Part 8 (1/2)
On June 13th the armies again met, this time at the town of Friedland, on the River Alle, in the vicinity of Konigsberg, toward which the Russians were marching. Here Benningsen, the Russian general, had incautiously concentrated his troops within a bend of the river, a tactical mistake of which Napoleon hastened to take advantage.
General Ney fought his way into the town and took the bridges, while the main force of the French marched upon the entrapped enemy, who met with complete defeat, many being killed on the field, many more drowned in the river. Konigsberg, the prize of victory, was quickly occupied by the French, Prussia the ally of Russia, thus losing all its area except the single town of Memel.
The result was disastrous to the Prussian king, who was forced to yield more than half his kingdom.
Louisa, the beautiful queen of Frederick William of Prussia, had an interview with Napoleon and earnestly sought to induce him to mitigate his harsh terms. In vain she brought to bear upon him all her powers of persuasion and attractive charm of manner. He continued cold and obdurate and she left Tilsit deeply mortified and humiliated.
If Napoleon had come near defeat in the campaign of 1807, he came much nearer in that of 1809, in which his long career of victory was for a time diversified by an example of defeat, from the consequences of which only his indomitable energy saved him. And this was at the hands of the Austrians, who had so often met with defeat and humiliation at his hands.
In 1808 the defeat of his armies in Spain by the people organized into guerilla bands forced him to take command there in person.
He defeated the insurgents wherever met, took the city of Saragossa and replaced his brother Joseph on the throne. Then the outbreak of war in Austria called him away and he was forced to leave Spain for later attention
CAMPAIGN OF 1809
The declaration of war by Austria arose from indignation at the arbitrary acts of the conqueror, this growing so intense that in April 1809, a new declaration was made and new armies called into the field.
The French campaign was characterized by the usual rapidity. But on this occasion the Archduke Charles, who led the Austrians, proved equally rapid, and was in the field so quickly that the widely-spread French army was for a time in imminent danger of being cut in two by the alert enemy.
Only a brief hesitation on the part of the Archduke saved the French from this peril. They concentrated with the utmost haste, forced the Austrians back, and captured a large number of prisoners and cannon. In Italy, on the contrary, the Austrians, were victorious, but the rapid advance of Napoleon towards Vienna caused their recall and the campaign became a race for the capital of Austria. In this Napoleon succeeded, the garrison yielding the city to his troops.
Meanwhile the Archdukes Charles and John, the latter in command of the army from Italy, were marching hastily towards the opposite side of the Danube. Napoleon, seeking to strike a blow before a junction between the armies could be made, crossed the river by the aid of bridges thrown from the island of Lobau and occupied the villages of Aspern and Essling.
This was done on May 20th, but during that night the strong current of the river carried away the bridge, leaving the French in a perilous situation. On the afternoon of the 21st the entire Austrian army, 70,000 to 80,000 strong, attacked the French in the two villages, who held their posts only with the greatest difficulty.
By dawn of the 21st more than 70,000 French had crossed, but at this critical interval the bridge again gave way, broken by the fires.h.i.+ps and the stone-laden boats sent by the Austrians down the swift current. The struggle went on all day, the bridge being again built and again broken, and at night the French, cut off from their supply of ammunition, were forced to retreat.
Napoleon, for the first time in his career, had met with defeat.
More than 40,000 dead and wounded lay on that fatal field, among them the brilliant Marshal Lannes, one of Napoleon's ablest aids.
VICTORY AT WAGRAM
Napoleon, however, had no thought of yielding his hold upon Vienna. He brought forward new troops with all haste, until by July 1st he had an army of 150,000 men. The Austrian army had also been augmented and now numbered 135,000 or 140,000 men. They had fortified the positions of the recent battle, expecting a new attack in that quarter.
But of this Napoleon had no intention. He had selected the heights from Neusiedl to Wagram, occupied by the Austrians, but not fortified by them, as a more favorable point, and during the night of July 4th he threw fresh bridges from Lobau to the main land and set in motion the strong force occupying the island.
This moved against the heights of Wagram, occupying Aspern and Essling in its advance.
The battle of the next day was one of desperate fury. Finally the height was gained, giving the French the key of the battlefield.
The Archduke Charles looked in vain for the army under his brother John, which failed to appear, and, a.s.sailed at every point, was obliged to order a retreat. But this was no rout. The retreat was conducted slowly and in battle array. Both the Russians and the Austrians were proving worthy antagonists of the great Corsican. Further hostilities were checked by a truce, preliminary to a treaty of peace, signed October 14, 1809.
Ambition, unrestrained by caution, uncontrolled by moderation, has its inevitable end. An empire built upon victory, trusting solely to military genius, prepared for itself the elements of its overthrow. This fact Napoleon was to learn. In the outset of his career he opposed a new art of war to the obsolete one of his enemies, and his path to empire was over the corpses of slaughtered armies and the ruins of fallen kingdoms. But year by year his foes learned his art, in war after war their resistance grew more stringent, each successive victory was won with more difficulty and at greater cost, and finally, at the crossing of the Danube, the energy and genius of Napoleon met their equal, and the standards of France, for the first time under Napoleon's leaders.h.i.+p, went back in defeat. It was the tocsin of fate. His career of victory had culminated. From that day its decline began.
THE CAMPAIGN IN SPAIN
The second check to Napoleon's triumphant career came from one of the weaker nations of Europe, aided by the British under a commander of renown. Napoleon, as already stated, after overturning Spain had been called away by the Austrian war. This ended by the treaty of peace, he filled Spain once more with his veterans, increasing the strength of the army there to 300,000 men, under his ablest generals, Soult, Ma.s.sena, Ney, Marmont, Macdonald and others. They marched through Spain from end to end, yet, though they held all the salient points, the people refused to submit, but from their mountain fastnesses kept up a petty and annoying war.
Ma.s.sena invaded Portugal in 1811, but here he was faced by General Wellington, leading a British army, and was forced to retreat. Soult, who followed him, was equally unsuccessful, and when Napoleon in 1812 depleted his army in Spain for the Russian campaign, Wellington marched his army into Spain and, aided by the Spanish patriots, took possession of Madrid, driving King Joseph from his throne.
THE INVASION OF RUSSIA
Meanwhile Napoleon had entered upon the greatest and most disastrous campaign in his history. Defied by Alexander I, Czar of Russia, he had declared war upon that empire and sought its conquest with the greatest army that ever marched under his banners. On the banks of the Niemen, a river that flows between Prussia and Poland, there gathered near the end of June 1812, an immense army of more than 600,000 men, attended by an enormous mult.i.tude of non-combatants, their purpose being the invasion of the empire of Russia. Of this great army, made up of troops from half the nations of Europe, there reappeared six months later on that broad stream about 16,000 armed men, almost all that were left of that stupendous host. The remainder had perished on the desert soil or in the frozen rivers of Russia, few of them surviving as prisoners in Russian hands. Such was the character of the dread catastrophe that broke the power of the mighty conqueror and delivered Europe from his autocratic grasp.