Array Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne - The Collected Works of Napoleon Bonaparte

Hating France and having an insensate confidence in their own superiority, the Prussian war party forced the government to issue an ultimatum to Napoleon, Emperor of the French, demanding that he withdraw his French troops beyond the Rhine. Napoleon knew better how to give ultimatums than how to receive them. He had watched the machinations of the Prussian ruling class with close attention. He was absolutely prepared when the rupture came. He now fell upon them like a cloudburst and administered a crushing blow in the two battles of Jena and Auerstadt, fought on the same day at those two places, a few miles apart (October 14, l806), he himself in command of the former, Davout of the latter. The Prussians fought bravely but their generalship was bad. Their whole army was disorganized, became panic-stricken, streamed from the field of battle as best it could, no longer receiving or obeying orders, many throwing away their arms, fleeing in every direction. Thousands of prisoners were taken and in succeeding days French officers scoured the country after the fugitives, taking thousands more. The collapse was complete. There was no longer any Prussian army. One after another all the fortresses fell.

On the 25th of October Napoleon entered Berlin in triumph. He had previously visited the tomb of Frederick the Great at Potsdam in order to show his admiration for his genius. He had the execrable taste, however, to take the dead Frederick's sword and sash and send them to Paris as trophies. "The entire kingdom of Prussia is in my hands," he announced. He planned that the punishment should be proportionate to his rage. He drew up a decree deposing the House of Hohenzollern but did not issue it, waiting for a more spectacular moment. He laid enormous war contributions upon the unhappy victim.

Napoleon postponed the announcement of the final doom until he should have finished with another enemy, Russia. Before leaving Berlin for the new campaign he issued the famous decrees which declared the British Isles in a state of blockade and prohibited commerce with them on the part of his dominions and those of his allies.

In the campaign of 1806 the Russians had been allied with the Prussians although they had taken no part, as the latter had not waited for them to come up. Napoleon now turned his attention to them. Going to Warsaw, the leading city of that part of Poland which Prussia had acquired in the partition of that country, he planned the new campaign, which was signalized by two chief battles, Eylau and Friedland. The former was one of the most bloody of his entire career. Fighting in the midst of a blinding snow-storm on February 8, 1807, Napoleon narrowly escaped defeat. The slaughter was frightful - "sheer butchery," said Napoleon later. "What carnage," said Ney, "and no results," thus accurately describing this encounter. Napoleon managed to keep the field and in his usual way he represented the battle as a victory. But it was a drawn battle. For the first time in Europe he had failed to win. The Russian soldiers fought with reckless bravery - "it was necessary to kill them twice," was the way the French soldiers expressed it.

Four months later, however, on June 14, 1807, on the anniversary of Marengo, Napoleon's star shone again unclouded. He won a victory at Friedland which, as he informed Josephine, "is the worthy sister of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Jena." The victory was at any rate so decisive that the Czar, Alexander I, consented to make overtures for peace. The Peace of Tilsit was concluded by the two Emperors in person after many interviews, the first one of which was held on a raft in the middle of the river Niemen. Not only did they make peace but they went further and made a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive. Napoleon gained a great diplomatic victory, which completely altered the previous diplomatic system of Europe, a fitting climax to three years of remarkable achievement upon the field of battle. Exercising upon Alexander all his powers of fascination, of flattery, of imagination, of quick and sympathetic understanding, he completely won him over. The two Emperors conversed in the most dulcet, rapturous way. "Why did not we two meet earlier?" exclaimed the enthusiastic Czar of All the Russias. With their two imperial heads bowed Russia over a map of Europe they proceeded to divide it. Alexander was given to understand that he might take Finland, which he coveted, from Sweden, and attractive pickings from the vast Turkish Empire were dangled somewhat vaguely before him. On the other hand he recognized the changes Napoleon had made or was about to make in western Europe, in Italy, and in Germany. Alexander was to offer himself as a mediator between those bitter enemies, England and France, and, in case England declined to make peace, then Russia would join France in enforcing the continental blockade, which was designed to bring England to terms.

Napoleon out of regard for his new friend and ally promised to allow Prussia still to exist. The decree dethroning the House of Hohenzollern was never issued. But Napoleon's terms to Prussia were very severe. She must give up all her territory west of the River Elbe. Out of this and other German territories Napoleon now made the Kingdom of Westphalia which he gave to his brother Jerome, who had by this time divorced his American wife. Prussia's eastern possessions were also diminished. Most of what she had acquired in the partitions of Poland was taken from her and created into the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, to be ruled over by the sovereign of Saxony, whose title of Elector Napoleon at this juncture now changed into that of King. These three States, Westphalia, Saxony, and the Duchy of Warsaw now entered the Confederation of the Rhine, whose name thus became a misnomer, as the Confederation included not only the Rhenish and South German states but stretched from France to the Vistula, including practically all Germany except Prussia, now reduced to half her former size, and except Austria.

Naturally Napoleon was in high feather as he turned homeward. Naturally, also, he was pleased with the Czar. "He is a handsome, good young emperor, with more mind than he is generally credited with" - such was Napoleon's encomium. Next to being sole master of all Europe came the sharing of mastery with only one other. A few months later he wrote his new ally that "the work of Tilsit will regulate the destinies of the world." There only remained the English, 'the active islanders,' not yet charmed or conquered. In the same letter to the Czar Napoleon refers to them as "the enemies of the world" and told how they could be easily brought to book. He had forgotten, or rather he had wished to have the world forget, that there was one monstrous flaw in the apparent perfection of his prodigious success. Two years before, on the very day after the capitulation of Ulm, Admiral Nelson had completely destroyed the French fleet in the battle of Trafalgar (October 21,1805 giving his life that England might live and inspiring his own age and succeeding ages by the cry, "England expects every man to do his duty! "

The French papers did not mention the battle of Trafalgar but it nevertheless bulks large in history. This was Napoleon's second taste of sea-power, his first having been, as we have seen, in Egypt, several years before, also at the hands of Nelson.

Napoleon returned to Paris in the pride of power and of supreme achievement. But, it is said, pride cometh before a fall. Was the race mistaken when it coined this cooling phrase of proverbial wisdom? It remained to be seen.

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After Tilsit there remained England, always England, as the enemy of France. In 1805 Napoleon had defeated Austria, in 1806 Prussia, in 1807 Russia. Then the last named power had shifted its policy completely, had changed partners, and, discarding its former allies, had become the ally of its former enemy.