Napoleon entered Berlin in triumph Oct. 27, 1806, and established
himself in the king's palace. He did not like the beautiful Queen
Louise, because he felt that she had inspired the soldiers by her
presence, and urged her husband to make war. He was unjust to her in his
bulletins, and Josephine reproached him for "speaking ill of women."
Napoleon visited the palace of Sans Souci to see the room where
Frederick the Great died, still preserved as he left it, and then went
to the church where he is buried. At the tomb, says General de Ségur,
"Napoleon paused at the entrance in a grave and respectful attitude. He
gazed into the shadow enclosing the hero's ashes, and stood thus for
nearly ten minutes, motionless, silent, as if buried in deep thought."
The sword of Frederick he took with him, and gave it to the Hotel des
Invalides in Paris, with the flags carried by his guard in the Seven
Years' War.
Early in November, Prince Hohenlohe surrendered twenty thousand
Prussians to the French; and Blücher, whom Napoleon was to meet again at
Waterloo, surrendered twenty thousand men and over five hundred
officers.
With all this victory, Josephine was not happy. Napoleon wrote her Nov.
1: "Talleyrand has come, and tells me you do nothing but cry." She wrote
to Hortense, more miserable than herself, that she could not be happy so
far from the Emperor.
Napoleon, while at Berlin, issued, Nov. 21, 1806, his famous "Berlin
Decree," wherein he declared the British Islands blockaded. All commerce
with England and her colonies was prohibited; all property belonging to
an English subject confiscated; every native of England found in a
country occupied by French troops to be made prisoner of war.
Napoleon declared that this was a retaliatory measure against England.
Every French port was, in fact, blockaded by English vessels from the
Elbe to Brest, by a decree of the British Government, passed in May,
1806, according to Alison. Some months after the Berlin Decree, England
issued further prohibitory acts, called Orders in Council. The
consequence of all this was that hate between the two nations was
increased.
After the humiliation of Prussia, the war went on with Russia. After
some minor battles, both armies met on the bloody field of Eylau, Feb.
7, 1807. Jomini thinks the forces about equal, though some historians
place the number at eighty thousand Russians, and sixty thousand French.
Part of Feb. 7 and all of Feb. 8, the armies were in deadly conflict. A
blinding snowstorm part of the time prevented the armies from seeing
each other. The snow and ice were so thick that men fought on ponds and
did not know it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account