ANNEXATION OF FINLAND.
Sweden was summoned to join in the alliance against Great Britain, to which the Swedish monarch did not accede. Alexander consequently declared war, and on the 28th of March, 1808, the following Imperial Ukase appeared at St. Petersburg:
“We unite Finland, conquered by our arms, for ever to our Empire, and command its inhabitants forthwith to take the oath of allegiance to our throne.”
The Swedish Monarch, however, not being willing to surrender so important a portion of his dominions, was forced to abdicate; and his successor endeavored to conclude a peace with Russia, and to retain Finland through appeals to Napoleon.
The latter was, however, bound to Alexander by the treaty of Tilsit, and refused to interfere. The Czar, determined to retain his conquest, marched an army across the gulf of Bothnia, on the ice, in March, 1809, and arrived by the middle of that month on the Swedish side, en route for Stockholm.
This had the effect to intimidate the court of Stockholm, who therefore ceded Finland, and peace was concluded Sept. 17, 1809.
On the 13th Dec., 1810, Napoleon formally annexed to the French Empire the Hanse towns and the Duchy of Oldenburg. This measure irritated Alexander, who now grew apprehensive lest some of his ill-gotten gains should be wrested from him, and that the restoration of Poland might next be thought of.
A convention was drawn up at St. Petersburg, and signed by the representatives of France and Russia, by which it was stipulated, that “The kingdom of Poland shall never be reëstablished; and the name of Poland and Poles shall never in future be applied to any of the districts, or inhabitants; and shall be effaced for ever from every public and official act.”
Napoleon, however, refused to ratify it, and thus again exasperated the Czar, who commenced to place Poland in a state of defence, which, in its turn, excited the jealousy of the French Emperor.
Alexander, therefore, published, on the 31st of Dec., 1810, an order, containing a material relaxation of the rigour of the decrees hitherto in force in the Russian Empire against English commerce.
On the 24th Feb., 1812, the Cabinet of Prussia concluded a treaty offensive and defensive with France; and a royal edict appeared prohibiting the introduction of colonial produce, on any pretence, from the Russian into the Prussian territory. Austria being at this time in close alliance with France, another treaty was concluded March 14, 1812, between them, placing a considerable part of her resources at Napoleon’s command.
In consequence of the overbearing demands of Napoleon, the Swedish Government allied itself with Russia on the 5th of April (1812), and with Great Britain on the 12th of July following.
The differences between Alexander and Napoleon had now become so serious, that war was inevitable. But Napoleon knew the foe he had to grapple with, and proposed terms of peace to Great Britain on the 17th of April, hoping to be left to meet the Russians single-handed, and thus humble the overweening pride of the Czar. His proposals were, however, rejected.
Down to the very commencement of hostilities, notes continued to be interchanged between the representatives of the two Emperors, which did little more than recapitulate the mutual grounds of complaint of the two cabinets against each other. Finally, on the 24th of April, Alexander sent to Napoleon his ultimatum, offering an accommodation on condition that France would evacuate Prussia, and come to an arrangement with the king of Sweden which remained without any answer, on the part of the French Government.
Both prepared for the worst, and on the 23d of June, Napoleon arrived on the banks of the Niemen, with his countless hosts, for the invasion of Russia.
The armies at his command, at this time, amounted in the aggregate, to the enormous sum of 1,250,000 men; and the force which entered Russia, during the year 1812, was 647,158 men—187,111 horses, and 1372 cannon.
The regular forces of the Russians amounted, at the close of 1811, to 517,000 men, 70,000 of whom were in garrison, and the remainder dispersed over an immense surface.
To oppose the invasion of the French, the Russians had collected about 200,000 men, and upwards of 800 pieces of cannon. The forces of the French, therefore, exceeded those of the Russians, by nearly 300,000 men; but the former were at an immense distance from their resources, and had no means of recruiting their losses; whereas the latter were in their own country, and supported by the devotion of a fanatical and patriotic people.
The face of the country on the Western frontier of Russia is in general flat, and in many places marshy; vast woods of pine cover the plains, and the rivers flow in some places through steep banks, in others stagnate over extensive swamps, which often present the most serious obstacles to military operations. The villages are few and miserable.
The wants of such a prodigious accumulation of troops speedily exhausted all the means of subsistence which the country afforded, and the stores they could convey with them. Forced requisitions from the peasantry became, therefore, necessary, and so great was the subsequent misery that the richest families in Warsaw were literally in danger of starving, and the interest of money rose to 80 per cent.
Napoleon reached Wilna on the 28th of June, the Russians receding as he advanced, and destroying everything before them. On the 15th of August, the starving army reached the city of Smolensko, which was burned by the Russians, and abandoned on the 18th.
The losses in the meantime by battle, exposure, want, and sickness, were fast decimating the French ranks. The soldiers were seized with disquietude as they contrasted their miserable quarters amid the ruins of Smolensko, with the smiling villages they had abandoned in their native land; but amid the universal gloom, their Emperor was ever present, and by words and deeds of kindness, sustained their drooping spirits.
Leaving Smolensko, Napoleon pressed forward, and on the 5th of September, arrived at Borodino where the Russians had made a stand to oppose their march upon Moscow.
On the 7th, two days subsequently, was fought the bloody battle of Borodino, the most murderous and obstinately contested of which history has preserved a record.
The Russian force was 132,000 men, with 640 pieces of artillery.
The French consisted of 133,000 men, with 590 pieces of cannon.
There were killed 15,000 Russians and 12,000 French, besides upwards of 70,000 wounded on both sides, making a total loss of 100,000 men in this one battle.
The French were, however, victorious, and reached Moscow on the 14th. The Holy City was found to be evacuated, not only by the Russian army, but by the inhabitants, and as the French hosts defiled through the silent streets, it was like entering a city of the dead.
Not a sound was to be heard in its vast circumference! the dwellings of three hundred thousand persons seemed as silent as the wilderness.
Evening came on! With increasing wonder the French troops traversed the central parts of the city, recently so crowded with passengers, but not a living creature was to be seen to explain the universal desolation. Night approached! an unclouded moon illuminated those beautiful palaces, those vast hotels, those deserted streets—all was still!
The officers broke open the doors of some of the principal mansions in search of sleeping quarters. They found every thing in perfect order; the bedrooms were fully furnished as if guests were expected; the drawing-rooms bore the marks of having been recently inhabited; even the work of the ladies was on the tables, the keys in the wardrobes—but still not an inmate was to be seen. By degrees a few of the lowest slaves emerged pale and trembling from the cellars, and showed the way to the sleeping apartments, and laid open every thing which these sumptuous mansions contained; but the only account they could give was that the whole of the inhabitants had fled, and that they alone were left. The persons intrusted with the duty of setting fire to the city, only awaited the retreat of their countrymen to commence the work of destruction. The terrible catastrophe soon commenced. On the night of the 13th a fire broke out in the bourse, and spread to the streets in the vicinity. At midnight, on the 15th, a bright light was seen to illuminate the northern and western parts of the city; fresh fires were then seen breaking out every instant in all directions, and Moscow soon exhibited the spectacle of a sea of flame agitated by the wind. But it was chiefly during the nights of the 18th and 19th that the conflagration attained its greatest violence. At that time the whole city was wrapped in flames, and volumes of fire of various colors ascended to the heavens in many places, diffusing a prodigious light on all sides, and attended by an intolerable heat. These balloons of flame were accompanied in their ascent by a frightful hissing noise, and loud explosions, the result of the vast stores of oil, tar, rosin, spirits, and other combustible materials, with which the greater part of the shops were filled. The wind, naturally high, was raised by the sudden rarefaction of the air to a perfect hurricane. The howling of the tempest drowned even the roar of the conflagration; the whole heavens were filled with the whirl of the burning volumes of smoke, which rose on all sides, and made midnight as bright as day, while even the bravest hearts, subdued by the sublimity of the scene, and the feeling of human impotence in the midst of such elemental strife, sank and trembled in silence. Imagination cannot conceive the horrors into which the remnant of the people who could not abandon their homes were plunged. Bereft of every thing, they wandered amid the ruins eagerly searching for a parent or a child: pillage became universal, and the wrecks of former magnificence were ransacked alike by the licentious soldiery and the suffering multitude.
In addition to the whole French army, numbers flocked in from the country to share in the general license; furniture of the most precious description, splendid jewellery, Indian and Turkish stuffs, stores of wine and brandy, gold and silver plate, rich furs, gorgeous trappings of silk and satin were spread about in promiscuous confusion, and became the prey of the least intoxicated among the multitude. A frightful tumult succeeded to the stillness which had reigned in the city when the troops first entered. The French soldiers, tormented by hunger and thirst, and loosened from all discipline by the horrors which surrounded them, often rushed headlong into the burning edifices to ransack their cellars for wines and spirits, and beneath the ruins great numbers miserably perished, the victims of intemperance and the surrounding fire. Napoleon abandoned the Kremlin on the evening of the 16th. Early on the following morning, casting a melancholy look to the burning city, which now filled half the heavens with its flames, he exclaimed after a long silence, “This sad event is the presage of a long train of disasters.”
Thus vanished the hopes of those indefatigable soldiers who had endured so much, and fought so well. To reach the fabulous city whose domes and minarets were now fallen—had been the dream of their ambition—the goal which once attained, would give rest and food to their weariness and hunger.
Thus Napoleon found himself possessed of a heap of burning ruins without food for his famishing soldiers and horses.
All negotiations with the Russian authorities having failed, a retreat was decided upon, and the Emperor left Moscow on the 19th of October, at the head of 105,000 combatants. The disasters of that retreat are too well known to require recapitulation.
Suffice it to say that the survivors of the French army, who entered Russia 500,000 strong, were but 20,000. The total loss of the campaign, in killed, prisoners, died from cold, fatigue, and famine, was over 450,000. And on the 13th of December, the wretched remnant of the French army passed the bridge of the Niemen. The losses of the Russians were also so great that at the end of the campaign not above 30,000 men could be assembled around the head-quarters of the Emperor Alexander.
On the 10th Dec., early in the morning, a travelling carriage in great haste drove into the Hotel d’Angleterre, at Warsaw. It was a small travelling britschka placed without wheels on a coarse sledge, made of four pieces of rough fir-wood, which had been almost dashed to pieces in entering the gateway. The travellers were ushered into a small dark apartment, with the windows half-shut, and in a corner of which a servant girl strove in vain to light a fire with green damp billets of wood, which, after kindling for a moment, gradually went out, leaving those in the apartment to shiver with cold during three hours of earnest conversation.
The travellers were Napoleon and his friend Caulaincourt, who five days previously had bidden the remnant of his retreating army, in Russia, an affectionate farewell, and started for Paris.
At length, it being announced that the carriage was ready, they mounted the sledge, and were soon lost in the gloom of a Polish winter. Outstripping his couriers in speed, on the 18th Dec., at 11 at night, the Emperor arrived at the Tuileries, before the Imperial government was even aware that he had quitted the army. And early next morning, while the streets of Paris were yet vacant, he was buried in state papers, investigating and arranging the disorganized affairs of the empire.