of Blucher's cavalry with the Duke | more honourable, its ultimate fate of Saxe-Weimar's infantry, and com- was not less calamitous. No sooner manded by the former of these gene- was Napoleon informed of the junction rals. Before this junction was effected, of these two corps in the north of PrusBlucher's cavalry had been hard press- sia, than he ordered their pursuit by ed by a brigade of horse under the forces so considerable, that escape beFrench general, Klein, and escaped in came impossible. Bernadotte was inconsequence of his affirming that an structed to follow closely on their footarmistice had been concluded on the steps; while Murat was despatched by propositions for an accommodation a circuit to cut them off, on the right, sent to Napoleon after the battle by from Stralsund and Rostock, under the the King of Prussia. Whether the cannon of which they might have Prussian general really believed the re- found shelter; and Soult threw himport to that effect, which unquestion- self on the left, to bar the communiably prevailed through the whole army cation with the lower Elbe. Blucher at that time, or whether he made use arrived at Boitzenburg the day after of this very questionable military stra- the ill-fated Hohenlohe had left that tagem as a device to extricate his town; and having there learned the troops from present danger, does not catastrophe which had befallen that appear; and therefore neither praise brilliant portion of the army, he renor blame can in this uncertainty be nounced all hope of retiring before the awarded on the subject. But this enemy, and retraced his steps in order much is clear, that if he knowingly to unite with General Winning and affirmed a falsehood, as the French as- the Duke of Saxe-Weimar's corps, sert, no necessity, how pressing soever, which he effected at Kratzemberg on no advantage, how great soever, can the day following. Finding himself suffice as any apology.* Though the now at the head of eighteen thousand resistance of this corps, however, was infantry, six thousand cavalry, and sixty pieces of cannon, he resolved to move to the right, recross the Elbe, raise the siege of Magdeburg, and supported by that fortress and Hameln, maintain himself as long as possible in the rear of the Emperor's army.

* But when the French historians inveigh with such severity against Blucher's conduct on this occasion, and affirm, "In the campaigns of the Revolution, the Austrian generals have frequently had recourse to that strange ruse de guerre-the French never,'

they forget or wilfully conceal immediately

preceding events, on which they bestow no sort of censure. What is to be said to General Lecourbe, who, in November 1799, escaped destruction at the hands of the Austrian

general Starray, solely by falsely affirming that a negotiation for peace was commenced? to Lannes and Murat, in the campaign of Austerlitz, who won the bridge of Vienna by

the fallacious declaration that an armistice

had been concluded, which they well knew was not the case? or to the latter of these marshals, who a few days afterwards tried a similar piece of deceit with Kutusoff, and

was only foiled by the superior finesse of that astute commander? All the French historians, Bignon, Norvins, and Thiers, mention these unworthy stratagems not only without censure, but with the highest admiration. It would be well, if, in making such random assertions, they would calculate less confidently on the want of information or recollection in their readers; and if, in the survey of the conduct of their own officers, they would display a little of that warm anxiety for the great principles of public morality, to which they so loudly appeal when any violation of it occurs to their disadvantage on the part of their enemies.

74. The project was boldly conceived and intrepidly followed out; but the three corps now directed against him, numbering nearly sixty thousand combatants, rendered its execution impossible. A sharp conflict took place with his rear-guard at Nossentin, in which five hundred prisoners fell into the hands of the French; and the next day the junction of Bernadotte with Soult rendered it necessary for the gallant Prussian to be more circumspect. An opportunity, however, soon occurred of taking his revenge.

Next day the French hussars were charged and put to the rout by the Prussian light dragoons, at the entrance of a defile. Colonel Gerard and three hundred horsemen were made prisoners: but the cavalry having fallen back on the support of their infantry, headed by Bernadotte in person, the Prussians were in their

hatchets the exterior pallisades of the Burg-Thor, and, rapidly following the Prussian regiments which held that outwork, entered the gate pell-mell with the fugitives, and made themselves masters of the adjoining bastions. At the same moment Soult's divisions threatened the gates opposed to their attack; but so murderous was the fire which the Prussians kept up from the walls flanking their approaches, that the assailants were unable to make any progress, till Bernadotte's divisions, having penetrated into the town, threatened to take the defenders in rear.

turn repulsed with severe loss. Find- | north; that of Soult approached the ing the enemy's forces so considerable, Huxtor-Thor and Muhlen-Thor, the that all chance of making good his gates of Hanover. After sustaining a way to the lower Elbe was out of the terrible discharge from the bastions, question, Blucher resolved to fall back which were armed with the Prussian by Gadebusch on Lübeck, where he field-pieces, the French advanced guard, hoped to find resources to recruit his under Generals Merle and Frère, sucwearied troops, and the decayed bas-ceeded in breaking through with their tions of which he flattered himself he would soon be able to put in a respectable state of defence. Before arriving at that city, he was summoned by Bernadotte to surrender, and informed that he was beset by forces triple his own. "I will never capitulate," was the brief and characteristic reply of the Prussian general: and, continuing his march, he entered Lübeck on the evening of the 5th, closely followed by his indefatigable pursuIn the course of the pursuit, a detachment of twelve hundred Swedes fell into the hands of Bernadotte, who treated them with unusual courtesy and kindness. From the gratitude of the Swedes for this treatment, arose the interchange of good deeds which terminated in his elevation to the throne of Gustavus Adolphus. At that period, events, in appearance the most trivial, were big with the fate of nations.

ers.

76. Even then, nevertheless, the brave Prussians at this gate, to the number of two thousand, faced both ways, and, besieged in their turn, sustained the double attack from within and without. Posted on the roofs of houses, and on the summits of the ramparts, they kept up an incessant 75. Unfortunately for Lübeck, it fire till their cartridges were exhausted, was still surrounded by a ruined wall when they were all either killed or and deep ditches filled with water; and made prisoners. So rapid, however, this gave Blucher an excuse for repre- was the advance of the French through senting it as a military post, and dis- the Burg-Thor, that Blucher, who had regarding all the remonstrances of retired to his lodgings, after having the magistrates, who loudly protested made his dispositions, to dictate orders, against this violation of their neutrality. had barely time to mount his horse Hastily planting the few heavy cannon with his son and a single aide-de-camp, which he still retained to defend the and ride off: all the rest of his staff principal gates, Blucher caused the were made prisoners. Having joined greater part of his forces to defile the remaining troops in the town, that through the town, and take post on brave general, with his gallant followers, the low marshy ground on the opposite prolonged the defence. He himself reside, on the confines of the Danish peatedly charged along the Konig territory. At daybreak on the follow- Strasse at the head of a body of caing morning the French columns were valry, but was unable to clear it of the at the gates, and every preparation was French soldiers, who had now broken made for an instant assault. In spite into the houses near the gate, and from of a heavy fire of grape and musketry thence kept up a fire of such severity from the old walls, the French ap- upon the street as rendered it imposproached with their accustomed gal-sible for the dragoons to advance to its lantry to the assault. The corps of Bernadotte advanced against the BurgThor, the gate which looked to the

further extremity. Presently the besiegers brought up their field-pieces, the guns on the ramparts were turned

upon the town, and repeated discharges powerful body of troops was collected of grape from both sides swept the to prevent his entrance. In the night pavement, and occasioned a terrific he received intelligence that Traveslaughter. With invincible resolution, munde, a fortified town on the sea-coast, however, the Prussians maintained the to which he proposed to have retired, combat. From street to street, from had been taken by Murat, along with a church to church, from house to house, battalion which he had sent forward to the conflict continued. Blood flowed garrison that important post, where he on all sides. The incessant rattle of the hoped to have embarked; and to commusketry was almost drowned in some plete his misfortunes, information arquarters by the cries of the wounded rived in the morning that the saltand the shrieks of the inhabitants, who marshes between Schwertau and that in that day of woe underwent all the town were not passable by the army. horrors consequent on a town being At the same time a flag of truce arcarried by assault. By degrees, how-rived from Murat, while his numerous ever, the superior numbers of the French, who were soon reinforced by part of Murat's corps, prevailed over the heroic resolution of the Prussians. With difficulty Blucher succeeded, towards evening, in collecting five thousand men, with whom he forced his way through by the gate of Holstein, and rejoined his cavalry, which lay at Schwertau on the opposite side of the town, near the Danish frontier; while the remainder of his corps in the town, consisting of eight thousand men, were slain before nightfall in that fearful fight, or fell into the hands of the enemy.*

77. The situation of Blucher, with his cavalry and this slender body of infantry, was now altogether desperate. He was driven up to Ratkau, in the extremity of Germany, on the very edge of the Danish territory, where a

*The French writers made it a just reproach to the English army that its soldiers committed such disgraceful excesses at San Sebastian, Ciudad Rodrigo, and Badajos, when these fortresses fell by assault. It is the duty of the historian to condemn equally such outrages, by whomsoever committed; and certainly in this work no veil shall be thrown over those atrocities when they come to be recounted. But it would be well if they would reserve a little of their humane indignation for the sufferers under their own soldiery on similar catastrophes. On this occasion, though they pass it lightly over, the cruelties and devastation committed by Bernadotte's and Soult's corps for two days after the town was taken, notwithstanding all the efforts of these marshals, were equal to the very worst deeds that ever stained the British arms. See the frightful details, drawn with a graphic hand, in Lettre de Villers à la Comtesse Fanny Beau harnais, Amst. 1808.

squadrons had already driven the Prussian infantry out of Schwertau, and were closing in, in all directions, on his last position. Overcome by stern necessity, the hardy veteran, with tears in his eyes, agreed to a capitulation, in virtue of which all his troops laid down their arms. On this occasion were taken ten battalions and fifty-three squadrons, amounting to four thousand foot-soldiers, and three thousand seven hundred cavalry, with forty pieces of cannon, the remainder of his fine train of artillery having been left on the ramparts of Lübeck.

78. To complete the disasters of the Prussian monarchy, nothing was wanting but the surrender of Magdeburg; and that important bulwark was not long of falling into the hands of Marshal Ney. Although its garrison was in great part composed of fugitives of all regiments, who had made their escape into that asylum from the disastrous fields of Jena and Auerstadt, yet such was the strength of its works, and the ample store of provisions and magazines of all sorts which existed within its walls, that a prolonged defence might confidently have been anticipated. Nevertheless, if its fall was not quite so disgraceful as that of Stettin and Cüstrin, it was such as to affix a lasting stigma on the Prussian arms.

Marshal Ney commenced operations in After fifteen days of a blockade, form; but before having recourse to the tedious method of regular approaches, he resolved to try the effect of a bombardment. Furnaces for this purpose were heated, and arrangements

made to throw four-and-twenty pound shot, red-hot, into every part of the town, while a copious array of bombs was prepared to bring terror and conflagration upon the inhabitants. It

out hope of succour. Abandoned, and more than a hundred leagues in the rear of the victorious invaders, what can your efforts do to avert the fall of the Prussian monarchy?" These arguments, supported by the official intelligence of the fall of Magdeburg and the surrender of almost all the fragments of the army, produced the de

agreed that the fortress should be evacuated, the private soldiers made prisoners, and the officers return on their parole to Prussia. A mutiny broke out among the soldiers upon learning the terms of this disgraceful capitulation; but it was speedily suppressed by Savary's dragoons, the men disarmed, and the fortress, in admir

was not necessary, however, to proceed to these extremities. The citizens of Magdeburg preserved a vivid traditional recollection of the horrors which their forefathers underwent after the me-sired impression; and it was speedily morable storm by Count Tilly in 1631, when the whole town was reduced to ashes. No sooner, therefore, did the first flaming projectiles begin to descend upon their houses than they besieged General Kleist, the governor, with entreaties for a surrender. That officer, deeming the Prussian monarchy destroyed, and seeing no use in singly prolonging a contest now become hope-able condition, delivered over, with five less, agreed to a capitulation on the same terms as Stettin, in virtue of which this important frontier town, the bulwark of the monarchy, with its redoubtable ramparts still untouched, and not even an outwork lost, containing twelve thousand troops in arms, and four thousand in hospital, six hundred pieces of cannon, eight hundred thousand pounds of powder, a pontoon train complete, and immense magazines of all sorts, fell into the hands of the enemy, who hardly mustered a greater force without its walls.

79. After these stunning calamities, it was not to be expected that the fortresses on the Weser, which were now left far in the rear of the storm of war, should long continue to hold out. A host of fugitives from Jena and Auerstadt had taken refuge in these strongholds, particularly Hameln and Nienburg; into the former of which General Lecocq, who had been separated in the confusion of the disastrous night which followed these battles, had thrown himself with four thousand men who still preserved a military array. There he speedily found himself blockaded by the forces of the King of Holland, who had advanced by Würtzburg and Paderborn to the banks of the Weser. The disastrous state of the monarchy gave him too plausible a ground for assailing the fidelity of the besieged. "You are insulated," said he, "with

thousand prisoners, to the French. Nienburg speedily followed the same example, and, with its untouched fortifications and garrison of three thousand men, capitulated to the victors; and with it all the elements of resistance expired between the Weser and the Oder.

80. While the arms of Napoleon, guided by his penetrating eye, were reaping in this astonishing series of successes the fruits of the victories of Jena and Auerstadt, the Emperor himself, occupied alike with military and diplomatic objects, was preparing the means of further triumphs, and a more complete consolidation of the power which fortune and genius had thus combined to place at his disposal. His first care was to detach Saxony from the coalition; and after the defeat of its army in those disastrous days, and occupation of its territory by the conquerors, this was easily accomplished. The Saxons have a hereditary jealousy of the Prussians, by whom they have a presentiment they are one day to be swallowed up. Necessity, not inclination, had brought them into the field with their ambitious neighbours; and they gladly availed themselves of the first opportunity to range their forces on the side to which their secret inclinations had long pointed, and which seemed to be recommended alike by prudence and necessity. Early in the campaign, Napoleon had addressed to

them a proclamation, in which he called | accepted first neutrality, then an allion them to assert their national inde- ance with the conqueror; and before pendence, and throw off that withering the war in Poland was concluded, his alliance with Prussia from which no- troops were to be seen actively enthing but ultimate ruin was to be anti-gaged under the French eagles. Such cipated.* This address had already was the origin of that intimate union produced a great impression on the which, down to the close of the war, Saxon troops, when the victory of Jena subsisted between Napoleon and the seemed to dissolve at once the bonds Saxon government, and which, though which held the two nations together. in the end fraught with numberless Improving on these dispositions, Na- calamities to that electorate, must ever poleon assembled the Saxon officers, command respect, from the fidelity three hundred in number, who had with which its engagements were adbeen made prisoners at Weimar, strong-hered to under adverse fortune. ly represented to them the impolicy of 81. It was shortly after having deany longer uniting their arms to those tached Saxony from the Prussian, and of their natural enemies the Prussians; united it to his own alliance, that Naand offered, upon their subscribing the poleon received an answer from the oath tendered to them of fidelity to King of Prussia to the elusory propoits fortunes, to admit them into the sals of accommodation made by him Confederation of the Rhine. Gladly before the battle of Jena, and which the officers, for themselves and the that unhappy monarch eagerly caught troops under their command, sub- at after that disaster, as the only light scribed the conditions; and imme- that seemed to break upon his sinking diately they were all, with the private fortunes. The times, however, were soldiers, six thousand in number, sent not now the same: there was no longer back to Dresden. The Elector shortly any need of dissembling; the Prussian after recalled the remainder of his army was routed, and he was not the forces from the Prussian standard; he man to let slip the opportunity of com* "Saxons ! the Prussians have invaded pleting its destruction. He therefore your territory. I have come to deliver you. coldly replied, that it was premature They have violently dissolved the bond to speak of peace when the campaign which united your troops, and incorporated could hardly be said to have commenthem with their own ranks. You must, forced; and that, having resolved to try sooth, shed your blood, for interests not merely foreign but adverse to those of your country! Saxons! your fate is now in your own hands. Will you float in uncertainty between those who impose and those who seek to liberate you from the yoke? My success will secure the independence of your country and your prince. The triumph of the Prussians would rivet on you eternal chains. Tomorrow they will demand Lusatia; the day after, the right bank of the Elbe. But what do I say? Have they not already done so? Have they not long endeavoured to force your sovereign to recognise a feudal supremacy which would soon sweep you from the rank of independent nations? Your independence, your constitution, your liberty, would exist only in recollection; and the spirits of your ancestors, of the brave Saxons, would feel indignant at seeing you reduced, without resistance, by your rivals, to a slavery long prepared by their councils, and your country reduced to the rank of a Prussian province." None could descant more fluently than Napoleon on the withering effect to inconsiderable states of an alliance with a greater power; for none put it in force so invariably towards his own tributary states.-Dumas, xvi. 205.

the fate of arms, the king must abide by its issue. At the same time, he made amends to the infantry of Lannes' corps, which, in consequence of their not having been mentioned by Murat in his report of the successes at Prentzlow, in which they had borne so glorious a part, had not been mentioned in the bulletin regarding that event, by replying to a letter of remonstrance from Lannes on the subject. "You and your soldiers are children. Do you suppose I do not know all you have done to second the cavalry? There is glory enough for all. Another day it will be your turn to fill the bulletins of the Grand Army." When Lannes read these words to his soldiers, they were so transported with joy that they raised the cry "Vive l'Empereur d'Oc

cident!"

Nothing could have more completely answered the secret wishes