igh bare. Yet,
despite these immense preparations, no hint of discouragement came
from the Czar's headquarters. On arriving at the Niemen, Napoleon
issued to the Grand Army a proclamation which was virtually a
declaration of war. In it there occurred the fatalistic remark:
"Russia is drawn on by fate: her destinies must be fulfilled."
Alexander's words to his troops breathed a different spirit: "God
fights against the aggressor."

Much that is highly conjectural has been written about the plans of
campaign of the two Emperors. That of Napoleon may be briefly stated:
it was to find out the enemy's chief forces, divide them, or cut them
from their communications, and beat them in detail. In other words, he
never started with any set plan of campaign, other than the
destruction of the chief opposing force. But, in the present instance,
it may be questioned whether he had not sought by his exasperating
provocations to drive Prussia into alliance with the Czar. In that
case, Alexander would have been bound in honour to come to the aid of
his ally. And if the Russians ventured across the Niemen, or the
Vistula, as Napoleon at first believed they would,[256] his task would
doubtless have been as easy as it proved at Friedland. Many Prussian
officers, so Mueffling asserts, believed that this was the aim of
French diplomacy in the early autumn of 1811, and that the best reply
was an unconditional surrender. On the other hand, there is the fact
that St. Marsan, Napoleon's ambassador at Berlin, assured that
Government, on October 29th, that his master did not wish to destroy
Prussia, but laid much stress on the supplies which she could furnish
him--a support that would enable the Grand Army to advance on the
Niemen _like a rushing stream_.

The metaphor was strangely imprudent. It almost invited Prussia to
open wide her sluices and let the flood foam away on to the sandy
wastes of Lithuania; and we may fancy that the more discerning minds
at Berlin now saw the advantage of a policy which would entice the
French into the wastes of Muscovy. It is strange that Napoleon's
Syrian adage, "Never make war against a desert," did not now recur to
his mind. But he gradually steeled himself to the conviction that war
with Alexander was inevitable, and that the help of Austria and
Prussia would enable him to beat back the Muscovite hordes into their
eastern steppes. For a time he had unquestionably thought of
destroying Prussia before he at