Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18.djvu/602

594 beginning of 1812, Napoleon was literally invincible. He was master of all Continental Europe, from the Atlantic to the Niemen, and from Cape North to Reggio. There was not a sovereign in that part of the world, from the kings of Sweden and Denmark to the Emperor of Austria and the Turkish Sultan, who did not wear crowns and wield sceptres only because the sometime General Bonaparte was willing they should wear and wield the emblems of imperial or royal power. He was at war only with Great Britain, and Spain, Portugal, and Sicily; and Great Britain was the sole enemy he was bound to respect. All the more enlightened Spaniards were all but ready to acknowledge the rule of his brother Joseph, and would have done so but for French failure in the Russian war. England's army could have been driven from the Peninsula with ease, had a third of the men who were worse than wasted in Russia been directed thither in the early spring of 1812. The Bourbons of Sicily hated their English protectors so bitterly, that they were ready to unite with the French to get up a modern imitation of the Sicilian Vespers at their expense. The war might soon have been confined to the ocean, and there it would have been fought for France principally by Americans, as the United States were soon to declare war against England. Never before was man so strong as Napoleon on New-Year's day, 1812; and in less than four years he was living in lodgings, and bad lodgings too, in St. Helena! What hope could the Prussians have, a month before the march to Moscow was resolved upon? None that could encourage them. Some of the more sanguine spirits, supported by general sentiment, were still of opinion that something could be effected; but the larger number of intelligent men were very despondent, and not a few of them began to think of the world beyond the Atlantic, as English patriots had thought almost two centuries earlier, when, that "blood and iron man," Wentworth (Strafford), was developing his system of Thorough with a precision and an energy that even Count Bismark has never surpassed. The bolder Prussians, when their country had to choose between resistance to Napoleon and an alliance with him against Russia, were for resistance, and would have placed their country right across the Emperor's path, and fought out the battle with him, and abided the consequences, which would have been the annihilation of Prussia in a sixth part of the time that Mr. Seward allotted for the duration of the Secession war. The Prussian war party would have had the Russians advance into their country, and thus have staked the issue on just such a contest as occurred in 1806-7. Napoleon, it is at least believed, was desirous that Prussia should join Russia, as that would have enabled him to defeat his enemies without crossing the Russian frontier, and have afforded him an excuse for destroying Prussia. To prevent so untimely a display of resistance to French ascendency was the aim of a few Prussians, headed by the king himself, who became very unpopular in consequence. Fortunately for Prussia, they were successful, and the means employed deceived not only the patriotic party, but even Napoleon, who was completely imposed upon by the report of the Baron von dem Knesebeck against a war between Russia and France. The story belongs to the romance of history; but it is too long, because involving many facts, to be told here.

Prussia was prevented from "throwing herself into the arms of Russia," much to the disgust of Scharnhorst and his friends. She even assisted Napoleon in his war against Alexander, and sent a contingent to the Grand Army, which formed the tenth corps of that memorable force, and was commanded by Marshal Macdonald. It consisted of twenty-six thousand men, including one French infantry division,—the Prussians being generally estimated at twenty thousand men. This corps