Prussia However Was Still Reluctant To Engage In The Contest And
Gave No Support Whatever To Austria.
Napoleon defeats the Austrians at
Austerlitz and dictates peace.
Six months after the Prussian Cabinet,
excited by a patriotic but rash and ill-calculating party, has recourse to
arms, not from any generous policy, but because she sees herself outwitted
by Napoleon, who refuses to cede to her Hanover in perpetuity. Prussia
begins the war and calls on Saxony, who always moved in her orbit, to join
her. To the Elector of Saxony this war (in 1806) appeared then ill-timed
and too late; but with that good faith, nevertheless, which invariably
characterized him, he remained faithful to his engagement and furnished his
quota of troops to Prussia. The Saxon troops fought nobly at the battle of
Jena. This battle annihilates all the power of Prussia, and lays Saxony
entirely at the mercy of the Conqueror; but Napoleon not only treats Saxony
with moderation, but with rare generosity; he does not take from her a
single village, but aggrandizes her and gives to her the Duchy of Warsaw
and to her Sovereign the title of King. Saxony becomes in consequence a
member of the confederation of the Rhine and is bound to support the
Protector in all his wars offensive and defensive. The Russian war in 1812
begins: every German state, Austria and Prussia in the number, furnishes
its contingent of troops. The campaign is unsuccessful, the climate of
Russia having annihilated the French Army, and Napoleon returns to Paris.
Saxony is now exposed to invasion and harassed by the incursions of the
Cossacks.
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