Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/374

 362 THE EUROPEAN CONVULSION Napoleon's most brilliant victories at Austerlitz (Dec. 2nd). In the interval, Prussia had begun to think about taking action, but had preferred second thoughts. Before the end of the month, Russia had withdrawn in disgust, and Austria was submitting to have terms dictated to her at Presburg. Those terms included the transfer to the ' Kingdom of Italy ' of the Italian provinces which still remained to Austria after Luneville, and the surrender of various outlying territories to the South German princes who had sided with Napoleon. The King of England's German Elec- A new Map torate of Hanover was presented to Prussia. Most of Europe. f the German states outside of Austria and the Prussian dominion were soon after associated in the Confedera- tion of the Rhine ; but one group on the north-west was made into the kingdom of Westphalia for Napoleon's younger brother Jerome ; Belgium and Holland were made a kingdom for Louis Bonaparte ; while the Bourbons, on a flimsy pretext, were turned out of Naples, which was given to Joseph Bonaparte. In August the emperor finally dropped his title as Roman Emperor, and the Holy Roman Empire ended its thousand years of existence. Negotiations between Napoleon and the new British ministry, rejected by the latter, opened Prussia's eyes to the fact that she was being made a cat's-paw. Too late, she turned on Napoleon, who, promptly crushed her defiance at Jena (October), and made what was practically a triumphant march through the country. Frederick William took refuge with the Russians, against whom Napoleon was obliged to advance. A desperate but indecisive battle at Eylau in February was followed by a decisive victory at Friedland in June ; and this was followed by a personal meeting between Napoleon and Alex- ander at Tilsit, when the two emperors came to an amicable agreement which meant that they were virtually to share the domination of Europe. Prussia lost some more territory, her share of Poland being transformed into the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, and handed over to Saxony. But Napoleon's grand object was to carry out his * Continental System,' initiated by a decree issued from Berlin after Jena, by which the British were to be absolutely excluded from every European port ; thus