sia. On the one hand, Napoleon was irritated by the
refusal of Russia to enforce strictly the suspension of all trade with
England, though such a suspension would have ruined the Russian
landowners. On the other, Alexander saw with growing anxiety the advance
of the French Empire which sprang from Napoleon's resolve to enforce his
system by a seizure of the northern coasts. In 1811 Holland, the
Hanseatic towns, part of Westphalia, and the Duchy of Oldenburg were
successively annexed, and the Duchy of Mecklenburg threatened with
seizure. A peremptory demand on the part of France for the entire
cessation of intercourse with England brought the quarrel to a head; and
preparations were made on both sides for a gigantic struggle.

[Sidenote: Salamanca.]

Even before it opened, this new enterprise gave fresh vigour to
Napoleon's foes. The best of the French soldiers were drawn from Spain
to the frontier of Poland; and Wellington, whose army had been raised to
a force of forty thousand Englishmen and twenty thousand Portuguese,
profited by the withdrawal to throw off his system of defence and to
assume an attitude of attack. Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz were taken by
storm during the spring of 1812; and at the close of June, three days
before Napoleon crossed the Niemen, in his march on Moscow, Wellington
crossed the Agueda in a march on Salamanca. After a series of masterly
movements on both sides, Marmont with the French army of the North
attacked the English on the hills in the neighbourhood of that town on
the twenty-second of July. While he was marching round the right of the
English position his left wing remained isolated; and with a sudden
exclamation of "Marmont is lost!" Wellington flung on it the bulk of
his force, crushed it, and drove the whole army from the field. The loss
on either side was nearly equal, but failure had demoralized the French
army; and its retreat forced Joseph to leave Madrid, and Soult to
evacuate Andalusia and to concentrate the southern army on the eastern
coast. While Napoleon was still pushing slowly over the vast plains of
Poland, Wellington made his entry into Madrid in August, and began the
siege of Burgos. The town however held out gallantly for a month, till
the advance of the two French armies, now concentrated in the north and
south of Spain, forced Wellington, in October, to a hasty retreat on the
Portuguese frontier.

[Sidenote: Ruin of Napoleon.]

If Wellington had shaken the r