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Page 14
On the day of the capitulation of Ulm, Massena in Italy drove back the
army of the Archduke Charles. The Austrians to this date, in a period
of twenty days, had lost by battle and capture fully fifty thousand
men! On the twenty-seventh of October, the French army crossed the
Inn. Saltzburg and Braunau were taken. In Italy, Massena, on the
thirtieth, won the battle of Caldiero, and took 5000 prisoners. The
French closed toward the Austrian capital. On the thirteenth of
November, Napoleon, having obtained possession of the bridges of the
Danube, entered Vienna. He established himself in the imperial palace
of Schonbrunn. The Austrian Empire and the Holy Roman Empire--which
was its shadowy penumbra--seemed to vanish like ghosts before him.
Out of Pomerania into Moravia, to the plain of Olmutz, the great
Russian army under the Czar and Kutusoff, came roaring. There they
were united with a heavy division of the Austrians, under the Emperor
Francis. The latter had fled from his capital, and staked his last
fortunes on a battle in the field. The allied army was 80,000 strong.
Napoleon, with 60,000 men, commanded by Soult, Lannes, Murat and
Bernadotte, advanced rapidly from the direction of Vienna, as far as
Brunn, and there awaited the onset.
Just beyond this town, at Austerlitz, the French were arranged in a
semicircle, with the convex front toward the allies, who occupied the
outer arc on a range of heights. Such was the situation on the night
of December 1, 1805. The morrow will be the first anniversary of our
coronation in Notre Dame--a glorious day for battle!
With the morning of the second, Napoleon could scarcely restrain his
ardor. The enthusiasm of the army knew no bounds. On the night before,
the Emperor, in his gray coat, had gone the circle of the camps, and
the soldiers, extemporizing straw torches to light the way, ran before
him. Looking eagerly through the gray dawn, he saw the enemy badly
arranged, or moving dangerously in broken masses under the cover of a
Moravian fog. Presently the fog lifted, and the sun burst out in
splendor. The onset of the French was irresistible. The allied centre
was pierced. The Austrian and Russian emperors with their armies were
sent flying in utter rout and panic from the field. Thirty thousand
Russians and Austrians were killed, wounded and taken. Alexander
barely escaped capture. Before sunset the Third Coalition was broken
into fragments and blown away. At the conference between Napoleon and
Francis, two days afterward, at the Mill of Sar-Uschitz, some of the
French officers overheard the father of Maria Louisa lie to her future
husband, thus: "I promise not to fight you any more."
"FRIEDLAND--1807."
Whoever visits the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Central Park, New
York, is likely to pause before a great historical painting by Jean
Louis Ernest Meissonier. The picture is entitled "Friedland--1807."
There goes a critical opinion that, though common fame would have
Austerlitz to be the greatest battle of the Napoleonic wars, the palm
ought really to be given to Friedland. At any rate, the martial
splendor of that day has been caught by the vision and brush of
Meissonier, and delivered, in what is probably the most splendid
painting in America, to the immortality of art.
Let us note the great movements that preceded the climax of Friedland.
In the summer of 1806, the historical conditions in Europe favored a
general peace. Pitt was dead, and Fox agreed with Napoleon that a
peace might now be secured by the restoration of Hanover to England.
Suddenly, however, on the thirteenth of September, 1806, Fox died, and
by the incoming of Lauderdale the whole complexion was changed.
Toryism again ran rampant. The Anglo-Russo-Prussian intrigue was
renewed, and the rash Frederick William sent a peremptory challenge to
Napoleon to get himself out of Germany.
The Emperor had in truth agreed to withdraw his forces, but the Czar
Alexander had also agreed to relinquish certain vantage grounds which
he held--and had not done it. Therefore Napoleon's army corps would
remain in Germany. Frederick William suddenly declared war, and in a
month after the death of Fox, Napoleon concentrated in Saxe-Weimar an
army of a hundred thousand men. Then, on the fourteenth of October,
1806, was fought the dreadful battle of Jena, in which the Prussians
lost 12,000 in killed and wounded, and 15,000 prisoners. On the same
day, Davout fell upon a division of 50,000 under the Duke of Brunswick
and Frederick William in person, and won another signal victory which
cost the Germans about ten thousand men.
Prussia was utterly overwhelmed by the disaster. Her fortresses were
surrendered without resistance, and Napoleon, in less than a
fortnight, occupied Berlin. On the twenty-first of November, he issued
from that city his celebrated Berlin decree, declaring the British
Islands in a state of blockade, and interdicting all correspondence
and trade with England! The property of British subjects, under a wide
schedule of liabilities, was declared contraband of war.
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