Grouchy in the early part of the day; and it is clear that, as at
Jena, no great battle would have been fought at all but for the valour
and tenacity with which Lannes clung to the foe until Napoleon came
up.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XXVII

TILSIT

Even now matters were not hopeless for the allies. Crowds of
stragglers rejoined the colours at Tilsit, and Tartar reinforcements
were near at hand. The gallant Gneisenau was still holding out bravely
at Kolberg against Brune's divisions; and two of the Silesian
fortresses had not yet surrendered. Moreover, Austria seemed about to
declare against Napoleon, and there were hopes that before long
England would do something. But, above all, since the war was for
Prussia solely an affair of honour,[134] it deeply concerned
Alexander's good name not to desert an ally to whom he was now pledged
by all the claims of chivalry until satisfactory terms could be
gained.

But Alexander's nature had not as yet been strengthened by misfortune
and religious convictions: it was a sunny background of flickering
enthusiasms, flecked now and again by shadows of eastern cunning or
darkened by warlike ambitions--a nature in which the sentimentalism of
Rousseau and the passions of a Boyar alternately gained the mastery.
No realism is more crude than that of the disillusionized idealist;
and for months the young Czar had seen his dream of a free and happy
Europe fade away amidst the smoke of Napoleon's guns and the mists of
English muddling. At first he blenched not even at the news of
Friedland. In an interview with our ambassador, Lord Gower, on June
the 17th, he bitterly upbraided him with our inactivity in the Baltic
and the Mediterranean, and the non-fulfilment of our promise of a
loan; as for himself, "he would never stoop to Bonaparte: he would
rather retire to Kazan or even to Tobolsk." But five days later,
acting under pressure from his despairing generals, some of whom
reminded him of his father's fate, he arranged an armistice with the
conqueror.[135] Five days only were allowed in which Prussia might
decide to follow his example or proceed with the war alone. She
accepted the inevitable on the following day.

The international situation was now strangely like that which followed
immediately upon the battle of Austerlitz. Then it was Prussia, now it
was Austria, that played the part of the cautious friend at the very
time when the beaten allies