ments. Without halting one day before the forces of the enemy, the French troops had marched from the Rhine to the Vistula; three hundred and fifty standards, four thousand pieces of cannon, six first-rate fortresses, and eighty thousand prisoners, had been taken in less than seven weeks: and of a noble array of a hundred and twenty thousand men, who were so lately mustered on the banks of the Saale, not more than fifteen thousand could be rallied to follow the fortunes of the Prussian king.

CHAPTER XXV.

CAMPAIGN OF EYLAU.

ALTHOUGH the campaign of Jena had nearly destroyed the power of Prussia, Russia was yet untouched, and while her formidable legions were in the field, the war was very far from being terminated. Napoleon felt this, as the armies of the two Empires approached the Vistula at a season of the year when, in ordinary contests, the soldier's only care is to protect himself against the rigor of the elements. The efficient force of the French, who were concentrated on the destined theatre of war early in December, amounted to one hundred thousand men; while the allied army of Russia and Prussia, owing to the expedition of a large detachment to the Turkish dominions, could not be estimated at more than seventy-five thousand. Field-marshal Kamenskoi, who had the command in-chief of this force, was a veteran-of the school of Suwarrow, nearly eighty years of age, and little qualified to enter the lists with Napoleon; but the ability of Benningsen and Buxhowden, the two next in command, promised, in part, to atone for the old marshal's deficiencies.

The cabinet of St. Petersburg had foreseen that the rapidity of Napoleon's movements would give the French a numerical superiority on the Vistula, unless Russia could receive some material aid in bringing forward her troops; and they therefore made early application to Great Britain, for a portion of those subsidies which she had so liberally granted on former occasions, to the powers who combated the common enemy of European independence; and, considering that the whole weight of the contest had now fallen on Russia, they solicited, and not without reason, a loan of six millions sterling. The answer to this application, proved too clearly that the spirit of Pitt no longer directed the British councils. The subsidy was declined on the part of the government, but the minis. ters proposed that a loan should be contracted in England, for the service of Russia, and that, for the security of the lenders, the duties on British merchandise then levied in the Russian ports, should be repealed, and the same duties, in lieu thereof, levied in the British ports and applied to the payment of the interest on the loan. This strange proposal, equivalent to a declaration of want of confidence both in the integrity and solvency of the Russian government, was of course rejected, and, to the lasting discredit of England, Russia was left to contend unaided with the power of France.

The advanced posts of the allied army had reached the Vistula, though

not in great force, before the French troops came up; but on the arrival of the latter, the allies fell back to Pultusk, and Davoust occupied Warsaw on the 30th of November. When, however, the second Russian army, under Buxhowden, approached Pultusk, Kamenskoi resolved on a forward movement. Head-quarters were advanced to Nasielsk, and the four divisions of Benningsen's corps took post between the Ukra, the Bug, and the Narew; while Buxhowden's divisions, as they successively arived, were stationed between Golymin and Makow; and Lestocq, on the xtreme right, encamped near the banks of the Drewentz almost under the walls of Thorn. The object of this general advance was to compel the French to withdraw entirely from the right bank of the Vistula, that the river might interpose between the winter-quarters of the two armies.

When Napoleon heard of this forward movement, he hastened to Warsaw, where he arrived on the 18th of December, and was welcomed as a deliverer by the inhabitants. The nobility flocked into the capital from all quarters, the peasantry assembled and demanded arms, the national dress was generally resumed, several regiments of horse were raised, and before the close of the campaign, no less than thirty thousand men were enrolled in disciplined regiments from the Prussian provinces of Poland. But this universal enthusiasm did not lead Napoleon to forget his own policy, which was to encourage this revolt in Prussian Poland only, lest by extending it to the Austrian portion of that ancient kingdom, he might rouse the cabinet of Vienna from its neutrality. In his decree, therefore, by which he established a provisional government in Warsaw, he was careful to say, that such government would continue only "until the fate of Prussian Poland was determined by a general peace;" and this, in connexion with his other measures, showed to the reflecting and prudent, that while he was resolved to make the utmost use of Polish coöperation in pursuing his own plans of aggrandizement, he would. abandon this unfortunate people to their own resources, the moment he ceased to need their aid, or was unable to render it available to himself. Some skirmishes had already taken place between detachments of the two armies, which ended in favor of the Russians; but when Napoleon took command in person, he gave orders for more serious operations. On the 23rd of December, he directed Davoust to force the passage of the Ukra, which had hitherto bounded the French lines; and, after a severe action of fourteen hours, the passage was effected, with a loss to each army of one thousand men. The allies fell back toward Pultusk, and being pursued, another conflict took place in front of Nasielsk, between General Rapp and the Russians under Count Tolstoy, in which the latter were worsted, but not without inflicting a severe loss on the victors; in this affair, an aid-de-camp of Alexander was made prisoner by the French, and Count Segur, attached to Napoleon's household, fell into the hands of the Russians. On the same day, Augereau, after fighting from morning until sunset at Lochoczyn, forced a Russian division to retire; so that, although no decisive advantage had yet been gained, the whole allied army were now in full retreat upon diverging lines, and every moment the several corps were separating farther from each other.

Kamenskoi was so much discouraged at the aspect of affairs, that he ordered the artillery to be destroyed, lest it should too much impede the flight of the troops; but Benningsen, deeming such an order unnecessary, and convinced that it resulted from an approaching insanity, which socn

entirely overset the mind of the veteran marshal, took upon himself the bold step of disobeying it; and, in order to gain time for the cannon and equipages to defile in the rear, he resolved to maintain his position at Pultusk with all the troops at his disposal, amounting to about forty thousand men; while the divisions of Doctoroff, Sacken and Gallitzin, at Golymin, made a stand against Augereau, who was supported by a part of Davoust's and Murat's corps. Benningsen drew up his army in admirable order, in front of the town of Pultusk; his right wing was commanded by Barclay de Tolly and Count Tolstoy, his left by Sacken, and the centre by himself in person. Lannes, with thirty-five thousand men, advanced to the attack on the morning of the 26th. The battle was contested at various points until long after dark, when a terrible storm separated the combatants. Neither party could boast of decided success. The Russians remained masters of the field till midnight, when they crossed the Narew by the bridge of Pultusk, and retired in perfect order: the French also retreated to such a distance, that when the Cossacks, the next day, patroled eight miles beyond the battle-ground toward Warsaw, they could discover no traces of the enemy. The French lost six thousand men, and the Russians nearly five thousand. The action at Golymin, about thirty miles from Pultusk, which took place on the same day, terminated in a similar manner: the Russians, under Prince Gallitzin, remained in possession of the field, and although they lost twenty-six pieces of cannon, owing to the bad state of the roads, their killed and wounded was something less than two thousand, while the French loss exceeded four thousand men. As the Russian order for retreat still held good, Prince Gallitzin, at midnight, resumed his march for Ostrolenka. On the 28th, Napoleon reached Golymin, but finding that from the condition of the roads, and the obstinate valor of the Russian troops, it was impossible to gain any material advantage by the campaign, he issued orders to stop the advance of his columns, and put the troops into winterquarters, while he himself returned with the Imperial Guards to WarAs soon as the Russians learned that the French had withdrawn from their pursuit, they also went into winter-quarters on the left bank of the Narew.

saw.

This desperate struggle in the forests of Poland in the depth of winter, created a great sensation throughout Europe. Independent of the interest excited by the extraordinary spectacle of two vast armies' prolonging their contest amid the storms and snows of a Polish winter, the divided trophies of the actions indicated that Napoleon's veterans had finally encountered their equals in the field; and that the torrent of French conquest, if not averted, had at least been stemmed.

While the French armies were in cantonments on the right bank of the Vistula, Benningsen, who had now been appointed to the chief command of the allied forces, resolved to commence an offensive operation against the French left under Bernadotte and Ney, who, with nearly seventy thousand men, had extended themselves so as to menace Koningsberg, the second city of the Prussian dominions, while at the same time they were threatening Dantzic and Graudentz. For this purpose, the Russian general, whose movements were concealed by the forests that separated him from the French lines, rapidly united his divisions and pushed forward to Rhein, in Eastern Prussia, where he established his head-quarters on the 17th of January. On the 19th, the Russian cav

alry, under Gallitzin, surprised and defeated the light horse of Marshal Ney, and on the 22nd a severe action took place at Lecberg, whence the French cavalry were driven toward Allenstein. Bernadotte, alarmed at this sudden irruption, made great efforts to concentrate his forces at Mohrungen, where, on the 24th, he was attacked by Benningsen's advanced guard. Had this attack been delayed for a few hours, until the entire Russian corps had reached the field, the French would have been totally destroyed; as it resulted, each party lost about two thousand men, and Bernadotte retreated toward Thorn, severely pressed by the Cossacks, who almost annihilated his rear-guard, and took several thousand prisoners. Gallitzin had, in the mean time, fallen on the rear of Bernadotte's position, penetrated into the town, and captured the French marshal's private baggage, among which were found, as in the den of a freebooter, silver plate bearing the arms of almost all the German states, besides ten thousand ducats levied for his own use from the town of Elbing.

This narrow escape of both Bernadotte and Ney, excited the utmost alarm in the French army; while, on the other hand, the Russians were proportionably elated, and followed up their success by raising the siege of Graudentz, and throwing ample supplies into that fortress. Napoleon, who had not contemplated a renewal of hostilities until the present inclement season was passed, became, also, greatly disturbed at events which rendered it indispensable to expose his troops to a new campaign during the severity of a northern winter, and in a country where provisions could scarcely be obtained for so large a body of men. But there was no time for deliberation, as the Russians were advancing to the relief of Dantzic, and would soon turn the whole French line of defence. By a rapid concentration and forced march, the Emperor had, on the 2nd of February, made his way to the rear of Benningsen's army, and interposed between him and the Russian dominions, so that the sole line of retreat open to Benningsen lay to the northeast, in the direction of Koningsberg and the Niemen. Napoleon endeavored to improve his advantage, by completely hemming in the Russians, but his dispatches for Bernadotte having fallen into Benningsen's hands, that officer was enabled to elude his grasp, and withdraw from Junkowo toward Leibstadt on the night of the 3rd of February.

Murat immediately pursued the retiring Russians with his whole cavalry; and, as the latter had been much retarded during the night by the passage of their cannon and baggage through the narrow streets of Junkowo, the rear-guard was soon overtaken: the Russians, however, fought with such determined bravery, that they effected their retreat in perfect order, and their loss, which amounted to fifteen hundred men, was no greater than the French sustained in the attack. On the night of the 4th, Benningsen reached Frauendorf, where he stood firmly during the next day. But a continued retreat in presence of the enemy, soon began to be attended with its usual consequences on the troops, and Benningsen found it necessary to check the French pursuit by a general action. He therefore, after some deliberation, selected the field of Prussich-Eylau for that purpose, and pushed forward his columns to make the requisite dispositions for a battle. On the night of the 5th, he arrived at Landsberg, where he resisted a spirited attack from Davoust's corps; and, on the following day his rear-guard, under Bagrathion, was assailed

by Murat's cavalry and a large part of the corps of Soult and Augereau. Bagrathion maintained his ground, however, during the whole day, and at night.bivouacked in sight of the French army. Toward morning on the 7th, he moved on to Prussich-Eylau, where, by noonday, the Russian forces were drawn up in order of battle, awaiting only the arrival of Lestocq with the remains of the Prussian army. The entire allied force, including Lestocq's division, amounted to seventy-five thousand men, with four hundred and sixty pieces of cannon; while the total strength of Napoleon was not less than eighty-five thousand, including sixteen thousand cavalry, and three hundred and fifty pieces of artillery.

The field of battle was a wide expanse of ground rising into small hills, and well adapted to military operations. The Russian right, under Tutschakoff, lay on both sides of Schloditten; the centre, under Sacken, occupied a cluster of hills in front of Kuschnitten; the left, under Tolstoy, rested on Klein-Saussgarten; the advanced guard, ten thousand strong, with its outposts extending almost to the village of Eylau, was commanded by Bagrathion; and Doctoroff held the reserve in the rear of Sacken. After Napoleon had carefully reconnoitered this position, on the morning of the 8th of February, he resolved to turn the Russian left and throw it back upon the centre; but to conceal his purpose, he commenced a violent attack on the centre and right, pushing forward Augereau and Soult with his own left and centre. Augereau had not advanced more than three hundred yards, when his troops were arrested by a terrible fire of the Russian artillery; a snow storm at the same time darkened the atmosphere, so as to prevent the combatants from seeing each other, and a charge of Cossacks, whose lances reached the enemy before they were aware of their approach, completed the disorder of the French division, which fled in the wildest confusion to Eylau. So entire was the destruction of Augereau's corps, not more than fifteen hundred men, out of sixteen thousand, made good their retreat.

Napoleon was first apprised of this disaster by the fugitives who hurried past his position at Eylau, and he nearly fell into the hands of the division that pursued them. Soult was by this time also in full retreat before the Russian centre; and to check the advance of the latter, Napoleon formed an enormous column of fourteen thousand cavalry and twentyfive thousand infantry, supported by two hundred pieces of cannon, and sent them, under Murat, to break the Russian line. The first shock of the dragoons was irresistible, and the French cuirassiers, advancing through the openings they made, reached Benningsen's reserve of cavalry. They were here immediately charged by Platoff, with his Cossacks; and, as in the meantime the Russian line had rallied and repelled the French infantry, the cuirassiers had no avenue of retreat, and were all destroyed excepting eighteen men, who regained their own quarters by a long circuit around the Russian outposts. The battle was now won on Benningsen's centre and right, but Davoust, who had long been held in check on the left, soon after received a reënforcement, carried the village of Klein-Saussgarten, and threatened to change the fate of the day, when Lestocq arrived with his long-expected corps. He advanced with great gallantry to the aid of the left wing, and although Davoust's troops were more than double the number of his own, he forced him to retreat with great loss, and the whole Russian line was soon pressing forward in pursuit of the retreating army of Napoleon, when night separated the combatants.