CHAPTER XLIV. CAMPAIGN OF EYLAU. DECEMBER 1806-MARCH 1807. rious result from their exertions, and, without underrating the forces of their opponents, indulged a sanguine hope that the north would prove the limits of their power, and that, while they repelled them from their own frontiers, they would afford the means of liberation to oppressed Europe. The severity of a Polish winter could not deter these undaunted combatants. Eager for the conflict, both the mighty hosts approached the Vistula; and, at a period of the year when some respite is usually given in ordinary war to suffering humanity, they commenced a new campaign, and advanced through a snowy wilderness to the bloody field of Eylau. 1. THE campaign of Jena had destroyed the power of Prussia; inconsiderate valour had yielded to overwhelming force and skilful combination; with more justice the King than the people could say with Francis I. at Pavia, Tout est perdu hors l'honneur. But Russia was still untouched; and while her formidable legions remained unsubdued, the war, so far from being completed, could hardly be said to have seriously commenced. Napoleon felt this. On the Trebbia, at Novi, at Dürrenstein, and Austerlitz, the French had experienced the stern valour of these northern warriors; and he counted the hours, as the mortal conflict approached, which was to bring either universal empire or irreparable ruin 2. Alexander had displayed the greatin its train. Nor were the Russians est activity in repairing the losses which less desirous to commence the strug- his army had sustained in the camgle. Confident in the prowess of their paign of Austerlitz. Thirty fresh squadarms-proud of the steady growth of rons and fifty-one battalions had been an empire, the frontiers of which have added to its amount,* all the chasms never yet receded, and which its mean- occasioned by the casualties of war est peasant believes is one day to sub- supplied, and the new French organidue the world—they anticipated a glo-sation into divisions universally adopt *The Russian army was organised into eighteen divisions, each of which was composed of six regiments of infantry, ten squadrons of heavy cavalry, ten of light, two batteries of heavy cannon, three of light or horse artillery, and a company of pioneers; in all for each, eighteen battalions, twenty squadrons, and seventy-two pieces of cannon; about 12,000 men. The army was thus divided: 1. Guard, under Grand-duke Constantine, 3. Army of Moldavia-Five divisions under Michelson Battalions. Squadrons. Cannons. 147 170 504 90 100 306 4. Intermediate corps under the Count Apraxin, consisting of the divisions of General Ritchoff, Prince Labanoff, and Gortchakoff, The whole regular besides the local corps in Georgia, Finland, and garrison battalions. force was about 380,000 men; but in no country is the difference between the numbers on paper and in the field so great as in Russia, and the troops engaged in the campaign of Poland never exceeded 80,000 men.-JOMINI, ii. 335; and WILSON, 4. ed. Nor was this all: Anxious to rouse the religious enthusiasm of his subjects, and deeply impressed with the magnitude of the struggle which was approaching, he had called out a defensive militia of six hundred thousand men, and excited their devout loyalty to the highest degree by a proclamation, in which Napoleon was represented as the relentless enemy of the Christian religion, and they were called on to shed their best blood in defence of the faith of their fathers.* This proclamation excited the ridicule of a large part of Europe, still tainted by infidel fanaticism, and not then awakened to the impossibility of combating revolutionary energy with any other weapons but those of religious fervour. But it was admirably calculated for the simple-minded people to whom it was addressed, and excited such an enthusiasm, that not only was this immense armament without difficulty raised, but, contrary to usual custom, the peasants drawn for the regular army joyfully left their homes, and marched with songs of triumph, amidst the blessings of their countrymen, towards the frontier, the anticipated scene of their glory or their martyrdom. 3. The troops who were now press* "Buonaparte," said this proclamation, which was read in all the Russian churches, "after having, by open force or secret intrigue, extended his power over the countries which he oppresses, menaces Russia, which Heaven protects. It is for you to prevent the destroyer of peace, of the faith, and of the happiness of mankind, from seducing the orthodox Christians. He has trampled under foot every principle of truth; in Egypt he preached the Koran of Mahomet, in France manifested his contempt for the religion of Jesus Christ by convoking Jewish synagogues. Do you love your fellow creatures? Fly the persecutor of Christians. Do you desire to be saved? Oppose an invincible barrier to his advances. He has dared to the combat God and Russia; prove that you are the defenders of the Most High and of your country. Chase far from your frontiers that monster; punish his barbarity to so many innocent persons, whose blood God cries aloud to Heaven for vengeance. will hear the prayer of the faithful; he will shield you with his power; he will cover you with his grace. Your exploits will be cele brated by the church and by your country immortal crowns or abodes of eternal felicity await you."-HARDENBERG, ix. 376. ; ing forward to defend the western frontiers of the empire were very different from those with whom the French had hitherto, for the most part, contended in the fields of Germany or the Italian plains. The forces of civilisation, the resources of art, were exhausted; the legions of Napoleon had reached the old frontier of Europe; the energy of the desert, the hosts of Asia were before them; passions hitherto, save in La Vendée, unexperienced in the contest, were now brought into action. Religious enthusiasm, patriotic ardour, the fervour of youthful civilisation, were arrayed against the power of knowledge, the discipline of art, the resources of ancient opulence. There was to be seen the serf but recently emancipated from the servitude of his fathers, whose mother and sisters had checked the lamentations of nature when he assumed the military habit, and bade him go forth, the champion of Christendom, to present glory and future paradise; there the peasant, inured from infancy to hardy exercise, ignorant alike of the enjoyments and the corruptions of urban society, long accustomed to rural labour, and habituated equally to the glow of a Russian bath or the severity of a Scythian winter; there the Cossack, whose steed, nourished on the steppes of the Don, had never yet felt the curb, while his master, following his beloved Hetman to the theatre of action, bore his formidable lance in his hand, his pistols and sword by his side, and his whole effects, the fruit of years of warfare, in the folds of his saddle. Careless of the future, the children of the desert joyfully took their way to the animating fields of plunder and triumph; mounted on small but swift and indefatigable horses, they were peculiarly adapted for a country where provisions were scanty, forage exhausted, and hardships universal. The heat of summer, the frost of winter, were alike unable to check the vigour of their desultory operations; and when the hosts on either side were arrayed in battle, and the charge of regular forces was requisite, they often appeared with decisive effect at the critical moment. Urging their horses to full speed, they bore down, by the length of their spears and the vehemence of their onset, the most powerful cavalry of Western Europe.* 4. If the whole disposable Russian forces had been united upon the Vistula, they would have presented an imposing mass of a hundred and fifty thousand warriors, against which all the efforts of Napoleon would, in all probability, have been exerted in vain. But by a strange and unaccountable infatuation, at the very moment when this formidable contest awaited them on the Polish plains, a large portion of their disposable force was drawn off to the shores of the Danube, and a Turkish superadded to the already overwhelming weight of the French war. Of the causes which led to this unhappy diversion, and the grounds which the cabinet of St Petersburg set forth in vindication of their aggression on the Ottoman dominions, a full account will be given in the sequel of this work; but, in the mean time, its effect in causing a most calamitous division of the Russian force is too obvious to require illustration. At Eylau “ 'Mounted," says Wilson, "on a little, ill-conditioned, but well-bred horse, which can walk with ease at the rate of five miles an hour, or dispute in his speed the race with the swiftest, with a short whip on his wrist, as he wears no spur, armed with the lance, a pistol in his girdle, and a sword, the Cossack never fears a competitor in single combat; but in the Polish war he irresistibly attacked every opposing squadron in the field. Terror preceded his charge; and in vain discipline endeavoured to present an impediment to the protruding pikes. The cuirassiers alone preserved some confidence, and appeared to baffle the arms and skill of the Cossack; but in the battle of PreussischEylau, when the cuirassiers made their desperate charge on the Russian centre, and passed through an interval, the Cossacks instantly bore down on them, speared them, unhorsed them, and, in a few moments, five hundred and thirty Cossacks reappeared in the field, equipped with the spoils of the slain. But they did not permanently wear them; the steel trophies were conveyed by subscription to the Don and the Volga, where they are inspected as trophies of their prowess, and respected as the pride of their kindred and glory of their nation."-WILSON, 27, 28. When the author saw the Cossacks of the Don and the Guard at Paris in May 1814, this description was still precisely applicable. See infra, Chap. LXIX. on the Turkish War. the hostile forces on either side were nearly equal, and both retired without any decisive advantage from that scene of blood; ten thousand additional troops would there have overthrown Napoleon, and driven him to a disastrous retreat, while fifty thousand of the best troops of the Muscovite empire were uselessly employed on the banks of the Danube. At the same time it must be remembered that the war in Moldavia was resolved on, and the necessary orders transmitted, before the disasters in Prussia were known, or the pressing necessity for succour on the Vistula could have been anticipated; the battle of Jena was fought on the 14th October, and on the 23d November, General Michelson entered Moldavia, and commenced the Turkish campaign. But though the Russian cabinet is thus not answerable for having given orders to commence an additional war unnecessarily in the midst of the desperate struggle in the north of Germany, yet it cannot be relieved of the responsibility of having, without any adequate cause, provoked hostilities in the southern provinces of its empire, at a time when the contest in Saxony, if not commenced, might at least have been easily foreseen, when the resolution to annul the treaty, signed by d'Oubril at Paris, had been already taken, and all the strength of Europe was required to meet the encounter with the conqueror of Austerlitz on the banks of the Elbe.+ 5. While Russia, distracted by the varied interests of her mighty dominions, was thus running the hazard of destruction by the imprudent division of her forces in presence of the enemy, Napoleon was extremely perplexed at Posen by the consideration of the Polish question. The destiny of the Sarmatian people, which enters so deeply The determination to refuse the ratification of the treaty, signed at Paris by d'Oubril, was taken at St Petersburg on the 25th August-the Dniester was passed on the 23d November. The resolution to provoke a Turkish war, therefore, was taken after it was known that a continued struggle with the enemy, whose strength they had felt at Austerlitz, had become inevitable. —Ante, Chap. XLII. § 72. of the Sarmatian race? Is it not certain, on the contrary, that they have left there profound impressions, ineradicable passions, which are ready, on the first favourable opportunity, to raise throughout the whole scattered provinces of the old republic an inextinguishable flame? Where has the Emperor found such faithful followers, such devoted fidelity, as in the Polish legions of the Italian army, whom Muscovite barbarity drove to seek an asylum in foreign lands? Is it expedient to refuse the proffered aid of a hundred thousand such warriors, who are ready to fly to his standards from the whole widespread fields of Sarmatia? into the solution of every political | them, in the breasts of the descendants combination of the nineteenth century, here stood in the very foremost rank, and called for immediate decision. The advance of the French armies through Prussian Poland towards Warsaw, the ambiguous, but still encouraging words of the Emperor to the numerous deputations which approached him, had awakened to the highest degree the hopes and expectations of that unfortunate, but impassioned race. A solemn deputation from Great Poland, headed by Count Dzadiniki, waited upon Napoleon, and announced an approaching insurrection of the Polish nation, headed by their nobles, palatines, and chiefs: a great excitement prevailed in Lithuania, and symptoms of alarming effervescence were visible even in Galicia. The crisis was of the most violent kind; an immediate decision was called for by imperious necessity; Napoleon was much at a loss how to act, and the question was warmly debated by the council assembled at his headquarters. ance. 7. "True, they are undisciplinedwithout arms, fortresses, magazines, or resources-but what does all that signify? Napoleon is in the midst of them; his invincible legions will precede them in the fight; from his enemies and their spoilers his victorious sword will wrest the implements of war; in the example of his followers, they will see the model of military discipline. The Poles are by nature warriors; little training or organisation is requisite to bring them into the field. When the regular forces of Germany had sunk in the conflict, their tumultuary array chased the infidels from the heart of Austria, and delivered Vienna from Mussulman bondage. Nor is it merely a temporary succour which may be anticipated from their exertions; lasting aid, a durable alliance, may with confidence be expected from their necessities. Sur 6. On the one hand, it was urged by the friends of Poland, "that the only ally in the east of Europe, on whom France could really and permanently depend, was now preparing to range itself by her side, and enter into a contest of life or death in her support. The alliances of cabinets may be dissolved, the friendships of kings may be extinguished, but the union of nations, founded on identity of interest and community of feeling, may be calculated upon as of more lasting endurBut what people was ever impelled towards another by such power-rounded by the partitioning powers, ful motives, or animated in the alliance they have no chance of independence by such vehement passions, as Poland but in the French alliance; the moment now is towards France? Alone of all they desert it, they will be again crushgreat nations, in ancient or modern ed by their ambition. Not only the times, she has been partitioned by her nationality of Poland, but the indivipowerful and ambitious neighbours, dual safety of its whole inhabitants, struck down to the earth by hostile must for ever bind them to their dearmies, and swept, by repeated spolia- liverers; they well know what cruel tions, from the book of existence. Her punishments and confiscations would nationality is destroyed, her people await them should they again fall unscattered, her glories at an end. Is it der the Muscovite yoke. In restoring possible that these injuries can be for- the oldest of European commonwealths, gotten, that such unparalleled calami- therefore, not only will a memorable ties should leave no traces behind act of justice be done, a memorable punishment of iniquity inflicted, but a durable alliance on the frontier of civilisation will be formed, and a barrier erected against the inroads of barbarism in the people who, in every age, have devoted their blood to combating its advances." mosity of faction, and the insane democratic spirit of a plebeian noblesse, which made John Sobieski, a century before its final destruction, prophesy the approaching ruin of the commonwealth. 9. "Such being the character of Polish institutions, as they have been ascertained by experience, and proved by the ruin of the commonwealth, it becomes a most serious question whether it is for the interest of France, for the aid of such an ally, to incur the certain and inveterate hostility of the three northern powers. That Russia, Prussia, and Austria will thenceforth be combined in an indissoluble alliance against France, if Poland is restored, and the rich provinces now enjoyed by them from its partition wrested from their vast dominions, is evident; and, whatever may be thought of the strength of the Sarmatian levies, there can be but one opinion as to the military resources which they enjoy. What aid can Polish enthusiasm bring to the French standards, to counterbalance this strong combination of the greatest military powers of Europe? A hundred thousand horsemen, brave, doubtless, and enthusiastic, but destitute of fortresses, magazines, and resources, and inhabiting a level plain, unprotected by mountains, rivers, or any natural frontier, and open on all sides to the incursions of their well-organised opponents. Supposing that, by the aid of the vast army and still vaster reputation of Napoleon, they shall succeed at this time in beating back the Russian hosts, and 8. Specious as these arguments were, and powerfully as they appealed to the generous feelings of our nature, it may be doubted whether they were not opposed by others of greater solidity. "It is in vain," it was urged in reply, "to dwell on the misfortunes of Poland, or represent her partition as an unavoidable calamity for which her inhabitants are noways answerable. Such a misfortune may doubtless sometimes occur to a small state surrounded by larger ones; but was that the case in the present instance? On the contrary, Poland was originally the most powerful nation in the north: her dominions extended from the Euxine to the Baltic, and from Suabia to Smolensko. All Prussia, great part of the Austrian dominions, and a large portion of Russia, have at different times been carved out of her widespread territories. So far from being weaker than Russia, she was originally much stronger; and the standards of the Jagellons and the Piasts have more than once been planted in triumph on the walls of the Kremlin. Nevertheless, her history for the last five hundred years has been nothing but a succession of disasters, illuminated at intervals by transient gleams of heroic achievement; and, notwithstanding the valour of her inhabitants, her frontiers have, from the earliest times, been constantly re-wresting Lithuania from their grasp, ceding, until at length she became the what may not be apprehended from the prey of potentates who had risen to appearance of Austria on the theatre importance by acquisitions reft from of conflict, and the debouching of a herself. So uniform and undeviating hundred and fifty thousand men in the a course of misfortune, in a kingdom rear of the Grand Army, when far adso brave, so enthusiastic, and so popu-vanced in the deserts of Muscovy? lous, as even at the moment of its partition to contain sixteen millions of inhabitants, argues some incurable vice in its domestic institutions. It is not difficult to see what this vice was, when we contemplate the uniform and fatal weakness of the Executive, the disorders consequent on an elective monarchy, the inveterate and deadly ani That the cabinet of Vienna is preparing for the conflict is evident; that she is arming is well known; fear and uncertainty as to the future alone restrain her forces. But the stroke which by restoring Poland severs Galicia from her empire, will at once determine her policy, and bring the Imperial legions in formidable strength to the banks of |