Kalkreuth despatched a body of four thousand men out of the place to reinforce his posts in that quarter, they were unable to dislodge the enemy. On the contrary, they not only kept their ground, but, progressively advancing two days afterwards, entirely cleared the peninsula of the Prussians, and completed the investment of the town on that side. By this success the communication of Dantzic with the land was entirely cut off; but the besieged, by means of the island of Holm and fort of Weichselmünde, with the intrenched camp of Neufahrwasser, which commands the entrance of the Vistula into the Baltic, had still the means of receiving succour by sea. 29. After full deliberation among the French engineers, it was determined to commence the siege by an attack on the fort of Hagelsberg, which stands on an eminence without the ramparts on the western side of the town, which was the only one entirely free from inundation. The first parallel having been completed, a heavy fire was opened on the works in that quarter on the night of the 1st of April, though at the distance of eight hundred toises. A fortnight after, the second parallel was also finished, notwithstanding several vigorous sorties from the garrison; and by the 23d, amidst snow and sleet, the batteries were all armed and ready to play on the ramparts at the distance only of sixty toises. On the following night, a tremendous fire was opened from fifty-six pieces of heavy cannon and twelve mortars, which, notwithstanding the utmost efforts on the part of the garrison, soon acquired a marked superiority over the batteries of the besieged. For a week together this cannonade continued, without intermission, night and day; a brave sortie was unable to arrest it more than a few hours; but although the city was already on fire in several places, and the artillery on the ramparts in part dismounted, yet, as the exterior works were faced with earth, not masonry, little progress was made in injuring them, and no practical breach had been as yet effected. Finding themselves foiled in this species of attack, the French engineers had recourse to the more certain, but tedious method of approach by sap; the besieged countermined with indefatigable perseverance, but notwithstanding their utmost efforts, the mines of the French were pushed to within eighteen yards of the salient angle of the outermost works of Hagelsberg. At the same time a separate expedition against the island of Holm, which formed the western extremity of the peninsula of Nehrung, from whence it was separated only by one of the arms of the Vistula, proved successful: the garrison, consisting of five hundred men with fifteen pieces of cannon, were made prisoners, and the city was by that means deprived of all the succour which it had hitherto obtained by the mouths of that river.* 30. Invested now on all sides, with its garrison weakened by the casualties of the seige, and the enemy's mines ready to blow its outworks on the side assailed into the air, Dantzic could not be expected to hold out for any length of time. Not deeming himself in sufficient strength to attempt the raising of the siege by a direct attack upon the enemy's cantonments on the Passarge, Benningsen, with the concurrence of the Emperor Alexander, had resolved to attempt the relief of the fortress by a combined attack by land and sea from the peninsula of Nehrung and the mouths of the Vistula. The preparations made with this view were of the most formidable kind, and had well-nigh been crowned with success. General Kamenskoi, with five thousand men, was embarked at Pillau, under occasion, highly characteristic of the heroic spirit with which both parties were animated. A chasseur of the 12th regiment of French light infantry, named Fortunas, transported by the ardour of the attack, fell in the dark into the midst of a Russian detachment, and in a few minutes that detachment itself was surprised by the company to Russian officers exclaimed, "Do not fire, we which the French soldier belonged. The are French!" and threatened the chasseur with instant death if he betrayed them. "Fire instantly!" exclaimed the brave Fortunas, "they are Russians!" and fell pierced by the balls of his comrades.-DUMAS, xviii. 169. * A remarkable incident occurred on this convoy of a Swedish and an English man-of-war, and landed at Neufahrwasser, the fortified port at the mouth of the Vistula, distant four miles from Dantzic; while two thousand Prussians were to co-operate in the attack, by advancing along the peninsula of Nehrung, and the Grand Army was to be disquieted and hindered from sending succours by a feigned attack on Marshal Ney's corps. At the same time General Touchkoff, who had succeeded Essen in the command of the troops on the Narew and the Bug, was to engage the attention of Massena's corps in that quarter. All these operations took place, and, but for an accidental circumstance, would, to all appearance, have proved successful. The proposed feints were made with the desired effects on the side of Guttstadt and the Narew; but unfortunately the delay of the Swedish man-of-war, which had twelve hundred men on board, rendered it impossible for Kamenskoi to commence his attack before the 15th instant. In the meanwhile Napoleon, who had received intelligence of what was in preparation, and was fully aware of the imminent danger to which Lefebvre was exposed, had time to draw a large body of troops from Lannes' covering corps by the bridge of Marienwerder to the scene of danger. 31. This great reinforcement, comprising among other troops the grenadiers of the Guard under Oudinot, turned the scale, which at that period quivered on the beam. Early on the morning of the 15th, Kamenskoimarched out of the trenches of Neufahrwasser, and, after defiling over the bridge of the Vistula into the peninsula of Nehrung, advanced with the utmost intrepidity to the attack of the strong fortifications which the enemy had erected to bar their advance among the hills and copsewoods of that sandy peninsula. The first onset was irresistible. The intrenchments were carried in the most gallant style, and all their cannon taken: success appeared certain, as the defeated Saxons and Poles were flying in great disorder out of the woods into the sandy hills which lay between them and the town of Dantzic, when the victors were suddenly assailed in flank, when disordered by success, by Marshal Lannes, at the head of Oudinot's formidable grenadiers of the Guard. Unable to resist so vehement an onset, the Russians were in their turn driven back, and lost the intrenchments; but rallying again with admirable discipline, they renewed the assault and regained the works. Again they were expelled with great slaughter. A third time, stimulated by desperation, they returned to the charge, and routed the French grenadiers with such vigour, that Oudinot had a horse shot under him, and fell upon Marshal Lannes, and both these valiant chiefs thereafter combated on foot in the midst of their faithful grenadiers. But fresh reinforcements from the left bank were every moment received by the enemy: Kalkreuth, confining himself to a heavy cannonade, had made no sortie to aid this gallant effort to cut through the lines; and to complete Kamenskoi's misfortune, he received intelligence, during the action, that the Prussian corps of two thousand men, which was advancing along the Nehrung to co-operate in the attack, had been assailed by superior forces at Kahlberg, and routed with the loss of six hundred men and two pieces of cannon. Finding the undertaking, in these circumstances, hopeless, the brave Russian, at eight at night, ordered his heroic troops to retire, and they regained the shelter of the cannon of Weichselmünde without being pursued, but after sustaining a loss of seventeen hundred soldiers; while the French had to lament nearly as great a num ber of brave men who had fallen in this desperate conflict. 32. No other serious effort was made by the Allies for the relief of Dantzic. The besieged had provisions enough, but it was well known that their ammunition was almost exhausted, and that, without a speedy supply of that indispensable article, the place must ere long capitulate. An English brig of twenty-two guns, under Captain Strachey, with one hundred and fifty barrels of powder on board, made a Königsberg. No less than 2700 had perished during the siege, and 3400 been wounded. Eight hundred had been made prisoners, and 4300 deserted. These figures are sufficient to demonstrate the gallant nature of the defence, and how worthy the governor, Kalkreuth, was of the school of the Great Frederick, in which he had been brought up. After the fall of the place, Kamenskoi, unable to render any assistance, set sail from Fort Weichselmünde with his own division, and its original garrison and a few invalids only remained on the 26th to open its gates to the enemy. 33. While this desperate struggle was going on round Dantzic, the Russians were making the utmost efforts to reinforce their principal army; but the time which they had was not sufficient to bring up from its immense extent the distant resources of their empire, and though men were in abundance in the nearer provinces, both money and arms were wanting to equip them for the field. In the end of March and beginning of April, how brave attempt to force its way up the river, though the Vistula is a rapid stream, not more in general than sixty yards broad, and the passage was both defended by numerous batteries and a boom thrown across the channel. She made her way up the river for a considerable way, with surprising success; but at length a cannon-shot having struck the rudder, and her rigging being almost entirely cut to pieces by the French fire, she was forced to surrender. Meanwhile the operations against the Hagelsberg were continued without intermission. The springing of several mines, though not attended with all the damage which was expected by the besiegers, had the effect of ruining and laying open the outworks, and preparations were already made for blowing the counterscarp into the ditch. In vain a sortie from the ramparts was made, and at first attended with some success, to destroy these threatening advanced works of the enemy; the besieged were at length driven back, and on the next day the arrival of Marshal Mortier with a large part of his corps from the neighbour-ever, reinforcements to a considerable hood of Stralsund and Colberg, nearly doubled the effective strength of the enemy. Kalkreuth, however, was still unsubdued, and the most vigorous preparations had been made on the breaches of the ramparts to repel the assault which was hourly expected, when a summons from Lefebvre offered him honourable terms of capitulation. The situation of the brave veteran left him no alternative; though his courage was unsubdued, his ammunition was exhausted, and nothing remained but submission. The terms of capitulation were without difficulty arranged; the garrison was permitted to retire with their arms and the honours of war, on condition of not serving against France or its allies for a year, or till regularly exchanged; and on the 27th this great fortress, containing nine hundred pieces of cannon, but hardly any ammunition, was taken possession of by the French troops. The garrison, now reduced to seven thousand men, was marched through the peninsula of Nehrung to amount arrived on the Alle, among which the most important were the superb corps of the Guards under the Grand-duke Constantine, consisting of thirty battalions and thirty-four squadrons, full twenty thousand men, the flower of the Imperial army. A powerful reserve, drawn from the depots in the interior of the empire, of thirty thousand men, was also advancing under Prince Labanoff; but it was so far in the rear that it could not arrive at the scene of action before the end of June, and was therefore not to be relied on for the early operations of the campaign. The whole army which Benningsen had at his command, on the resumption of hostilities, was only one hundred and twenty thousand men, including in that force the detached corps of eighteen thousand Prussians and Russians in front of Königsberg under Lestocq, and the left wing on the Narew under Tolstoy, which was fifteen thousand strong; so that the force to be trusted to for the immediate shock on the Alle or the Passarge was scarcely ninety thousand. | were ready for immediate action on These were, however, all veterans in- the Passarge and the Narew. Imured to war, and animated in the high- mense efforts had been made by the est degree both by their recent success Emperor to augment, by every possible at Eylau, and by the presence of their means, his cavalry, an arm on which beloved Emperor, who, since the end he always so much relied in war. of March, had been at the headquarters His orders were to raise this force with of the army.* the Grand Army to eighty thousand men. For this purpose, besides the horses which he had seized in Prussia and the north of Germany, and those taken in battle, he bought, during the cessation of hostilities, seventeen thousand horses in Germany, and twelve thousand in France, all of which were without a moment's delay, hurried off to the Vistula. In addition to this, the fortifications of Praga, Modlin, and Sierock, had been put in the best possible state of defence, and even the cantonments on the Passarge strengthened with têtes-de-pont and stout palisades. Nor was it merely from its nominal strength that this immense force was formidable; its discipline and equipment had attained the very highest perfection. The requisitions enforced by the terrors of military exe 34. By incredible exertions Napoleon had succeeded in assembling a much greater force. Notwithstanding the immense losses of his bloody winter campaign in Poland, such had been the vigour of his measures for recruiting his army, and such the efficacy of the combined influence of terror, coercion, military ardour, and patriotic spirit, which he had contrived to bring to bear upon the warlike population of France, Germany, and Poland, that a greater host than had ever yet been witnessed together in modern Europe was now assembled round his eagles. Exclusive of the army of observation on the Elbe, and the garrisons and blockading corps in his rear, no less than a hundred and fifty thousand infantry, and thirty-five thousand horse, * The Russian army, when the campaign opened, was as follows: Centre under Benningsen on the Alle, at Arensdorf, Neuhoff, Bergfried, and Bevern, 88,000 -DUMAS, xviii. 220, 221; and WILSON, 136. 18,000 15,000 121,000 The militia, which the patriotic ardour of the Russians led them to raise, were unable to march from want of arms and ammunition, which the ill-timed parsimony of England withheld. One hundred and sixty thousand muskets, sent out in haste by the British government after the change of ministry, arrived at Königsberg in the end of June, after the contest had been terminated in the field of Friedland, and escaped seizure by the French only by not being landed.-HARD. iv. 417. + The composition and distribution of this force, previous to the resumption of hostilities, was as follows: Exclusive of officers, which made the force at least 155,000 infantry and 35,000 cavalry. The corps of Lefebvre, after the capture of Dantzic, was broken up and divided between those of Lannes and Mortier and the garrison of the place; another was in Dalmatia, under Marmont; the ninth in Silesia, under Vandamme. Augereau's corps was divided among the others after its terrific losses in the battle of Eylau.-DUMAS, xviii. 222, 223; Pièces Just. No. 3; and JOMINI, ii. 403. cution, had extorted from Germany | that time with the King of Prussia at all the supplies of which it stood in Bartenstein, a little in the rear of the need. The cavalry were remounted, cantonments of the soldiers. There the artillery waggons and carriages they had, for two months, carried on repaired and in the best condition; a sort of negotiation with the French the reserve parks and pontoon trains Emperor by means of confidential fully supplied; the return of spring agents; but this show of pacific overhad restored numbers of the veterans tures, which were only intended on to their ranks—the never-failing con- either side to give time and propitiate scription filled up the chasms produced Austria, by seeming to listen to her by Pultusk and Eylau; while the re- offers of mediation, was abandoned in cent successes in Silesia and at Dant- the middle of May, and both parties zic had revived in the warlike multi- prepared to determine the contest by tude that confidence in themselves and the sword. To compensate for his inin their renowned leader, which the feriority of force, and provide a point disasters of the winter campaign had of support for his troops, even in the much impaired, but which has ever first line, Benningsen had, with great been found, even more than numbers care, constructed a formidable inor skill, to contribute to military suc- trenched camp, composed of six great cess. Nor were the rear and the com- works regularly fortified, and sixteen munications forgotten; on the con- lunettes or armed ravelins, astride on trary, it was in them that the provi- the opposite banks of the river Alle. dent care and enormous resources of Thither he proposed to retire, in the the Emperor shone most conspicuous. event of the enemy bringing an overMarshal Brune had an army of eighty whelming force to bear against his thousand men in the north of Germany, columns; but he did not conceive himcomposed of fifteen thousand Dutch, self sufficiently strong until the reina like number of Spaniards, sixteen forcements under Prince Labanoff arthousand Würtembergers, sixteen rived, to commence any serious offenthousand French of Boudet's and Mo- sive movement against the French litor's divisions, and the reserve con- army, and in consequence allowed the tingents of the Confederation of the siege of Dantzic, as already mentioned, Rhine-in all, nearly four hundred to be brought to a successful issue, thousand men were collected between without any other demonstration for the Rhine and the Niemen. But of its relief than the cannonade against this immense force, only one hundred Ney's corps, intended as a diversion in and sixty thousand could be relied on favour of Kamenskoi's attack. The for the actual shock of war on the Pas- army, though so much inferior in nusarge. Such is the dilapidation of merical strength to the French, was armies occasioned by distant offensive animated with the best spirit, and the war! Such as it was, however, it was great magazines and harbour of Könmuch greater than Alexander could igsberg_supplied it with every necescollect to resist it. Vast as the re- sary. But the situation of that city, sources of Russia undoubtedly are without fortifications, and with its when time has been afforded to collect back to the Curische-haff, from whence into one focus its unwieldy strength, retreat was impossible, rendered it a it was now fairly overmatched by the situation extremely ill adapted, as the banded strength of Western Europe on event proved, for the security of the its own frontier; and though the Czar stores on which the operations of the might possibly have combated on equal army depended. terms with Napoleon on the Wolga or the Dniester, he was inadequate to the encounter on the Alle or the Narew. 35. The Emperor Alexander had arrived at the headquarters of his army on the 28th March, and resided since 36. After the fall of Dantzic, and when the French army was reinforced by full thirty thousand men from the covering and besieging force, Napoleon drew his troops from their cantonments into camps, which were strength |