His son, destined to become Friedrich the Great, was born in 1712 and in 1740 he became King of Prussia. Friedrich the Great was destined to be the greatest soldier in 18th-century Europe. In 1741 he launched a war of conquest against the Austrian Empire, then ruled by Empress Maria Theresa. Between the War of the Austrian Succession and the subsequent Seven Years’ War, Friedrich forged the Prussian army into the terror of Europe.
Under Friedrich, Prussia and its army were feared and hated by its neighbors, distrusted by all of Europe’s powers, loved by none, and deferred to by all.
Friedrich died in 1786 and was succeeded by his nephew Friedrich Wilhelm II. In 1792 Prussia, in conjunction with the Austrians, Russians and English, joined the First Coalition and entered the wars of the French Revolution. Beaten at the battle of Valmy, the Prussians withdrew from their anti-French alliance and negotiated a separate peace. In 1795 Prussia joined forces with Austria and Russia to launch an invasion into the rump of Poland. When Poland was crushed, the three conquering nations divided its remains among them. Friedrich Wilhelm II died on 16 November 1797 and was succeeded by his son Friedrich Wilhelm III.
Friedrich Wilhelm III was as poor a soldier and king as his father. He allowed Napoleon to outmaneuver and distract him politically. In 1805 Napoleon’s perfidious behavior was clear and the Prussian army mobilized when the French army, on its march to Austerlitz, marched through Prussian territory, violating Prussian borders and dignity. Prussian ire roused, like the sword drawn, it could only be resheathed after tasting blood. The army of Friedrich the Great pulled itself out of its garrisons and marched forth to do battle with the great Satan of the day, Napoleon Bonaparte.
The great twin battles of the 1806 campaign, Jena-Auerstädt, occurred on 14 October 1806. Smug in their confidence, the Prussians marched on to those fateful fields intent on crushing the Corsican up-start. However, the spirit of Friedrich the Great had abandoned the Prussians and their three armies were totally crushed, fleeing the battlefield a shattered rabble. The fugitives were swept up in the thousands. Only a small portion of the army was able to reorganize itself and continue the fight into 1807.
The Treaty of Tilsit was negotiated on a barge in the Niemen River. Negotiations began on 25 June 1807 when Napoleon and Czar Alexander I met face to face. The negotiations were principally between France and Russia. On the other hand, the Prussian king was brought into the negotiations very late in the process and treated as anything but an equal. For him humiliation was the order of the day.
During the negotiations at Tilsit, the Russians demanded French evacuation of occupied Prussia, but Napoleon refused, claiming that the occupation of Prussia was covered by a separate treaty, to which Russia was not privy. Napoleon stated he would accept Russia’s occupation of Wallachia and Moldavia only if they conceded France taking compensation in Silesia at Prussian expense.
The intent of this was to enlarge the newly created Grand Duchy of Warsaw and strengthen the French position in central Europe. Though no resolution was reached between the Russians and French, the portions of Silesia Napoleon sought were taken from Prussia and used to enlarge the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. The lands involved comprised all that had been taken in 1795 except for Bialystok. Prussia also lost control of Danzig.
All the Prussian lands between the Rhine and the Elbe were stripped away and combined with parts of Brunswick and Hanover to form the Kingdom of Westphalia, destined to be ruled by Napoleon’s brother Jérôme. The Cotbuser Kreis (Cotbus Circle) in Lower Lusace was ceded to Saxony.
During the 1812 campaign a Prussian corps marched on the northern flank of the main French armies and engaged in a number of small skirmishes. The size of the Prussian contingent that accompanied Napoleon into Russia and the conditions under which it was to operate were established by the treaty signed on 24 February 1812.
As the French withdrew from Russia, only Russia was at war with France. Despite the vacillation of their king, the Prussian nobility and townsfolk were more than willing to abandon their alliance with France, and plunge into open warfare with France. In contrast, their King, Friedrich Wilhelm III, appeared a weak and insipid man who lived in absolute terror of Napoleon. He feared that Napoleon’s armies would devastate Prussia, eradicate it as a state, and reform the Kingdom of Poland completely from Prussia’s eastern provinces.
The truth of Friedrich Wilhelm’s policies and personality is not clear. Superficially, he played the role of a weak and indecisive king. His advisers reputedly drove him to act, while he vacillated and wavered. History has often portrayed his actions in early 1813 as being thrust on him, rather than the result of careful planning. Others give him credit for being the ultimate Machiavelli. He knew his diminutive army could not hope to cross swords with the huge French army. He had little choice but to play Napoleon’s fool until the time came when he could strike back and hope to win out.
With the disastrous retreat of the Grande Armée from Russia, Friedrich Wilhelm found himself faced with decisions to be made and chances to be seized. The decision to act was made, but did he seize his chances, or was he pushed into them? Did he carefully plot each move, or did circumstances conspire to force his hand? The truth will probably never be known.
The series of events began at 3:00 p.m. on 4 January 1813 when a courier arrived at Marshal Augereau’s headquarters with a dispatch announcing the defection of General Yorck from the Prussian alliance with France. News of this was transmitted to the King of Prussia who was then faced with the choice of disavowing Yorck’s actions and presenting Napoleon with excuses for this action, or accepting the new political reality forced on him by Yorck’s actions.
The Kingdom of Prussia was still heavily occupied by the French. The remains of the Grande Armée stood on the Vistula with 22,000 men and 33 cannon. A further 53,000 men and 127 cannon were in various posts on the Oder River. In addition, Augereau had 19,300 men and 30 guns from Grenier’s division in Berlin. The French had a total force of approximately 158,000 men on Prussian territory. Facing this force, only the Prussian forces of General Bülow were in a condition to undertake a campaign. In addition there were no provisions for financing a campaign nor were the magazines in a state to support one.
On the other hand, the King of Prussia was faced with extreme internal pressure to join the Russians. He faced a large faction that pressed for revenge against the French for their humiliation of Prussia in 1806. He also was faced with the pending occupation of his eastern provinces by the Russian army. It was highly possible that the Russians would seize territory from Prussia as well.
Initially the King of Prussia denounced Yorck’s actions as an act of insubordination and sent Prince von Hatzfeld to Paris on 4 January 1813, but the Prussian thirst to engage their old enemy France would soon win.
On 19 January 1813 the French learned that the King of Prussia planned to move the Prussian royal family to Breslau. A regency was to remain in Berlin, while the diplomatic corps was free to remain in Berlin or follow the king to Breslau. The king escaped a French division sent to secure him and moved to Breslau.
On 26 February 1813, the King of Prussia decided to move Prussia into the Russian camp and declare war on France. The actual treaty was signed on 27 February by the Prussians and on 28 February by the Czar. Prussia would fight France during the spring of 1813 alongside the Russians. They were joined by Austria and Sweden on 10 August 1813 and eventually drove the French across the Rhine. This accomplished, Prussia immediately began reoccupying its various territories that had been seized by the French.
When Napoleon returned to France in 1815 the Prussians mobilized their entire army and called up the Landwehr. They prepared for war once again and in May and June marched off to Belgium and their rendezvous with fate.
– Q –
QUADRUPLE ALLIANCE. The Quadruple Alliance was an agreement between Britain, Austria, Prussia and Russia to ensure that the terms of the second Treaty of Paris would be obeyed. It was signed on 20 November 1815.
QUATRE-BRAS, BATTLE OF. The battle of Quatre-Bras was fought on 16 June 1815, simultaneously with the battle of Ligny. A French force of 19,750 infantry and 6,945 cavalrymen under Marshal Ney advanced to the west of the main French army and at the vital crossroads of Quatre-Bras encountered a force of 36,000 Dutch and British troops, initially commanded by the Duke of Orange and, after his death, by the Duke of Wellington.
Quatre-Bras was a meeting engagement where both forces advanced onto the battlefield piecemeal and the British and Dutch troops were able to occupy the vital crossroads and hold them, despite tremendous blows thrown against them by Ney. The British almost lost the engagement because of the ineptness of the Duke of Orange, but his timely death ended his incompetent orders and allowed more competent military commanders to stabilize the situation until Wellington arrived and ended the day with a British victory. The French are estimated to have lost around 4,000 men and the British and Dutch lost around 3,139.
The battle was significant because it prevented Ney and d’Erlon, who was not engaged at Quatre-Bras, but had orders to join the battle, from swinging east into the flank of the Prussians as they fought at Ligny. Had Ney and d’Erlon or even just d’Erlon been able to intervene at Ligny, the Waterloo campaign would have been very different.
– R –
RAAB, BATTLE OF. The battle of Raab was fought on 14 June 1809 near the confluence of the Raab, Raabnitz and Little Danube Rivers. Eugène de Beauharnais commanded a force of 33,000 to 35,000 French and Italians and engaged the Austrians, under Archduke Johann, who numbered around 32,000 infantry and cavalry. Eugène had chased Archduke Karl from northern Italy to a position about seventy miles southeast of Vienna. Charles deployed his forces and waited for the French to advance against him. Charles’s center and right held, but his left failed when the French artillery ripped into his cavalry. The French cavalry then began to turn Charles’s flank and advanced against his only line of retreat. Threatened with being encircled, Charles withdrew from the battlefield, leaving it to Eugène. The French and Italians lost around 4,000 dead and wounded. The Austrians lost 6,235 officers and men.
RAYNOUARD, FRANÇOIS JUSTE MARIE (1761–1836). Raynouard was born on 8 September 1761 in Brignoles, France. He was educated in the law and practiced in Draguignan. In 1791 he was elected as a deputy to the legislative Assembly, was a member of the Girondist party and when it fell he was imprisoned. During his imprisonment he turned to writing and wrote the play Canton d’Utique. Raynouard’s subsequent works Éléanore de Bavière and Les Templiers were produced by the Comédie française with great success. Raynouard was admitted to the Academy in 1807 where from 1817 to 1826 he served as perpetual secretary. His literary output continued until his death on 27 October 1836. His last work was the posthumous Lexique roman ou dictionnaire de la langue des troubadours (6 volumes, 1838–1844).
RÉCAMIER, JEANNE FRANÇOISE JULIE ADÉLAÏDE (1777–1849). Récamier was born in Lyon on 4 December 1777. Her maiden name was Bernard. At the age of 15 she married Jacques Récamier, a banker who was old enough to be her father and died in 1830. During the Consulate and lasting through the July monarchy, her Paris salon was one of the focal points of French literary and political society. Among the visitors to her salon were Bernadotte and Moreau, plus others who were disaffected by the French government. Récamier was a friend of Madame de Staël, which did not put her in good graces with Napoleon. In 1802 she posed for the French artist François Gérard. The artist Jacques David had earlier begun a portrait of her, but he abandoned it after she turned to Gérard.
Napoleon had Récamier exiled from Paris and she migrated first to Lyon, then to Rome and finally to Naples. Here her sense of intrigue brought her into the circle of Murat and his wife Caroline, sister of Napoleon, who were intriguing with the Bourbons. Her friend Benjamin Constant pleaded Murat’s claims in a memorandum to the Congress of Vienna.
Financially, the Récamiers were not in good straits. Her husband had lost most of his wealth in 1805 and the rest was soon gone. Récamier retired in 1814 to the Abbaye-aux-Bois and continued to receive visitors. She never lost her charm and appeal, despite her age and circumstances. Châteaubrand was a constant visitor. Other frequent visitors included Mathieu de Montmorency, Lucien Bonaparte, Prinz August von Preussen, Ballanche, J. J. Ampère and Benjamin Constant. Récamier died in Paris on 11 May 1849.
REGIMENT OF THE PRINCES. Though Napoleon consolidated many of the smaller German states and brought order to the patchwork of German states, there still remained a number of small states that, out of his munificence, Napoleon allowed to continue to exist as his vassals. Among them were the central German states of Lippe, Reuss, Schwarzburg and Waldeck.
These states were part of the Confederation of the Rhine, and as a result, had a military commitment to the Napoleonic war machine. This commitment was called out in the treaties between France and each state. The first call on those commitments occurred in early 1808, as Napoleon prepared to invade Spain. The Lippe, Reuss, Schwarzburg and Waldeck contingents were organized into a single battalion known as the Bataillon des princes or Fürsten Battalion (in German). Originally it was to be known as the Collège des princes régiment (Regiment of the Princes), but the strength that was mustered proved that the term battalion was more appropriate.
It served throughout the Spanish campaign and its elements were disarmed by the French after Napoleon issued the Decree of 25 November 1813.
REICHENBACH, CONVENTION OF. Signed on 14 June 1813, the Convention of Reichenbach was signed by the Austrians, Russians and Prussians. By its terms, Napoleon was to be invited to accept a peace on the basis of four points: the restoration of Prussia to its pre-1806 borders, the return of the Illyrian provinces to Austria, the withdrawal of French military support of the Confederation of the Rhine and the dismemberment of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. If Napoleon rejected these terms Austria would be committed to join the Allies and declare war on France. Napoleon refused them, Austria declared war on 12 August 1813, and hostilities resumed on 15 August 1813.
REICHENBACH, TREATY OF. Signed on 27 June 1813 by Austria, Russia and Prussia, this treaty ended Austria’s alliance with France established under the Treaty of Schönbrunn and brought Austria into the 1813 campaign.
REICHSTADT, NAPOLEON FRANÇOIS CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE, DUC DE (1811–1832). Napoleon François was born on 20 March 1812 in the Tuileries Palace in Paris, to Marie-Louise and Napoleon I of France. Napoleon abdicated in April 1814 in favor of his son and was sent to Elba, while Marie-Louise and his son were sent to Vienna. During the Hundred Days efforts were made to bring the boy to his father in Paris, but they were thwarted. Napoleon Francis would remain in Vienna for the rest of his short life, a pawn in European politics. The title of Duke of Reichstadt was conferred on him on 22 July 1818 as compensation for not being able to inherit the two duchies given to his mother by the Congress of Vienna. Napoleon François lived the quiet life of a prisoner of court, never marrying and remaining in Vienna until his death on 22 July 1832.
REID, TREATY OF. Signed on 8 October 1813 by Austria and Bavaria, this was a military alliance that brought Bavaria into the Sixth Coalition and marked Bavaria’s defection from the Confederation of the Rhine. It was between General Wrede, commanding the Bavarian troops, and Prince von Reuss, who commanded a force of Austrians. In this convention the two parties agreed to join in the “good cause” and unite their troops with those of the Allies. Their combined forces, which consisted of 60,000 to 70,000 troops, immediately moved to Bamberg on the Main, where they could act in Bavaria’s and the Allies’ best interest.
REIMS, BATTLE OF. The battle of Reims was fought on 12–13 March 1814. Napoleon, stung by his near disaster at Laon, was unwilling to pass up an opportunity to revenge himself on the French émigré general, Saint-Priest, who commanded the Russian VIII Corps, some 13,000 Russians and Prussians. Napoleon advanced on Saint-Priest with around 33,000 infantry and cavalry.
Saint-Priest was taken
totally by surprise. Several of his outposts were snapped up by overwhelming forces. General Jagow had stopped to inspect some troops and escaped the rapidly advancing French only by grabbing an unsaddled horse and riding as fast as he could. When Saint-Priest learned that he was about to be engaged, he deployed as if he were facing an equal force. His deployments were faulty and allowed Napoleon to pin him against the Aisne River. Saint-Priest was killed by a howitzer and his command almost fell apart when Generalmajor Emanuel panicked and failed to take command. Generalleutnant Pantschulischev was able to restore enough order to organize a withdrawal from the battlefield. As the Allies retreated from the field they lost 700 to 800 dead, 1,500 to 1,600 wounded and up to 4,000 prisoners. The French lost between 700 and 800 men.
RESTIF DE LA BRETONNE, NICOLAS EDMÉ (1734–1806). Restif was born in Sacy, France, on 23 October 1734, to a farm family. He was educated by the Jansenists and when they were expelled from France, he was taken in by his brother. Restif soon was involved in a scandal and escaped by apprenticing to a printer in Auxerre. As a journeyman he moved to Paris and married in 1760. Restif then turned to literature and would write more than 200 volumes, many of which he printed himself, on every conceivable topic, including Le Pornographe, which was published in 1760 and was rumored to be carried by Emperor Joseph II. At age 60 Restif wrote his autobiography, in which he wrote of his numerous loves, real and fancied, his hatreds and his notions on a multitude of moral and social issues. In 1805 Napoleon gave him a place in the Ministry of Police. Restif died in Paris on 2 February 1806.
REUSS. Reuss, like many other small German states, was in fact two separate states ruled by related families who combined their armed forces in order to form a military force of sufficient size to be viable in the field.
Reuss consisted of two territories separated by Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. The southern and larger territory, or Oberland, had Schleiz and Geritz as its chief towns. It was bounded on the east by Saxony, to the south by Bavaria and to the west by Saxe-Meiningen and part of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt. On the northwest stood part of Prussian Saxony. The smaller portion, or Unterland, was around the city of Gera. It was bounded on the east and west by Saxe-Altenburg and on the north by Prussian Saxony.
Historical Dictionary of the Napoleonic Era Page 31