These advances were haughtily rejected by both Prussia
and Russia; and Napoleon returned to the Vistula to wait until the opening of spring, when the question was again to be referred to the arbitrament of battle. Both parties made vigorous preparations for the strife. Alexander succeeded in gathering around him one hundred and forty thousand soldiers. But Napoleon had assembled one hundred and sixty thousand whom he could rapidly concentrate upon any point between the Vistula and the Niemen.
In June the storm of war commenced with an assault by the allies. Field after field was red with blood as the hosts of France drove their vanquished foes before them. On the 10th of June, Alexander, with Frederic William riding by his side, had concentrated ninety thousand men upon the plains of Friedland, on the banks of the Aller. Here the Russians were compelled to make a final stand and await a decisive conflict. As Napoleon rode upon a height and surveyed his foes, caught in an elbow of the river, he said energetically, "We have not a moment to lose. One does not twice catch an enemy in such a trap." He immediately communicated to his aides his plan of attack. Grasping the arm of Ney, he pointed to the dense masses of the Russians clustered before the town of Friedland, and said,
"Yonder is the goal. March to it without looking about you. Break into that thick mass whatever it costs. Enter Friedland; take the bridges and give yourself no concern about what may happen on your right, your left or your rear. The army and I shall be there to attend to that."
The whole French line now simultaneously advanced. It was one of the most sublime and awful of the spectacles of war. For a few hours there was the gleam and the roar of war's most terrific tempest and the Russian army was destroyed. A frightful spectacle of ruin was exhibited. The shattered bands rushed in dismay into the stream, where thousands were swept away by the current, while a storm of bullets from the French batteries swept the river, and the
water ran red with blood. It was in vain for Alexander to make any further assaults. In ten days Napoleon had taken one hundred and twenty pieces of cannon, and had killed, wounded or taken prisoners, sixty thousand Russians.
Alexander now implored peace. It was all that Napoleon desired. The Niemen alone now separated the victorious French and the routed Russians. A raft was moored in the middle of the stream upon which a tent was erected with magnificent decorations, and here the two young emperors met to arrange the terms of peace. Alexander, like Francis of Austria, endeavored to throw the blame of the war upon England. Almost his first words to Napoleon were,
"I hate the English as much as you do. I am ready to second you in all your enterprises against them."
"In that case," Napoleon replied, "every thing will be easily arranged and peace is already made."
The interview lasted two hours, and Alexander was fascinated by the genius of Napoleon. "Never," he afterwards said, "did I love any man as I loved that man." Alexander was then but thirty years of age, and apparently he became inspired with an enthusiastic admiration of Napoleon which had never been surpassed. At the close of the interview, he crossed to the French side of the river, and took up his residence with Napoleon at Tilsit. Every day they rode side by side, dined together, and passed almost every hour in confiding conversation. It was Napoleon's great object to withdraw Alexander from the English alliance. In these long interviews the fate of Turkey was a continual topic of conversation. Alexander was ready to make almost any concession if Napoleon would consent that Russia should take Constantinople. But Napoleon was irreconcilably opposed to this. It was investing Russia with too formidable power. He was willing that the emperor should take the provinces on the Danube, but could not consent that he should pass the Balkan and annex the proud city of Constantine to his realms.