vention was signed on the 12th of October, 1808, whereby Alexander
promised Napoleon a free hand, in return for the annexation by (p. 200)
Russia of Finland and the Turkish provinces on the Danube.

This led to a war with Great Britain, Sweden, and Austria, not
including Turkey and Persia. Russia acquired Finland, when Alexander,
after convoking the Diet, guaranteed its constitution, privileges, and
university. In 1809, war again broke out between Austria and France.
By the terms of the alliance, Russia had agreed to furnish troops, but
they showed that they did not relish fighting with the French. There
were two engagements; in one of these, the casualties were one Russian
killed and two wounded. By an oversight of Napoleon the Poles serving
under him were to cooperate with the Russians, and, far from doing so,
they often came to blows. The Russian general constantly sent
complaints to the czar. Napoleon made a great effort to appease
Alexander by assigning to Russia Eastern Gallicia with a population of
400,000. Alexander declined to be represented in the peace
negotiations at Vienna. Napoleon's creation of the Grand Dukedom of
Warsaw was a constant menace to Russia.

Meanwhile the Russians were uniformly victorious in Turkey; the czar
concluded peace only when it was evident that war with France was
unavoidable, and that Russia would need every man. It was on this
account that he gave easy terms to the hard-pressed Sultan. Russia
annexed Bessarabia, part of Roumania, Ismail, and Kilia on the Lower
Danube.

The time for the momentous struggle had arrived. Napoleon, the master
of Continental Europe, thought that he was more than a match for
serf-ridden Russia. He reckoned upon the echo which the words (p. 201)
liberty, equality, and fraternity, would awaken in the hearts of the
moujik, and forgot that they were abstract ideas which to the serf,
struggling for enough black bread to allay the cravings of hunger,
were so many empty sounds. He tried to arouse Europe's suspicions of
Russia's designs, not thinking that any yoke, even that of the
Tartars, would be a welcome relief to nations mourning for the
slaughter of their sons.

Napoleon left Paris for Dresden on the 9th of May, 1812; on the first
of June an army of 678,000 men, including 60,000 Poles, stood ready to
invade Russia. Alexander had only 150,000 men under Bagration and
Barclay de Tolly, 90,000 posted on the Niemen, and 60,000 on the
Vistula; bu