Buch lesen: «Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume III», Seite 17

The position of the two armies may be easily described. That of Russia occupied a space of uneven ground, about two miles in length and a mile in depth, with the village of Serpallen on their left; in the front of their army lay the town of Preuss-Eylau, situated in a hollow, and in possession of the French. It was watched by a Russian division; which, to protect the Russian centre from being broken by an attack from that quarter, was strongly reinforced, though by doing so the right wing was considerably weakened. This was thought of the less consequence, that L'Estocq, with his division of Prussians, was hourly expected to join the Russians on that point. The French occupied Eylau with their left, while their centre and right lay parallel to the Russians, upon a chain of heights which commanded in a great measure the ground possessed by the enemy. They also expected to be reinforced by the division of Ney, which had not come up, and which was destined to form on the extreme left.

The space betwixt the hostile armies was open and flat, and intersected with frozen lakes. They might trace each other's position by the pale glimmer of the watch-lights upon the snow. The difference of numerical force was considerably to the advantage of the French. Sir Robert Wilson rates them at 90,000 men, opposed to 60,000 only; but the disproportion is probably considerably over-rated.²⁶⁸

The eventful action commenced with daybreak on the 8th of February. Two strong columns of the French advanced, with the purpose of turning the right, and storming the centre, of the Russians, at one and the same time. But they were driven back in great disorder by the heavy and sustained fire of the Russian artillery. An attack on the Russian left was equally unsuccessful. The Russian infantry stood like stone ramparts – they repulsed the enemy – their cavalry came to their support, pursued the retiring assailants, and took standards and eagles. About mid-day, a heavy storm of snow began to fall, which the wind drove right in the face of the Russians, and which added to the obscurity caused by the smoke of the burning village of Serpallen, that rolled along the line.

Under cover of the darkness, six columns of the French advanced with artillery and cavalry, and were close on the Russian position ere they were opposed. Bennigsen, at the head of his staff, brought up the reserves in person, who, uniting with the first line, bore the French back at the point of the bayonet. Their columns, partly broken, were driven again to their own position, where they rallied with difficulty. A French regiment of cuirassiers, which, during this part of the action, had gained an interval in the Russian army, were charged by the Cossacks, and found their defensive armour no protection against the lance. They were all slain except eighteen.²⁶⁹

At the moment when victory appeared to declare for the Russians, it was on the point of being wrested from them. Davoust's division had been manœuvring since the beginning of the action to turn the left, and gain the rear, of the Russian line. They now made their appearance on the field of battle with such sudden effect, that Serpallen was lost, the Russian left wing, and a part of their centre, were thrown into disorder, and forced to retire and change their front, so as to form almost at right angles with the right, and that part of the centre which retained their original position.

At this crisis, and while the French were gaining ground on the rear of the Russians, L'Estocq, so long expected, appeared in his turn suddenly on the field, and, passing the left of the French, and the right of the Russians, pushed down in three columns to redeem the battle on the Russian centre and rear. The Prussians, under that loyal and gallant leader, regained in this bloody field their ancient military reputation. They never fired till within a few paces of the enemy, and then used the bayonet with readiness and courage. They redeemed the ground which the Russians had lost, and drove back in their turn the troops of Davoust and Bernadotte, who had been lately victorious.

Ney, in the meanwhile, appeared on the field, and occupied Schloditten, a village on the road to Königsberg. As this endangered the communication of the Russians with that town, it was thought necessary to carry it by storm – a gallant resolution, which was successfully executed.²⁷⁰ This was the last act of the bloody day. It was ten o'clock at night, and the combat was ended.²⁷¹

Fifty thousand men perished in this dreadful battle – the best contested in which Buonaparte had yet engaged, and by far the most unsuccessful. He retired to the heights from which he had advanced in the morning, without having gained one point for which he had struggled, and after having suffered a loss considerably greater than that which he had inflicted on the enemy. But the condition of the Russian army was also extremely calamitous. Their generals held a council of war upon the field of battle, and without dismounting from their horses. The general sentiment which prevailed among them was, a desire to renew the battle on the next day, at all hazards. Tolstoy undertook to move forward on the French lines – L'Estocq urged the same counsel. They offered to pledge their lives, that, would Bennigsen advance, Napoleon must necessarily retire; and they urged the moral effect which would be produced, not on their army only, but on Germany and on Europe, by such an admission of weakness on the part of him who had never advanced but to victory. But Bennigsen conceived that the circumstances of his army did not permit him to encounter the hazard of being cut off from Königsberg, and endangering the person of the King of Prussia; or that of risking a second general action, with an army diminished by at least 20,000 killed and wounded, short of ammunition, and totally deprived of provisions. The Russians accordingly commenced their retreat on Königsberg that very night. The division of Count Ostermann did not move till the next morning, when it traversed the field in front of Preuss-Eylau, without the slightest interruption from the French, who still occupied the town.²⁷²

The battle of Preuss-Eylau was claimed as a victory by both parties, though it was very far from being decided in favour of either. Bennigsen had it to boast, that he had repelled the attacks of Buonaparte along the whole of his line, and that the fighting terminated unfavourably to the French. He could also exhibit the unusual spectacle of twelve imperial eagles of France, taken in one action. For many days after the battle, also, the Cossacks continued to scour the country, and bring into Königsberg great numbers of French prisoners. On the other hand, the subsequent retreat of the Russians was interpreted by the French into an acknowledgment of weakness; and they appealed to their own possession of the field of battle, with the dead and wounded, as the usual testimonials of victory.

But there were two remarkable circumstances by which Napoleon virtually acknowledged that he had received an unusual check. On the 13th February, four days after the battle, a message was despatched to the King of Prussia by Buonaparte, proposing an armistice, on grounds far more favourable to the Prince than those Frederick William might have been disposed to accept, or which Buonaparte would have been inclined to grant, after the battle of Jena. It was even intimated, that in case of agreeing to make a separate peace, the Prussian King might obtain from the French Emperor the restoration of his whole dominions. True to his ally the Emperor of Russia, Frederick William, even in the extremity of his distress, refused to accede to any save a general peace. The proposal of an armistice was also peremptorily refused, and the ground on which it was offered was construed to indicate Buonaparte's conscious weakness.

Another decisive proof of the loss which Napoleon had sustained in the battle of Preuss-Eylau, was his inactivity after the battle. For eight days he remained without making any movement, excepting by means of his cavalry, which were generally worsted, and on the 19th February he evacuated the place, and prepared himself to retreat upon the Vistula, instead of driving the Russians, as he had threatened, behind the Pregel. Various actions took place, during his retreat, with different fortunes, but the Russian Cossacks and light troops succeeded in making numbers of prisoners, and collecting much spoil.

DANTZIC.

The operations of Napoleon, when he had again retired to the line of the Vistula, intimated caution, and the sense of a difficult task before him. He appeared to feel, that the advance into Poland had been premature, while Dantzic remained in the hands of the Prussians, from whence the most alarming operations might take place in his rear, should he again advance to the Vistula without subduing it. The siege of Dantzic was therefore to be formed without delay. The place was defended by General Kalkreuth to the last extremity. After many unsuccessful attempts to relieve it, Dantzic finally surrendered in the end of May 1807, after trenches had been opened before it for fifty-two days.²⁷³ If the season of the year had admitted, a British expedition to Dantzic might, if ably conducted, have operated in the rear of the Emperor Napoleon the relief of Prussia, and perhaps effected the liberation of Europe.

The utmost care was also taken to supply the loss which Napoleon's armies had sustained in these hard-fought campaigns. He raised the siege of Colberg, drew the greater part of his forces out of Silesia, ordered a new levy in Switzerland, urged the march of bodies of troops from Italy, and, to complete his means, demanded a new conscription of the year 1808, which was instantly complied with by the Senate as a matter of course. At length, as summer approached, the surrender of Dantzic enabled him to unite the besieging division, twenty-five thousand strong, to his main army, and to prepare to resume offensive operations. A large levy of Poles was made at the same time; and they, with other light troops of the French, were employed in making strong reconnoissances, with various fortune, but never without the exchange of hard blows. It became evident to all Europe, that whatever might be the end of this bloody conflict, the French Emperor was contending with a general and troops, against whom it was impossible to gain those overpowering and irresistible advantages, which characterised his campaigns in Italy and Germany. The bulletins, it is true, announced new successes from day to day; but as the geographical advance upon the Polish territory was by no means in proportion to the advantages claimed, it was plain that Napoleon was as often engaged in parrying as in pushing, in repairing losses as in improving victories. The Russian generals composed plans with skill, and executed them with activity and spirit, for cutting off separate divisions, and disturbing the French communications.

The Russian army had received reinforcements; but they were deficient in numerical amount, and only made up their strength, at the utmost, to their original computation of 90,000 men. This proved unpardonable negligence in the Russian Government, considering the ease with which men can there be levied to any extent by the mere will of the Emperor, and the vital importance of the war which they were now waging. It is said, however, that the poverty of the Russian Administration was the cause of this failure to recruit their forces; and that the British being applied to, to negotiate a loan of six millions, and advance one million to account, had declined the transaction, and thereby given great offence to the Emperor Alexander.

Napoleon, so much more remote from his own territories, had already, by exertions unparalleled in the history of Europe, assembled two hundred and eighty thousand men between the Vistula and Memel, including the garrison of Dantzic. With such unequal forces the war recommenced.

The Russians were the assailants, making a combined movement on Ney's division, which was stationed at Gutstadt, and in the vicinity. They pursued him as far as Deppen, where there was some fighting; but upon the 8th of June, Napoleon advanced in person to extricate his marshal, and Bennigsen was obliged to retreat in his turn. He was hardly pressed on the rear by the Grand Army of France. But even in this moment of peril, Platow, with his Cossacks, made a charge, or, in their phrase, a hourra, upon the French, with such success, that they not only dispersed the skirmishers of the French vanguard, and the advanced troops destined to support them, but compelled the infantry to form squares, endangered the personal safety of Napoleon, and occupied the attention of the whole French cavalry, who bore down on them at full speed. Musketry and artillery were all turned on them at once, but to little or no purpose; for, having once gained the purpose of checking the advance, which was all they aimed at, the cloud of Cossacks dispersed over the field, like mist before the sun, and united behind the battalions whom their demonstration had protected.

By this means Platow and his followers had got before the retreating division of the Russian army under Bagration, which they were expected to support, and had reached first a bridge over the Aller. The Cossacks were alarmed by the immense display of force demonstrated against them, and showed a disposition to throw themselves confusedly on the bridge, which must certainly have been attended with the most disastrous consequences to the rear-guard, who would thus have been impeded in their retreat by the very troops appointed to support them. The courage and devotion of Platow prevented that great misfortune. He threw himself from his horse. "Let the Cossack that is base enough," he exclaimed, "desert his Hettman!" The children of the wilderness halted around him, and he disposed them in perfect order to protect the retreat of Bagration and the rear-guard, and afterwards achieved his own retreat with trifling loss.²⁷⁴

ACTION OF HEILSBERG.

The Russian army fell back upon Heilsberg, and there concentrating their forces made a most desperate stand. A very hard-fought action [10th June] here took place. The Russians, overpowered by superior numbers, and forced from the level ground, continued to defend with fury their position on the heights, which the French made equally strenuous efforts to carry by assault. The combat was repeatedly renewed, with cavalry, infantry, and artillery, but without the fiery valour of the assailants making any effectual impression on the iron ranks of the Russians.²⁷⁵ The battle continued, till the approach of midnight, upon terms of equality; and when the morning dawned, the space of ground between the position of the Russians and that of the French, was not merely strewed, but literally sheeted over, with the bodies of the dead and wounded.²⁷⁶ The Russians retired unmolested after the battle of Heilsberg, and crossing the river Aller, placed that barrier betwixt them and the army of Buonaparte, which, though it had suffered great losses, had, in consequence of the superiority of numbers, been less affected by them than the Russian forces. In the condition of Bennigsen's army, it was his obvious policy to protract the war, especially as reinforcements, to the number of thirty thousand men, were approaching the frontier from the interior of the empire. It was probably with this view that he kept his army on the right bank of the Aller, with the exception of a few bodies of cavalry, for the sake of observation and intelligence.

On the 13th, the Russian army reached Friedland, a considerable town on the west side of the Aller, communicating with the eastern, or right bank of the river, by a long wooden bridge. It was the object of Napoleon to induce the Russian general to pass by this narrow bridge to the left bank, and then to decoy him into a general action, in a position where the difficulty of defiling through the town, and over the bridge, must render retreat almost impossible. For this purpose he showed such a proportion only of his forces, as induced General Bennigsen to believe that the French troops on the western side of the Aller consisted only of Oudinot's division, which had been severely handled in the battle of Heilsberg, and which he now hoped altogether to destroy. Under this deception he ordered a Russian division to pass the bridge, defile through the town, and march to the assault. The French took care to offer no such resistance as should intimate their real strength. Bennigsen was thus led to reinforce this division with another – the battle thickened, and the Russian general at length transported all his army, one division excepted, to the left bank of the Aller, by means of the wooden bridge and three pontoons, and arrayed them in front of the town of Friedland, to overpower, as he supposed, the crippled division of the French, to which alone he believed himself opposed.²⁷⁷

BATTLE OF FRIEDLAND.

But no sooner had he taken this irretrievable step than the mask was dropped. The French skirmishers advanced in force; heavy columns of infantry began to show themselves; batteries of cannon were got into position; and all circumstances concurred, with the report of prisoners, to assure Bennigsen, that he, with his enfeebled forces, was in presence of the grand French army. His position, a sort of plain, surrounded by woods and broken ground, was difficult to defend; with the town and a large river in his rear, it was dangerous to attempt a retreat, and to advance was prevented by the inequality of his force. Bennigsen now became anxious to maintain his communication with Wehlau, a town on the Pregel, which was the original point of retreat, and where he hoped to join with the Prussians under General L'Estocq. If the enemy should seize the bridge at Allerberg, some miles lower down the Aller than Friedland, this plan would become impossible, and he found himself therefore obliged to diminish his forces, by detaching six thousand men to defend that point. With the remainder of his force he resolved to maintain his present position till night.

The French advanced to the attack about ten o'clock. The broken and wooded country which they occupied, enabled them to maintain and renew their efforts at pleasure, while the Russians, in their exposed situation, could not make the slightest movement without being observed. Yet they fought with such obstinate valour, that at noon the French seemed sickening of the contest, and about to retire. But this was only a feint, to repose such of their forces as had been engaged, and to bring up reinforcements. The cannonade continued till about half past four, when Buonaparte brought up his full force in person, for the purpose of one of those desperate and generally irresistible efforts to which he was wont to trust the decision of a doubtful day. Columns of enormous power, and extensive depth, appeared partially visible among the interstices of the wooded country, and, seen from the town of Friedland, the hapless Russian army looked as if surrounded by a deep semicircle of glittering steel. The attack upon all the line, with cavalry, infantry, and artillery, was general and simultaneous, the French advancing with shouts of assured victory; while the Russians, weakened by the loss of at least twelve thousand killed and wounded, were obliged to attempt that most dispiriting and dangerous of movements – a retreat through encumbered defiles, in front of a superior enemy. The principal attack was on the left wing, where the Russian position was at length forced. The troops which composed it streamed into the town, and crowded the bridge and pontoons; the enemy thundered on their rear, and without the valour of Alexander's Imperial Guard, the Russians would have been utterly destroyed. These brave soldiers charged with the bayonet the corps of Ney, who led the French vanguard, disordered his column, and, though they were overpowered by numbers, prevented the total ruin of the left wing.

Meanwhile, the bridge and pontoons were set on fire, to prevent the French, who had forced their way into the town, from taking possession of them. The smoke rolling over the combatants, increased the horror and confusion of the scene; yet a considerable part of the Russian infantry escaped through a ford close by the town, which was discovered in the moment of defeat. The Russian centre and right, who remained on the west bank of the Aller, effected a retreat by a circuitous route, leaving on the right the town of Friedland, with its burning bridges, no longer practicable for friend or foe, and passing the Aller by a ford considerably farther down the river. This also was found out in the very moment of extremity – was deep and dangerous, took the infantry up to the breast, and destroyed what ammunition was left in the tumbrils.

Thus were the Russians once more united on the right bank of the Aller, and enabled to prosecute their march towards Wehlau. Amid the calamities of defeat, they had saved all their cannon except seventeen, and preserved their baggage. Indeed, the stubborn character of their defence seems to have paralysed the energies of the victor, who, after carrying the Russian position, showed little of that activity in improving his success, which usually characterised him upon such occasions. He pushed no troops over the Aller in pursuit of the retreating enemy, but suffered Bennigsen to rally his broken troops without interruption. Neither, when in possession of Friedland, did he detach any force down the left bank, to act upon the flank of the Russian centre and right, and cut them off from the river. In short, the battle of Friedland, according to the expression of a French general, was a battle gained, but a victory lost.²⁷⁸

Yet the most important consequences resulted from the action, though the French success had been but partially improved. Königsberg,²⁷⁹ which had been so long the refuge of the King of Prussia, was evacuated by his forces, as it became plain his Russian auxiliaries could no longer maintain the war in Poland.²⁸⁰ Bennigsen retreated to Tilsit, towards the Russian frontiers. But the moral consequences of the defeat were of far greater consequence than could have been either the capture of guns and prisoners, or the acquisition of territory. It had the effect, evidently desired by Napoleon, of disposing the Emperor Alexander to peace. The former could not but feel that he was engaged with a more obstinate enemy in Russia, than any he had yet encountered. After so many bloody battles, he was scarce arrived on the frontiers of an immense empire, boundless in its extent, and almost inexhaustible in resources; while the French, after suffering extremely in defeating an army that was merely auxiliary, could scarce be supposed capable of undertaking a scheme of invasion so gigantic, as that of plunging into the vast regions of Muscovy.

Such an enterprise would have been peculiarly hazardous in the situation in which the French Emperor now stood. The English expedition to the Baltic was daily expected. Gustavus was in Swedish Pomerania, at the head of a considerable army which had raised the siege of Stralsund. A spirit of resistance was awakening in Prussia, where the resolute conduct of Blucher had admirers and imitators, and the nation seemed to be reviving from the consternation inflicted by the defeat of Jena. The celebrated Schill, a partisan of great courage and address, had gained many advantages, and was not unlikely, in a nation bred to arms, to acquire the command of a numerous body of men. Hesse, Hanover, Brunswick, and the other provinces of Germany, deprived of their ancient princes, and subjected to heavy exactions by the conquerors, were ripe for insurrection. All these dangers were of a nature from which little could be apprehended, while the Grand Army was at a moderate distance; but were it to advance into Russia, especially were it to meet with a check there, these sparks of fire, left in the rear, might be expected to kindle a dreadful conflagration.

Moved by such considerations, Napoleon had fully kept open the door for reconciliation betwixt the Czar and himself, abstaining from all those personal reflections against him, which he usually showered upon those who thwarted his projects, and intimating more than once, by different modes of communication, that a peace, which should enable Russia and France to divide the world betwixt them, should be placed within Alexander's reach so soon as he was disposed to accept it.

ARMISTICE.

The time was now arrived when the Emperor of Russia was disposed to listen to terms of accommodation with France. He had been for some time dissatisfied with his allies. Against Frederick William, indeed, nothing could be objected, save his bad fortune; but what is it that so soon deprives us of our friends as a constant train of bad luck, rendering us always a burden more than an aid to them? The King of Sweden was a feeble ally at best, and had become so unpopular with his subjects, that his dethronement was anticipated; and it was probably remembered, that the Swedish province of Finland extended so near to St. Petersburgh, as to be a desirable acquisition, which, in the course of a treaty with Buonaparte, might be easily attained.

The principal ally of the Czar had been Britain. But he was displeased, as we have already noticed, with the economy of the English Cabinet, who had declined, in his instance, the loans and subsidies, of which they used to be liberal to allies of far less importance. A subsidy of about eighty thousand pounds, was all which he had been able to extract from them. England had, indeed, sent an army into the north to join the Swedes, in forming the siege of Stralsund; but this was too distant an operation to produce any effect upon the Polish campaign. Alexander was also affected by the extreme sufferings of his subjects. His army had been to him, as to most young sovereigns, a particular object of attention; and he was justly proud of his noble regiments of Guards, which, maltreated as they had been in the desperate actions of which we have given some account, remained scarce the shadow of themselves, in numbers and appearance. His fame, moreover, suffered little in withdrawing from a contest in which he was engaged as an auxiliary only; and Alexander was no doubt made to comprehend, that he might do more in behalf of the King of Prussia, his ally, by negotiation, than by continuation of the war. The influence of Napoleon's name, and the extraordinary splendour of his talents and his exploits, must also have had an effect upon the youthful imagination of the Russian Emperor. He might be allowed to feel pride (high as his own situation was) that the Destined Victor, who had subdued so many princes, was willing to acknowledge an equality in his case; and he might not yet be so much aware of the nature of ambition, as to know that it holds the world as inadequate to maintain two co-ordinate sovereigns.

The Russian Emperor's wish of an armistice was first hinted at by Bennigsen, on the 21st of June, was ratified on the 23d of the same month, and was soon afterwards followed, not only by peace with Russia and Prussia, on a basis which seemed to preclude the possibility of future misunderstanding, but by the formation of a personal intimacy and friendship between Napoleon and the only sovereign in Europe, who had the power necessary to treat with him on an equal footing.

The negotiation for this important pacification was not conducted in the usual style of diplomacy, but in that which Napoleon had repeatedly shown a desire to substitute for the conferences of inferior agents, by the intervention, namely, of the high-contracting parties in person.

The armistice was no sooner agreed upon, than preparations were made for a personal interview betwixt the two Emperors.²⁸¹ It took place upon a raft prepared for the purpose, and moored in the midst of the river Niemen, which bore an immense tent or pavilion. At half-past nine, 25th June, 1807, the two Emperors, in the midst of thousands of spectators, embarked at the same moment from the opposite banks of the river. Buonaparte was attended by Murat, Berthier, Bessières, Duroc, and Caulaincourt; Alexander, by his brother the Archduke Constantine, Generals Bennigsen and Ouwarrow, with the Count de Lieven, one of his aides-de-camp. Arriving on the raft, they disembarked and embraced, amid the shouts and acclamations of both armies, and entering the pavilion which had been prepared, held a private conference of two hours. Their officers, who remained at a distance during the interview, were then reciprocally introduced, and the fullest good understanding seemed to be established between the sovereigns, who had at their disposal so great a portion of the universe.²⁸² It is not to be doubted, that on this momentous occasion Napoleon exerted all those personal powers of attraction, which, exercised on the part of one otherwise so distinguished, rarely failed to acquire the good-will of all with whom he had intercourse, when he was disposed to employ them.²⁸³ He possessed also, in an eminent degree, the sort of eloquence which can make the worse appear the better reason, and which, turning into ridicule the arguments derived from general principles of morality or honesty, which he was accustomed to term idiosyncrasy, makes all reasoning rest upon existing circumstances. Thus, all the maxims of truth and honour might be plausibly parried by those arising out of immediate convenience; and the direct interest, or what seemed the direct interest, of the party whom he wished to gain over, was put in immediate opposition to the dictates of moral sentiment, and of princely virtue. In this manner he might plausibly represent, in many points, that the weal of Alexander's empire might require him to strain some of the maxims of truth and justice, and to do a little wrong in order to attain a great national advantage.