speeches of 
 English politicians since 1895, and the more thoroughly they 
 become imbued with the spirit of Party, the less they will compre- 
 hend the secrets of Victory and the Soul of Humanity. 
 
 The Russians had committed the same fault as in the early 
 part of the campaign of Ulm, they had permitted their allies to be 
 beaten before they arrived on the scene, and only about 28,000 
 Prussians under their pay, who refused to accept any humiliating 
 terms, were rallied on the Vistula. On the approach of the armies 
 of Napoleon they retired eastward. And when the Emperor 
 entered Warsaw, Ney, Bernadotte, and Bessieres were near Thorn ; 
 Soult and Augereau, in the centre, occupied Block ; Lannes, Murat, 
 and Davoust, in the south-east, extended towards Sicrock and 
 Zakroezyn covering Warsaw. They had before them the territory 
 watered by the Bug, which joins the Vistula about Czarnowo near 
 Modlin. The Narew joins the Bug on the right, passing Ostro- 
 lenska, Pultusk, and Sicrock, and on the north-west is joined by 
 the Ukra near Ciechanew. The Russian Army, commanded by the 
 veteran Kamcnskoi, who soon lost his head, occupied the marshy 
 districts between these rivers, and they might easily have adopted 
 Napoleon's celebrated system of interior lines, as used before in 
 
NAPOLEON AGAINST RUSSIA. G2y 
 
 1796-7, in Italy, and afterwards in 1809 and 18 14. Converging 
 rivers give full scope to the action of detaining forces. But on the 
 23rd Napoleon advanced, and on the 26th December Lannes routed 
 Eenningsen at Pultusk ; while Davoust, Augereau, and INIurat drove 
 Buxhowden from Golymin ; and Ney, having defeated the Prussian 
 corps of Lestocq, seized Soldau. These were, however, merely 
 tactical successes, the tenacity of the Russian rear-guards, and the 
 wretched state of the road, steeped in what Napoleon called the 
 fifth element — mud, prevented the full success which can only be 
 secured by effective pursuit. Then Napoleon put his soldiers into 
 winter quarters along the Vistula, and Jerome Bonaparte and 
 Vandamme took Glogau, Breslau, Schweidnitz, between the 2nd 
 December and 2nd January; but Neisse was not taken till June. 
 Mortier invaded what was then Swedish Fomerania, and block- 
 aded Stralsund. Benningsen, who replaced Kamenskoi, took 
 the offensive, wishing to interpose between Ney and Bernadotte 
 and the other corps, which extended about a hundred miles, with 
 their backs to the Vistula, and facing east. He proposed to attack 
 these two Marshals and to recover his communications with 
 Dantzic after overwhelming Napoleon's left. But Napoleon saw 
 through the design. A glance at the map will show how it was 
 foiled. The two threatened Marshals were to fall back rapidly 
 south-west, where they joined Soult, having brushed aside the 
 Russian advanced guards at Heilsberg, 22nd January, and 
 Mohrungen, 25th January. They were then safe. 
 
 Now the genius of Napoleon proposed that Bernadotte should 
 still further fall back, while the other corps turned the Russian left 
 from the south-east and cut them off from Konigsberg and hemmed 
 them in between the mouth of the Vistula and the Frische Haf. 
 Unfortunately, his despatch was taken by a Cossack, and he was 
 foiled, as were his plans in 1814, and those of Wellington in 18 12, 
 and of Lee in 1862, by a similar accident. 
 
 Benningsen retreated just in time (ist February), just as 
 Napoleon from Warsaw was on his left flank near Jonkowo. The 
 Russian retreat was slow, as their general wished to give the 
 Prussian Lestocq, who was in imminent danger, at Osterode, from 
 IMarshal Ney, time to escape to Konigsberg. The retreat and 
 pursuit were now very ably conducted. There was a skirmish at 
 Hoff, 6th P^ebruary, and on the 7th Marshal Soult drove Benning- 
 sen from the village of Preussisch Eylau. But the enemy fell 
 back on the main body. It was so exhausted by fatigue, and 
 disgusted with retreating, that the men welcomed a battle. 
 Benningsen resolved to fight, though he was not yet joined by 
 Lestocq, who was beaten by Ney at Deppen, Liebstedt, d 
 
628 THE UNITED SERVICE MAGAZINE. 
 
 Spanden on the banks of the Passarge, and only escaped by a great 
 bend to the north. 
 
 On the 8th February, both armies— each about 70,000 men- 
 were ready for a desperate battle at Eylau. Here occurred the 
 most terrible struggle since Malplaquet, and the fame of the 
 Russian soldiers resounded through Europe. The Corps of 
 Augereau ceased to exist ; the Emperor himself was only saved 
 from the furious attack of the Russians on the cemetery by his 
 Guard ; nor did the great masses of cavalry, charging again and 
 again under Murat, Grouchy, Bessieres, and Hautpool, produce any 
 serious impression on the stolid enemy. Both sides claimed the 
 victory, and both were exhausted ; but manifestly at such a distance 
 from his base, and with supplies depending on dubious allies, the 
 position of Napoleon was hazardous to a degree. Both sides 
 rested for four months — Benningsen near Konigsberg, the French 
 near Osterode ; but Napoleon's energy, ability, and foresight were 
 never better displayed. 
 
 The siege of Dantzic might be compared with that of Port 
 Arthur in many respects, only that the French had not command 
 of the sea — perhaps it would be better to compare it with the 
 French siege of Cadiz. Of course its possession was of first 
 importance as a flank position to both armies, and Lefebre's 
 success caused his elevation to the title of Duke of Dantzic. It 
 was captured on the 26th May, and Weichselmunde two days 
 afterwards. 
 
 Whatever may be said of the disadvantages of fortresses — and 
 they may well become traps — they are of the utmost importance 
 as pivots of operations. To ignore their importance is folly ; to 
 exaggerate their importance is to forget that men and not stones, 
 brains and not hillocks or mounds or inundations, are the defence 
 of nations. 
 
 But with the approach of summer, the French, who occupied 
 the line of the Passarge, and the Russians, who occupied the line of 
 the Alle, began to move. Ney was isolated at Guttstat in advance 
 of the army. Probably this was a device of Napoleon to tempt 
 the Russians to advance. If so, it was fine strategy. Ney was 
 attacked, but not surprised ; so were Soult, at Lomitten, and 
 Bernadotte, at Spanden ; but there was no confusion. They fell 
 back steadily, and the whole French army, about 126,000 strong, 
 were united under Napoleon on the Passarge. Benningsen with- 
 drew to his great entrenched camp at Heilsberg. Now Napoleon 
 might have turned its left, and driven the Russians back to the sea, 
 or he might attack in front; and, turning their right, have forced 
 the Russians away from their base of supply at Konigsberg. A 
 
NAPOLEON AGAINST RUSSIA. 629 
 
 terrible attack on the carefully prepared field-works failed on the 
 loth June. Giving up his front attack, Napoleon moved north 
 •along the left bank of the AUe to cut off the enemy from 
 Konigsberg. Benningsen complied with this manoeuvre, moving 
 in a parallel direction along the right bank. Eighteen thousand 
 men fell killed or wounded at the Heilsberg entrenchments. But 
 Benningsen soon turned on his adversaries, and drove a regiment 
 -of the cavalry of Lannes from the town of Friedland on the 13th 
 June. The Marshal concentrated to the west of Friedland, where, 
 on the morning of the 14th, he held the slow Russians in check till 
 the other Marshals and the Emperor arrived on the scene. 
 
 The battle of Friedland was a fine specimen of Napoleon's 
 stratagems ; and, undoubtedly, whatever may be the general rule, in 
 this case the Russians were wrong in fighting with the river AUe 
 so close to their rear. The French army of 90,000 men formed a 
 semi-circle around Friedland, both flanks touching the Alle. The 
 Russians, in case of defeat, must pass the bridges of Friedland and 
 then move to Wehlau, where the Alle and Prcgel unite in the midst 
 of a marshy plain traversed by a single cliansscc. By that defile not 
 only the artillery and carriages of the main army, but also the 
 immense stores of baggage and ammunition train which must 
 evacuate Konigsberg, had to pass. Hence the Russians were in a 
 very bad position indeed — worse than Pope at Second Bull Run, 
 or Joseph at Vittoria, or Bazaine at Rezonville, or Kuropatkin at 
 Mukden ; and yet they escaped. 
 
 Napoleon's plan for the battle w^as simple. Mortier was to fall 
 back towards the north, so as to draw the Russians after him as 
 far as possible from Friedland — while Lannes stood firm in front 
 of Friedland — Ney, at five in the afternoon, with Marchand and 
 Dupont, and supported by the guns of Senarmont, and the dragoons 
 of Latour-INIaubourg, hurled his masses against the Russian left, 
 defeated their Guards, drove back Benningsen's left and centre 
 into the river, and burned the bridges and the town. Mortier and 
 Lannes then advanced ; the Russians were routed with a loss of 
 27,000 drowned, dead, wounded, or prisoners, and 80 guns ; the 
 French loss was about 10,000. A singular incident took place — 
 at the first alarm the Cossacks crowded down the right bank of the 
 Alle, and, swimming the river, advanced on the opposite side, and 
 discharged a volley of arron's with considerable effect on the enemy. 
 
 Alison maintains that if Napoleon had followed up his success 
 with his wonted vigour, the Russian host would have been utterly 
 .annihilated. But on this memorable occasion, as in many others, 
 when engaged with the Russians, e.g. in 1812, it was apparent that 
 the vigour of the EmperOr, in following up his victories, was by 
 
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 no means equal cither to what it was in the German or Italiani 
 wars — but the explanation is easy ; his troops were exhausted by 
 the desperate nature of the resistance offered to them in these 
 northern latitudes — soldiers trained in the methods of Suwarrow's 
 Catechism were men of iron. 
 
 The Russians fell back on to the Prcgel, and then to the Niemen. 
 Soult captured Konigsberg without any trouble on the 17th 
 June. On the 19th Murat seized Tilsit on the Russian frontier,. 
 Benningsen sent Bagration to ask for an armistice — which was 
 signed on the 21st June, and an interview between Alexander 
 and Napoleon was arranged, which resulted in the celebrated Peace 
 of Tilsit on the 8th July, 1807. 
 
 The allies of England have always been victimised by the 
 base intrigues and incapacity of English party chiefs, so it was- 
 the case with the Dutch and Catalans in 17 13, with Frederick the 
 Great in 1762, and with the Czar in 1807. The latter made no- 
 secret of his indignation, and declared that if Napoleon hated the 
 English he was Napoleon's friend — his principal reasons for making 
 peace, as given by Hardenburg, IX. 425, were the refusal of Howick 
 (Earl Grey), who had solicited the Czar to intervene after Jena, 
 to guarantee the Russian subsidies, and the delay in the arrival, 
 of the troops which the English promised to send to the Baltic 
 coasts. The arms for the Russian troops did not arrive till 
 Konigsberg had capitulated, and the campaign was over. Hence 
 the Czar saw no reasons for sacrificing his Russians and bringing 
 about the invasion of his country after desperate efforts which, 
 were not reciprocated, or even appreciated by selfish and ignorant 
 vote-catchers. At the Conference of Tilsit, Napoleon played on. 
 Russian disappointment and indignation with rare art, and secured, 
 the Czar's hearty co-operation as against both Austria and England. 
 One of the immediate results was Junot's invasion of Portugal ia 
 1807, and the occupation of Madrid in 1808 — which brought about 
 the long-drawn Peninsular War. 
 
 napoleon's list of FRENCH TROOPS AT FRIEDLAND. 
 
 Imperial Guard, Marshal Bessieres, Duke of Istria 7,500 
 
 Corps. 
 
 Marshal Lanncs, Duke of Montebello 15,900 
 
 Marshal Ney, Duke of Elchingcn 14,000 
 
 Marshal Mortier, Duke of Treviso 10,000 
 
 Marshal Bernadotte, Prince of Ponte Corvo, Prince wounded, 
 
 Marshal Victor, Duke of Belluno, in command 22,000 
 
 Cavalry 11,500 
 
 Total at Friedland ... 8^,900- 
 
0^ ^ 1 
 
 THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. 
 By F. J. Snell. 
 
 \ 
 
 III. 
 
 The Emperor Lewis and the Anclo-German Fiasco. 
 
 Ix the fourteenth \century the condit^n of the unwieldy Holy 
 Roman Empire and the position of its titular chief were very different 
 from what they had been in the preceding age. The great office, 
 the incumbent of which was now Le^vis IV., or Lewis the Bavarian, 
 rested under an eclipse a^ severe as that which had overtaken the 
 Papacy. The princes oK the several states had seized all real 
 power into their hands and took care to exercise their electoral 
 privileges in such a way as to preclude the installation of a genuine 
 ruler — one that would revive the glories of the Hohenstaufcn and 
 ihcir authority among the lesser lights. All semblance of the 
 hereditary principle had vanished, and despite the efforts of emperors, 
 pretenders, and partisans, it could not again be brought into 
 play. One element embarrassing the situation was the attitude of 
 the Tope, who claimed to be consulted, and without whose formal 
 assent the Duke of Bavaria was onl)^; Emperor by courtesy. He 
 was acknowledged to be King of the Rbmans, for this was a matter 
 of election and normally a stepping-stooe to the higher dignity ; 
 but before he could become Fmperor, Lewis needed to be con- 
 secrated by the Pontiff. Throughout his, reign this recognition, 
 though more than once he sought it carefully with tears, was never 
 obtained from the head of the Church, whowxs a guest and ally of 
 I'Vancc. 
 
 The Fmperor, as he was dc' facto, had married Margaret, the 
 eldest daughter of Count William of Hainault, who, on the extinc- 
 tion of the old dynasty, had become Count of Holland ; and. in 
 the event of the failure of heirs male, Lewis had every prospect of 
 reintroducing into the Empire ancient provinces, whose sentiment 
 of attachment had grown weak. Fdward HI., when still under age, 
 had wedded Philippa, Margaret's youngest sister, and Raynald r^ 
 Gueldres had espoused the King of England's sister. William of 
 juliers was a warm supporter of the Anglo-German alliance; and 
 
NAPOLEON AGAINST RUSSIA. 
 
 Detached. 
 
 6311 
 
 Marshal Davoust, Duke of Auerstadt ... 
 Marshal Soult, Duke of Dalmatia 
 Prince Murat's Cavalry 
 
 28,000 
 27,000 
 10,000 
 
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY