CHAPTER XXXVI.
Retrospect of the Partition of Poland—Napoleon receives addresses from Poland, which he evades—He advances into Poland, Bennigsen retreating before him—Character of the Russian Soldiery—The Cossacks—Engagement at Pultusk, on 26th November, terminating to the disadvantage of the French—Bennigsen continues his retreat—The French go into winter quarters—Bennigsen appointed Commander-in-chief in the place of Kaminskoy, who shows symptoms of insanity—He resumes offensive operations—Battle of Eylau, 8th February, 1807—Claimed as a victory by both parties—The loss on both sides amounts to 50,000 men killed, the greater part Frenchmen—Bennigsen retreats upon Königsberg—Napoleon offers favourable terms for an Armistice to the King of Prussia, who refuses to treat, save for a general Peace—Napoleon falls back to the line of the Vistula—Dantzick is besieged, and surrenders—Russian army is poorly recruited—the French powerfully—Actions during the Summer—Battle of Heilsberg, and retreat of the Russians—Battle of Friedland, 14th June—An Armistice takes place on the 23d.
POLAND.
Napoleon was politically justified in the harsh terms which he was desirous to impose on Prussia, by having now brought his victorious armies to the neighbourhood of Poland in which he had a good right to conceive himself sure to find numerous followers and a friendly reception.
The partition of this fine kingdom by its powerful neighbours, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, was the first open and audacious transgression of the law of nations, which disgraced the annals of civilized Europe. It was executed by a combination of three of the most powerful states of Europe against one too unhappy in the nature of its constitution, and too much divided by factions to offer any effectual resistance. The kingdom subjected to this aggression had appealed in vain to the code of nations for protection against an outrage, to which, after a desultory and uncombined, and therefore a vain defence, she saw herself under the necessity of submitting. The Poles retained, too, a secret sense of their fruitless attempt to recover freedom in 1791, and an animated recollection of the violence by which it had been suppressed by the Russian arms. They waited with hope and exultation the approach of the French armies; and candour must allow, that, unlawfully subjected as they had been to a foreign yoke, they had a right to avail themselves of the assistance, not only of Napoleon, but of Mahomet, or of Satan himself, had he proposed to aid them in regaining the independence of which they had been oppressively and unjustly deprived.[258]
This feeling was general among the middling classes of the Polish aristocracy, who recollected with mortified pride the diminution of their independent privileges, the abrogation of their Diets, and the suppression of the Liberum Veto, by which a private gentleman might render null the decision of a whole assembly, unless unanimity should be attained, by putting the dissentient to death upon the spot.[259] But the higher order of nobility, gratified by the rank they held, and the pleasures they enjoyed at the courts of Berlin, Vienna, and especially at Petersburgh, preferred in general the peaceful enjoyment of their immense estates to the privileges of a stormy independence, which raised the most insignificant of the numerous aristocracy to a rank and importance nearly resembling their own. They might, too, with some justice, distrust the views of Napoleon, though recommended by the most specious promises. The dominion of Russia, in particular, from similarity of manners, and the particular attention paid to their persons and interests, was not so unpopular among the higher branches of the aristocracy as might have been expected, from the unjust and arbitrary mode in which she had combined to appropriate so large a part of their once independent kingdom. These did not, therefore, so generally embrace the side of France as the minor nobles or gentry had done. As for the ordinary mass of the population, being almost all in the estate of serfage, or villanage, which had been general over Europe during the prevalence of the feudal system, they followed their respective lords, without pretending to entertain any opinion of their own.
ADDRESSES FROM POLAND.
While Russia was marching her armies hastily forward, not only to support, or rather raise up once more, her unfortunate ally the King of Prussia, but to suppress any ebullition of popular spirit in Poland, Buonaparte received addresses from that country, which endeavoured to prevail on him to aid them in their views of regaining their independence. Their application was of a nature to embarrass him considerably. To have declared himself the patron of Polish independence, might have, indeed, brought large forces to his standard—might have consummated the disasters of Prussia, and greatly embarrassed even Russia herself; and so far policy recommended to Napoleon to encourage their hopes of her restored independence. But Austria had been a large sharer in the various partitions of Poland, and Austria, humbled as she had been, was still a powerful state, whose enmity might have proved formidable, if, by bereaving her of her Polish dominions, or encouraging her subjects to rebel, Buonaparte had provoked her to hostilities, at the time when he himself and the best part of his forces were engaged in the North of Europe. The same attempt would have given a very different character to the war, which Russia at present waged only in the capacity of the auxiliary of Prussia. The safety and integrity of the Russian empire, south of the Volga, depends almost entirely upon the preservation of those territories which she has acquired in Poland; and, if she had engaged in the war as a principal, Buonaparte was scarcely yet prepared to enter upon a contest with the immense power of that empire, which must be waged upon the very frontier of the enemy, and as near to their resources as he was distant from his own. It might have been difficult, also, to have stated any consistent grounds, why he, who had carved out so many new sovereignties in Europe with the point of the sword, should reprobate the principle of the partition of Poland. Influenced by these motives, the modern setter-up and puller-down of kings abstained from re-establishing the only monarchy in Europe, which he might have new-modelled to his mind, in the character not of a conqueror, but a liberator.
While Napoleon declined making any precise declaration, or binding himself by any express stipulations to the Polish delegates, the language he used to them was cautiously worded, so as to keep up their zeal and animate their exertions. Dombrowski,[260] a Polish exile in the French army, was employed to raise men for Napoleon's service, and the enthusiasm of those who entered, as well as the expectations of the kingdom at large, were excited by such oracular passages as the following, which appeared in the thirty-sixth bulletin:—"Is the throne of Poland to be re-established, and will that great nation regain her existence and independence? Will she be recalled to life, as if summoned to arise from the tomb?—God only, the great disposer of events, can be the arbiter of this great political problem."[261]
The continuance of war was now to be determined upon; a war to be waged with circumstances of more than usual horror, as it involved the sufferings of a winter campaign in the northern latitudes. The French, having completely conquered the Prussian estates to the east of the Oder, had formed the sieges of Great Glogau, of Breslau, and of Graudentz, and were at the same time pushing westward to occupy Poland. The Russian general, Bennigsen, had on his side pressed forward for the purpose of assisting the Prussians, and had occupied Warsaw. But finding that their unfortunate allies had scarcely the remnant of an army in the field, the Russian general retreated after some skirmishes, and recrossed the Vistula, while the capital of Poland, thus evacuated, was entered on the 28th November by Murat, at the head of the French vanguard.