Prussia declares war on France.
These high-handed doings were certain to provoke further fighting, for Russia, though defeated at Austerlitz, did not consider herself beaten, and the strong military state of Prussia was bound to resent the ascendency of the French in Germany. Frederic William III., the rather irresolute monarch who swayed that country, had been half inclined to help Austria in 1805. But he delayed till the campaign of Austerlitz was over, and then found that he must fight Napoleon alone. Relying on the strength of his army and the old traditions of Frederic the Great, he declared war on France in 1806, hastily patching up treaties of alliance with Russia and England.
Battle of Jena.
Of all the disasters which befell the powers of the continent at Napoleon's hands, none was so sudden and crushing as that which Prussia suffered in 1806. Only a few weeks after the declaration of war, the Prussian monarchy was ruined. The Emperor's swiftness and power of concentration were never shown more brilliantly. After defeating the Prussians at Jena (October, 1806), he pursued them so furiously that he captured their whole army—more than 100,000 men—at Magdeburg, Lubeck, and Prenzlow. Nearly all the Prussian fortresses surrendered, and Frederic William escaped beyond the Vistula, with only 12,000 men, to join his Russian allies. After entering Berlin, Napoleon pushed on into Poland to meet the advancing forces of Czar Alexander. In the bitter cold of a Polish February, he fought the battle of Eylau with the Russians, and, for the first time in his life, failed to gain a decisive victory over these stubborn foes. But, in the following May, he finally settled the campaign by winning the bloody fight of Friedland, after which the Czar asked for peace.
The Treaty of Tilsit.—Dismemberment of Prussia.
At the treaty of Tilsit Napoleon dictated his terms to Russia and Prussia. Alexander was left comparatively unmolested; he was not stripped of territory, but only compelled to promise aid to Napoleon's schemes against England. But Prussia was absolutely crushed; half her territory was taken from her—the eastern districts to form a new Polish state called the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, the western to make, along with Hanover and Hesse, a new "kingdom of Westphalia" for Napoleon's youngest brother Jerome. In addition, all the Prussian fortresses received French garrisons, and a fine of £26,000,000 was imposed on the mutilated kingdom (June, 1807).
The Berlin Decrees.
Since Trafalgar the Emperor had been pondering over new schemes for ruining England. In a leisure moment during the Prussian campaign he devised the celebrated "Berlin Decrees." The English, as he thought, mainly lived upon the revenues that they earned by being the middlemen between Europe and the distant lands of Asia and America. Their carrying trade was the staple of their prosperity, and if he could destroy it England must go bankrupt. Accordingly, the Berlin Decrees declared a blockade against goods made or brought over by the English, in every country that France could influence. Now the idea of a naval blockade is familiar enough, but Napoleon's scheme contemplated its exact converse. He had resolved to station soldiers and custom-house officers round every mile of coast in Europe, to prevent English vessels from approaching the shore, and to see that not a pound's worth of English manufactures or colonial produce should be imported. The decrees declared the British Isles under blockade as regards the rest of Europe; no subject of France or of any vassal power was to trade with them. All Napoleon's unfortunate subject-allies, Prussia, Holland, Spain, and the powers of Italy were forced to assent to this strange edict, and the Czar of Russia was cajoled into accepting it. Napoleon thought that he had thereby struck a deadly blow at England, for every European state, save Sweden, Turkey, and Portugal, and the islands of Sicily and Sardinia, was at his beck and call. But he had not calculated on the greatness of the sacrifice which he was asking his allies to make. They were to give up, in order to please him, many of the comforts, even the necessities of life—West Indian sugar and coffee, the tea, pepper, and spices of the East, the cloth and linen of England, the muslin of Hindustan.
The "Orders in Council" of 1807.
The English government boldly accepted the Emperor's challenge, and replied that if there was to be no English trade with the continent, there should not be any trade at all. By the "Orders in Council" of November, 1807, the whole coast-line of France and her allies was declared in a state of blockade, and the war-vessels of England were directed to seize as prizes all ships entering them, whether neutral or not, unless before sailing for the continent such vessels should have touched at an English port. Napoleon replied by the Milan Decrees (Dec. 17, 1807), which declared that any vessel belonging to a neutral power which had touched at any British port should be considered a lawful prize, and ordered all British merchandise found on the continent to be confiscated and burnt. Thus, between the Berlin Decrees and the Orders in Council, all the ports of Europe were formally closed. The one great neutral power, the United States of America, felt this blow bitterly, and bore a deep grudge against both parties in the strife.