Series P
1812
“’Tis the same landscape which the modern Mars saw
Who march’d to Moscow, led by Fame, the siren!
To lose by one month’s frost, some twenty years
Of conquest, and his guard of grenadiers.”
—Byron (Don Juan, canto x. stanza 58).
Series P
(For subjoined Notes to this Series see pages 312-315.)
| LETTER | PAGE | |
| No. 1. | Konigsberg | 312 |
| No. 2. | Gumbinnen | 313 |
1812.
Montgaillard sums up his tirade against Napoleon for the Russian campaign by noting that it took the Romans ten years to conquer Gaul, while Napoleon “would not give two to the conquest of that vast desert of Scythia which forced Darius to flee, Alexander to draw back, Crassus to perish; where Julian terminated his career, where Valerian covered himself with shame, and which saw the disasters of Charles XII.”
January 9th.—Suchet captures Valencia, 18,000 Spanish troops, and 400 cannon. The marshal is made Duke of Albuféra.
January 15th.—Imperial decree ordains 100,000 acres to be put under cultivation of beetroot, for the manufacture of indigenous sugar.
January 19th.—Taking of Ciudad Rodrigo by Wellington.
January 26th.—French, under General Friand, occupy Stralsund and Swedish Pomerania.
February 24th.—Treaty of alliance between France and Prussia; the latter to support France in case of a war with Russia.
March 13th.—Senatus Consultus divides the National Guards into three bans, to include all capable men not already in military service. They are not to serve outside France. A hundred cohorts, each 970 strong, of the first ban (men between 20 and 26), put at disposal of Government.
March 14th.—Treaty between France and Austria; reciprocal help, in need, of 30,000 men and 60 guns. The integrity of European Turkey mutually guaranteed.
March 26th.—Treaty between Russia and Sweden. Bernadotte is promised Norway by Alexander.
April 7th.—The English take Badajoz by assault. “The French General, Philippon, with but 3000 men, has been besieged thrice within thirteen months by armies of 50,000 men” (Montgaillard).
April 24th.—Alexander leaves St. Petersburg, to take command of his Grand Army.
May 9th.—Napoleon leaves Paris for Germany.
May 11th.—Assassination of English Prime Minister, Perceval.
May 17th-28th.—Napoleon at Dresden; joined there by the Emperor and Empress of Austria, and a fresh “parterre of kings”.
May 28th.—-Treaty of Bucharest, between Turkey and Russia. The Pruth as boundary, and Servia restored to Turkey. This treaty, so fatal to Napoleon, and of which he only heard in October, was mainly the work of Stratford de Redcliffe, then aged twenty-five. Wellington, thinking the treaty his brother’s work, speaks of it as “the most important service that ever fell to the lot of any individual to perform.”