… Franco-Prussian War of 1813, I: The War of Liberation, Spring 1813.
"In the early months of 1813 King Frederick William III of Prussia, a mild-mannered figure who abhorred war and wanted only peace and security for his much-tried subjects, faced a desperately difficult decision. In the wake of the French disaster in Russia, the chief Russian field army had crossed
the frontier and pushed westwards accompanied by none other than Tsar Alexander I himself. For all Napoleon's defeat, however, Prussia was tied to France by a military alliance, and Frederick William therefore knew that he was bound to come to Napoleon's aid. Yet, matters were not so simple. Setting aside the fact that he owed Alexander a debt of gratitude for Prussia's very survival in the wake of the terrible defeats of Jena and Auerstädt in 1806, he was rapidly losing control of his dominions.
Thus, led by General Yorck von Wartenburg, the Prussian auxiliary corps that had seconded the invasion of Russia had effectively risen in revolt against the alliance with France and established a liberated area around Königsberg. Here, he was joined by the initial leader of the Prussian reform movement, Heinrich vom Stein, who, after the last few years of exile in Russia, had just been appointed by Alexander as his commissioner in occupied Prussia, the latter immediately persuading the local estates to decree the formation of a popular militia or landwehr. On top of this, throughout the land, outraged not just by Prussia's humiliation in the war of 1806-1807 but also by the devastation wrought by the concentration of 500,000 troops on Prussian territory prior to the invasion of Russia, educated opinion was up in arms and demanding action, even warning that the result of staying loyal to Napoleon would be revolution. Finally, if the king chose to fight Russia, too, Prussia could expect to be punished without mercy should it end up on the losing side…"
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Amicalement
Armand
returns to Flintloque to paint an Ogre.