Eylau-Friedland

1807, from Eylau to friedland, the polish campaign

On 27 October 1806, Napoleon entered Berlin two days after Maréchal Davout's heroic troops. In order to weaken the Russian Eagle, the french Emperor made use of diplomacy.

Napoleon proposed, in exchange for Galicia, to give the wealthy province of Silesia which had been taken over by Frederick the Great sixty years earlier back to Austria.

Finally there was the problem of the eternal enemy, England, to deal with.

On 21 October 1806, he decreed the beginning of the Continental Blockade... Since France could not invade England directly, she wanted to stifle it by blocking the reason that made it powerful : its trade.

War in Polish begins...

Eight month later, after the famous meeting on 25 June on the Niemen, the armistice between Napoleon and Alexander, and the parades made by the two Guards, peace was signed on 8th July. Nothing separated the two continental empires any more except the waters of the Niemen.

This brilliant campaign marked the apogee of the Empire and of the Grande Armée. The Tsar, Alexander I, for a while under Napoleon's spell joined the Continental Blockade aimed at suffocating England.

In less than two years the French had brought the whole Continent to its knees. All alone, far away at the other end of the continent, Portugal continued to trade with England. Napoleon decided to stop all that and launched himself into his Spanish adventure, which in the end was to be his downfall.

It was during the 1812 Russian campaign that his luck finally turned.