TO THE PEACE OF TILSIT.—It remained for the conqueror to deal with Russia. He had intended to prosecute a winter campaign in Poland, but the severity of the winter and the lack of supplies obliged him to fall back from Pultusk to the Vistula. The Russians now took the initiative. A terrible battle at Eylau (Feb. 7 and 8, 1807) was indecisive. Napoleon drew additional troops from all parts of his empire to supply the losses of the grand army. Benningsen, the Russian general, was incautious, and at Friedland (June 14) was routed. Dantzic and the still unconquered provinces of Prussia fell into the hands of the French. This series of wonderful successes made the revolution in the art of war, which Napoleon had introduced, obvious to the dullest eyes. His peculiar method of rapid movement, and subsistence on the country, and the obstacles to its uniform success, were likewise evident. The Emperor Alexander and Napoleon met on the Niemen. Alexander was won by Napoleon's gracious and friendly demeanor. At Tilsit, on the North-Prussian frontier, peace was concluded (July 7 and 9, 1807). Prussia fared the hardest. She lost half of her territory. She had to close her ports and lands to British trade, to limit her army to forty-two thousand men, and to consent to the erection of a duchy of Warsaw out of her Polish territory. Out of the Elbe provinces, a kingdom of Westphalia was constructed, of which Jerome Bonaparte received the crown. Russia also recognized Louis Bonaparte, another brother of Napoleon, as king of Holland. Alexander promised to go to war with England in case England rejected the offer of peace which he was to make as mediator. Alexander and Napoleon were to be fast friends and allies. Russia was to expand on the north and east, but not to have Constantinople. Napoleon had no better apology for the dismemberment of Prussia than a reference to the intemperate manifesto of the Duke of Brunswick in 1792, on the occasion of the first invasion of France. His real object was thoroughly to divide and disable Germany, and to take away the last obstacle to his complete control within its borders.
POWER OF NAPOLEON.—No ruler since Charlemagne had held such power as was now wielded by Napoleon. "Sovereign of France from the Scheldt to the Pyrenees, and of Italy from the Alps to the Tiber," he had given the throne of Holland to his brother Louis, that of Naples to Joseph, and made Jerome king of Westphalia. Spain was content to do his will, and Germany was under his feet. He was the leader of mighty armies, with no military rival to endanger his supremacy over them. His conquests, it was impossible to deny, carried with them the abolition of numerous time-worn abuses, and the introduction of important material improvements. France was in many respects prosperous under the despotism established over it.
ELEMENTS OF WEAKNESS.—But there were certain elements of weakness which Napoleon did not sufficiently discern. The feeling of nationality and patriotism in the subject countries was certain to awake with a strength which he did not at all anticipate. Old Rome had extinguished this feeling in most of her provinces, but there were countries whose spirit even Rome could not break. Napoleon undertook a task to which no man was equal. Meantime, he was exhausting the military resources of France. If its male population continued to be willing to follow him to the slaughter, where were the men to be found to fill the places of the multitudes that fell? The time must come when the hunger of the French for military glory would be sated, and dazzling victories would cease to hide the fearful cost at which they were purchased.
THE CONTINENTAL SYSTEM.—The Treaty of Tilsit was followed by acts on the part of Napoleon which show the presumptuous confidence and arrogant spirit of domination, which, however natural on the pinnacle of might to which he had raised himself, proved disastrous, and, in the end, fatal. One of these acts was the "Continental System," ordained in the Berlin and Milan Decrees.
A Prussian decree (1806), Prussia being then a vassal of Napoleon, undertook to close the ports and rivers of the North Sea to English shipping. In retaliation, there was issued a British "Order in Council," declaring the coast from the Elbe to Brest in a state of blockade; the portion from Ostend to the Seine being declared to be under a rigorous blockade. This led to the Berlin Decree of Napoleon (Nov. 21, 1806). Then second "Orders in Council" (Nov. 11, 1807), prohibiting trade with France, her allies and colonies, as if they were blockaded, called out the Milan Decree of Napoleon (Dec. 17, 1807).
The continental system thus originated undertook to cut off trade between the entire Continent and England, by ordering all the merchandise of England and her colonies to be seized and confiscated, wherever it might be found,—even ships which touched at English ports. The design was to inflict injury on England. It had this effect, but it had the same effect on France, and still more in the other countries which profited by English trade. Wide-spread disaffection at the attempts to enforce this system was the inevitable consequence. Moreover, one result of it was to stimulate Napoleon to further conquests to keep up and to extend his commercial policy. Another motive was added to his growing and insatiable ambition for universal dominion.
INVASION OF SPAIN: WAGRAM.—Russia had declared war against Great Britain, according to the promise of Alexander at Tilsit. The British seized the Danish fleet in the harbor of Copenhagen, to prevent it from falling into the hands of Russia and France (Sept., 1807). Napoleon made this act a partial excuse for invading the Spanish peninsula, under the pretense of guarding the coasts against the English. His army entered Lisbon, and he declared that the house of Braganza had ceased to reign. His forces advanced into Spain beyond Madrid. Dissensions between Charles IV. and his son Ferdinand enabled Napoleon to get himself chosen as arbiter; and having enticed the two contestants to Bayonne, he set them both aside, and gave the crown of Spain to his brother Joseph,—Murat, who had married Napoleon's sister Caroline, taking the throne of Naples. This high-handed proceeding roused the Spanish people to revolt. The officers of Napoleon were several times defeated. A British force under Wellington—then Sir Arthur Wellesley—appeared in Portugal to lend help to the national movement. A French fleet in Cadiz was destroyed. Napoleon invaded Spain with an overwhelming force, and established his brother at Madrid (Dec. 2, 1808). But the people still kept up a harassing guerilla war. From Spain Napoleon was called away by the rising of Austria, which the events in Spain had once more moved to begin hostilities. Within a month from the beginning of the campaign, he again entered Vienna as a victor (May 11, 1809). He suffered a reverse at Aspern; but in the desperate battle of Wagram, in which not far from three hundred thousand men took part, he was triumphant. Austria purchased peace by further cessions of territory, and by joining the Continental System. The brave Tyrolese kept up the struggle with an heroic spirit; but at last Hofer, their leader, was captured and shot at Mantua (1810).
PIUS VII.—As Pius VII. refused to close his ports against England, and to ally himself with France, Napoleon proclaimed (May, 1809) that the Papal States were annexed to his empire. The Pope, who had steadfastly resisted his attempts at coercion, excommunicated him. The pontiff was arrested, and conveyed to Savona, and afterwards to France.
SWEDEN: BERNADOTTE.—Another ally in upholding the "Continental System" against England, Napoleon gained in Sweden, where one of his marshals, Bernadotte, had been chosen Crown Prince.
Under Adolf Frederic (1751-1771), a council of nobles usurped many of the functions of the king. A combined Russian and French party in Sweden was against him. His son, Gustavus III. (1771-1792), being supported by France, invaded Russian Finland, and, by the help of the Estates, reduced the power of the nobles, giving, however, to the Estates in the new constitution, the right to veto a project for offensive war. He was murdered in 1792. His son Gustavus IV., who became of age in 1808, was a bitter opponent of Napoleon, whom he considered to be the beast of the Apocalypse (Rev. xiii. 1). After the Peace of Tilsit, he made war on Russia, and on Denmark, from which he sought to wrest Norway. The nobles and the army rose against him, and obliged him to abdicate (1809). His uncle, Charles XIII., became king. Finland was surrendered to Russia. The king having no children, Bernadotte (1764-1844), a French marshal, made by Napoleon Prince of Pontecorno, but who often showed himself independent in his relations to him, was elected Crown Prince of Sweden (1810). Sweden joined the Continental System.