Hof, on Plauen; in the centre, Murat, with Bernadotte and Davoust, moved from Bamberg by Cronach, on Saalbourg; on the left, Lannes and Augereau advanced by Coburg and Graffenthal, on Saalfield. The effect of these movements was, to bring the French centre and right directly on the Prussian communications and reserves.

The Prussians were in the midst of their perilous advance toward the French left, when intelligence of this change of their opponents' position reached the Duke of Brunswick. He instantly sent orders to arrest the march of his troops, and directed their concentration in the neighborhood of Weimar. But before this movement could be accomplished, the French skirmishers were upon their flanks, and in every quarter they were forced to retreat with considerable loss. As yet, however, the contest on both sides had been confined to detachments of light troops, the principal force of the respective armies being yet too distant from each other for a general action. But, in the meantime, Napoleon had gained the whole line of the Prussian communications, and cut off every chance of retreat. Three days were consumed in partial engagements and important changes of position, every one of which resulted to the advantage of the French. On the evening of the 12th, the corps of Hohenlohe, consisting of about forty thousand men, was grouped in dense masses on a ridge of heights on the road from Jena to Weimar: the remainder of the army, about sixty-five thousand strong, under the Duke of Brunswick, and accompanied by the king, lay about a league in the rear of Hohenlohe. But while the Prussians were thus advantageously posted, they learned that Murat and Davoust had advanced upon Naumberg; on which the Duke of Brunswick, desirous to protect that town, and not suspecting that Napoleon contemplated an immediate action, moved with the principal part of his corps to Auerstadt, where he arrived at night on the 13th, leaving Hohenlohe at Jena to cover his retreat. During the same day, Napoleon took up his position on the heights opposite Jena, and made arrangements for a pitched battle on the following morning, without dreaming that the Prussians had thus insanely divided their forces.

At six o'clock on the 14th, the French commenced the attack, and the Prussians, though taken entirely by surprise, received it with great intrepidity. But their numbers were only forty thousand men, while the French exceeded ninety thousand; and notwithstanding the determined bravery with which they fought, it was impossible to avoid a terrible defeat. Column after column of fresh troops poured in upon them, the field was strewed with their dead and wounded, and at length they gave way at all points and fled in tumultuous confusion, pursued by the cavalry of Murat. At this moment, Ruchel arrived with a reënforcement of twenty thousand men; a force which, under different circumstances, might have changed the fortune of the day; but after a desperate combat of one hour's duration, they, too, were broken, dispersed and almost annihilated. It was no longer a battle, but a massacre. The Prussians, abandoning their artillery and all form of discipline, fled to Weimar, where the victors entered pell-mell with the fugitives.

While Hohenlohe and Ruchel were suffering this fearful disaster, the King of Prussia was fighting under different circumstances, though with little better success, at Auerstadt. Davoust, being posted near the king's encampment, had that morning received a dispatch from Napoleon-who

had not yet heard of the Duke of Brunswick's movement upon Auerstadt -announcing his intention of giving battle to the whole Prussian army at Jena, and directing him (Davoust) to fall on the Prussian rear, in order to cut off its retreat. The French marshal's corps, thirty thousand strong, though fully competent to check the flight of a routed army, would have seemed to be scarcely able to withstand the shock of sixty thousand well disciplined troops, who, commanded by the king and the Duke of Bruns wick, occupied the route designated for Davoust to pursue in Napoleon's dispatch. But he, as well as his Emperor, was ignorant of the force opposed to him, and without hesitation he began his march up the long and steep ascent which bounds the plateau of Auerstadt. He had already gained the defile of Koessen, and his vanguard was forming on the field beyond, when the straggling columns of the Prussians, not anticipating an attack at this point, crossed his path. A skirmish ensued, which, being promptly followed up by the advancing forces on each side, soon became a battle that raged without intermission during the whole day. The Prussian army was greatly superior to its opponents in numbers; and in discipline and courage, was inferior to none in Europe; but the French troops, in addition to their high discipline, had the material advantage of long experience and constant service in the field, to which the Prussians had been strangers, through a protracted interval of peace; and Davoust occupied a position of defiles, which, in a great degree, compensated for his deficiency of numerical strength. The battle resulted in the total defeat of the Prussians, who retreated with great loss; and Davoust, who had won imperishable military renown by such a victory against such odds, encamped on the scene of his triumph.

The King of Prussia, late at night, gave directions for the retreat of the army upon Weimar, intending to form a junction with Hohenlohe, of whose discomfiture he was yet ignorant. But as the troops, in extreme dejection, were following the great road which leads to that place, they were startled by the sight of an extensive line of bivouac fires on the heights of Apolda, where Bernadotte was posted with his entire corps, not having taken part in either action. This sudden apparition of a fresh army of unknown strength on the flank of their retreat, compelled the Prussians, at that untimely hour, to change their line and abandon the great road. At the same time, rumors began to circulate through the ranks of a catastrophe at Jena; and the appearance of fugitives from that quarter, moving in the utmost haste athwart the king's route, soon announced the magnitude of that overthrow. A general consternation now seized the men. Despair took possession of the stoutest hearts; and as the cross-tide of the broken battalions of Jena mingled with the wreck of the masses of Auerstadt, the confusion became inextricable, the panic universal. Infantry, cavalry and artillery disbanded, and fled in hopeless disorder across the fields without direction, command, or rallying-point.

The loss of the Prussians in the two battles was prodigious; it amounted to nearly forty thousand men-of whom one half were prisoners—two hundred pieces of cannon and twenty-five standards; and the consequences of the retreat were not less disastrous. The unusual occurrence of four generals being killed or mortally wounded, left the confused mass of fugitives without a leader, and they therefore fled wherever chance directed their steps. Fourteen thousand of the stragglers, arriving from different points, made their way into Erfurth, a place capable, under other

circumstances, of permanent defence; but the entire number surrendered on the following day, with a hundred and twenty pieces of cannon, to the first corps of the enemy that approached the town. On the 16th, three thousand men with twenty pieces of cannon, surrendered at Nordhausen, and on the 17th, four thousand men and thirty pieces of cannon were taken at Halle; while the killed and wounded in the contests where these captures were made, bore a large proportion to the number of prisoners. The king surrendered the command of the remnants of his army to Hohenlohe, and retired to Magdebourg, where Hohenlohe soon followed him with about twenty-six thousand men, to protect that important fortress. The French pursuit, however, was so rapid, that they arrived at Magdebourg before the bewildered Prussians had all taken refuge within its walls. Hohenlohe, finding it would be impossible to maintain the place, resolved to evacuate it with such of the troops as yet preserved any appearance of order; and he accordingly withdrew on the side opposite to the French position with fourteen thousand men, and made for Stettin, abandoning Berlin to its fate, and leaving twelve thousand disorganized combatants to defend themselves as they might at Magdebourg.

But the discomfitures of the Prussian general were not yet at an end. Wherever he directed his march, he found himself opposed by superior forces of the enemy; and, after undergoing incredible hardships and fatigue, and displaying withal conduct and bravery worthy a better fate, he at length, on the 28th of October, was forced to surrender with his whole army at Prentzlow. On the same day, in obedience to the summons of Marshal Lannes, the governor of the fortress of Stettin, on the Oder, capitulated without firing a shot; and, such was the terror inspired by the very appearance of a French detachment, the fortress of Custrin, with four thousand men, opened its gates on the 31st to the bare command of a single regiment of infantry, led by General Gauthier, and supplied with but two pieces of cannon. The disgrace and literal absurdity of this capitulation was made more conspicuous from the fact, that the French soldiers could not take possession of the fortress-it being situated on an island in the Oder-until the garrison supplied them with boats for the purpose!

The only corps of the Prussian army which had hitherto escaped destruction, was that formed by the union of Blucher's cavalry with the Duke of Saxe Weimar's infantry, and commanded by the former of these generals; who, after drawing reënforcements from some ill-defended interior fortresses, found himself at the head of twenty-four thousand men of all arms, including sixty pieces of cannon. Blucher first moved toward Magdebourg, which had not at that time surrendered to the invaders; but finding his progress interrupted by nearly sixty thousand of the enemy, he fell back to Lubec. Here, again, his march was impeded by thrice his own number of men under Bernadotte: he nevertheless made an entrance into the town, and defended it until near nightfall with invincible obstinacy; but his loss in the affair was immense, and in the evening he was glad to retreat with five thousand men to Schwertau, where his cavalry awaited him. He here ascertained that further resistance was hopeless, as he was completely enveloped by his indefatigable enemies; and he capitulated on the summons of Murat, yielding his whole force, with his artillery and baggage, into the hands of the French troops. This took place on the 7th of November. On the 8th, Magdebourg surrendered with

its garrison of fourteen thousand troops under arms, four thousand in hospital, six hundred pieces of cannon, eight hundred thousand pounds of powder, and extensive military stores of all sorts. The fortresses of Hameln and Nieubourg on the Weser, soon followed the example of Magdebourg, and their respective garrisons, augmented by stragglers to eight thousand men, yielded themselves prisoners of war.

In this deplorable extremity, the King of Prussia sought to obtain conditions of peace; but Napoleon, who had resolved on utterly destroying his unfortunate enemy, coldly replied to the ambassador, that it was premature to speak of peace when the campaign was scarcely begun, and that the king, having chosen the arbitrament of arms, must abide the issue.

On the 26th of October, Napoleon made a triumphal entry into Berlin; and, in order as much as possible to lacerate the feelings of his vanquished antagonists, he caused the procession to pass under the arch of the Great Frederic, and himself took up his residence at the old palace. In addition to this, he paraded a large body of prisoners through their native streets of Berlin, as an expression of his contempt for their misfortunes; he heaped all manner of indignity and cruelty on the nobles of the capital; and the brave old Duke of Brunswick, respectable from his age, his former achievements and his honorable scars, and at that moment mortally wounded, was driven by the persecutions of the French Emperor to take refuge in Altona, where he soon after expired.

The French armies, without meeting any further resistance, took possession of the whole country between the Rhine and the Oder; and in the rear of the victorious troops appeared the dismal scourge of military contributions: one hundred and sixty millions of francs were demanded, and the rapacity of the French agents employed in its collection aggravated the weight and odious nature of the imposition. Early in November, Napoleon issued a decree, separating the conquered state into four departments, namely, Berlin, Magdebourg, Stettin and Custrin; and the military and civil government of the whole was intrusted to a governorgeneral at Berlin, appointed by the Emperor, and subject in all respects to his control. The same system of usurpation was extended to the Duchy of Brunswick, the states of Hesse and Hanover, the Duchy of Mecklenberg and the Hanse Towns. Napoleon announced his intention to retain these territories until England should concede to him the liberty of the seas. Negotiations for peace between France and Prussia were in the mean time commenced, but Napoleon's demands were so exorbitant that the king resolved, even in his present state of helplessness, to abide the continuance of the war, rather than accede to them.

When this was decided, the main body of the French army pushed on to the Vistula to engage the forces of Russia. Napoleon made a brief halt at Posen, in Prussian Poland, where he gave audience to the deputies of that unhappy country, and made them promises of protection which he never performed. At the same time, as the contingent losses of so vast a body of men in constant service, even though always victorious, were considerable, the Senate at Paris, on the Emperor's requisition, voted a reënforcement of eighty thousand conscripts from the youth who would arrive at the lawful age in 1807. The Elector of Saxony was at this time elevated to the dignity of a king, and, as such, admitted into the Confederation of the Rhine.

The campaign of Jena was the most marvellous of Napoleon's achieve

ments. Without halting one day before the forces of the enemy, the French troops had marched from the Rhine to the Vistula; three hundred and fifty standards, four thousand pieces of cannon, six first-rate fortresses, and eighty thousand prisoners, had been taken in less than seven weeks: and of a noble array of a hundred and twenty thousand men, who were so lately mustered on the banks of the Saale, not more than fifteen thousand could be rallied to follow the fortunes of the Prussian king.

CHAPTER XXV.

CAMPAIGN OF EYLAU.

ALTHOUGH the campaign of Jena had nearly destroyed the power of Prussia, Russia was yet untouched, and while her formidable legions were in the field, the war was very far from being terminated. Napoleon felt this, as the armies of the two Empires approached the Vistula at a season of the year when, in ordinary contests, the soldier's only care is to protect himself against the rigor of the elements. The efficient force of the French, who were concentrated on the destined theatre of war early in December, amounted to one hundred thousand men; while the allied army of Russia and Prussia, owing to the expedition of a large detachment to the Turkish dominions, could not be estimated at more than seventy-five thousand. Field-marshal Kamenskoi, who had the command in-chief of this force, was a veteran of the school of Suwarrow, nearly eighty years of age, and little qualified to enter the lists with Napoleon; but the ability of Benningsen and Buxhowden, the two next in command, promised, in part, to atone for the old marshal's deficiencies.

The cabinet of St. Petersburg had foreseen that the rapidity of Napoleon's movements would give the French a numerical superiority on the Vistula, unless Russia could receive some material aid in bringing forward her troops; and they therefore made early application to Great Britain, for a portion of those subsidies which she had so liberally granted on former occasions, to the powers who combated the common enemy of European independence; and, considering that the whole weight of the contest had now fallen on Russia, they solicited, and not without reason, a loan of six millions sterling. The answer to this application, proved too clearly that the spirit of Pitt no longer directed the British councils. The subsidy was declined on the part of the government, but the ministers proposed that a loan should be contracted in England, for the service of Russia, and that, for the security of the lenders, the duties on British merchandise then levied in the Russian ports, should be repealed, and the same duties, in lieu thereof, levied in the British ports and applied to the payment of the interest on the loan. This strange proposal, equivalent to a declaration of want of confidence both in the integrity and solvency of the Russian government, was of course rejected, and, to the lasting discredit of England, Russia was left to contend unaided with the power of France.

The advanced posts of the allied army had reached the Vistula, though