Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/606

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462 General History of Europe Napoleon's conduct toward Prussia was most insolent. After setting her at enmity with England by promising that she should have Hanover, he unblushingly offered to restore the electorate to George III. His insults now began to arouse the national spirit in Prussia, and the reluctant Frederick William III was forced by the party in favor of war to break with Napoleon. 814. Campaign of Jena (isoe). Prussia's army was, however, as has been well said, "only that of Frederick the Great grown twenty years older"; one of Frederick's generals, the aged duke of Brunswick, who had issued the famous manifesto in 1792 ( 767, end), was its leader. A single defeat, near Jena (October 14, 1806), put Prussia completely in the hands of her enemy. This one disaster produced complete demoralization throughout the country. Fortresses were surrendered without resistance, and the king fled to the uttermost parts of his realm on the Russian boundary. 815. Treaties of Tilsit (iso?). Napoleon now led his army into Poland, where he spent the winter in operations against Rus- sia. He closed an arduous campaign by a signal victory at Fried- land (June 14, 1807), which was followed by the treaties of Tilsit with Russia and Prussia (July 7 and 9). Prussia was thoroughly defeated. Frederick William III lost all his pos- sessions to the west of the Elbe and all that Prussia had gained in the second and third partitions of Poland. The Polish terri- tory Napoleon made into a new subject kingdom called the grand duchy of Warsaw, and chose his friend the king of Saxony as its ruler. Out of the western lands of Prussia, which he later united with Hanover, he created the kingdom of Westphalia for his brother Jerome. Russia, on the other hand, was treated with marked consideration. 816. The Continental Blockade. Napoleon's most persevering enemy, England, still remained unconquered and inaccessible. Just as Napoleon was undertaking his successful campaign against Austria in 1805, Nelson had annihilated a second French fleet in the renowned naval engagement of Trafalgar, off the coast of Spain. It seemed more than ever necessary, therefore, to ruin