Napoleon's campaign in Russia, 1812.
The story of the fearful Russian campaign which followed cannot be told here in detail. Napoleon had planned to take three years to conquer Russia, but he was forced on by the necessity of gaining at least one signal victory before he closed the season's campaign. The Russians simply retreated and led him far within a hostile and devastated country before they offered battle at Borodino (September 7). Napoleon won the battle, but his army was reduced to something over one hundred thousand men when he entered Moscow a week later. The town had been set on fire by the Russians before his arrival; he found his position untenable, and had to retreat as winter came on. The cold, the want of food, and the harassing attacks of the people along the route made that retreat the most signal military tragedy on record. Napoleon regained Poland early in December with scarcely twenty thousand of the four hundred thousand with which he had started less than six months before.[432]
Napoleon collects a new army.
Napoleon hastened back to Paris, where he freely misrepresented the true state of affairs, even declaring that the army was in a good condition up to the time that he turned it over to Murat in December. While the loss of men in the Russian campaign was enormous, just those few had naturally survived who would be most essential in the formation of a new army, namely, the officers. With their help, Napoleon soon had a force of no less than six hundred thousand men with which to return to the attack. This contained one hundred and fifty thousand conscripts who should not have been called into service until 1814, besides older men who had been hitherto exempted.
Social conditions in Prussia before 1806.
254. By the end of February, 1813, the timid Frederick William had been induced by public sentiment in Prussia to break with his oppressor and join Russia. On March 17, he issued a famous address "To my People," in which he called upon them to assist him in the recovery of Prussian independence. Up to the defeat of Jena, Prussia was far more backward in its social organization than France had been before 1789. The agricultural classes were serfs, who were bound to the land and compelled to work a certain part of each week for the lord without remuneration.[433] The population was divided into strict social castes. Moreover, no noble could buy citizen or peasant land; no citizen, noble or peasant land; no peasant, noble or citizen land.
Reform of the social system in Prussia.
The disaster of Jena and the losses at Tilsit convinced the clearer-sighted statesmen of Prussia, especially Stein, that the country's only hope of recovery was a complete social and political revolution, not unlike that which had taken place in France. They saw that the feudal system must be abolished, the peasants freed, and the restrictions which hedged about the different classes done away with, before it would be possible to arouse public spirit to a point where a great popular uprising might expel the intruder forever.
The first great step toward this general reform was the royal decree of October 9, 1807,[434] intended to "remove every obstacle that has hitherto prevented the individual from attaining such a degree of prosperity as he was capable of reaching." Serfdom was abolished and the restrictions on landholding removed, so that any one, regardless of class, was at liberty to purchase and hold landed property of every kind. In some cases the principles of the French Revolution had been introduced by Napoleon or the rulers that he set up. In this case it was the necessity of preparing the country to throw off his yoke and regain its independence that led to the same result.