Apart from this body of extinct sentiment, ostentatiously rekindled for Alexander’s purposes, the position of the Greeks in reference to his Asiatic conquests was very much the same as that of the German contingents, especially those of the Confederation of the Rhine, who served in the grand army with which the Emperor Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812. They had no public interest in the victory of the invader, which could end only by reducing them to still greater prostration. They were likely to adhere to their leader as long as his power continued unimpaired, but no longer. Yet Napoleon thought himself entitled to reckon upon them as if they had been Frenchmen, and to denounce the Germans in the service of Russia as traitors who had forfeited the allegiance which they owed to him. We find him drawing the same pointed distinction between the Russian and the German prisoners taken, as Alexander made between Asiatic and Grecian prisoners. These Grecian prisoners the Macedonian prince reproached as guilty of treason against the proclaimed statute of collective Hellas, whereby he had been declared general, and the Persian king a public enemy.[113] [113] Arrian, i. 16, 10; i. 29, 9, about the Grecian prisoners taken at the victory of the Granikus—ὅσους δὲ αὐτῶν αἰχμαλώτους ἔλαβε, τούτους δὲ δήσας ἐν πέδαις, εἰς Μακεδονίαν ἀπέπεμψεν ἐργάζεσθαι, ὅτι παρὰ τὰ κοινῇ δόξαντα τοῖς Ἕλλησιν, Ἕλληνες ὄντες, ἐναντία τῇ Ἑλλάδι ὑπὲρ τῶν βαρβάρων ἐμάχοντο. Also iii. 23, 15, about the Grecian soldiers serving with the Persians, and made prisoners in Hyrkania—Ἀδικεῖν γὰρ μεγάλα (said Alexander) τοὺς στρατευομένους ἐναντία τῇ Ἑλλάδι παρὰ τοῖς βαρβάροις παρὰ τὰ δόγματα τῶν Ἑλλήνων. Toward the end of October 1812, near Moscow, General Winzingerode, a German officer in the Russian service,—with his aide-de-camp a native Russian, Narishkin,—became prisoner of the French. He was brought to Napoleon—“At the sight of that German general, all the secret resentments of Napoleon took fire. ‘Who are you (he exclaimed)? a man without a country! When I was at war with the Austrians, I found you in their ranks. Austria has become my ally, and you have entered into the Russian service. You have been one of the warmest instigators of the present war. Nevertheless, you are a native of the Confederation of the Rhine: _you are my subject_. You are not an ordinary enemy: you are a rebel: I have a right to bring you to trial. _Gens d’armes_, seize this man!’ Then addressing the aide-de-camp of Winzingerode, Napoleon said, ‘As for you, Count Narishkin, I have nothing to reproach you with: you are a Russian, you are doing your duty.’” (Ségur’s account of the Campaign in Russia, book ix. ch. vi. p. 132.) Napoleon did not realize these threats against Winzingerode; but his language expresses just the same sentiment as that of Alexander towards the captive Greeks.