The History of Napoleon Buonaparte

by J. G. Lockhart

CHAPTER XXI

The Decrees of Berlin—Napoleon renews the campaign—Warsaw taken—Enthusiasm of the Poles—Retreat of the Russians—Battle of Pultusk—The French go into winter quarters—Battle of Preuss-Eylau—Taking of Dantzick—Battle of Friedland—Armistice—Expeditions of the English to Calabria, Constantinople, Egypt, and Buenos Ayres—Peace of Tilsit.

Napoleon had achieved the total humiliation of the Prussian monarchy in a campaign of a week's duration: yet severe as the exertions of his army had been, and splendid his success, and late as the season was now advanced, there ensued no pause of inaction: the Emperor himself remained but a few days in Berlin.

This brief residence, however, was distinguished by the issue of the famous decrees of Berlin; those extraordinary edicts by which Buonaparte hoped to sap the foundations of the power of England—the one power which he had no means of assailing by his apparently irresistible arms.

Napoleon declared the British Islands to be in a state of blockade: any intercourse with that country was henceforth to be a crime; all her citizens found in any country in alliance with France to be prisoners; every article of English produce or manufacture, wherever discovered, to be confiscated. In a word, wherever France had power, the slightest communication with England was henceforth to be treason against the majesty of Napoleon; and every coast of Europe was to be lined with new armies of douaniers and gens-d'armes, for the purpose of carrying into effect what he called "the continental system."

He had long meditated the organisation of this system, and embraced, as a favourable opportunity for its promulgation, the moment which saw him at length predominant in the North of Germany, and thus, in effect, master of the whole coasts of Europe from the mouth of the Oder round to the Adriatic Gulf. The system, however, could not be carried into effect, because from long habit the manufactured goods and colonial produce of Britain had come to be necessaries of life among every civilised people of the world; and consequently every private citizen found his own domestic comforts invaded by the decree, which avowedly aimed only at the revenues of the English crown. Every man, therefore, was under continual temptation, each in his own sphere and method, to violate the decrees of Berlin. The custom-house officers were exposed to bribes which their virtue could not resist. Even the most attached of Napoleon's own functionaries connived at the universal spirit of evasion—his brothers themselves, in their respective dominions, could not help sympathising with their subjects, and winking at the methods of relief to which they were led by necessity, the mother of invention. The severe police, however, which was formed everywhere as a necessary part of the machinery for carrying these edicts into execution—the insolence of the innumerable spies and informers whom they set in motion—and the actual deprivation of usual comforts, in so far as it existed—all these circumstances conspired to render the name of the Berlin decrees odious throughout Europe and in France itself. It may be added that the original conception of Napoleon was grounded on a mistaken opinion, to which, however, he always clung—namely, that England derives all her strength from her foreign commerce. Great as that commerce was, and great as, in spite of him, it continued to be, it never was anything but a trifle when compared with the internal traffic and resources of Great Britain—a country not less distinguished above other nations for its agricultural industry, than for its commercial.

Napoleon received at Berlin a deputation of his Senate, sent from Paris to congratulate him on the successes of his campaign. To them he announced these celebrated decrees: he made them the bearers of the trophies of his recent victories, and, moreover, of a demand for the immediate levying of 80,000 men, being the first conscription for the year 1808—that for the year 1807 having been already anticipated. The subservient Senate recorded and granted whatever their master pleased to dictate; but the cost of human life which Napoleon's ambition demanded had begun, ere this time, to be seriously thought of in France. He, meanwhile, prepared, without further delay, to extinguish the feeble spark of resistance which still lingered in a few garrisons of the Prussian Monarchy, beyond the Oder: and to meet, before they could reach the soil of Germany, those Russian legions which were now advancing, too late, to the assistance of Frederick William. That unfortunate Prince sent Lucchesini to Berlin, to open, if possible, a negotiation with the victorious occupant of his capital and palace; but Buonaparte demanded Dantzick, and two other fortified towns, as the price of even the briefest armistice; and the Italian envoy returned to inform the King, that no hope remained for him except in the arrival of the Russians.

Napoleon held in his hands the means of opening his campaign with those allies of Prussia, under circumstances involving his enemy in a new, and probably endless train of difficulties. The Partition of Poland—that great political crime, for which every power that had a part in it has since been severely, though none of them adequately punished—had left the population of what had once been a great and powerful kingdom, in a state of discontent and irritation, of which, had Napoleon been willing to make full use of it, the fruits might have been more dangerous for the Czar than any campaign against any foreign enemy. The French Emperor had but to announce distinctly that his purpose was the restoration of Poland as an independent state, and the whole mass, of an eminently gallant and warlike population would have risen instantly at his call. But Buonaparte was withheld from resorting to this effectual means of annoyance by various considerations; of which the chief were these: first, he could not emancipate Poland without depriving Austria of a rich and important province, and consequently provoking her once more into the field: and secondly, he foresaw that the Russian Emperor, if threatened with the destruction of his Polish territory and authority, would urge the war in a very different manner from that which he was likely to adopt while acting only as the ally of Prussia. In a word, Napoleon was well aware of the extent of the Czar's resources, and had no wish at this time to give a character of irremediable bitterness to their quarrel.

Though, however, he for these and other reasons refrained from openly appealing in his own person to the Poles as a nation, Buonaparte had no scruple about permitting others to tamper, in his behalf, with the justly indignant feelings of the people. Some of the heroic leaders of the Poles, in the struggles for their expiring independence, had long been exiles in France—not a few of them had taken service in her armies. These men were allowed, and encouraged, to address themselves to the body of their countrymen, in language which could hardly fail to draw eager and enthusiastic recruits to the French standard, and increase mightily the perplexities of the Russian counsels. Nor did Napoleon scruple to authorise the circulation of an appeal of like tendency, bearing falsely[56] the venerated signature of Kosciusko. "Dear countrymen and friends," said the forgery, "arise! the Great Nation is before you—Napoleon expects, and Kosciusko calls on you. We are under the Ægis of the Monarch who vanquishes difficulties as if by miracles, and the re-animation of Poland is too glorious an achievement not to have been reserved for him by the Eternal." Dombrowski and Wibichi, two Polish officers in Buonaparte's own army, sent forward from Berlin, on the 8th of the same month, a proclamation, which commenced in these words:—"Poles! Napoleon, the Great, the Invincible, enters Poland with an army of 300,000 men. Without wishing to fathom the mystery of his views, let us strive to merit his magnanimity. I will see (he has said to us) whether you deserve to be a nation. Poles! it depends then on yourselves to exert a national spirit, and possess a country. Your avenger, your restorer is here. Crowd from all quarters to his presence, as children in tears hasten to behold a succouring father. Present to him your hearts, your arms. Rise to a man, and prove that you do not grudge your blood to your country!" Lastly, in one of Napoleon's own bulletins, the following ominous sentences were permitted to appear:—"Shall the Polish throne be re-established, and shall the Great Nation secure for it respect and independence? Shall she recall it to life from the grave? God only, who directs all human affairs, can resolve this great mystery!" These appeals produced various eager addresses from Poland—and Buonaparte prepared to visit that country, though not as her liberator.

Before re-opening the great campaign, Buonaparte received the submission and explanation of the Elector of Saxony, who truly stated that Prussia had forced him to take part in the war. The apology was accepted, and from this time the Elector adhered to the League of the Rhine, and was a faithful ally of Napoleon. The Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel had worse fortune. The answer to all his applications was, that he had ceased to reign. What use the Conqueror designed to make of the territories thus confiscated, we shall presently see. The Saxon army, and that of Hesse-Cassel, were both, however, at his disposal, and they both accordingly were marched forwards, and blended with the forces occupying Prussia.