Then the panic-stricken throngs of wounded and stragglers, women and camp-followers, writhed and fought their way until the frail planks were piled high with living and dead. To add to the horrors, one bridge gave way under the weight of the cannon. The rush for the one remaining bridge became yet more frantic and the day closed amidst scenes of unspeakable woe. Stout swimmers threw themselves into the stream, only to fall victims to the ice floes and the numbing cold. At dawn of the 29th, the French rearguard fired the bridge to cover the retreat. Then a last, loud wail of horror arose from the farther bank, and despair or a loathing of life drove many to end their miseries in the river or in the flames.

Such was the crossing of the Beresina. The ghastly tale was told once more with renewed horrors when the floods of winter abated and laid bare some 12,000 corpses along the course of that fatal stream. It would seem that if Napoleon, or his staff, had hurried on the camp-followers to cross on the night of the 27th to the 28th, those awful scenes would not have happened, for on that night the bridges were not used at all. Grosser carelessness than this cannot be conceived; and yet, even after this shocking blunder, the devotion of the soldiers to their chief found touching expression. When he was suffering from cold in the wretched bivouac west of the river, officers went round calling for dry wood for his fire; and shivering men were seen to offer precious sticks, with the words, "Take it for the Emperor."[278]

On that day Napoleon wrote to Maret that possibly he would leave the army and hurry on to Paris. His presence there was certainly needed, if his crown was to be saved. On November 6th, the day of the first snowstorm, he heard of the Quixotic attempt of a French republican, General Malet, to overthrow the Government at Paris. With a handful of followers, but armed with a false report of Napoleon's capture in Russia, this man had apprehended several officials, until the scheme collapsed of sheer inanity.[279] "How now, if we were at Moscow," exclaimed the Emperor, on hearing this curious news; and he saw with chagrin that some of his generals merely shrugged their shoulders. After crossing the Beresina, he might hope that the worst was over and that the stores at Vilna and Kovno would suffice for the remnant of his army. The cold for a time had been less rigorous. The behaviour of Prussia and Austria was, in truth, more important than the conduct of the retreat. Unless those Powers were kept to their troth, not a Frenchman would cross the Elbe.

At Smorgoni, then, on December the 5th, he informed his Marshals that he left them in order to raise 300,000 men; and, intrusting the command to Murat, he hurried away. His great care was to prevent the extent of the disaster being speedily known. "Remove all strangers from Vilna," he wrote to Maret: "the army is not fine to look upon just now." The precaution was much needed. Frost set in once more, and now with unending grip. Vilna offered a poor haven of refuge. The stores were soon plundered, and, as the Cossacks drew near, Murat and the remnant of the Grand Army decamped in pitiable panic. Amidst ever deepening misery they struggled on, until, of the 600,000 men who had proudly crossed the Niemen for the conquest of Russia, only 20,000 famished, frost-bitten, unarmed spectres staggered across the bridge of Kovno in the middle of December. The auxiliary corps furnished by Austria and Prussia fell back almost unscathed. But the remainder of that mighty host rotted away in Russian prisons or lay at rest under Nature's winding-sheet of snow.[280]

* * * * *



CHAPTER XXXIII

THE FIRST SAXON CAMPAIGN

Despite the loss of the most splendid army ever marshalled by man, Napoleon abated no whit of his resolve to dominate Germany and dictate terms to Russia. At Warsaw, in his retreat, he informed De Pradt that there was but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous, that is, from the advance on Moscow to the retreat. At Dresden he called on his allies, Austria and Prussia, to repel the Russians; and at Paris he strained every nerve to call the youth of the Empire to arms. The summons met with a ready response: he had but to stamp his foot when the news from East Prussia looked ominous, and an array of 350,000 conscripts was promised by the Senate (January 10th).

In truth, his genius had enthralled the mind of France. The magnificence of his aims, his hitherto triumphant energy, and the glamour of his European supremacy had called forth all the faculties of the French and Italian peoples, and set them pulsating with ecstatic activity. He knew by instinct all the intricacies of their being, which his genius controlled with the easy decisiveness of a master-key. The rude shock of the Russian disaster served but to emphasize the thoroughness of his domination, and the dumb trustfulness of his forty-three millions of subjects.

And yet their patience might well have been exhausted. His military needs had long ago drawn in levies the year before they were legally liable; but the mighty swirl of the Moscow campaign now sucked 150,000 lads of under twenty years of age into the devouring vortex. In the Dutch and German provinces of his Empire the number of those who evaded the clutches of the conscription was very large. In fact, the number of "refractory conscripts" in the whole realm amounted to 40,000. Large bands of them ranged the woods of Brittany and La Vendee, until mobile columns were sent to sweep them into the barracks.

But in nearly the whole of France (Proper), Napoleon's name was still an unfailing talisman, appealing as it did to the two strongest instincts of the Celt, the clinging to the soil and the passion for heroic enterprise. Thus it came about that the peasantry gave up their sons to be "food for cannon" with the same docility that was shown by soldiers who sank death-stricken into a snowy bed with no word of reproach to the author of their miseries. A like obsequiousness was shown by the officials and legislators of France, who meekly listened to the Emperor's reproaches for their weakness in the Malet affair, and heard with mild surprise his denunciation against republican idealogy—the cloudy metaphysics to which all the misfortunes of our fair France may be attributed. No tongue dared to utter the retort which must have fermented in every brain.[281]

But his explanations and appeals did not satisfy every Frenchman. Many were appalled at the frightful drain on the nation's strength. They asked in private how the deficit of 1812 and the further expenses of 1813 were to be met, even if he allotted the communal domains to the service of the State. They pointed to allies ruined or lost; to Spain, where Joseph's throne still tottered from the shock of Salamanca; to Poland, lying mangled at the feet of the Muscovites; to Italy, desolated by the loss of her bravest sons; to the Confederation of the Rhine, equally afflicted and less resigned; to Austria and Prussia, where timid sovereigns and calculating Courts alone kept the peoples true to the hated French alliance. Only by a change of system, they averred, could the hatred of Europe be appeased, and the formation of a new and vaster Coalition avoided. Let Napoleon cease to force his methods of commercial warfare on the Continent: let him make peace on honourable terms with Russia, where the chief Minister, Romantzoff, was ready to meet him halfway: let him withdraw his garrisons from Prussian fortresses, soothe the susceptibilities of Austria—and events would tend to a solid and honourable peace.

To all promptings of prudence Napoleon was deaf. His instincts and his experience of the Kings prevented him yielding on any important point. He determined to carry on the war from the Tagus to the Vistula, to bolster up Joseph in Spain, to keep his garrisons fast rooted in every fortress as far east as Danzig. Russia and Prussia, he said, had more need of peace than France. If he began by giving up towns, they would demand kingdoms, whereas by yielding nothing he would intimidate them. And if they did form a league, their forces would be thinly spread out over an immense space; he would easily dispose of their armies when they were not aided by the climate; and a single victory would undo the clumsy knot (ce noeud mal assorti).[282]

In truth, if he left Spain out of his count, the survey of the military position was in many ways reassuring. England's power was enfeebled by the declaration of war by the United States. In Central Europe his position was still commanding. He held nearly all the fortresses of Prussia, and though he had lost a great army, that loss was spread out very largely over Poles, Germans, Italians, and smaller peoples. Many of the best French troops and all his ablest generals had survived. His Guard could therefore be formed again, and the brains of his army were also intact. The war had brought to light no military genius among the Russians; and all his past experience of the "old coalition machines" warranted the belief that their rusty cogwheels, even if oiled by English subsidies, would clank slowly along and break down at the first exceptional strain. Such had been the case at Marengo, at Austerlitz, at Friedland. Why should not history repeat itself?

While he was guiding his steps solely by the light of past experience, events were occurring that heralded the dawn of a new era for Central Europe. On the 30th of December, the Prussian General Yorck, who led the Prussian corps serving previously under Macdonald in Courland, concluded the Convention of Tauroggen with the Russians, stipulating that this corps should hold the district around Memel and Tilsit as neutral territory, until Frederick William's decision should be known. Strictly considered, this convention was a grave breach of international law and an act of treachery towards Napoleon. The King at first viewed it in that light; but to all his subjects it seemed a noble and patriotic action. To continue the war with Russia for the benefit of Napoleon would have been an act of political suicide.

Yet, for some weeks, Frederick William waited on events; and these events decided for war, not against Russia, but against France. The Prussian Chancellor, Hardenberg, did his best to hoodwink the French at Berlin, and quietly to play into the hands of the ardent German patriots. After publishing an official rebuke to Yorck, he secretly sent Major Thile to reassure him. He did more: in order to rescue the King from French influence, still paramount at Berlin, he persuaded him to set out for Breslau, on the pretext of raising there another contingent for service under Napoleon. The ruse completely succeeded: it deceived the French ambassador, St. Marsan: it fooled even Napoleon himself. With his now invariable habit of taking for granted that events would march according to his word of command, the Emperor assumed that this was for the raising of the corps of 30,000 men which he had requested Frederick William to provide, and said to Prince Hatzfeld (January 29th): "Your King is going to Breslau: I think it a timely step." Such was Napoleon's frame of mind, even after he heard of Yorck's convention with the Russians. That event he considered "the worst occurrence that could happen." Yet neither that nor the patriotic ferment in Prussia reft the veil from his eyes. He still believed that the Prussians would follow their King, and that the King would obey him. On February the 3rd he wrote to Maret, complaining that 2,000 Prussian horsemen were shutting themselves up in Silesian towns, "as if they were afraid of us, instead of helping us and covering their country."

Once away from Berlin, Frederick William found himself launched on a resistless stream of national enthusiasm. At heart he was no less a patriot than the most ardent of the university students; but he knew far better than they the awful risks of war with the French Empire. His little kingdom of 4,700,000 souls, with but half-a-dozen strongholds it could call its own, a realm ravaged by Napoleon's troops alike in war and peace until commerce and credit were but a dim memory—such a land could ill afford to defy an empire ten times as populous and more than ten times as powerful. True, the Russians were pouring in under the guise of friendship; but the bitter memories of Tilsit forbade any implicit trust in Alexander. And, if the dross had been burnt out of his nature by a year of fiery trial, could his army, exhausted by that frightful winter campaign and decimated by the diseases which Napoleon's ghastly array scattered broadcast in its flight, ever hope, even with the help of Prussia's young levies, to cope with the united forces of Napoleon and Austria?

For at present it seemed that the Court of Vienna would hold fast to the French alliance. There Metternich was all-powerful, and the keystone of his system was a guarded but profit-seeking subservience to Napoleon. Not that the Emperor Francis and he loved the French potentate; but they looked on him now as a pillar of order, as a barrier against Jacobinism in France, against the ominous pan-Germanism preached by Prussian enthusiasts, and against Muscovite aggandizement in Turkey and Poland. Great was their concern, first at the Russo-Turkish peace which installed the Muscovites at the northern mouth of the Danube, and still more at the conquering swoops of the Russian eagle on Warsaw and Posen. How could they now hope to gain from Turkey the set-off to the loss of Tyrol and Illyria on which they had recently been counting, and how save any of the Polish lands from the grip of Russia? For the present Russia was more to be feared than Napoleon. Her influence seemed the more threatening to the policy of balance on which the fortunes of the Hapsburgs were delicately poised.

Only by degrees were these fears and jealousies laid to rest. It needed all the address of a British envoy, Lord Walpole, who repaired secretly to Vienna and held out the promise of tempting gains, to assuage these alarms, and turn Austria's gaze once more on her lost provinces, Tyrol, Illyria, and Venetia. For the present, however, nothing came of these overtures; and when the French discovered Walpole's presence at Vienna, Metternich begged him to leave.[283]

For the present, then, Austria assumed a neutral attitude. A truce was concluded with Russia, and a special envoy was sent to Paris to explain the desire of the Emperor Francis to act as mediator, with a view to the conclusion of a general peace. The latest researches into Austrian policy show that the Kaiser desired an honourable peace for all parties concerned, and that Metternich may have shared his views. But, early in the negotiations, Napoleon showed flashes of distrust as to the sincerity of his father-in-law, and Austria gradually changed her attitude. The change was to be fatal to Napoleon. But the question whether it was brought about by Napoleon's obstinacy, or Metternich's perfidy, or the force of circumstances, must be postponed for the present, while we consider events of equal importance and of greater interest.

While Austria balanced and Frederick William negotiated, the sterner minds of North Germany rushed in on the once sacred ground of diplomacy and statecraft. The struggle against Napoleon was prepared for by the exile Stein, and war was first proclaimed by a professor.

Among the many influences that urged on the Czar to a war for the liberation of Prussia and Europe, not the least was that wielded at his Court in the latter half of 1812 by the staunch German patriot, Stein. His heroic spirit never quailed, even in the darkest hour of Prussia's humiliation; and he now pointed out convincingly that the only sure means of overthrowing Napoleon was to raise Germany against him. To remain on a tame defensive at Warsaw would be to court another French invasion in 1813. The safety of Russia called for a pursuit of the French beyond the Elbe and a rally of the Germans against the man they detested. The appeal struck home. It revived Alexander's longings for the liberation of Europe, which he had buried at Tilsit; and it agreed with the promptings of an ambitious statecraft. Only by overthrowing Napoleon's supremacy in Germany could the Czar gain a free hand for a lasting settlement of the Polish Question. The eastern turn given to his policy in 1807 was at an end—but not before Russia had taken another step towards the Bosphorus. With one leg planted at the mouth of the Danube, the Colossus now prepared to stride over Central Europe. The aims of Catherine II. in 1792 were at last to be realized. While Europe was wrestling with Revolutionary France, the Muscovite grasp was to tighten on Poland. It is not surprising that Alexander, on January 13th, commented on the "brilliance of the present situation," or that he decided to press onward. He gave little heed to the Gallophil counsels of Romantzoff or the dolorous warnings of the German-hating Kutusoff; and, on January 18th, he empowered Stein provisionally to administer in his name the districts of Prussia (Proper) when occupied by Russian troops.

So irregular a proceeding could only be excused by dire necessity and by success. It was more than excused; it was triumphantly justified. Four days later Stein arrived at Koenigsberg, in company with the patriotic poet, Arndt. The Estates, or Provincial Assemblies, of East and West Prussia were summoned, and they heartily voted supplies for forming a Landwehr or militia, as well as a last line of defence called the Landsturm. This step, unique in the history of Prussia, was taken apart from, almost in defiance of, the royal sanction: it was, in fact, due to the masterful will of Stein, who saw that a great popular impulse, and it alone, could overcome the inertia of King and officials. That impulse he himself originated, and by virtue of powers conferred on him by the Emperor Alexander. And the ball thus set rolling at Koenigsberg was to gather mass and momentum until, thanks to the powerful aid of Wellington in the South, it overthrew Napoleon at Paris.

The action of the exile was furthered by the word of a thinker and seer. A worthy professor at the University of Breslau, named Steffens, had long been meditating on some means of helping his country. The arrival of Frederick William had kindled a flame of devotion which perplexed that modest and rather pedantic ruler. But he so far responded to it as to allow Hardenberg to issue (February 3rd) an appeal for volunteers to "reinforce the ranks of the old defenders of the country." The appeal was entirely vague: it did not specify whether they would serve against the nominal enemy, Russia, or the real enemy, Napoleon. Pondering this weighty question, as did all good patriots, Steffens heard, in the watches of the night, the voice of conscience declare: "Thou must declare war against Napoleon." At his early morning lecture on Physics, which was very thinly attended, he told the students that he would address them at eleven on the call for volunteers. That lecture was thronged; and to the sea of eager faces Steffens spoke forth the thought that simmered in every brain, the burning desire for war with Napoleon. He offered himself as a recruit: 200 students from Breslau and 258 from the University of Berlin soon flocked to the colours, and that, too, chiefly from the classes which of yore had detested the army. Thanks to the teachings of Fichte and the still deeper lessons of adversity, the mind of Germany was now ranged on the side of national independence and against an omnivorous imperialism.

Where the mind led the body followed, yet still somewhat haltingly. In truth, the King and his officials were in a difficult position. They distrusted the Russians, who seemed chiefly eager to force Frederick William into war with France and to arrange the question of a frontier afterwards. But the eastern frontier was a question of life and death for Prussia. If Alexander kept the whole of the great Duchy of Warsaw, the Hohenzollern States would be threatened from the east as grievously as ever they were on the west by the French at Magdeburg. And the Czar seemed resolved to keep the whole of Poland. He told the Prussian envoy, Knesebeck, that, while handing over to Frederick William the whole of Saxony, Russia must retain all the Polish lands, a resolve which would have planted the Russian standards almost on the banks of the Oder. Nay, more: Knesebeck detected among the Russian officials a strong, though as yet but half expressed, longing for the whole of Prussia east of the lower Vistula.

For his part, Frederick William cherished lofty hopes. He knew that the Russian troops had suffered horribly from privations and disease, that as yet they mustered only 40,000 effectives on the Polish borders, and that they urgently needed the help of Prussia. He therefore claimed that, if he joined Russia in a war against Napoleon, he must recover the whole of what had been Prussian Poland, with the exception of the district of Bialystock ceded at Tilsit.[284] It seemed, then, that the Polish Question would once more exert on the European concert that dissolving influence which had weakened the Central Powers ever since the days of Valmy. Had Napoleon now sent to Breslau a subtle schemer like Savary, the apple of discord might have been thrown in with fatal results. But the fortunes of his Empire then rested on a Piedmontese nobleman, St. Marsan, who showed a singular credulity as to Prussia's subservience. He accepted all Hardenberg's explanations (including a thin official reproof to Steffens), and did little or nothing to countermine the diplomatic approaches of Russia. The ground being thus left clear, it was possible for the Czar to speak straight to the heart of Frederick William. This he now did. Knesebeck was set aside; and Alexander, meeting the Prussian demands halfway, promised in a treaty, signed at Kalisch on February 27th, to leave Prussia all her present territories, and to secure for her the equivalent, in a "statistical, financial, and geographical sense," of the lands which she had lost since 1806, along with a territory adapted to connect Prussia Proper with the province of Silesia.[285]

It seems certain that Stein's influence weighed much with Alexander in this final compromise, which postponed the irritating question of the eastern frontier and bent all the energies of two great States to the War of Liberation. Stein was sent to Frederick William at Breslau; but the King hardly deigned to see him, and the greatest of German patriots was suffered to remain in a garret of that city during a wearisome attack of fever. But he lived through disease and official neglect as he triumphed over Slavonic intrigues; and he had at hand that salve of many an able man—the knowledge that, even while he himself was slighted, his plans were adopted with beneficent and far-reaching results.

The Russo-Prussian alliance was firmly upheld by Lord Cathcart, the British ambassador to Russia, who reached headquarters on March the 2nd. For the present, Great Britain did not definitely join the allies; but the discussions on the Hanoverian Question, which had previously sundered us from Prussia, soon proved that wisdom had been learnt in the school of adversity. The Hohenzollerns now renounced all claims to Hanover, though they showed some repugnance to our Prince-Regent's demand that the Electorate should receive some territorial gain.

Thus the two questions on which Napoleon had counted as certain to clog the wheels of the Coalition, as they had done in the past, were removed, and the way was cleared for a compact firmer than any which Europe had hitherto known. On March 17th a Russo-Prussian Convention was concluded at Breslau whereby those Powers agreed to deliver Germany from France, to dissolve the Confederation of the Rhine, and to summon the German princes and people to help them; every prince that refused would suffer the loss of his States; and arrangements were made for the provisional administration of the lands which the allies should occupy. Frederick William also appealed to his people and to his army, and instituted that coveted order of merit, the Iron Cross.

But there was small need of appeals and decorations. The people rushed to arms with an ardour that rivalled the levee en masse of France in 1793. Nobles and students, professors and peasants, poets and merchants, shouldered their muskets. Housewives and maidens brought their scanty savings or their treasured trinkets as offerings for the altar of the Fatherland. One incident deserves special notice. A girl, Nanny by name, whose ringlets were her only wealth, shore them off, sold them, and brought the price of them, two thalers, for the sacred cause. A noble impulse thrilled through Germany. Volunteers came from far, many of whom were to ride with Luetzow's irregular horse in his wild ventures. Most noteworthy of these was the gifted young poet, Korner, a Saxon by birth, who now forsook a life of ease, radiant with poetic promise, at the careless city of Vienna, to follow the Prussian eagle. "A great time calls for great hearts," he wrote to his father: "am I to write vaudevilles when I feel within me the courage and strength for joining the actors on the stage of real life?" Alas! for him the end was to be swift and tragic. Not long after inditing an ode to his sword, he fell in a skirmish near Hamburg.

Germany mourned his loss; but she mourned still more that her greatest poet, Goethe, felt no throb of national enthusiasm. The great Olympian was too much wrapped up in his lofty speculations to spare much sympathy for struggling mortals below: "Shake your chains, if you will: the man (Napoleon) is too strong for you: you will not break them." Such was his unprophetic utterance at Dresden to the elder Korner. Men who touched the people's pulse had no such doubts. "Ah! those were noble times," wrote Arndt: "the fresh young hope of life and honour sang in all hearts; it echoed along every street; it rolled majestically down every chancel." The sight of Germans thronging from all parts into Silesia to fight for their Prussian champions awakened in him the vision of a United Germany, which took form in the song, "What is the German's Fatherland?"[286]

Against this ever-rising tide of national enthusiasm Napoleon pitted the resources which Gallic devotion still yielded up to his demands. They were surprisingly great. In less than half a year, after the loss of half a million of men, a new army nearly as numerous was marshalled under the imperial eagles. Thirty thousand tried troops were brought from Spain, thereby greatly relieving the pressure on Wellington. Italy and the garrison towns of the Empire sent forth a vast number. But the majority were young, untrained troops; and it was remarked that the conscripts born in the years of the Terror, 1793-4, had not the stamina of the earlier levies. Brave they were, superbly brave; and the Emperor sought by every means to breathe into them his own indomitable spirit. One of them has described how, on handing them their colours, he made a brief speech; and, at the close, rising in his stirrups and stretching forth his hand, he shot at them the question: "'You swear to guard them?' I felt, as we all felt, that he snatched from our very navel the cry, 'Yes, we swear.'" Truly, the Emperor could make boys heroes, but he could never repair the losses of 1812. Guns he possessed to the number of a thousand in his arsenals; but he lacked the thousands of skilled artillerymen: youths he could find and horses he could buy: but not for many a month had he the resistless streams of horsemen that poured over Prussia after Jena, or swept into the Great Redoubt at Borodino. Nevertheless, the energy which embattled a new host within five months of a seemingly overwhelming disaster, must be considered the most extraordinary event of an age fertile in marvels. "The imagination sinks back confounded," says Pasquier, "when one thinks of all the work to be done and the resources of all kinds to be found, in order to raise, clothe, and equip such an army in so short a time."

While immersed in this prodigious task, the Emperor heard, with some surprise but with no dismay, the news of Prussia's armaments and disaffection. At first he treats it as a passing freak which will vanish with firm treatment. "Remain at Berlin as long as you can," he writes to Eugene, March 5th. "Make examples for the sake of discipline. At the least insult, whether from a village or a town, were it from Berlin itself, burn it down." The chief thing that still concerns him is the vagueness of Eugene's reports, which leave him no option but to get news about his troops in Germany from the English newspapers. "Do not forget," he writes again on March 14th, "that Prussia has only four millions of people. She never in her most prosperous times had more than 150,000 troops. She will not have more than 40,000 now." That, indeed, was the number to which he had limited her after Tilsit; and he was unable to conceive that Scharnhorst's plan of passing men into a reserve would send triple that force into the field.[287] As for the Russians, he writes, they are thinned by disease, and must spread out widely in order to besiege the many fortresses between the Vistula and the Elbe. Indeed, he assures his ally, the King of Bavaria, that it will be good policy to let them advance: "The farther they advance, the more certain is their ruin." Sixty thousand troops were being led by Bertrand from Italy into Bavaria.[288] These, along with the corps of Eugene and Davoust, would crush the Russian columns. And, while the allies were busy in Saxony, Napoleon proposed to mass a great force under the shelter of the Harz Mountains, cross the Elbe near Havelberg, make a rush for the relief of Stettin, and stretch a hand to the large French force beleaguered at Danzig.

Such was his first plan. It was upset by the rapidity of the Cossacks and the general uprising of Prussia. Augereau's corps was driven from Berlin by a force of Cossacks led by Tettenborn; and this daring free lance, a native of Hamburg, thereupon made a dash for the liberation of his city. For the time he was completely successful: the fury of the citizens against the French douaniers gave the Cossacks and patriots an easy triumph there and throughout Hanover. This news caused Napoleon grave concern. The loss of the great Hanse Town opened a wide door for English goods, English money, and English troops into Germany. It must be closed at all costs: and, with severe rebukes to Eugene and Lauriston, who were now holding the line of the middle Elbe, he charged Davoust (March 18th) to hold the long winding course of that river between Magdeburg and Hamburg. The advance of this determined leader was soon to change the face of affairs in North Germany.

Shortly before Napoleon left Paris for the seat of war, he received the new Austrian ambassador, Prince Schwarzenberg (April 9th). With a jocular courtesy that veiled the deepest irony, he complimented him on having waged a fine campaign in 1812. Austria's present requests were not reassuring. While professing the utmost regard for the welfare of Napoleon, she renewed her offer of mediation in a more pressing way. In fact, Metternich's aim now was to free Austria from the threatening pressure of Napoleon on the west and of Russia on the east. She must now assure to Europe a lasting peace—"not a mere truce in disguise, like all former treaties with Napoleon"—but a peace that would restrict the power of France and "establish a balance of power among the chief States."[289] Such was the secret aim of Austria's mediation. Obviously, it gave her many advantages. While posing as mediator, she could claim her share in the territorial redistribution which must accompany the peace. The blessing awarded to the peacemaker must be tangible and immediate.

Napoleon's reply to the ambassador was carefully guarded. War was not to his interest. It would cost more blood than the Moscow campaign. The great hindrance to any settlement would be England. Russia also seemed disposed to a fight a outrance; but if the Czar wanted peace, it was for him, not for France, to take the initiative: "I cannot take the initiative: that would be like capitulating as if I were in a fort: it is for the others to send me their proposals." And he expressed his resolve to accept no disadvantageous terms in these notable words: "If I concluded a dishonourable peace, it would be my overthrow. I am a new man; I must pay the more heed to public opinion, because I stand in need of it. The French have lively imaginations: they love fame and excitement, and are nervous. Do you know the prime cause of the fall of the Bourbons? It dates from Rossbach." Benevolent assurances as to Napoleon's desire for peace and for the assembly of a Congress were all that Schwarzenberg could gain; and his mission was barren of result, except to increase suspicions on both sides.

In fact, Napoleon was playing his cards at Vienna. He had sent Count Narbonne thither on a special mission, the purport of which stands revealed in the envoy's "verbal note" of April 7th. In that note Austria was pressed to help France with 100,000 men, against Russia and Prussia, in case they should open hostilities; her reward was to be the rich province of Silesia. As for the rest of Prussia, two millions of that people were to be assigned to Saxony, Frederick William being thrust to the east of the lower Vistula, and left with one million subjects.[290] Such was the glittering prize dangled before Metternich. But even the prospect of regaining the province torn away by the great Frederick moved him not. He judged the establishment of equilibrium in Europe to be preferable to a mean triumph over Prussia. To her and to the Czar he had secretly held out hopes of succour in case Napoleon should prove intractable: and to this course of action he still clung. True, he trampled on la petite morale in neglecting to aid his nominal ally, Napoleon. But to abandon him, if he remained obdurate, was, after all, but an act of treachery to an individual who had slight claims on Austria, and whose present offer was alike immoral and insulting. Four days later Metternich notified to Russia and Prussia that the Emperor Francis would now proceed with his task of armed mediation.[291]

Austria's overtures for a general peace met with no encouragement at London. Her envoy, Count Wessenberg, was now treated with the same cold reserve that had been accorded to Lord Walpole at Vienna early in the year. On April 9th Castlereagh informed him that all hope of peace had failed since the "Ruler of France" had declared to the Legislative Body that the French Dynasty reigned and would continue to reign in Spain, and that he had already stated all the sacrifices that he could consent to make for peace.

"Whilst he [Napoleon] shall continue to declare that none of the territories arbitrarily incorporated into the French Empire shall become matter of negotiation, it is in vain to hope that His Imperial Majesty's beneficent intentions can by negotiation be accomplished. It is for His Imperial Majesty to consider, after a declaration in the nature of a defiance from the Ruler of France, a declaration highly insulting to His Imperial Majesty when his intervention for peace had been previously accepted, whether the moment is not arrived for all the Great Powers of Europe to act in concert for their common interests and honour. To obtain for their States what may deserve the name of peace they must look again to establish an Equilibrium in Europe."

Finally, the British Government refused to lend itself to a negotiation which must weaken and distract the efforts of Russia and Prussia.[292]

For the present Napoleon indulged the hope that the bribe of Silesia would range Austria's legions side by side with his own, and with Poniatowski's Poles. Animated with this hope, he left Paris before the dawn of April 15th; and, travelling at furious speed, his carriage rolled within the portals of Mainz in less than forty hours. There he stayed for a week, feeling every throb of the chief arteries of his advance. They beat full and fast; the only bad symptom was the refusal of Saxony to place her cavalry at his disposal. But, at the close of the week, Austria's attitude gave him concern. It was clear that she had not swallowed the bait of Silesia, and that her troops could not be counted on.

At once he takes precautions. His troops in Italy are to be made ready, the strongholds of the Upper Danube strengthened, and his German vassals are closely to watch the policy of Vienna.[293] He then proceeds to Weimar. There, on April 29th, he mounts his war-horse and gazes with searching eyes into the columns that are winding through the Thuringian vales towards Leipzig. The auguries seem favourable. The men are full of ardour: the line of march is itself an inspiration; and the veterans cheer the young conscripts with tales of the great day of Jena and Auerstaedt.

At the close of April the military situation was as follows. Eugene Beauharnais, who commanded the relics of the Grand Army, after suffering a reverse at Mockern, had retired to the line of the Elbe; and French garrisons were thus left isolated in Danzig, Modlin, Zamosc, Glogau, Kuestrin, and Stettin.[294] Napoleon's first plan of an advance direct to Stettin and Danzig having miscarried, he now sought to gather an immense force as secretly as possible near the Main, speedily to reinforce Eugene, crush the heads of the enemy's columns, and, rolling them up in disorder, carry the war to the banks of the Oder, and relieve his beleaguered garrisons by way of Leipzig and Torgau. The plan would have the further advantage of bringing a formidable force near to the Austrian frontier, and holding fast the Hapsburgs and Saxons to the French alliance.

Meanwhile the allied army was pressing westwards with no less determination. The Czar and King had addressed a menacing summons to the King of Saxony to join them, but, receiving no response, invaded his States. Thereupon Frederick Augustus fled into Bohemia, relying on an offer from Vienna which guaranteed him his German lands if he would join the Hapsburgs in their armed mediation.[295] For the present, however, Saxony was to be the battlefield of the two contending principles of nationality and Napoleonic Imperialism.

They clashed together on the historic ground of Luetzen. Not only the associations of the place, but the reputation of the leaders helped to kindle the enthusiasm of the rank and file. On the one side was the great conqueror himself, with faculties and prestige undimmed even by the greatest disaster recorded in the annals of civilized nations. He was opposed by men no less determined than himself. The illness and finally the death of the obstinate old Kutusoff had stopped the intrigues of the Slav peace party, hitherto strong in the Russian camp: and the command now devolved on Wittgenstein, a more energetic man, whose heart was in his work.

But the most inspiring influence was that of Bluecher. The staunch patriot seemed to embody the best qualities of the old regime and of the new era. The rigour learnt in the school of Frederick the Great was vivified by the fresh young enthusiasm of the dawning age of nationality. Not that the old soldier could appreciate the lofty teachings of Fichte the philosopher and Schleiermacher the preacher. But his lack of learning—he could never write a despatch without strange torturings of his mother-tongue—was more than made up by a quenchless love of the Fatherland, by a robust common sense, which hit straight at the mark where subtler minds strayed off into side issues, by a comradeship that endeared him to every private, and by a courage that never quailed. And all these gifts, homely but invaluable in a people's war, were wrought to utmost tension by an all-absorbing passion, hatred of Napoleon. In the dark days after Jena, when, pressed back to the Baltic, his brave followers succumbed to the weight of numbers, he began to store up vials of fury against the insolent conqueror. Often he beguiled the weary hours with lunging at an imaginary foe, calling out—Napoleon. And this almost Satanic hatred bore the old man through seven years of humiliation; it gave him at seventy-two years of age the energy of youth; far from being sated by triumphs in Saxony and Champagne, it nerved him with new strength after the shocks to mind and body which he sustained at Ligny; it carried him and his army through the miry lanes of Wavre on to the sunset radiance of Waterloo.

What he lacked in skill and science was made up by his able coadjutors, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, the former pre-eminent in organization, the latter in strategy. After organizing Prussia's citizen army, it was Scharnhorst's fate to be mortally wounded in the first battle; but his place, as chief of staff, was soon filled by Gneisenau, in whose nature the sternness of the warrior was happily blended with the coolness of the scientific thinker. The accord between him and Bluecher was close and cordial; and the latter, on receiving the degree of doctor of laws from the University of Oxford, wittily acknowledged his debt to the strategist. "Well," said he, "if I am to be a doctor, they must make Gneisenau an apothecary; for he makes up the pills and I then administer them."

On these resolute chiefs and their 33,000 Prussians fell the brunt of the fighting near Luetzen. Wittgenstein, with his 35,000 Russians, showed less energy; but if a fourth Russian corps under Miloradovitch, then on the Elster, had arrived in time, the day might have closed with victory for the allies. Their plan was to cross a stream, called the Floss Graben, some five miles to the south of Luetzen, storm the villages of Gross Goerschen, Rahna, and Starsiedel, held by the French vanguard, and, cutting into Napoleon's line of march towards Luetzen and Leipzig, throw it into disorder and rout. But their great enemy had recently joined his array to that of Eugene: he was in force, and was then planning a turning movement on the north, similar to that which threatened his south flank. Ney, on whom fell Bluecher's first blows, had observed the preparations, and one of his divisions, that of Souham, had strengthened the village of Gross Goerschen for an obstinate defence. The French position is thus described by Lord Cathcart, who was then present at the allied headquarters:

"The country is uncovered and open, but with much variety of hill and valley, and much intersected by hollow ways and millstreams, the former not discernible till closely approached. The enemy, placed behind a long ridge and in a string of villages, with a hollow way in front, and a stream sufficient to float timber on the left, waited the near approach of the allies. He had an immense quantity of ordnance: the batteries in the open country were supported by masses of infantry in solid squares. The plan of our operations was to attack Gross Goerschen with artillery and infantry, and meanwhile to pierce the line, to the enemy's right of the villages, with a strong column of cavalry in order to cut off the troops in the villages from support.... The cavalry of the Prussian Reserve, to whose lot this attack fell, made it with great gallantry; but the showers of grapeshot and musketry to which they were exposed in reaching the hollow way made it impracticable for them to penetrate; and, the enemy appearing determined to hold the villages at any expense, the affair assumed the most expensive character of attack and defence of a post repeatedly taken, lost, and retaken. The cavalry made several attempts to break the enemy's line, and in some of their attacks succeeded in breaking into the squares and cutting down the infantry. Late in the evening, Bonaparte, having called in the troops from [the side of] Leipzig and collected all his reserves, made an attack on the right of the allies, supported by the fire of several batteries advancing. The vivacity of this movement made it expedient to change the front of our nearest brigades on our right; and, as the whole cavalry from our left was ordered to the right to turn this attack, I was not without hopes of witnessing the destruction of Bonaparte and of all his army; but before the cavalry could arrive, it became so dark that nothing could be seen but the flashes of the guns."[296]

The desperate fight thus closed with a slight advantage to the French, due to the timely advance of Eugene with Macdonald's corps against the right flank of the wearied allies, when it was too late for them to make any counter-move. These had lost severely, and among the fallen was Scharnhorst, whose wound proved to be mortal. But Bluecher, far from being daunted by defeat or by a wound, led seven squadrons of horse against the victors after nightfall, threw them for a brief space into a panic, and nearly charged up to the square which sheltered Napoleon. The Saxon Captain von Odeleben, who was at the French headquarters, states that the Emperor was for a few minutes quite dazed by the daring of this stroke; and he now had too few squadrons to venture on any retaliation. Both sides were, in fact, exhausted. The allies had lost 10,000 men killed and wounded, but no prisoners or guns: the French losses were nearly as heavy, and five guns and 800 prisoners fell into Bluecher's hands. Both armies camped on the field of battle; but, as the supplies of ammunition of the allies had run low, and news came to hand that Lauriston had dislodged Kleist from Leipzig, it was decided to retreat towards Dresden.

Napoleon cautiously followed them, leaving behind Ney's corps, which had suffered frightfully at Gross Goerschen; and he strove to inspirit the conscripts, many of whom had shown unsteadiness, by proclaiming to the army that the victory of Luetzen would rank above Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, and Borodino.

Far from showing dejection, Alexander renewed to Cathcart his assurance of persevering in the war. At Dresden our envoy was again assured (May 7th) that the allies would not give in, but that "Austria will wear the cloak of mediation till the time her immense force is ready to act, the 24th instant. Count Stadion is hourly expected here: he will bring proposals of terms of peace and similar ones will be sent to the French headquarters. Receiving and refusing these proposals will occupy most of the time." In fact, Metternich was on the point of despatching from Vienna two envoys, Stadion to the allies, Count Bubna to Napoleon, with the offer of Austria's armed mediation.

It found him in no complaisant mood. He had entered Dresden as a conqueror: he had bitterly chidden the citizens for their support of the Prussian volunteers, and ordered them to beg their own King to return from Bohemia. To that hapless monarch he had sent an imperious mandate to come back and order the Saxon troops, who obstinately held Torgau, forthwith to hand it over to the French. On all sides his behests were obeyed, the Saxon troops grudgingly ranging themselves under the French eagles. And while he was tearing Saxony away from the national cause, he was summoned by Austria to halt. The victor met the request with a flash of defiance. After a reproachful talk with Bubna, on May 17th, he wrote two letters to the Emperor Francis. In the more official note he assured him that he desired peace, and that he assented to the opening of a Congress with that aim in view, in which England, Russia, Prussia, and even the Spanish insurgents might take part. He therefore proposed that an armistice should be concluded for the needful preparations. But in the other letter he assured his father-in-law that he was ready to die at the head of all the generous men of France rather than become the sport of England. His resentment against Austria finds utterance in his despatch of the same day, in which he bids Caulaincourt seek an interview at once with the Czar: "The essential thing is to have a talk with him.... My intention is to build him a golden bridge so as to deliver him from the intrigues of Metternich. If I must make sacrifices, I prefer to make them to a straightforward enemy, rather than to the profit of Austria, which Power has betrayed my alliance, and, under the guise of mediator, means to claim the right of arranging everything." Caulaincourt is to remind Alexander how badly Austria behaved to him in 1812, and to suggest that if he treats at once before losing another battle, he can retire with honour and with good terms for Prussia, without any intervention from Austria.

His other letters of this time show that it is on the Hapsburgs that his resentment will most heavily fall. Eugene, who had recently departed to organize the forces in Italy, is urged to threaten Austria with not fewer than 80,000 men, and to give out that he will soon have 150,000 men under arms. And, while straining every nerve in Germany, France, and Italy, Napoleon asserts that there will be an armistice for the conclusion of a general peace.[297] But the allies were not to be duped into a peace that was no peace. They had good grounds for expecting the eventual aid of Austria; and when Caulaincourt craved an interview, the Czar refused his request, thus bringing affairs once more to the arbitrament of the sword. The only effect of Caulaincourt's mission, and of Napoleon's bitter words to Bubna, was to alarm Austria.

On their side, the allies desired to risk no further check; and they had therefore taken up a strong position near Bautzen, where they could receive reinforcements and effectually cover Silesia. Their extreme left rested on the spurs of the Lusatian mountains, while their long front of some four miles in extent stretched northwards along a ridge that rose between the River Spree and an affluent, and bent a convex threatening brow against that river and town. There they were joined by Barclay, whose arrival brought their total strength to 82,000 men. But again Napoleon had the advantage in numbers. Suddenly calling in Ney's and Lauriston's force of 60,000 men, which had been sent north so as to threaten Berlin, he confronted the allies with at least 130,000 men.[298]

On the first day of fighting (May 20th) the French seized the town of Bautzen, but failed to drive the allies from the hilly, wooded ground on the south. The fighting on the next day was far more serious. At dawn of a beautiful spring morning, in a country radiant with verdure and diversified by trim villages, the thunder of cannon and the sputter of skirmishers' lines presaged a stubborn conflict. The allied sovereigns from the commanding ridge at their centre could survey all the enemy's movements on the hills opposite; and our commissary, Colonel (afterwards Sir Hudson) Lowe, has thus described his view of Napoleon, who was near the French centre:

"He was about fifty paces in front of the others, accompanied by one of his marshals, with whom he walked backwards and forwards for nearly an hour. He was dressed in a plain uniform coat and a star [sic], with a plain hat, different from that of his marshals and generals, which was feathered. In the rear, and to the left of the ridge on which he stood, were his reserves. They were formed in lines of squadrons and battalions, appearing like a large column of battalions: their number must have been between 15,000 and 20,000.

After he had retired from the eminence, several of the battalions were observed to be drawn off to his left, and to be replaced by others from the rear: the masses of his reserves appeared to suffer scarcely any diminution.... Those troops which were to act against our right continued their march: the others, opposite our centre, planted themselves about midway on the slope, which descended from the ridge towards our position; and, under the protection of the guns that crowned the ridge, they appeared to set our cavalry at defiance.... Yet there was no forward movement in that part. To turn and overthrow our flanks, particularly the right one, appeared now to be their main object."

This was the case. Napoleon was employing his usual tactics of assailing the allies everywhere by artillery and musketry fire, so as to keep them in their already very extended position until he could deliver a decisive blow. This was dealt, though somewhat tardily, by Ney with his huge corps at the allied right, where Barclay's 5,000 Russians were outmatched and driven back. The village of Preititz was lost, and with it the allies' communications were laid bare. It was of the utmost importance to recover the village; and Bluecher, at the right centre, hard pressed though he was, sent down Kleist's brigade, which helped to wrench the prize from that Marshal's grasp. But Ney was too strong to be kept off, even by the streams of cannon-shot poured upon his dense columns. With the help of Lauriston's corps, he again slowly pressed on, began to envelop the allies' right, and threatened to cut off their retreat. Bluecher was also furiously assailed by Marmont and Bertrand. On the left, it is true, the Russians had beaten back Oudinot with heavy loss; but, as Napoleon had not yet seriously drawn on his reserves, the allied chiefs decided to draw off their hard-pressed troops from this unequal contest, where victory was impossible and delay might place everything in jeopardy.

The retirement began late in the afternoon. Covered by the fire of a powerful artillery from successive crests, and by the charges of their dauntless cavalry, the allies beat off every effort of the French to turn the retreat into a rout. In vain did Napoleon press the pursuit. As at Luetzen, he had cause to mourn the loss in the plains of Russia of those living waves that had swept his enemies from many a battlefield. But now their columns refused to melt away. They filed off, unbroken and defiant, under the covering wings of Uhlans and Cossacks.[299]

The next day witnessed the same sight, the allies drawing steadily back, showering shot from every post of vantage, and leaving not a prisoner or a caisson in the conquerors' hands. "What!" said Napoleon, "after such a butchery, no results? no prisoners?" Scarcely had he spoken these words, when a cannon-ball tore through his staff, killing one general outright, wounding another, and shattering the frame of Duroc, Duc de Friuli. Napoleon was deeply affected by this occurrence. He dismounted, went into the cottage where Duroc was taken, and for some time pressed his hand in silence. Then he uttered the words: "Duroc, there is another world where we shall meet again." To which the Grand Marshal made reply: "Yes, sire; but it will be in thirty years, when you have triumphed over your enemies and realized all the hopes of your country." After a long pause of painful silence, the Emperor mournfully left the man for whom he felt, perhaps, the liveliest sympathy and affection he ever bestowed. Under Duroc's cold, reserved exterior the Emperor knew that there beat a true heart, devoted and loyal ever since they had first met at Toulon. He received no one else for the rest of that night, and a hush of awe fell on the camp at the unwonted signs of grief of their great leader.

Possibly this loss strengthened the Emperor's desire for a truce, a feeling not lessened by a mishap befalling one of his divisions, which fell into an ambush laid by the Prussians at Hainau, and lost 1,500 men and 18 guns.

For their part, the allies equally desired a suspension of arms. Their forces were in much confusion. Alexander had superseded Wittgenstein by Barclay, who now insisted on withdrawing the Russians into Poland. To this the Prussian staff offered the most strenuous resistance. Such a confession of weakness, urged Mueffling, would dishearten the troops and intimidate the Austrian statesmen who had promised speedy succour. Let the allies cling to the sheltering rampart of the Riesengebirge, where they might defy Napoleon's attacks and await the white-coats. The fortress of Schweidnitz would screen their retreat, and the Landwehr of Silesia would make good the gaps in their ranks. Towards Schweidnitz, then, the Czar ordered Barclay to retreat.

There two disappointments awaited them. The fortifications, dismantled by the French in 1807, were still in disrepair, and the 20,000 muskets bought in Austria for the Silesian levies were without touch-holes! Again Barclay declared that he must retreat into Poland, and only the offer of a truce by Napoleon deterred him from that step, which must have compromised the whole military and political situation. What would not Napoleon have given to know the actual state of things at the allied headquarters?[300] But no spy warned him of the truth; and as his own instincts prompted him to turn aside, so as to prepare condign chastisement for Austria, he continued to treat for an armistice.

"Nothing," he wrote to Eugene on June 2nd, "can be more perfidious than that Court. If I granted her present demands, she would afterwards ask for Italy and Germany. Certainly she shall have nothing from me." Events served to strengthen his resolve. The French entered Breslau in triumph, and raised the siege of Glogau. The coalition seemed to be tottering. That the punishment dealt to the allies and Austria might be severe and final, he only needed a few weeks for the reorganization of his once formidable cavalry. Then he could vent his rage upon Austria. Then he could overthrow the Hungarian horse, and crumple up the ill-trained Austrian foot. A short truce, he believed, was useless: it would favour the allies more than the French. And, under the specious plea that the discussion of a satisfactory peace must take up at least forty days, he ordered his envoy, Caulaincourt, to insist on a space of time which would admit of the French forces being fully equipped in Saxony, Bavaria, and Illyria. "If," he wrote to Caulaincourt on June 4th, "we did not wish to treat with a view to peace, we should not be so stupid as to treat for an armistice at the present time." And he urged him to insist on the limit of July 20th, "always on the same reasoning, namely, that we must have forty full days to see if we can come to an understanding." Far different was his secret warning to General Clarke, the Minister of War. To him he wrote on June 2nd:

"If I can, I will wait for the month of September to deal great blows. I wish then to be in a position to crush my enemies, though it is possible that, when Austria sees me about to do so, she may make use of her pathetic and sentimental style, in order to recognize the chimerical and ridiculous nature of her pretensions. I have wished to write you this letter so that you may thoroughly know my thoughts once for all."

And to Maret, his Minister for Foreign Affairs, he wrote on the same day:

"We must gain time, and to gain time without displeasing Austria, we must use the same language we have used for the last six months—that we can do everything if Austria is our ally.... Work on this, beat about the bush, and gain time.... You can embroider on this canvas for the next two months, and find matter for sending twenty couriers."[301]

In such cases, where Napoleon's diplomatic assurances are belied by his secret military instructions, no one who has carefully studied his career can doubt which course would be adopted. The armistice was merely the pause that would be followed by a fiercer onset, unless the allies and Austria bent before his will. Of this they gave no sign even after the blow of Bautzen. In the negotiations concerning the armistice they showed no timidity; and when, on June 4th, it was signed at Poischwitz up to July 20th, Napoleon felt some doubts whether he had not shown too much complaisance.

It was so: in granting a suspension of arms he had signed his own death warrant.

The news that reached him at Dresden in the month of June helped to stiffen his resolve once more. Davoust and Vandamme had succeeded in dispersing the raw levies of North Germany and in restoring Napoleon's authority at the mouths of the Elbe and Weser; and in this they now had the help of the Danes.

For some time the allies had been seeking to win over Denmark. But there was one insurmountable barrier in the way, the ambition of Bernadotte. As we have seen, he was desirous of signalizing his prospective succession to the Swedish throne by bringing to his adopted country a land that would amply recompense it for the loss of Finland.[302] This could only be found in Norway, then united with Denmark; and this was the price of Swedish succour, to which the Czar had assented during the war of 1812. For reasons which need not be detailed here, Swedish help was not then forthcoming. But early in 1813 it was seen that a diversion caused by the landing of 30,000 Swedes in North Germany might be most valuable, and it was especially desired by the British Government. Still, England was loth to gain the alliance of Bernadotte at the price of Norway, which must drive Denmark into the arms of France. Castlereagh, therefore, sought to tempt him by the offer of our recent conquest of Guadeloupe. Or, if he must have Norway, would not Denmark give her assent if she received Swedish Pomerania and Luebeck? Bernadotte himself once suggested that he would be satisfied with the Bishopric of Trondjem, the northern part of Norway, if he could gain no compensation for Denmark in Germany.[303]

This offer was tentatively made. It was all one. Denmark would not hear of the cession of Norway or any part of it; and in the course of the negotiations with England she even put in a claim to the Hanse Towns, which was at once rejected. As Denmark was obdurate, Bernadotte insisted that Sweden should gain the whole of Norway as the price of her help to the allies. By the treaty of Stockholm (March 3rd, 1813) we acceded to the Russo-Swedish compact of the previous year, which assigned Norway to Sweden: we also promised to cede Guadeloupe to Bernadotte, and to pay L1,000,000 towards the support of the Swedish troops serving against Napoleon.[304] In the middle of May it was known at Copenhagen that nothing was to be hoped for from Russia and England. The Danes, therefore, ranged themselves on the French side, with results that were to prove fatal to the welfare of their kingdom.

Thus the bargain which Bernadotte drove with the allies leagued Denmark against them, and thereby hindered the liberation of North Germany. But, such is the irony of fate, the transfer of Norway from Denmark to Sweden has had a permanence in which Napoleon's territorial arrangements have been signally lacking.

Bernadotte landed at Stralsund with 24,000 men, on May 18th. But the organization of his troops for the campaign was so slow that he could send no effective help to the Cossacks and patriots at Hamburg. His seeming lethargy at once aroused the Czar's suspicions. This the Swedish Prince Royal speedily detected; and, on hearing of the armistice, he feared that another Tilsit would be the result. In a passionate letter, of June 10th, he begged Alexander not to accept peace: "To accept a peace dictated by Napoleon is to rear a sepulchre for Europe: and if this misfortune happens, only England and Sweden can remain intact."

This was the real Bernadotte. Those who called him a disguised friend of Napoleon little knew the depth of his hatred for the Emperor, a hatred which was even then compassing the earth for means of overthrowing him, and saw in the person of a lonely French exile beyond the Atlantic an instrument of vengeance. Already he had bidden his old comrade in arms, Moreau, to come over and direct the people's war against the tyrant who had exiled him; and the victor of Hohenlinden was soon to land at Stralsund and spend his last days in serving against the tricolour.

For the present the prospects of the allies seemed gloomy indeed. In the south-east they had lost all the land up to Breslau and Glogau; and in North Germany Davoust began to turn Hamburg into a great fortress. This was in obedience to Napoleon's orders. "I shall never feel assured," the Emperor wrote to his Marshal, "until Hamburg can be looked on as a stronghold provisioned for several months and prepared in every way for a long defence."—The ruin of commercial interests was nought to him; and when Savary ventured to hint at the discontent caused in French mercantile circles by these steps, he received a sharp rebuke: "... The cackling of the Paris bankers matters very little to me. I am having Hamburg fortified. I am having a naval arsenal formed there. Within a few months it will be one of my strongest fortresses. I intend to keep a standing army of 15,000 men there."[305] His plan was ruthlessly carried out. The wealth of Hamburg was systematically extorted in order to furnish means for a completer subjection. Boundless exactions, robbery of the bank, odious oppression of all classes, these were the first steps. Twenty thousand persons were thereafter driven out, first the young and strong as being dangerous, then the old and weak as being useless; and a once prosperous emporium of trade became Napoleon's chief northern stronghold, a centre of hope for French and Danes, and a stimulus to revenge for every patriotic Teuton.[306]

Yet the patriots were not cast down by recent events. Their one desire was for the renewal of war: their one fear was that the diplomatists would once more barter away German independence. "Our people," cried Karl Mueller, "is still too lazy because it is too wealthy. Let us learn, as the Russians did, to go round and burn, and then find ourselves dagger and poison, as the Spaniards did. Against those two peoples Napoleon's troops could effect nothing." And while gloom and doubt hung over Germany, a cheering ray shot forth once more from the south-west. At the close of June came the news that Wellington had utterly routed the French at Vittoria.

* * * * *



CHAPTER XXXIV

VITTORIA AND THE ARMISTICE

It would be beyond the scope of this work to describe in detail the campaign that culminated at Vittoria. Our task must be limited to showing what was the position of affairs at the close of 1812, what were the Emperor's plans for holding part, at least, of Spain, and why they ended in utter failure.

The causes, which had all along weakened the French operations in Spain, operated in full force during the campaign of 1812. The jealousy of the Marshals, and, still more, their insubordination to King Joseph, prevented that timely concentration of force by which the Emperor won his greatest triumphs. Discordant aims and grudging co-operation marked their operations. Military writers have often been puzzled to account for the rash moves of Marmont, which brought on him the crushing blow of Salamanca. Had he waited but a few days before pressing Wellington hard, he would have been reinforced by King Joseph with 14,000 men.[307] But he preferred to risk all on a last dashing move rather than to wait for the King and contribute, as second in command, to securing a substantial success.

The correspondence of Joseph before and after Salamanca is instructive. We see him unable to move quickly to the support of Marmont, because the French Army of the North neglects to send him the detachment needed for the defence of Madrid; and when, on hearing the news of Salamanca, he orders Soult to evacuate Andalusia so as to concentrate forces for the recovery of the capital, his command is for some time disobeyed. When, at last, Joseph, Soult, and Suchet concentrate their forces for a march on Madrid, Wellington is compelled to retire. Pushing on his rear with superior forces, Joseph then seeks to press on a battle; but again Soult moves so slowly that Wellington is able to draw off his men and make good his retreat to Ciudad Rodrigo.[308]

Apparently Joseph came off victor from the campaign of 1812; but the withdrawal of French troops towards Madrid and the valley of the Douro had fatal consequences. The south was at once lost to the French; and the sturdy mountaineers of Biscay, Navarre, and Arragon formed large bands whose persistent daring showed that the north was far from conquered. Encouraged by the presence of a small British force, they seized on most of the northern ports; and their chief, Mina, was able to meet the French northern army on almost equal terms. In the east, Suchet held his own against the Spaniards and an Anglo-Sicilian expedition. But in regard to the rest of Spain, Soult's gloomy prophecy was fulfilled: "The loss of Andalusia and the raising of the siege of Cadiz are events whose results will be felt throughout the whole of Europe."

The Spanish Cortes, or Parliament, long cooped up in Cadiz, now sought to put in force the recently devised democratic constitution. It was hailed with joy by advanced thinkers in the cities, and with loathing by the clergy, the nobles, the wealthy, and the peasants. But, though the Cortes sowed the seeds of political discord, they took one very commendable step. They appointed Wellington generalissimo of all the Spanish armies; and, in a visit which he paid to the Cortes at Christmastide, he prepared for a real co-operation of Spanish forces in the next campaign.

At that time Napoleon was uneasily looking into the state of Spanish affairs. As soon as he mastered the contents of the despatches from Madrid he counselled a course of action that promised, at any rate, to postpone the overthrow of his power. The advice is set forth in letters written on January 4th and February 12th by the Minister of War, General Clarke; for Napoleon had practically ceased to correspond with his brother. In the latter of these despatches Clarke explained in some detail the urgent need of acting at once, while the English were inactive, so as to stamp out the ever-spreading flame of revolt in the northern provinces. Two French armies, that of the North and the so-called "Army of Portugal," were to be told off for this duty; and Joseph was informed that his armies of the south and of the centre would for the present suffice to hold the British in check. As to Joseph's general course of action, it was thus prescribed:

"The Emperor commands me to reiterate to your Majesty that the use of Valladolid as a residence and as headquarters is an indispensable preliminary. From that place must be sent out on the Burgos road, and on other fit points, the troops which are to strengthen or to second the army of the north. Madrid, and even Valencia, form parts of this system only as posts to be held by your extreme left, not as places to be kept by a concentration of forces.... To occupy Valladolid and Salamanca, to use the utmost exertion to pacify Navarre and Arragon to keep the communication with France rapid and safe, to be always ready to take the offensive—these are the Emperor's instructions for the campaign, and the principles on which all its operations ought to be founded...."[309]

A fortnight later, Clarke bade the King threaten Ciudad Rodrigo so as to make Wellington believe that the French would invade Portugal. He was also to lay heavy contributions on Madrid and Toledo. In fact, the capital was to be held only as long as it could be squeezed.

Such were the plans. They show clearly that the Emperor was impressed with the need of crushing the rising in the north of Spain; for he ordered as great a force against Mina and his troublesome bands as he deemed necessary to watch the Portuguese frontier. Clausel was charged to stamp out the northern rising, and Napoleon seems to have judged that this hardy fighter would end this tedious task before Wellington dealt any serious blows. The miscalculation was to be fatal. Mina was not speedily to be beaten, nor was the British general the slow unenterprising leader that the Emperor took him to be. And then again, in spite of all the experiences of the past, Napoleon failed to allow for the delays caused by the capture of his couriers, or by their long detours. Yet, never were these more serious. Clarke's first urgent despatch, that of January 4th, did not reach the King until February 16th.[310] When its directions were being doubtfully obeyed, those quoted above arrived on March 12th, and led to changes in the disposition of the troops. Thus the forces opposed to Wellington were weakened in order to crush the northern revolt, and yet these detachments were only sent north at the close of March for a difficult enterprise which was not to be completed before the British leader threw his sword decisively into the scales of war.

Joseph has been severely blamed for his tardy action: but, in truth, he was in a hopeless impasse: on all sides he saw the walls of his royal prison house closing in. The rebels in the north cut off the French despatches, thus forestalling his movements and delaying by some weeks his execution of Napoleon's plans. Worst of all, the Emperor withdrew the pith and marrow of his forces: 1,200 officers, 6,000 non-commissioned officers, and some 24,000 of the most seasoned soldiers filed away towards France to put strength and firmness into the new levies of the line, or to fill out again the skeleton battalions and squadrons of the Imperial Guard.[311]

It is strange that Napoleon did not withdraw all his troops from Spain. They still exceeded 150,000 men; and yet, after he had flung away army after army, the Spaniards were everywhere in arms, except in Valencia. The north defied all the efforts of Clausel for several weeks, until he declared that it would take 50,000 men three months to crush the mountaineers.[312] Above all, Wellington was known to be mustering a formidable force on the Portuguese borders. In truth, Napoleon seems long to have been afflicted with political colour blindness in Spanish affairs. Even now he only dimly saw the ridiculous falsity of his brother's position—a parvenu among the proudest nobility in the world, a bankrupt King called upon to keep up regal pomp before a ceremonious race, a benevolent ruler forced to levy heavy loans and contributions on a sensitive populace whose goodwill he earnestly strove to gain, an easy-going epicure spurred on to impetuous action by orders from Paris which he dared not disregard and could not execute, a peace-loving valetudinarian upon whom was thrust the task of controlling testy French Marshals, and of holding a nation in check and Wellington at bay.

The concentration on which Napoleon laid such stress would doubtless have proved a most effective step had the French forces on the Douro been marshalled by an able leader. But here, again, the situation had been fatally compromised by the recall of the ablest of the French commanders in Spain. Wellington afterwards said that Soult was second only to Massena among the French Marshals pitted against him. He had some defects. "He did not quite understand a field of battle: he was an excellent tactician, knew very well how to bring his troops up to the field, but not so well how to use them when he had brought them up."[313] But the fact remains that, with the exception of his Oporto failure, Soult came with credit, if not glory, out of every campaign waged against Wellington. Yet he was now recalled.

Indeed, this vain and ambitious man had mortally offended King Joseph. After Salamanca he had treated him with gross disrespect. Not only did he, at first, refuse to move from Andalusia, but he secretly revealed to six French generals his fears that Joseph was betraying the French cause by treating with the Spanish national government at Cadiz. He even warned Clarke of the King's supposed intentions, in a letter which by chance fell into Joseph's hands.[314] The hot blood of the Bonapartes boiled at this underhand dealing, and he at once despatched Colonel Desprez to Napoleon to demand Soult's instant recall. The Emperor, who was then at Moscow, temporized. Perhaps he was not sorry to have in Spain so vigilant an informer; and he made the guarded reply that Soult's suspicions did not much surprise him, that they were shared by many other French generals, who thought King Joseph preferred Spain to France, and that he could not recall Soult, as he had "the only military head in Spain." The threatening war-cloud in Central Europe led Napoleon to change his resolve. Soult was recalled, but not disgraced, and, after the death of Bessieres, he received the command of the Imperial Guard.

The commander who now bore the brunt of responsibility was Jourdan, who acted as major-general at the King's side, a post which he had held once before, but had forfeited owing to his blunders in the summer of 1809. The victor of Fleurus was now fifty-one years of age, and his failing health quite unfitted him for the Herculean tasks of guiding refractory generals, and of propping up a tottering monarchy. For Jourdan's talents Napoleon had expressed but scanty esteem, whereas on many occasions he extolled the abilities of Suchet, who was now holding down Valencia and Catalonia. Certainly Suchet's tenacity and administrative skill rendered his stay in those rich provinces highly desirable. But the best talent was surely needed on Wellington's line of advance, namely, at Valladolid. To the shortcomings and mishaps of Joseph and Jourdan in that quarter may be chiefly ascribed the collapse of the French power.

In fact, the only part of Spain that now really interested Napoleon was the north and north-east. So long as he firmly held the provinces north of the Ebro, he seems to have cared little whether Joseph reigned, or did not reign, at Madrid. All that concerned him was to hold the British at bay from the line of the Douro, while French authority was established in the north and north-east. This he was determined to keep; and probably he had already formed the design, later on to be mooted to Ferdinand VII. at Valencay, of restoring him to the throne of Spain and of indemnifying him with Portugal for the loss of the north-eastern provinces. This scheme may even have formed part of a plan of general pacification; for at Dresden, on May 17th, he proposed to Austria the admission of representatives of the Spanish insurgents to the European Congress. But it is time to turn from the haze of conjecture to the sharp outlines of Wellington's campaign.[315]

While the French cause in Spain was crumbling to pieces, that of the patriots was being firmly welded together by the organizing genius of Wellington. By patient efforts, he soon had the Spanish and Portuguese contingents in an efficient condition: and, as large reinforcements had come from England, he was able early in May to muster 70,000 British and Portuguese troops and 30,000 Spaniards for a move eastwards. Murray's force tied Suchet fast to the province of Valencia; Clausel was fully employed in Navarre, and thus Joseph's army on the Douro was left far too weak to stem Wellington's tide of war. Only some 45,000 French were ready in the districts between Salamanca and Valladolid. Others remained in the basin of the Tagus in case the allies should burst in by that route.

Wellington kept up their illusions by feints at several points, while he prepared to thrust a mighty force over the fords of the Tormes and Esla. He completely succeeded. While Joseph and Jourdan were haltingly mustering their forces in Leon, the allies began that series of rapid flanking movements on the north which decided the campaign. Swinging forward his powerful left wing he manoeuvred the French out of one strong position after another. The Tormes, the Esla, the Douro, the Carrion, the Pisuerga, none of these streams stopped his advance. Joseph nowhere showed fight; he abandoned even the castle of Burgos, and, fearing to be cut off from France, retired behind the upper Ebro.

The official excuse given for this rapid retreat was the lack of provisions: but the diaries of two British officers, Tomkinson and Simmons, show that they found the country between the Esla and the Ebro for the most part well stocked and fertile. Simmons, who was with the famous Light Division, notes that the Rifles did not fire a shot after breaking up their winter quarters, until they skirmished with the French in the hills near the source of the Ebro. The French retreat was really necessary in order to bring the King's forces into touch with the corps of Generals Clausel and Foy, in Navarre and Biscay respectively. Joseph had already sent urgent orders to call in these corps; for, as he explained to Clarke, the supreme need now was to beat Wellington; that done, the partisan warfare would collapse.

But Clausel and Foy took their orders, not from the King, but from Paris; and up to June 5th, Joseph heard not a word from Clausel. At last, on June 15th, that general wrote from Pamplona that he had received Joseph's commands of May 30th and June 7th, and would march to join him. Had he at once called in his mobile columns and covered with all haste the fifty miles that separated him from the King, the French army would have been the stronger by at least 14,000 men. But his concentration was a work of some difficulty, and he finally drew near to Vittoria on June 22nd, when the French cause was irrecoverably lost.[316]

Wellington, meanwhile, had foreseen the supreme need of despatch. Early in the year he had urged our naval authorities to strengthen our squadron on the north of Spain, so that he might in due course make Santander his base of supplies. Naval support was not forthcoming to the extent that he expected;[317] but after leaving Burgos he was able to make some use of the northern ports, thereby shortening his line of communications. In fact, the Vittoria campaign illustrates the immense advantages gained by a leader, who is sure of his rear and of one flank, over an enemy who is ever nervous about his communications. The British squadron acted like a covering force on the north to Wellington: it fed the guerilla warfare in Biscay, and menaced Joseph with real though invisible dangers. This explains, in large measure, why our commander moved forward so rapidly, and pushed forward his left wing with such persistent daring. Mountain fastnesses and roaring torrents stayed not the advance of his light troops on that side. Near the sources of the Ebro, the French again felt their communications with France threatened, and falling back from the main stream, up the defile carved out by a tributary, the Zadora, they halted wearily in the basin of Vittoria.

There Joseph and Jourdan determined to fight. As usual, there had been recriminations at headquarters. "Jourdan, ill and angry, kept his room; and the King was equally invisible."[318] Few orders were given. The town was packed with convoys and vehicles of all kinds, and it was not till dawn of that fatal midsummer's day that the last convoy set out for France, under the escort of 3,000 troops. Nevertheless, Joseph might hope to hold his own. True, he had but 70,000 troops at hand, or perhaps even fewer; yet on the evening of the 19th he heard that Clausel had set out from Pamplona.

At once he bade him press on his march, but that message fell into the enemy's hands.[319] Relying, then, on help which was not to arrive, Joseph confronted the allied army. It numbered, in all, 83,000 men, though Napier asserts that not more than 60,000 took part in the fighting. The French left wing rested on steep hills near Puebla, which tower above the River Zadora, and leave but a narrow defile. Their centre held a less precipitous ridge, which trends away to the north parallel to the middle reaches of that stream. Higher up its course, the Zadora describes a sharp curve that protects the ridge on its northern flank; and if a daring foe drove the defenders away from these heights, they could still fall back on two lower ridges nearer Vittoria. But these natural advantages were not utilized to the full. The bridges opposite the French front were not broken, and the defenders were far too widely spread out. Their right wing, consisting of the "Army of Portugal" under General Reille, guarded the bridge north of Vittoria, and was thus quite out of touch with the main force that held the hills five miles away to the west.

The dawn broke heavily; the air was thick with rain and driving mists, under cover of which Hill's command moved up against the steeps of Puebla. A Spanish brigade, under General Morillo, nimbly scaled those slopes on the south-west, gained a footing near the summit, and, when reinforced, firmly held their ground. Meanwhile the rest of Hill's troops threaded their way beneath through the pass of Puebla, and, after a tough fight, wrested the village of Subijana from the foe. In vain did Joseph and Jourdan bring up troops from the centre; the British and Spaniards were not to be driven either from the village or from the heights. Wellington's main array was also advancing to attack the French centre occupying the ridge behind the Zadora; and Graham, after making a long detour to the north through very broken country, sought to surprise Reille and drive him from the bridge north of Vittoria. In this advance the guidance of the Spanish irregulars, under Colonel Longa, was of priceless value. So well was Graham covered by their bands, that, up to the moment of attack, Reille knew not that a British division was also at hand. At the centre, too, a Spanish peasant informed Wellington that the chief bridge of Tres Puentes was unguarded, and guided Kempt's brigade through rocky ground to within easy charging distance.



The bridge was seized, Joseph's outposts were completely turned, and time was given for the muster of Picton's men. Stoutly they breasted the slopes, and unsteadied the weakened French centre, which was also assailed on its northern flank. At the same time Joseph's left wing began to waver under Hill's repeated onslaughts; and, distracted by the distant cannonade, which told of a stubborn fight between Graham and Reille, the King now began to draw in his lines towards Vittoria. For a time the French firmly held the village of Arinez, but Picton's men were not to be denied. They burst through the rearguard, and the battle now became a running fight, extending over some five miles of broken country. At the last slopes, close to Vittoria, the defenders made a last heroic stand, and their artillery dealt havoc among the assailants; but our fourth division, rushing forward into the smoke, carried a hill that commanded their left, and the day was won. Nothing now remained for the French but a speedy retreat, while the gallant Reille could still hold Graham's superior force at bay.

There, too, the fight at last swirled back, albeit with many a rallying eddy, into Vittoria. That town was no place of refuge, but a death-trap; for Graham had pushed on a detachment to Durana, on the high-road leading direct to France, and thus blocked the main line of retreat. Joseph's army was now in pitiable plight. Pent up in the choked streets of Vittoria, torn by cannon-shot from the English lines, the wreckage of its three armies for a time surged helplessly to and fro, and then broke away eastwards towards Pamplona. On that side only was safety to be found, for British hussars scoured the plain to the north-east, lending wings to the flight. The narrow causeway, leading through marshes, was soon blocked, and panic seized on all: artillerymen cut their traces and fled; carriages crowded with women, once called gay, but now frantic with terror, wagons laden with ammunition, stores, treasure-chests, and the booty amassed by generals and favourites during five years of warfare and extortion, all were left pell-mell. Jourdan's Marshal's baton was taken, and was sent by Wellington to the Prince Regent, who acknowledged it by conferring on the victor the title of Field-Marshal.

Richly was the title deserved. After four years of battling with superior numbers, the British leader at last revealed the full majesty of his powers now that the omens were favourable. In six weeks he marched more than five hundred miles, crossed six rivers, and, using the Navarrese revolt as the anvil, dealt the hammer-stroke of Vittoria. It cost Napoleon 151 pieces of cannon, nearly all the stores piled up for his Peninsular campaigns—and Spain itself.[320]

As for Joseph, he left his carriage and fled on horseback towards France, reaching St. Jean de Luz "with only a napoleon left." He there also assured his queen that he had always preferred a private station to the grandeur and agitations of public life.[321] This, indeed, was one of the many weak points of his brother's Spanish policy. It rested on the shoulders of an amiable man who was better suited to the ease of Naples than to the Herculean toils of Madrid. Napoleon now saw the magnitude of his error. On July 1st he bade Soult leave Dresden at once for Paris. There he was to call on Clarke, with him repair to Cambaceres; and, as Lieutenant-General, take steps to re-establish the Emperor's affairs in Spain. A Regency was to govern in place of Joseph, who was ordered to remain, according to the state of affairs, either at Burgos(!) or St. Sebastian or Bayonne.

"All the follies in Spain" (he wrote to Cambaceres on that day) "are due to the mistaken consideration I have shown the King, who not only does not know how to command, but does not even know his own value enough to leave the military command alone."

And to Savary he wrote two days later:

"It is hard to imagine anything so inconceivable as what is now going on in Spain. The King could have collected 100,000 picked men: they might have beaten the whole of England."

Reflection, however, showed him that the fault was his own; that if, as had occurred to him when he left Paris, he had intrusted the supreme command in Spain to Soult, the disaster would never have happened.[322] His belief in Soult's capacity was justified by the last events of the Peninsular War. But neither his splendid rally of the scattered French forces, nor the skilful movements of Clausel and Suchet, nor the stubborn defence of Pamplona and San Sebastian, could now save the French cause. The sole result of these last operations was to restore the lustre of the French arms and to keep 150,000 men in Spain when the scales of war were wavering in the plains of Saxony.

Napoleon's letters betray the agitation which he felt even at the first vague rumours of the disaster of Vittoria. On the first three days of July he penned at Dresden seven despatches on that topic in a style so vehement that the compilers of the "Correspondance de Napoleon" have thought it best to omit them. He further enjoined the utmost reserve, and ordered the official journals merely to state that, after a brisk engagement at Vittoria, the French army was concentrating in Arragon, and that the British had captured about a hundred guns and wagons left behind in the town for lack of horses.

There was every reason for hiding the truth. He saw how seriously it must weaken his chances of browbeating the Eastern Powers, and of punishing Austria for her armed mediation. Hitherto there seemed every chance of his succeeding. The French standards flew on all the fortresses of the Elbe and Oder. Hamburg was fast becoming a great French camp, and Denmark was ranged on the side of France.

Indeed, on reviewing the situation on June 4th, the German publicist, Gentz, came to the conclusion that the Emperor Francis would probably end his vacillations by some inglorious compromise. The Kaiser desired peace; but he also wished to shake off the irksome tutelage of his son-in-law, and regain Illyria. For the present he wavered. Before the news of Luetzen reached him, he undoubtedly encouraged the allies: but that reverse brought about a half left turn towards Napoleon. "Boney's success at Luetzen," wrote Sir G. Jackson in his Diary, "has made Francis reconsider his half-formed resolutions." Here was the chief difficulty for the allies. Their fortunes, and the future of Europe, rested largely on the decision of a man whose natural irresolution of character had been increased by adversity. Fortunately, the news from Spain finally helped to incline him towards war; but for some weeks his decision remained the unknown quantity in European politics. Fortunately, too, he was amenable to the gentle but determining pressure of the kind which Metternich could so skilfully exert. That statesman, as usual, schemed and balanced. He saw that Austria had much to gain by playing the waiting game. Her forces were improving both in numbers and efficiency, and under cover of her offer of armed mediation were holding strong positions in Bohemia. In fact, she was regaining her prestige, and might hope to impose her will on the combatants at the forthcoming European Congress at Prague. Metternich, therefore, continued to pose as the well-wisher of both parties and the champion of a reasonable and therefore durable compromise.

He had acted thus, not only in his choice of measures, but in his selection of men. He had sent to Napoleon's headquarters at Dresden Count Bubna, whose sincere and resolute striving for peace served to lull animosity and suspicions in that place. But to the allied headquarters, now at Reichenbach, he had despatched Count Stadion, who worked no less earnestly for war. While therefore the Courts of St. Petersburg, Berlin, and London hoped, from Stadion's language, that Austria meant to draw the sword, Napoleon inclined to the belief that she would never do more than rattle her scabbard, and would finally yield to his demands.