The Campaigns of Napoleon

by David G Chandler

  There lay the rub. Napoleon was only too well aware that his great triumph over Prussia had done little either to win him genuine international recognition or to bring any closer the possibility of a general pacification. The British people remained adamant in its hostility, Prussia obstinately refused to make peace, the Tsar had assured Frederick William (now a fugitive seeking sanctuary with his family within the walls of Königsberg) of Russia’s determination to continue the war, and there were disturbing reports that Austria was in the process of rearming. The possible combination of British gold and naval support, of Russian frontal onslaught through Poland and a resurgence of Austrian opposition on the Grande Armée’s southern flank posed a threat which could not be taken lightly. For several months, therefore, Napoleon and Talleyrand made every effort to reduce these perils to more manageable proportions, hoping to eliminate one or more of the dangers by adroit diplomacy and economic pressure. In all essentials, therefore, France was for the time being on the defensive.

  Where Austria was concerned, the Emperor’s fears eventually proved groundless. It transpired that Austrian efforts to rearm were at least partly inspired by a fear that the French were planning to strike at the Danube once again and violate Austrian neutrality. “As if we had not enough to do with the winter and the Muscovites, she [Austria] pretended to think that we would pass the gorges of her mountains,” ² commented General Savary. All that Napoleon required of the Schönbrunn was a guarantee of continued neutrality, and this he eventually received. His offer to return part of Silesia to the Hapsburgs at Prussia’s expense showed how genuine were the Emperor’s protestations, while the reinforcement of the French Army of Italy served as a tacit reminder to the Austrian strategists that any embarkation upon hostilities in Germany or Poland would also involve the finding of some 80,000 troops to protect their Alpine frontiers. Furthermore, the reconstructed Austrian army had hardly been given time to find its feet, and the Archduke Charles consequently counseled his master to bide his time and await a more favorable moment for intervention. Nevertheless, Napoleon remained distinctly anxious about his southern flank well into 1807. Austria was in a position to cause his army severe embarrassment, though, in the event, the role she played was closely analagous to that of Prussia in 1805, and the threat she posed was never transformed into reality.

  “The nation of shopkeepers” presented a very different problem. The French were not unduly worried about the possibility of a British invasion of France or Holland; the descents of 1793 and 1799 had hardly been impressive, and in 1806 Napoleon was convinced that the 40,000 men constituting the 3rd and Depot battalions of the Grande Armée stationed in France, strengthened by a further 30,000 National Guards and conscripts, would suffice to contain and repel any such landing. On the other hand, there was no doubt in his mind that Great Britain was the soul as well as the paymaster of the succession of hostile coalitions that were continually forming against him. There was little he could do about this directly, because the Royal Navy’s command of the sea since Trafalgar made “perfidious Albion” virtually impregnable to direct military pressure. One line of attack, however, was still open. Britain was vulnerable through her trade, and Napoleon set himself to increase the attack on Britannia’s “Achilles’ heel.” On November 21, 1806, the Berlin Decrees were issued ordering the closure to British trade of all coastlines and ports under French control. “The British Isles are declared to be in a state of blockade. All commerce and all correspondence with the British Isles are forbidden.” Goods already stored in Europe were to be confiscated, all English nationals on French territory interned. This was by no means a new policy; the Revolutionary French Governments had developed the idea of economic warfare, and as we have seen during both the Consulate and the first years of the Empire trade sanctions had been imposed with varying efficacy. In November, 1806, however, the “Continental System,” as it was called, became a regularized and major aspect of French strategical and international policy. Its aim was to ruin British industry by closing European markets, and thus induce a state of growing economic difficulty and social unrest among the British public. It was hoped that this form of pressure would bring the British Government to terms.

  As it turned out, the Continental System proved a dismal and perhaps fatal failure. Some damage was inflicted on the British economy no doubt, but this could never become truly dangerous until the system was made completely effective. From the outset, the regulations were flouted, even by the Emperor’s most trusted subordinates. Massena set the fashion by slyly selling unofficial licenses to trade with England to Italian merchants, thus adding still further sums to his already immense fortune. Fouché wrote to Bourienne “that many Frenchmen, traveling for commercial houses in France, are at Manchester purchasing articles of English manufacture.”³ The Emperor’s ex-secretary was not particularly horrified, for he was himself actively engaged in dabbling in what may be termed the “black market.” In his capacity as French Minister at Hamburg, Bourienne was under orders to produce 50,000 cloaks for the use of the army in the forthcoming winter campaign. “I entered into a treaty with Hamburg, which I authorized, in spite of the Berlin Decree, to bring cloth and leather from England. Our troops might have perished of cold had the Continental System, and the absurd mass of inexecutable decrees relative to English merchandise, been observed.”4 Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland, was perhaps the worst offender in this respect, conniving at widespread evasion of the regulations by his subjects. “Bear down on the Dutch, bear down on the Dutch,” fulminated his infuriated brother, “you attach too great a price to popularity…. Before being good, you must be master.”5 Reprimands proved unavailing, however, and the Continent remained inundated with articles of English manufacture; indeed, many of the men who marched to Moscow in 1812 wore boots from Northamptonshire and greatcoats made of Lancashire and Yorkshire cloth.

  Besides being largely ineffective against England, the Berlin Decrees rapidly became a powerful factor in causing the decline of the First Empire. Napoleon felt partly compelled to fight the gory campaigns of Eylau and Friedland in order to induce Russia and the Baltic countries to accept the Continental System as well as to secure his German and Polish conquests; one motive that caused him to invade Spain in 1808 and to attack Russia four years later was doubtless the same desire to close alternative markets through which English trade was pouring. In addition to involving France in further costly wars, the economic sanctions of the system rebounded upon Napoleon’s head with a vengeance. The retaliatory British Orders in Council (January 1807), which declared France and her allies to be in a state of blockade and forbade neutral shipping to carry proscribed articles into Gallic ports on pain of forfeiture of cargo and sale of the vessels concerned in the Prize Courts, proved far more effective than the corresponding French decrees. Many commodities, such as coffee, cotton and cane sugar, became virtually unobtainable even in Paris, and the rigors of the British blockade served as a severe irritant which exacerbated relations between Napoleon and his satellites. The British policy, however, was not without its drawbacks; neutral states detested the regulations enforced by the ships of the Royal Navy, and in due course disagreement over the “right of search” led to war with the United States of America in 1812. Thus both sides paid heavily for dogmatic maintenance of their respective policies of economic strangulation, but in the end it was France that cracked under the strain. Although this did not occur until after 1812, the avowed purpose of the Berlin Decrees was a total failure, even in 1806. Britain remained completely uncowed by Napoleon’s bluster, and insular determination to bring about the downfall of “the frog that tried to blow itself up to the size of an ox” became even more pronounced. It is very probable that the issue of the Decrees marks the moment when Napoleon passed the true apogee of his career and started down the slope to ruin.

  Diplomatic attempts to persuade Tsar Alexander to accept the French status quo were equally unavailing. It was with some reluctance that Napoleon turned
his mind to the problem of defeating Russia’s armies, for he recognized the magnitude of the task, and it was some time before a scheme formulated in his mind. At the time of the capture of Berlin he was claiming vaguely that “we must, sooner or later, encounter and defeat the Russians,” but later in October more information about Russian moves and intentions came to hand, information that persuaded the Emperor that it was desirable to lead his army over the Vistula before permitting them to enter winter quarters that year. If the French were cantoned along and to the east of that great river, the corps would be in a good position to cover the operations already in progress against the remaining Silesian fortresses and at the same time protect the planned sieges of the important ports of Danzig, Köslin and Strälsund on the Baltic coast. Furthermore, the fact that the army would have the River Oder and its fortresses to its rear would provide a road of retreat and a second line of defense should events in Poland go adversely.

  In an attempt to secure accurate information of Russian intentions, on November 5 Napoleon ordered Davout “to scour the country in advance” and make a reconnaissance with the 2,500 dragoons of General Beaumont’s division as far as Posen. At the same time, on the southern flank, Jerome Bonaparte was instructed to seize Glogau in Silesia. While these moves were being executed, new and crucial intelligence reached Imperial Headquarters on the 9th.

  A force of at least 56,000 Russians had definitely moved westward from Grodno in late October, which made it quite possible that they could have reached the easternmost frontiers of Prussia by the end of that month, and might well arrive near the vital center of Thorn on the Vistula by mid-November. Two days later, Davout reported that there was no sign of the enemy near Posen, where he was in the process of setting up field bakeries. On the basis of these pieces of information Napoleon finally made up his mind. Although the exact position of the Russians and the real intentions of Austria were not yet clear, it was certainly in his interest to secure the most advantageous winter quarters from which to launch a decisive offensive in the spring of 1807. If the Russian commander, General Bennigsen, was to be forestalled on the Vistula and prevented from joining up with Lestocq’s Prussian corps in the vicinity of Warsaw, it behoved Napoleon to advance at once and occupy both Thorn and the Polish capital with the minimum of delay. Once he had gained the west bank of the Vistula, he could decide on the advisability of any further advance in the light of the information that would by then have come to hand; if necessary, he could turn to deal with Austria.

  Orders were accordingly issued. The initial advance was to be made on a broad front behind a screen of cavalry with the intention of acquiring the earliest possible tidings of Russian dispositions. Eighty thousand men, comprising the corps of Davout, Lannes, Augereau and Jerome, under the temporary command of Murat, were designated for this task. To the north, the Vth and VIIth Corps would move from Stettin and Berlin respectively towards Thorn, while in the center Davout’s IIIrd Corps was to push on beyond Posen and make for Warsaw. To the south, Jerome’s command (the IXth Corps) was to advance from Glogau toward Kalisch in such a way as to secure the southern flank against any possibility of Austrian intervention (however remote this likelihood now appeared); while on his extreme right, General Vandamme’s division was to move on Breslau to seize the Silesian fortresses as occasion offered. The extreme northern flank was entrusted to Mortier’s VIIIth Corps on the 11th, Louis Bonaparte being ordered back to guard Holland. Napoleon himself would, for the present, remain at Berlin organizing the rear areas and ensuring that the remaining corps of the Grande Armée, as they returned from pursuing Blücher, were sent forward along the correct roads in the second wave—namely, Bernadotte and Ney toward Thorn, and Soult (with his own command and the four cavalry divisions constituting Bessières’ Second Cavalry Reserve) in the direction of Warsaw.

  Napoleon’s decision to invade Poland was not wholly dictated by military requirements; there was also a strong political motive. During the past 35 years this unfortunate country had no less than three times been partitioned by its powerful and voracious neighbors, Russia, Prussia and Austria. The Emperor was well aware that he was now in a position to play the role of “deliverer,” and by reconstituting the ancient kingdom might hope to gain a cooperative ally in eastern Europe besides perhaps 50,000 troops to swell the Grande Armée. Once again, his motives were wholly opportunist; in his heart of hearts Napoleon evinced little true sympathy with Polish national aspirations. “Poland! So much the worse for them,” he once exclaimed. “They have allowed themselves to be partitioned. They are no longer a nation—they have no public spirit. The nobles are too much; the people too little. It is a dead body to which life must be restored before anything can be made of it. I will make officers and soldiers of them first; afterward I shall see. I shall take Prussia’s portion; I shall have Posen and Warsaw, but I will not touch Cracow, Gallicia or Vilna.”6 Indeed, Poland required careful handling; too brusque an approach might sting Austria into immediate hostilities, and Napoleon was equally eager not to overoffend the Tsar’s known susceptibilities and thus compromise any future chance of a negotiated settlement. In consequence he was careful not to make any direct promise of political freedom, nor did he call on the Poles to revolt against their present masters. Once Warsaw was in his hands, he contented himself with forming the six departments already wrested from Prussia into a semiautonomous political unit, setting over it a council of seven Polish noblemen. For the rest, Napoleon was very cautious. “I should like to make Poland independent, but that is a difficult matter,” he once confided to Bourienne. “Austria, Russia and Prussia have all had a slice of the cake; when the match is once kindled, who knows where the conflagration may stop…. We must refer this matter to the sovereign of all things—time.”7

  Meanwhile, the army was advancing deep into Poland, meeting no resistance. By November 18, Davout was halfway to Warsaw, Augereau was near Bromberg, Jerome approaching Kalisch. The cavalry screen reported that General Lestocq and perhaps 15,000 Prussians—the last remnant of Frederick William’s military power—were in possession of Thorn—soon to be reached by Lannes—but there were no signs of the Russians. Indeed, it was not until the 27th that Murat reported the first contact with the major enemy, after briefly brushing with Russian Cossacks immediately to the west of Warsaw. General Bennigsen, however, made no attempt to defend the city. He withdrew his army to the right bank of the Vistula, burning the bridge at Praga, before commencing a careful retreat toward Pultusk, and on the 28th Murat took possession of Warsaw without encountering any opposition. A few weeks later Napoleon joined him there. Le Tondu arrived on horseback; his carriages had broken down in the marshes miles behind—a revealing testimony to the appalling conditions of the Polish roads.

  After a period of activity during which probes by Bennigsen and Lestocq were repulsed, a short strategic pause ensued. Warsaw was the limit of safe advance until the rest of the army could come up; it was necessary to turn it into a center of operations, building depots, hospitals and the like, and the troops were certainly weary. There had never been a pause of any length since August, and now les grognards—the term was coined by the Emperor at this period—were demanding a period of recuperation. Napoleon was content to consider a halt for the time being. His front, running along the Vistula, was fairly narrow, only 240 kilometers dividing the Baltic coast from the frontiers of Austria. Possession of Warsaw and nearby Modlin gave Napoleon a strong strategic position, for the rivers Narew, Bug and Ukra flowed into the Vistula in this vicinity, providing several possible lines of operations for the next spring. The area between Warsaw and Thorn was also well situated for the rapid concentration of the army in the event of a Russian attack through the marshes of north Poland, a move which could well lead to the mass of the French army falling on their rear, using Warsaw as their base. Of this, however, there seemed to be no immediate danger, for on December I, Bennigsen began to fall back from the Vistula area behind a screen of cossacks, making for a re
ndezvous with Buxhowden’s approaching army some 30 miles east of Ostrolenka. Four days later Thorn fell into French hands on Lestocq’s withdrawal. However, Napoleon was still anxious to secure his position. Writing to Murat from Posen on the 6th, he stated: “I am waiting to hear whether the bridges over the Vistula and the Bug have been restored. These two crossings are absolutely vital to me, for they will make possible the concentration of my troops around Warsaw.”8 Furthermore, if the enemy was so rash as to mount an attack on the Lower Vistula there would then be no natural obstacle to prevent the French from falling on the Russian flank and rear.

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  MEN AND MATÉRIEL

  With both major contestants temporarily occupied with largely defensive arrangements, this is a convenient moment to examine the armies and describe their most important generals. Immediately after the Jena campaign, Napoleon was in control of more than 200,000 men in Germany. In terms of numbers, the infantry arm was inevitably the strongest. The Grande Armée disposed of 61 infantry regiments, the majority of which had two battalions serving at the front and one back in France, but 18 were provided with an establishment of four battalions, three being on active service. This meant that there were 1,400 companies, each of 123 men, or some 172,000 infantrymen at the Emperor’s disposal. The cavalry arm was made up of 24 dragoon and cuirassier regiments, 18 of chasseurs and 9 of hussars; each regiment containing four squadrons. In round terms, these 204 squadrons totaled about 36,000 cavalrymen. They were mounted better than ever before, following the requisitioning of large numbers of Prussian horses.

  The Emperor was not, however, wholly satisfied with this imposing armament. Faced with what promised to be a severe and probably extended campaign against the vast hordes of Russia, he planned to increase the strength of each infantry company to 140 men and to add a fifth squadron to the cavalry regiments.9 Every type of expedient was used to raise the necessary 23,000 extra infantry and the 10,000 additional horsemen. Thanks to the earlier expedient of anticipating the call-up, the first of 80,000 trained conscripts of the class of 1806 were already reaching the army. But they did not prove sufficient to repair the wastage of the Prussian campaign, garrison the lines of communication and still allow the proposed increase in unit establishment. Napoleon, therefore, had no hesitation in ordering the call-up of the class of 1807 in its turn ahead of schedule in an attempt to solve the discrepancy between numbers available and numbers required, although none of these 80,000 new conscripts could reach the colors before the summer of the next year. Allies and neutrals were also cajoled into providing more men; a recruiting drive was launched in Switzerland, and Holland and Spain were required to produce 20,000 and 15,000 men respectively. It took longer to train a cavalryman than an infantry soldier, so in an attempt to bridge the inevitable time gap eight cavalry regiments were transferred from the Army in Italy by an order of November 4. All these measures, however, proved inadequate, and the targets were never reached.