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CHAP.

LVIII.

1809. May 31.

the Dutch and Danish soldiers were united to all the French who could be hastily drawn together; and on the 31st May, General Gratien, with six thousand men, commenced the assault. The patriots made a gallant defence; but the dismantled walls presented huge breaches on all sides, through which, despite the utmost resistance, the assailants penetrated, and the interior barricades were forced. Still every street was obstinately contested. The result was yet doubtful, when Schill was killed, and his heroic band, disheartened and without a leader, after his loss dispersed. The insurrection in the north of Germany was extinguished; and, on the same day on which General Gratien had hoisted the French 1 Pel. iii. 35. colours on the walls, the English cruisers approached the 331. Jom. iii. harbour. Arrived a few hours sooner, the place had been 234. Ann. secured, the insurrection spread over the whole north of Germany, and Wagram had been Leipsic! Such is the value of time in war.1

Hard. x 330,

Reg. 1809,

213.

56.

Brunswick.

May 4.

May 22.

The Duke of Brunswick Oels, who, at the same time that Schill left Berlin, had with a small Austrian force Movement of advanced out of the Bohemian frontier, and made himself the Duke of master of Leipsic and other considerable towns in Saxony, being unable to effect a junction either with Schill or Dornberg, and surrounded by superior forces, was obliged to retire by Zittau into Bohemia, from whence, after the battle of Wagram, he contrived to make his way across all the north of Germany, and was ultimately taken on board the English cruisers, and conveyed, with his black legion, still two thousand strong, to the British shores. The insurrection was thus every where suppressed; but such was the impression which it produced upon Napoleon, that the whole corps of Kellerman, thirty thousand strong, which otherwise would have been called up to the support of the Grand Army, was directed to the north of Germany.2

? Ann. Reg.

1809, 213.

Pel. iii. 26.

Jom. 235.

This gigantic contest stained also the waters of the Vistula with blood. It has been already mentioned * that the Archduke Ferdinand, at the head of a corps of the Austrian army, mustering in all thirty-two thousand infantry and five thousand cavalry, with ninety-six guns, Ante, chap. lvi. § 17.

CHAP.

LVIII.

1809.

57.

the Archduke

was destined to invade the Grand-duchy of Warsaw, at the same time that the Archduke Charles crossed the Inn, and the Archduke John descended from the Carinthian mountains into the Italian plains. The direction of so Operations in considerable a portion of the Imperial troops to a quarter Poland under where their operations could have no immediate effect Ferdinand. upon the issue of the campaign, at a time when it might easily have been foreseen that the whole force of Napoleon would be hurled at once against the heart of the monarchy, might justly be stigmatised as a serious fault on the part of the Austrian cabinet, if military operations and consequences alone were taken into consideration. But this was very far indeed from being the case. Throughout the whole contest, the military preparations of the cabinet of Vienna were justly considered as subordinate to their political measures; and it was chiefly in consequence of the former being unsuccessful that the latter miscarried. The government were well aware that, the moment they threw down the gauntlet, the whole military force which Napoleon could command would be directed with consummate skill against the centre of their power. They could not hope, even with the aid of English subsidies, to be successful, in the crippled state of the monarchy, in resisting so formidable an invasion, unless they succeeded in rousing other nations to engage with them in the contest.1

1

Pel. iii. 46, 237, 238.

47. Jom. iii.

those opera

To effect this, early and imposing success was requisite ; something which should counterbalance the prevailing 58. and far-spread terror of the French arms, and induce Object of neutral or semi-hostile cabinets to forget their divisions, tions. and incur the risk of venturing boldly for the cause of general freedom. It was toward the attainment of this object that all the military demonstrations of the cabinet of Vienna at that period had been directed. The march of the Archduke Charles towards Franconia and Bayreuth was intended to determine the hesitation of the Rhenish Confederacy, and rouse the numerous malcontents of Westphalia, Hanover, and Cassel, into action; that of the Archduke John and Chastellar, to spread the flame of insurrection through the plains of Italy and the mountains of the Tyrol and Vorarlberg. Not less important than either of these, in its political consequences, the advance

CHAP.

LVIII.

1809.

of the Archduke Ferdinand with an imposing force to Warsaw, would, it was hoped, at once paralyse the strength of Saxony, the only sincere ally of Napoleon among the native German powers, by depriving it of all aid from its Polish possessions; offer a rallying point to the numerous discontented in that kingdom; afford an inducement to Prussia to join the common cause, by securing its rear and holding out the prospect of regaining its valuable Polish provinces; and at the same time give Russia a decent pretext for avoiding any active part in the contest, by the apparent necessity of providing against hostilities on Pel. iii. 46, her own frontier; a pretext of which there was reason to hope the cabinet of St Petersburg, despite the French alliance, would not be unwilling to take advantage.1

1 Jom. iii. 237, 238.

48. Thib. vii.

310.

59.

Forces of the Grandduchy of Warsaw. Success of Ferdinand, and fall of Warsaw.

The army, of which PRINCE PONIATOWSKY had the direction, in the Grand-duchy of Warsaw, was not equal to the encounter of so considerable a force as the Austrians now directed against him. Great activity, indeed, had been displayed, since the peace of Tilsit, in organising an effective body of troops in that recently acquired possession of the House of Saxony; and three legions of infantry, commanded by Poniatowsky, Zayonscheck, and Dombrowsky, formed a total force of twenty-two thousand men, including nearly six thousand excellent cavalry. But great part of these troops were newly levied, and had not yet acquired an adequate degree of military efficiency; the territory they had to guard, extending from Dantzic to Cracow, was extensive; and the flower of the Polish troops were in Napoleon's Imperial Guard, or engaged in distant hostilities in the Spanish peninsula. The French Emperor, moreover, relying on the invasion of the Austrian province of Gallicia by the Russian forces, had not only made no dispositions to support the Grand-duchy with external aid, but had retained the Saxons under Bernadotte for immediate support to the Grand Army on the Bohemian frontier; so that Poniatowsky found himself, with not more than twelve thousand disposable troops, exposed in front of Warsaw to the attack of nearly triple that number of enemies. That renowned leader, however, who to an ardent love of his country united the most profound hatred of the strangers by whom it had been despoiled, and military

CHAP.
LVIII.

1809.

talents of no ordinary kind, matured in the best school, that of misfortune, resolved to stand firm with this inconsiderable body; and without invoking or trusting to the aid of the Russians, more hateful as allies than the Austrians as enemies, to rely on their own valour alone for the defence of the capital. He drew up his little April 19. army at Raszyn with considerable skill, and for four hours opposed a gallant resistance to the enemy; but the contest was too unequal, between thirty thousand regular soldiers and twelve thousand men in great part recently levied; and he was at length obliged to retire with the loss of five hundred killed, a thousand wounded, and four pieces of cannon. Warsaw was April 21. now uncovered; and as Poniatowsky found himself April 23. unable to man the extensive works which had been 55, 63. Jom begun for its defence, he was compelled, with bitter iii. 237, 238. regret, to sign a capitulation, in virtue of which he was 358. permitted to evacuate the capital, which two days afterwards was occupied by the Austrian troops.1

1 Pel. iii.

Ogintha, ii.

60.

sures of

the contest in

Accompanied by the senate, authorities, and principal inhabitants of Warsaw, Poniatowsky retired to the right bank of the Vistula, and took up a position between skilful meaModlin and Sicrock, on the Bug. The capital pre- Poniatowsky sented a mournful appearance on the entrance of the to prolong Imperialists; and in the melancholy countenances of the Grandthe citizens might be seen how deep-seated was the duchy. national feeling, which, notwithstanding all the political insanity of the people which had subverted their independence, still longed for that first of blessings. This direction of the march of Poniatowsky was conceived with considerable skill, and had a powerful influence upon the fate of the campaign; for the Austrians had calculated upon his retiring to Saxony, and abandoning the Grand-duchy to its fate; whereas the continuance of the Polish troops in the centre of that country both evinced a determination to defend it to the last extremity, and kept alive the spirit of the inhabitants by the assurance which it held out that they would not be deserted. The first care of Poniatowsky was to put the important fortresses of Modlin and Sicrock in a respectable posture of defence; and having done so, he boldly, by the directions of Napoleon,

CHAP.

LVIII.

1809.

May 14.

May 15.

left the enemy in possession of the capital and threefourths of the territory of the Grand-duchy, and threw himself upon the right bank of the Vistula, remounting that stream towards Gallicia, whither Prince Gallitzin, at the head of twenty thousand auxiliary Russians, was slowly bending his steps. Meanwhile the Archduke Ferdinand more rapidly descended the left bank, and in the middle of May appeared before Thorn. In the course of this movement, Poniatowsky obtained intelligence that an Austrian division had crossed over to the right bank of the Vistula, and lay unsupported at Ostrowck in front of Gora. Rapidly concentrating a superior force, he suddenly attacked the enemy, routed them, and made fifteen hundred prisoners. Thus the opposing armies mutually passed and crossed each other: Poniatowsky, relying on the support of the Russians, menaced Gallicia and the 1 Pel. iii. 63, Austrian provinces; while the Austrians penetrated to the Lower Vistula, raised the standard of insurrection vii. 309, 310. Jom. iv. 238. in the old Prussian provinces, and threatened Dantzic itself.1

71. Thib.

61.

the secret

Russians

towards Austria.

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An event occurred in the course of this expedition of the Archduke Ferdinand's light troops across the Vistula, Discovery of attended in the end with more important consequences leaning of the than any other in the Polish campaign. In pursuing the Austrians on the right bank of the river, a courier was taken by the Poles with despatches from the Russian general Gortschakoff, who lay with his division at Brzysc, to the Archduke, in which he congratulated him on his victory at Raszyn, and capture of Warsaw, expressed hopes for his ulterior success, and breathed a wish that he might soon join his arms to the Austrian eagles. This letter was immediately forwarded to Napoleon, who received it at Schoenbrunn in the end of May. He was highly indignant at the discovery, and transmitted the letter without delay to St Petersburg, accompanied by a peremptory demand for an explanation. The Russian cabinet hastened to make every reparation in their power: Gortschakoff's letter was disavowed, and he himself recalled from his command; while CHERNICHEFF, aide-de-camp to Alexander, who was the military chargé d'affaires for the Czar at the headquarters of the French Emperor, exerted all his skill

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