For a year past that minister had been playing a double game. Seeking through his envoy at Stockholm to embroil Bernadotte with the Czar, he told Hardenberg almost simultaneously that it was all up with Russia, that England was worn out, and that Austria was about to assume the rôle of mediator. It was to his purpose that, on the other hand, he promised to treat Russia as Russia had treated Austria in 1809. When, in his despair, Napoleon wrote to Francis from Dresden demanding an increase of the Austrian contingent to check Kutusoff's advance through Poland, Metternich suffered his master to give no answer, but sent a special peace embassy to London, and despatched Bubna, a favorite with Napoleon, to seek the same end at Paris. The Emperor of the French laid down his old ultimatum, but offered a subsidy to Austria if she would double the number of her auxiliaries. Thereupon Metternich prepared to desert Napoleon, refused to furnish the auxiliaries, ordered Schwarzenberg "to save his troops for the next campaign," and secretly advised Prussia to join her cause with that of Russia. Careful not to formulate any definite terms for the peace he so clamorously invoked, he refused to intervene with Russia for the restoration of Prussian Poland, thus avoiding an open rupture with France, assuring that the seat of war would be in Saxony, and gaining time to secure Austria's dignity as a mediator by the preparation of armaments strong enough to enforce her suggestions.
This attitude compelled Prussia to make a decision. Frederick William could no longer wage a sham warfare nor cover hostile intentions by a pretense of disinterestedness. A decision must be taken, and the conduct of General York had indicated what the painful conclusion must be. The convention of Tauroggen had been duly disavowed; but an envoy was at Russian headquarters, and Alexander had entered Prussian territory in his advance against Eugène; Napoleon was demanding an increased auxiliary force. The temporizer could temporize no longer. He firmly believed that nothing short of a coalition between Austria, Russia, and Prussia could annihilate France, and Austria had virtually refused to enter such a combination. Russia, moreover, was under no engagement in regard to Prussian Poland. What was to be done? The King's first instinct led him to seek refuge with Napoleon, and he despatched an envoy, offering his continued alliance for either an increase of territory, or for ninety million francs in payment of the commissary supplies furnished during 1812. With every day, however, the Prussian people grew more Russian in feeling, and on January twenty-second, 1813, before the return of the ambassador, the court was forced by popular opinion to withdraw from Berlin to Breslau, out of the sphere of French influence. Napoleon's answer soon arrived; there was no word of payment, and no binding engagement as to territory—merely a repetition of vague promises. Frederick William was disappointed, and reluctantly consented to the mobilization of his now regenerated and splendid army. He cherished the hope of keeping Alexander behind the Vistula, and forcing Napoleon to an armistice before he could cross the Elbe.
But Hardenberg, Stein, and Scharnhorst were all convinced that there could be no peace in Europe without restoring the ancient balance of power and annihilating Napoleon's preponderance, especially since, from every class in the nation, came addresses and petitions expressing detestation of French rule. Moreover, the long, difficult process of German unification was, in a sense, complete. "I have but one fatherland, and that is Germany," wrote Stein, in December, 1812; "the dynasties are indifferent to me in this moment of mighty development." A born and consistent liberal, he abhorred alike the tyranny of Napoleon, of Francis, of Alexander, and of his own king. But the Czar loved him, since a united Germany would be indifferent to those Polish provinces about which Prussia cared so much. Certain, therefore, of the Russian monarch, the great statesman determined to join Frederick William at Breslau, and urge on the work of mobilizing troops. Already, by Alexander's authority, he had induced the estates of eastern Prussia to sanction York's action, and to provide for arming the militia and reserves. Their ready compliance was the more significant because the German patriot had to some extent been out of touch with the general movement, having consistently and from principle refused to work through the popular League of Virtue, or any secret association whatsoever, and having become in his long exile a virtual stranger among the Prussians.
It is scarcely possible within moderate limits to give the faintest conception of Prussia at the opening of 1813. The popular hatred of Napoleon was defiant; the death of Queen Louisa had made the King sullen. There was a splendid army of a hundred and fifty thousand men, and the statesmen had managed so well that there were arms for every able-bodied male between seventeen and twenty-four. Of these scarcely any shirked; most volunteered, numbers paid, many did both. The women sold their hair and their gold ornaments, wearing iron trinkets as a stimulus to patriotism. In some cases the stout German maidens served the guns of their artillery, and one of them, disguised in a uniform, fought in the ranks until seriously wounded. The peasantry saw their homesteads destroyed with equanimity when told that it would weaken France. Körner sang and fought; Arndt sounded the trumpet of German unity; Lützow gathered his famous "black troop," and the universities were so fervid that Professor Steffens of Breslau issued the first call for war against Napoleon; a summons which swept the students of that university, as well as those of Berlin, Königsberg, Halle, Jena, and Göttingen, into the ranks. Wherever the Russians appeared they were hailed as deliverers, not merely in the Prussian army, but among the citizens.
This was the impelling power which Frederick William could not resist. Step by step he went forward, postponing his plans for getting back his Polish provinces and accepting instead contingent promises. By the treaty of Kalish, already mentioned in another connection, Old Prussia was definitely guaranteed to him, and he was to have a strip connecting it with Silesia, but the territorial aggrandizement of the kingdom was to await the conquest of North Germany, all of which except Hanover might under certain circumstances be incorporated under his crown. Both parties agreed to use their best endeavors to win Austria for the coalition, Russia promising likewise to seek a subsidy from Great Britain for her impoverished ally. Another stipulation was fulfilled when on March seventeenth Frederick William called out all the successive services of the national army and, summoning his people to emancipate their country from a foreign yoke, declared war. Two days later a ringing proclamation was issued which summoned to arms not merely Prussians but even the Germans of the Rhine Confederation. Hesitating princes were threatened with loss of their domains, and—what was a very pointed hint—Stein was made head of an administrative committee to erect new governments in all occupied lands. Kutusoff's last public act was to issue a manifesto declaring that those German princes who were untrue to the German cause were ripe for destruction by the power of public opinion and the might of righteous arms.
Such a situation was terrible for the King of Saxony. Russia already had his grand duchy, Prussia coveted his kingdom; in fact, the Czar was currently and correctly reported to have said that Saxony was better suited than Poland to round out Frederick William's dominions. Dresden welcomed the Russian and Prussian sovereigns because the citizens were smarting under the trials of military occupation. But when the King turned to Austria, and marching with his cavalry to Ratisbon virtually put his army at Metternich's disposal, the Saxons in general supported him. On April twentieth was signed a secret agreement between Saxony and Austria whereby the former in return for thirty thousand troops secured the integrity of her dominions. This was a triumph for the Austrian minister, but not the only one, because European diplomacy in general soon joined hands with the national uprisings. Napoleon, determining too late on the dismemberment of Prussia, made a last attempt to win back his old comrade in arms, and in February offered Bernadotte not merely Pomerania, but the lands between the Elbe and the Weser. But the crafty Gascon had studied the Prussian movement, and, putting aside the rather indefinite promises of Napoleon, preferred to join the coalition for the safer, easier prize of Norway. Great Britain abandoned her scheme for a Hanover expanded to stretch from the Scheldt to the Elbe, and, subsidizing both Sweden and Prussia, cemented the new coalition. This was a return to Pitt's policy of restoring the old balance of power in the old Europe. Bernadotte, promising thirty thousand men, transported twelve thousand across to Germany, and joined Bülow to cover Berlin. This force soon became the Russian right. Kutusoff died in April, and Barclay was ultimately restored to the chief command, having Blücher and a second Prussian army as part of the Russian center. Metternich saw that the coalition did not intend to conclude such a peace as would leave Napoleon the preponderance in Europe; to secure any peace at all he would be compelled, as Talleyrand said, to become king of France. Accordingly a new turn was quickly given to Austrian diplomacy, and the French emperor's definite offer of Silesia for a hundred thousand men was rejected. With the thirty thousand which Saxony had put at his disposal, and with such an army as Austria herself could raise, the minister felt sure that at some critical moment she would be able, as a well-armed mediator, to command a peace in terms restoring to his country the prestige of immemorial empire.[Back to Contents]
CHAPTER XXXIII.
The First Campaign in Saxony.[48]
Napoleon Over-hasty — Weakness of his Army — The Low Condition of the Allies — Napoleon's Plan Thwarted — The First Meeting a Surprise — The Battle of Lützen — An Ordinary Victory — The Mediation of Austria — Napoleon's Effort to Approach Russia — The Battle of Bautzen — Death of Duroc — Napoleon's Greatest Blunder.
The grim determination of Napoleon to rule or ruin can be read in his conduct at this time. This might almost be called foolhardy, inasmuch as when he arrived at Mainz, on April seventeenth, he knew little or nothing of the enemy's position, force, or plans. Desirous of anticipating his foe in opening the campaign, he spent a week of fruitless endeavor at that place, and then started for Erfurt to obtain a nearer view. The general aspect of his soldiers was not reassuring, for the young recruits were still raw and the immaturity of his preparations was evident in a lack of trained horses and riders. He had stolen three weeks from the enemy, but he had robbed himself of all that his indefatigable energy might have accomplished in that time. His recklessness in diplomacy, his refusal of all concessions, and his exaggerated cleverness in anticipating his opponents were to prove his undoing from the military point of view. The other elements of his failure were the political factor already mentioned.