Military Career of Napoleon the Great Part 14

It was with great difficulty that the Emperors of Russia and Austria rallied some fragments of their armies around them, and, terror-stricken, effected their retreat. With the conqueror there remained 20,000 prisoners, 40 pieces of artillery, and all the standards of the Imperial Guard of Russia. Such was the battle of Austerlitz, or as the French soldiers delighted to call it, "The Battle of the Emperors"; and thus did Napoleon's army fulfill its pledge to celebrate the anniversary of his coronation.

The fleeing Emperors halted at midnight for council, and decided to send a messenger to Napoleon at daylight with proposals for peace. The envoy was courteously received, and arrangements were at once made for a meeting of the Austrian and French Emperors at ten o'clock the next day.

They met about three leagues from Austerlitz, near a mill. Napoleon was the first to arrive on the ground; he at once ordered that two fires be made, and with a squadron of his Guard drawn up at a distance of about two hundred paces, awaited the arrival of Francis and his personal suite. When Francis came in sight, accompanied by several princes and generals, and an escort of Hungarian cavalry, Napoleon advanced to his carriage, and embraced him. The two Emperors, each with an attendant, then went to one of the fires near the entrance to a military hut, while the suites of the two sovereigns drew around the other fire, a few paces distant.

"Such are the palaces you have compelled me to occupy for these three months," said Napoleon, pointing to his modest quarters.

"You have made such good use of them," answered Francis, "that you ought not to complain of their accommodation."

The defeated Emperor is represented as having thrown the blame of the war upon the English. "They are a set of merchants," he said, "who would set the continent on fire, in order to secure themselves the commerce of the world."

When the two great leaders separated, after an interview lasting an hour, they again embraced, Napoleon saying in the hearing of the gentlemen of the suites,--Prince John of Lichtenstein, near Francis, and Marshal Berthier, near Napoleon--: "I agree to it; but your Majesty must not make war upon me again." "No, I promise you I will not," said Francis in reply; "I will keep my word"--a promise that was soon violated.

It was understood that the Emperor of Russia, although not present, was to abide by the agreement for an armistice. Alexander so a.s.sured Marshal Davoust, who had pursued him the night of the battle, and the Russians were allowed by Napoleon to retire unmolested to their own territory, on the royal word of Francis that Russia would adhere to his ally of Austria.

"The Russian army is surrounded," said Napoleon to Francis; "Not a man can escape me but I wish to oblige their Emperor, and will stop the march of my columns if your Majesty promises me that these Russians shall evacuate Germany, and the Austrian and Prussian parts of Poland."

"It is the purpose of the Emperor Alexander to do so," was the reply. No other engagement was required of the Czar than his word.

When the negotiations had been completed, and the Emperor Francis had departed, Napoleon walked hurriedly to and fro for a short time, and after a deep silence he was heard to say: "I have acted very unwisely. I could have followed up my victory, and taken up the whole of the Austrian and Russian armies. They are both entirely in my power.

But--let it be. It will at least cause some less tears to be shed."

Napoleon then went over the field of battle, ordering the wounded to be removed, when some of those unfortunates, forgetting their sufferings asked, "Is the victory quite certain?" The foot guards of the Emperor, not having been permitted to engage, actually wept and insisted upon doing something to identify them with the victory.

"Be satisfied," said Napoleon, "you are the reserve; it will be better if you have nothing to do today."

The commander of the artillery of the imperial Russian guard having lost his cannon, met the French Emperor and said, "Sire, order me to be shot, I have lost my cannon."

"Young man," replied Napoleon, "I esteem your grief; but one may be beaten by my army, and still retain some pretension to glory."

The brief campaign was followed by a treaty with the Emperor of Austria, signed December 15th, 1805, and another with Prussia, signed December 26th at Vienna. The victor of Austerlitz made his own terms in the negotiations. Austria gave up the last of her Italian usurpations to be annexed to the Kingdom of Italy, and the Tyrol to Bavaria, and yielded other stipulations which the conqueror demanded, but which were so moderate that they excited the wonder and admiration of all Europe.

Previous to Napoleon's departure for Schoenbrunn on the 27th of December he issued the following proclamation to his army:

"Soldiers! Peace between myself and the Emperor of Austria is signed.

You have, in this late season of the year, made two campaigns. You have performed everything I expected. I am setting out for my capital. I have promoted and distributed rewards to those who have most distinguished themselves. I will perform everything I have promised. You have seen that your Emperor has shared all your dangers and fatigues; you shall likewise behold him surrounded by all that grandeur and splendor which become the sovereign of the first nation in the world. In the beginning of the month of May, I will give a grand festival in Paris; you shall all be there. We will celebrate the memory of those who, in these campaign have fallen on the field of honor. The world shall see that we are ready to follow their example, and, if necessary, do more than we have done, against those who suffer themselves to be misled by the gold of the eternal enemy of the continent."

The news of the success of the army was received with the greatest enthusiasm by the majority of the French people.

Madame de Remusat in writing to her husband from Paris after the receipt of the news of the battle of Austerlitz, said: "You cannot imagine how excited everyone is. Praise of the Emperor is on everyone's lips; The most recalcitrant are obliged to lay down their arms, and to say with the Emperor of Russia, 'He is a man of destiny.'"

The campaign had consolidated the Empire of Napoleon, and when he returned to France he was received with exultation by the citizens, who tendered him fete after fete such as had not been witnessed at the capital for years. This was followed by the elevation of many of his kinsmen and heroes to thrones of pomp and power, coronation following coronation in rapid succession, princedoms and dukedoms being accompanied with grants of extensive estates in the countries which the French armies had conquered. From that moment, the fanaticism of military glory quite effaced the few remaining impressions made by the love of liberty.

VI

THE BATTLE OF JENA

The establishment of the Confederation of the Rhine, which was one of the great consequences of Austerlitz, rendered Napoleon in effect, sovereign of a large part of Germany. The kings of Bavaria and Wurtemberg, Prince Murat, the Grand Duke of Berg, and several other sovereigns of Germany, had leagued together in an alliance with the French Empire; and they const.i.tuted so formidable a power that the Emperor added a new t.i.tle to his name--the "Protector" of this confederacy. Thus Napoleon became sovereign of a princ.i.p.al part of Germany, and his allies were obliged to furnish, at his call, 60,000 armed men. The only method of counteracting the consolidation of French power over all Germany seemed to be that of creating another confederacy in the Northern circles, capable of balancing the league of the Rhine, and to be known as the Northern Alliance. This alliance Napoleon determined to suppress. The relations between France and Prussia continued in an unsettled state, Prussia refusing on the one hand to embrace the Confederation proposed by the cabinet of Berlin, and yet declining on the other to form part of the Rhenish league to which Bonaparte had frequently and urgently invited it.

A year had elapsed since the Emperor of Russia had signed the famous treaty of Potsdam, wheedling the pliant King of Prussia and his wife with all sorts of promises, including an offer on the part of England to pay the costs of another campaign against Napoleon and his Empire. For some weeks strong hopes were entertained of a satisfactory conclusion to peace overtures, but in the end the negotiations broke up, on the refusal of Napoleon to concede Malta to England, unless England would permit him to conquer Sicily from the unfortunate sovereign whose Italian kingdom had already been transferred to his brother Joseph.

The death of Fox, according to Napoleon himself, was the immediate cause of the failure of these negotiations. The Emperor maintained that had the great English statesman lived--he died on the 23rd of January, 1806--the negotiations would have been resumed and pushed to a successful close. When the Emperor of Russia went to Berlin he offered Prussia all the forces of his own great Empire. War-like preparations of every kind filled the Kingdom of Prussia during August and September 1806. Notwithstanding the protestations made almost daily by the Prussian government, through its minister at Paris, towards the middle of August her preparations a.s.sumed such a decided character that her real object could no longer be concealed. A friendly letter was even dispatched from the King of Prussia to Napoleon and the French amba.s.sador at Berlin was treated with due consideration but which was far from honest at heart.

On the 21st of September Napoleon wrote to the princes of the Confederation of the Rhine, requesting them to furnish their contingent troops for his army, and which was complied with, according to treaty.

On the 25th the Emperor quitted his imperial residence to place himself at the head of the army. While at the theatre at St. Cloud he received a dispatch from Murat containing an account of an attack made on French troops by some Prussian detachments. "I see they are determined to try us," he said to Count Rapp and orders were immediately given to prepare for departure to the frontier. He arrived at Mayence on the 28th and on the 1st of October pa.s.sed the Rhine.

On this same day the Prussian minister at Paris presented a note to Talleyrand, Minister of Foreign Affairs, an ultimatum in which Prussia demanded, among other things, that the formation of a Confederacy in the North of Germany should no longer be thwarted by French interference, to renounce the kingdoms of Holland and Italy, and that the French troops within the territories of the Rhenish league should recross the Rhine into France by the 8th of the same month of October,--a virtual declaration of war.

The conduct of Prussia in thus rushing into hostilities, without waiting for the advance of her allies, the Russians, was as rash as her holding back from Austria during the campaign of Austerlitz was cowardly.

Napoleon had not patience to finish reading this doc.u.ment, conveying those demands, but threw it down with contempt.

Napoleon made answer to the Prussian note from his headquarters at Bamberg on October 6th. He addressed a proclamation to his army to inform them of the enemy they were about to fight. "Soldiers," said he, "the war-cry has been heard at Berlin; for two months our provocation has been increased each day ... Let us march--let the Prussian army meet with the same fate it evinced fourteen years ago on the plains of Champagne." Thiers, the eminent historian, says in his "History of the Consulate and the Empire of France under Napoleon": "It was the height of imprudence on the part of Prussia to enter into a contest with Napoleon at a moment when the French army, returning from Austerlitz, was still in the heart of Germany, and more capable of acting than any army ever was."

It was evident that Napoleon did not feel the least concern about the approaching war. He wrote to his brothers in Naples and in Holland at this time a.s.suring them that the present struggle would be terminated more speedily than the preceding. He called upon them to observe in what manner a German sovereign still dared to insult the soldiers of Austerlitz. Napoleon was then on the German side of the Rhine in person.

The Prussian Council had directed their army to advance towards the French instead of lying on their own frontier, and the army accordingly invaded the Saxon provinces. The Elector of Saxony was compelled to accept the alliance which the cabinet of Berlin urged on him, and reluctantly joined his troops with those of Prussia.

At Bamberg, on the same day he issued his proclamation to his soldiers, Napoleon said to Berthier: "Marshal, we have a rendezvous of honor appointed for the 8th; a Frenchman never fails to keep them; but as we are told that a beautiful queen wishes to be a witness of the fight, let us be courteous, and march, without sleeping, for Saxony." Napoleon alluded to the Queen of Prussia who was with the Prussian army, dressed as an Amazon, wearing the uniform of her regiment of dragoons, "writing twenty letters a day" said the first bulletin sent to Paris, "to fan the flame in all parts."

No sooner did Napoleon learn that the Prussians had advanced into the heart of Saxony than he formed his plan of campaign: and they, persisting in their advance, and taking up a position on the Saale, afforded him the means of repeating at their expense, the very manoeuvres which had ruined the Austrians in the preceding campaign. The French commander at once perceived that the Prussian army was extended upon too wide a line, thus enabling him the better to destroy it in detail. He also discovered that the enemy had all its princ.i.p.al stores and magazines at Naumburg to the rearward, and he resolved to commence operations by an attempt to turn the flank and seize the magazines ere the main body of the Prussians, lying at Weimar, could be aware of his movement. The Emperor quitted Bamberg on the 8th, at three in the morning, and arrived on the same day at Cronach. Every corps of the army was then in motion.

The French came forward in three great divisions; the corps of Ney and Soult in the direction of Hof; Davoust, Murat and Bernadotte towards Saalburg and Schleiz, and Lannes and Augereau upon Coburg and Saalfeld.

These last generals were opposed at Saalfeld with much firmness by Prince Louis of Prussia, cousin-german to the king, who imprudently abandoned the bridge over the Saale,--which he might have defended with success,--and came out into the open plain where his troops were overpowered by the French. Fighting hand to hand with a subaltern who ran up to him and cried, "Surrender, General!" the brave young officer in brilliant uniform and adorned with all his decorations, replied with a sabre cut, and was immediately struck down by a mortal thrust in the face with a sabre, which occasioned it to be remarked in the second bulletin that "the first blow of the war had killed one of its authors."

Prince Frederick Christian Louis of Prussia had been very impatient to commence the war and urged and hastened hostilities. He was, besides, a man of great courage and talent. Rapp in his "Memoirs" says: "Napoleon, who did not like this petulant eagerness, was conversing with us one evening respecting the generals of the enemy's army. Some one present happened to mention Prince Louis. 'As for him' said he, 'I foretell that he will be killed in this campaign.' Who could have thought the prediction would so soon have been fulfilled?"

The Prussians fled, leaving the bridge which gave the French access to the country behind the Saale. The flank of the Prussian position was turned; the French army pa.s.sed entirely around them, and Napoleon seized and blew up the magazines at Naumburg. The explosion announced to the King of Prussia and his generalissimo, the Duke of Brunswick, that Napoleon was in their rear. From this moment the Prussians were isolated and completely cut off from all their resources--as completely as the army of Mack was at Ulm the year before. The engagement at Schleiz contributed to hasten the retreat of the enemy which threw away upon the roads a great number of muskets and hats, and leaving in the hands of the French 400 prisoners and as many killed or wounded. But the moral effect of the action was greater than the material, the Prussians learning for the first time the sort of soldiers they had to deal with.

Napoleon was extremely pleased with this first action at Schleiz, as it proved how little the Prussian cavalry, though excellently mounted and very skillful in the management of its horses, was to be feared by his solid infantry and bold horse soldiers.

The Duke of Brunswick who flattered himself that the French could not debouch, hastily endeavored to concentrate his forces for the purpose of cutting his way back again to the frontier which he had so rashly abandoned. Napoleon, meanwhile, had posted his divisions so as to watch the chief pa.s.sages of the Saale, and awaited the coming of his outwitted opponent.

The manifesto of Frederick William had arrived at the capital a day or two after Napoleon had quitted Paris for the camp, and it was now that he found time to answer it by calling on his own marshals to witness how "The French army has done as it was bidden; this is the 8th of October, and we have evacuated the territories of the Confederation of the Rhine!"

To the King of Prussia Napoleon wrote: "Believe me, my strength is such that your forces cannot long balance the victory. But wherefore shed so much blood? To what purpose? I will hold to your Majesty the same language I held to the Emperor Alexander two days before the battle of Austerlitz: 'Why should we make our subjects slay each other? I do not prize a victory which is purchased by the lives of so many of my children.' If I were just commencing my military career, and if I had any reason to fear the chances of war, this language would be wholly misplaced. Sire, your Majesty will be vanquished; you will have compromised the repose of your life, the existence of your subjects, without the shadow of a pretext. At present you are uninjured, and may treat with me in a manner conformable with your rank; before a month has pa.s.sed you will treat, but in a different position."

On learning of the fall of Naumburg, the Prussian king knew full well the imminent danger of his position. His army was at once set in motion in two great ma.s.ses, one commanded by himself, advancing towards Naumburg, the other attempting in like manner to force its pa.s.sage through the French line in the neighborhood of Jena. The king's march was arrested at Auerstadt by Davoust, who, after a severely contested action, at length repelled the a.s.sailant. Napoleon himself, meanwhile, was engaged with the other great body of the Prussians.

Arriving on the evening of the 13th of October at Jena, he at once perceived that the enemy was ready to attempt the advance next morning, while his own heavy train was still thirty-six hours' march in his rear. "But," as the Emperor said in his bulletin of the battle fought next day, "there are moments in war when no consideration can balance the advantage of being before-hand with the enemy, and of attacking first."

[Ill.u.s.tration: From a Drawing by Martinet

CAPITULATION OF GENERAL MACK AT ULM]

On the heights from Jena to Landgrafenberg he placed Gazan's division on the left, in the right Souchet's division, and in the centre and rear the foot guard. He made the latter encamp in a square of 4000 men, and in the centre of this square overlooking the plains below, he established his bivouac. Ever since that time the people have called that height "Napoleonsberg," marking by a heap of rough stones the spot where the Emperor had spent part of that memorable night.

The Emperor labored hard, torch in hand, directing and encouraging his soldiery to cut a road through a ledge of rocks and draw up by that means such light guns as he had at command to a position on a lofty plateau in front of Jena. It was a most formidable position, and one that was destined to prove more decisive than that of a much larger one might have been under other circ.u.mstances. Napoleon spent the entire night among the men, helped drag the guns to the cliffs, and offering rewards for every piece of cannon that should be placed on the heights.

He reminded his followers that the Prussians were about to fight--not for honor, but for their lives.