When, several years later, the oppressions of Napoleon had given to a great part of the German race at least the transient nobleness of a real patriotism, the story of Palm's death was one of those that kindled the bitterest sense of wrong: at the time, it exercised no influence upon the course of political events. Southern Germany remained passive, and supplied Napoleon with a reserve of soldiers: Prussia had to look elsewhere for allies. Its prospects of receiving support were good, if the war should prove a protracted one, but not otherwise. Austria, crippled by the disasters of 1805, could only hope to renew the struggle if victory should declare against Napoleon. In other quarters help might be promised, but it could not be given at the time and at the place where it was needed. The Czar proffered the whole forces of his Empire; King George III. forgave the despoilers of his patrimony when he found that they really intended to fight the French; but the troops of Alexander lay far in the East, and the action of England in any Continental war was certain to be dilatory and ineffective. Prussia was exposed to the first shock of the war alone. In the existing situation of the French armies, a blow unusually swift and crushing might well be expected by all who understood Napoleon's warfare. [Situation of the French and Prussian armies, Sept., 1806.] [French on the Main.] [Prussians on the Saale.] A hundred and seventy thousand French soldiers, with contingents from the Rhenish Confederate States, lay between the Main and the Inn. The last weeks of peace, in which the Prussian Government imagined themselves to be deceiving the enemy while they pushed forward their own preparations, were employed by Napoleon in quietly concentrating this vast force upon the Main (September, 1806). Napoleon himself appeared to be absorbed in friendly negotiations with General Knobelsdorff, the new Prussian Ambassador at Paris. In order to lull Napoleon's suspicions, Haugwitz had recalled Lucchesini from Paris, and intentionally deceived his successor as to the real designs of the Prussian Cabinet. Knobelsdorff confidentially informed the Emperor that Prussia was not serious in its preparations for war. Napoleon, caring very little whether Prussia intended to fight or not, continued at Paris in the appearance of the greatest calm, while his lieutenants in Southern Germany executed those unobserved movements which were to collect the entire army upon the Upper Main. In the meantime the advisers of King Frederick William supposed themselves to have made everything ready for a vigorous offensive. Divisions of the Prussian army, numbering nearly 130,000 men, were concentrated in the neighbourhood of Jena, on the Saale. The bolder spirits in the military council pressed for an immediate advance through the Thuringian Forest, and for an attack upon what were supposed to be the scattered detachments of the French in Bavaria.