"In so just a war, which we have not provoked by any act, by any pretense, the true cause of which it would be impossible to assign, and where we only take arms to defend ourselves, we depend entirely upon the support of the laws, and upon that of the people whom circumstances call upon to give fresh proofs of their devotion and courage."
In the battle of Jena, which took place on the 14th of October, the Prussian army was nearly annihilated, leaving in a few hours more than forty thousand men in killed, wounded and prisoners. In less than a month the conquest of entire Prussia was achieved, and Napoleon was pursuing Frederic William, who, with the wreck of the Prussian army was hastening to take refuge in the bosom of the Russian hosts which were approaching. December had now come with its icy blasts, and Napoleon, leading his victorious troops to the banks of the Vistula, more than a thousand miles from France, established them in winter quarters, waiting until spring for the renewal of the campaign.
Alexander, terrified by the destruction of his Prussian allies, halted his troops upon the other side of the Vistula,
and from his vast realms collected recruits. For a few weeks the storms of winter secured a tacit armistice.
In February, 1807, Alexander assumed the offensive and endeavored to surprise Napoleon in his encampment. But Napoleon was on the alert. A series of terrific battles ensued, in which the French were invariably the victors. The retreating Russians, hotly pursued, at last rallied on the field of Eylau. Napoleon had already driven them two hundred and forty miles from his encampment on the Vistula.
"It was the 7th of February, 1807. The night was dark and intensely cold as the Russians, exhausted by the retreat of the day, took their positions for the desperate battle of the morrow. There was a gentle swell of land extending two or three miles, which skirted a vast, bleak, unsheltered plain, over which the wintry gale drifted the snow. Upon this ridge the Russians in double lines formed themselves in battle array. Five hundred pieces of cannon were ranged in battery, to hurl destruction into the bosoms of their foes. They then threw themselves upon the icy ground for their frigid bivouac. A fierce storm had already risen, which spread over the sleeping host its mantle of snow."
Napoleon came also upon the field, in the darkness of the night and of the storm, and placed his army in position for the battle which the dawn would usher in. Two hundred pieces of artillery were planted to reply to the Russian batteries. There were eighty thousand Russians on the ridge, sixty thousand Frenchmen on the plain, and separated by a distance of less than half a cannon shot. The sentinels of either army could almost touch each other with their muskets.
The morning had not yet dawned when the cannonade commenced. The earth shook beneath its roar. A storm of snow at the same time swept over the plain blinding and smothering assailants and assailed. The smoke of the battle blended with the storm had spread over the contending hosts a sulphurous canopy black as midnight. Even the
flash of the guns could hardly be discerned through the gloom. All the day long, and until ten o'clock at night, the battle raged with undiminished fury. One half of the Russian army was now destroyed, and the remainder, unable longer to endure the conflict, sullenly retreated. Napoleon remained master of the field, which exhibited such a scene of misery as had never before met even his eye. When congratulated upon his victory by one of his officers he replied sadly,
"To a father who loses his children, victory has no charms. When the heart speaks, glory itself is an illusion."