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[pg.268] 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 Vendée, 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[pg.269] 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[pg.270] 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[pg.271] 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[pg.272] 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[pg.273] 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[pg.274] 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 Königsberg, 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 Königsberg 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[pg.275] 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.[pg.276] 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,[pg.277] 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 levée en masse of France in 1793. Nobles and students, professors and peasants, poets and merchants, shouldered their muskets. Housewives and maidens[pg.278] 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 Lützow'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[pg.279] 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 Eugène, March 5th. "Make examples for the[pg.280] 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 Eugène'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 Eugène 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[pg.281] 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 Eugène 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 à outrance; but if the[pg.282] 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[pg.283] 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]][pg.284]

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 Auerstadt.

At the close of April the military situation was as follows. Eugène 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, Küstrin, and Stettin.[[294]] Napoleon's first plan of an advance direct to Stettin and Danzig having miscarried, he now sought to gather an[pg.285] immense force as secretly as possible near the Main, speedily to reinforce Eugène, 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 Lützen. 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 Blücher. The staunch patriot seemed to embody the best qualities of the old régime 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[pg.286] 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 Blücher 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."[pg.287]

On these resolute chiefs and their 33,000 Prussians fell the brunt of the fighting near Lützen. 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 Lützen, storm the villages of Gross Görschen, Rahna, and Starsiedel, held by the French vanguard, and, cutting into Napoleon's line of march towards Lützen and Leipzig, throw it into disorder and rout. But their great enemy had recently joined his array to that of Eugène: 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 Blücher's first blows, had observed the preparations, and one of his divisions, that of Souham, had strengthened the village of Gross Görschen 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 Görschen 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[pg.288] 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 Eugène 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 Blücher, 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 Blücher'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[pg.289] 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 Görschen; and he strove to inspirit the conscripts, many of whom had shown unsteadiness, by proclaiming to the army that the victory of Lützen 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[pg.290] 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. Eugène, 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[pg.291] 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.[pg.292]

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 Blücher, 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. Blücher 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[pg.293] beat off every effort of the French to turn the retreat into a rout. In vain did Napoleon press the pursuit. As at Lützen, 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[pg.294] 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 Müffling, 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 Eugène 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[pg.295] 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[pg.296] 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,[pg.297] would not Denmark give her assent if she received Swedish Pomerania and Lübeck? 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 £1,000,000 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,[pg.298] 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[pg.299] 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 Müller, "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.[pg.300]