Austerlitz and Jena.—Because he had not crossed the Straits of Dover, he was to go in vain even to Moscow. In vain he sought to triumph first over the Continental powers, hoping then to find the British government discouraged and in a mood for com promise. The Russians having offered battle, he defeated them, and also a fresh Austrian army, in the most brilliant of his vic tories, that of Austerlitz (Dec. 2, 1805), exactly a year after his coronation. In a few weeks the third coalition was wiped out.
The armies of France, under the single command of a man who was a military genius and an absolute sovereign, seemed invincible. Napoleon, and perhaps he alone, knew that no decision had been reached. He rejected Talleyrand's plan for a reconciliation with Austria, and, returning to the idea which had inspired his Egyptian expedition, planned to strike at England through the East. By the peace of Pressburg he made of a subjugated and diminished Austria a means of communication with Constantinople. The vision was taking shape. To realize it, however, he must dominate all Europe. Within a few years he exhausted the Empire in the attempt. With the conquest of Belgium as a starting point, the revolution urged its successor to vast enterprises, for which neither the military genius of Napoleon nor his political ability would suffice. It was not mania for conquest but the logical de velopment of these schemes which led him to annexations and dangerous territorial adjustments which disquieted all Europe. His brother Joseph became king of Naples, his brother Louis king of Holland. He formed the states of Southern Germany into the Confederation of the Rhine, with himself as president. Prussia, charged with closing the Baltic to the English, was promised Hanover, and the Bourbons, dethroned in Naples, were to have the Balearic isles. After the death of Pitt, he tried to conciliate Eng land by offering secretly to restore Hanover. These diplomatic moves served only to make him two enemies, Prussia, which he had humoured for so long, and Spain, a former ally.
The Prussian campaign saw another of the lightning strokes which he understood so well. The Prussian Army, which had lived on the reputation gained under the great Frederick, was routed at Jena (Oct. 18o6). In a few weeks the defence had collapsed, and Napoleon was master of the greater part of Prussia.
The Subjugation of Europe.—Since Prussia had refused to lend herself to his schemes, he would make northern Germany another annex to his empire, himself closing the Baltic and eventually all Europe, to English commerce. From Berlin he promulgated the Continental blockade, an idea arising naturally out of the situation, simple, easy to set out on paper, but entailing the suppression of the independence of all the nations of Europe, since the prohibition of trade with England to be effective must be general. The Continental blockade was the consequence of
and the counter-strike to Trafalgar.
But Napoleon was caught in a net from which there was no escape. He had set himself an endless task. After Ulm had to come Austerlitz, after Austerlitz, Jena: After Jena he had to complete the conquest of Prussia, and to complete it, to defeat Russia, penetrate further into the East, cross the Vistula. At Eylau (Feb. 8, 1807), three hundred leagues away from France, he fought in the snow a bloody and inconclusive battle. A new effort, the calling up of next year's conscripts was demanded of Frenchmen "that peace might be won." In June at Friedland, the grande armee was again victorious.
Once more Napoleon had the illusion that the goal was reached, that he was master of Europe and could hold England to ran som. The tzar Alexander, highly strung and impressionable, was now won over to the idea of an agreement with the emperor of the French for a policy of partition on i8th century lines. This time Turkey was to be divided instead of Poland. Napoleon was convinced that, allied with Russia against England, able to close, the Mediterranean against her, threatening her even in India, he would force her to her knees. The meeting at Tilsit, and the conclusion of the pact of friendship between the emperor of the East and the emperor of the West, seemed to justify the costly victories which had led the French army as far as the Niemen.