The great advantage of England was that she had the goods ready for market, and the Continent wanted them. The enormous disadvantage of Napoleon was that he neither had the goods nor the men ready to take hold and manufacture them. The all-important _now_ was on the side of England. The ink was hardly dry on the Berlin Decree before Napoleon himself had to violate it. He needed enormous supplies for his army in the winter campaign he was about to begin. Continental manufactories did not produce what he wanted, England did, and Napoleon’s troops were supplied with English goods. What the master did, his minions could imitate. All along the coast French officials violated the law, sold licenses, winked at smuggling at so much per wink, and feathered their nests in the most approved and gorgeous style. The Continental system did great damage to England, since it drove her trade into tortuous, limited channels. It did great damage to the Continent, since it worked inconvenience to so many who needed English goods, and so many who had Continental produce to sell to England. But it never had a fair test, did not have time to do its work, and therefore has been hastily called Napoleon’s crowning mistake. Failing to get a fair trial for his system, it collapsed, and must therefore be called a blunder; but it must be remembered that its author believed he could get a fair trial for it; that he worked with tremendous tenacity of purpose for many years to bring Continental Europe to accept and enforce it. Could he have done so, the candid reader must admit that he would have smitten England’s manufactures, her commercial life, as with a thunderbolt. It should also be remembered that to Napoleon’s policy, so much resisted then, France owes many of those manufactures which constitute her wealth at the present day. CHAPTER XXIX After allowing his army a brief rest, Napoleon set out against the Russians. His troops entered Poland, and on November 28, 1806, Murat took possession of Warsaw. The Poles received the French as deliverers. They believed that the dismemberment of their country by Austria, Prussia, and Russia was to be at last avenged, and Poland once more to take its place among the nations. By thousands the bravest flocked to the French standards, as enthusiastic for Napoleon as were the French themselves. It may be that in his treatment of Poland the Emperor made one of his huge mistakes. It may be that he here lost his one great opportunity of permanently curbing the three Continental powers, whose combined strength finally wore him out. Had Poland’s resurrection as a nation been promptly proclaimed, had her crown been given to some born soldier, like Murat, Lannes, Soult, or Poniatowski, he would have drawn to his physical support every man of Polish blood, and to his moral support the active approval of every liberal in the world.