The years passed on, but Prussia did not remain in her deep humiliation, prostrate and powerless. A new spirit began to awake, and through the efforts of such men as Stein and Hardenberg, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, who nobly and without hope of reward devoted themselves to the redemption of the Fatherland, a feeling began to stir throughout the country that the day of deliverance must come. And it did come. Arrogant with his successes and thirsting for fresh conquests, Napoleon in the year 1812 aspired to seize the mighty Russian Empire and add it to his dependencies, but there a check was placed on his victorious career. To be sure he penetrated as far as Moscow, expecting to winter there, but the Russians sacrificed their ancient capital and Napoleon with his troops was driven from the burning city out into the open country in the depth of Winter. The Lord of Hosts seemed to have allied himself with the Russians to destroy the disturber of the peace of Europe, for the Winter was an early and unusually severe one and Napoleon was forced to order a retreat. And what a retreat it was! Day after day, through the heavy snows and the bitter cold, plodded the exhausted soldiers, pursued and harried by the Russians like hunted animals. Of the five hundred thousand men who set out in all the proud assurance of victory, only a few thousands returned again to France. It was a bitter blow to the aspiring conqueror—God himself had dealt out judgment to him! He hastily collected together a new army, it is true, but now all Germany was allied with Russia to defeat the tyrant’s schemes. The glorious war of 1813-1815 was about to begin. Among those great men who had labored untiringly to emancipate Prussia from the yoke of France, the work of reorganizing the army had fallen chiefly to Scharnhorst.