Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 14.djvu/281

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NAPOLEON I. 239 NAPOLEON I. Grand Army iutu Southern Gennany began. On the part of Austria, tlip Arduliikp Diaries, with over 00,000 men, the best <;i"'ral and the hirjtest army, was intrusted with operations in Italy, where 50.000 French tr(Kips were under the eonmiand of Massf-na, wliile the smaller Austrian army under the command of the Arehduke Ferdinand and General Mack, in- vaded Bavaria and occupied the untenable line of the Danube and the lller with headquarters at Ulm, This move left Austria almost bare of troops. Making a feint at repeating Moreau's tactics of 1790 in attempting to turn Mack's left, Napoleon ordered the actual attack to be made on the right, Bernadotte and Jlarmont occupied ilunich, Davout and Soult seized Augs- burg, while Ney and Lannes occupied Giinzburg and operated to the north of Ulm. Mack made three fruitless attempts to extricate himself, but after defeats at Wertingen, Menimingen, and Elehingen (October 14th), he was forced to capitulate with .33,000 men on October 20th. Though the Archduke Ferdinand escaped, Xapo- leon's forces were tlius able to advance directly to Vienna, which he occupied on November 13tli. The Russian forces which had been advancing to support JIack were forced to fall back into Bohemia, where the various divisions were united under the command of Kutusoff and joined by part of the Austrian forces. Napoleon marched northward to meet them, and on December 2d won his greatest victory, Austerlitz. The cam- paign of Ulm and Au.sterlitz was won by Napo- leon's knowledge of the value of time, the whirlwind rapidity of his movements, and the precision of his combinations. The battle of Austerlitz was won by a masterly use of artillery. The vanquished Emperor Francis I, of Austria humbled himself before Napoleon in the Treat.v of Pressburg ( December 26th ) and consented to large cessions of territory, including the former Venetian dominions, Tyrol (which was given to Bavaria), etc. The overthrow of Austria re- sulted in the formal dissolution of the' old Holy Roman Empire (August 6, 180G), What Austerlitz was for Napoleon on land, Trafalgar was for England on the .sea. After a brief rest at home. Nelson had been ordered out to attack Villeneuve, who with the combined French and Spanish fleets sailed out of Cadiz and met Nelson off Cape Trafalgar. England's greatest sea-fighter won the greatest naval battle of the century, but lost his life (October 21, 1805). After' this the French were able to do nothing at sea, and the ports of both France and her allies were generally blockaded by the English fleets. England was undisputed mistress of the Beas, while Napoleon began to remake the map of Europe as though he were the undisputed master of the Continent. The most important changes during the vear 1806 were the formation under his protection of the Confederation of the Tlliine. the establishment of his brother .Joseph as King of Naples, and of his brother Louis as King of Holland, and the creation of the Grand Duchy of Berg for his brother-in-law Murat. The death of Pitt (.January 23. 1806) led to negotiations between Napoleon and Fox, the new Foreign Secretary. These negotiations, as well as those with Russia, came to naught, and to Napoleon's surprise this failure was coupled with the de- cision on the part of Frederick William TIT. of Prussia to make war upon him. Single-handed Prussia undertook to meet Napoleon, who, as soon as he foresaw that war was inevitable, acted with the same igor as in the previous year. The Prussian armv under Prince Hohen- lohe-Ingeltingen and Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, was drawn out in a line eighty-tive miles in length, extending from Gera westward to the borders of Hesse-Cassel with the bulk at Erfurt, Napoleon left Paris on Sep- tember 25th and assumed charge of the campaign at Wiirzburg on October 2d, On the 10th Prince Louis Ferdinand was defeated and slain in a skirmish at Saalfeld ; on the 14th Napoleon sur- prised the Prussian army in its attempt to con- centrate, and in person defeated Hohenlohe at Jena, while Davout defeated Brunswick at Auer- stiidt, Murat and Lannes pursued Hohenlohe and forced him to surrender at Prenzlau (October 28th), while the other remnants of the Prussian army and the fortresses surrendered without a blow. Saxony, which had acted as the ally of Prussia, went over to Napoleon, and later re- ceived as reward the Duchy of Warsaw. From the Prussian capital Napoleon issued the Berlin Decree, which, with the Milan Decree of 1807 and other decrees, was directed against English com- merce. See Continental Sy.stem, Prussia, though vanquished, continued weakly the struggle in her eastern provinces, where Ben- nigsen and the Russians were ready to join in the contest, ilurat occupied Warsaw, then Prus- sian territory, in November, 1800. In December Napoleon entered the ancient Polish capital and was greeted as the restorer of Polish liberties. The French having gone into winter quarters, Ben- nigsen hoped to surprise them and destroy them before they could again take the fielil, and accord- ingly attacked Ney and Bernadotte, but their successful resistance defeated the plan and Napo- leon in person pursued Bennigsen, who retreated toward Kijnigsberg and overtook him at Eylau (q.v. I. The ensuing battle ( February- 7-8, 1807) was a butchery, not a victory. Napoleon hurried up reenforcements to renew the struggle in the spring. Sebastian!, the French Ambassador at Constantinople, persuaded the Sultan to declare war against Russia. Gardane was sent to stir up Persia to like action. Mortier induced the Sw-edes to treat with France. The campaign for Ktinigsberg liegan early in June and was marked by the indecisive action of lleilsbcrg (June 10) and the defeat, four days later, of the Russians under Bennigsen at Friedlan<l (q.v.). On June 25th the Czar and Napoleon held their famous conference of Tilsit (q.v.) on a raft moored in the Niemen. By the Treaty of Tilsit, Prussia was humbled even more than Austria had been at Pressburg, while the Czar became the ally of Napoleon and began to plan with him the divi- sion of the world between thflm. Though England, under the Ministry of .Ml the Talents, had behaved very badly toward Prussia and Russia, she remained the one .steadfast foe of the French Emperor, and pursied without wavering her policy of opix)sition to Napoleon. At Tilsit Napoleon bound the Czar to enforce the Continental System against England, and then began the task of compelling all the lesser Powers to adhere to the system. There were to be no neutrals. Portugal, the constant ally of Eng- land, was the first victim. By the Treaty of Fontainebleau Napoleon joined with Spain to dismember that kingdom, and in November. 1807,