This volume owes its inception to the difficulty experienced by its author in finding, in English, any satisfactory history of a campaign which he felt could not be less interesting than its predecessors of Austerlitz and Jena.

There is, it is true, an outline of it in Alison’s History of Europe; but that is hardly sufficient for the student of military history, and there is no good general map attached to it. Sir Robert Wilson’s account of it is not available in every library, and it is not very accurate in many respects.

The English text-books on military history, as a rule, scarcely allude to the campaign. The brief sketch of it in Adams’s Great Campaigns is, unfortunately, marred by inaccuracies and misprints.

In French, the best history of the campaign is contained in vols. xvii -xix. of Comte Mathieu Dumas’ admirable Précis des Evénements Militaires, etc. It was, however, written at a time (1826) when many sources of information, now easily accessible, were closed to most writers.

Thiers’ Histoire du Consulat et de l’Empire is not more reliable in regard to 1806-7 than it is in the case of Waterloo.

The memoirs of Rapp, Savary, de Fezensac, Masséna, Marbot, and Baron de Comeau do not profess to be histories of the wars in which the writers were engaged, except in so far as the operations came within their personal cognisance.

Probably the best history of the campaign in Poland is that of General von Hœpfner, published in 1855, and based upon Prussian and, to some extent, on Russian and French official documents. The work is fully illustrated by numerous excellent maps and plans. As far as can be ascertained, this book has not been translated from the German. Nor has the diary of Carl von Plotho, which is a good account of such parts of the campaign as came under the writer’s view.

In Russian, there is a history by Danilewski, which the present writer has been prevented from quoting, except where it is referred to by Hœpfner, owing to his ignorance of the language in which it is written.

A list of the published works, and the unpublished documents, which the author has consulted is appended to this preface. He takes this opportunity of acknowledging the great courtesy and assistance which he received from the officials of the Historical Section of the General Staff of the French Army, in his search for information in their admirably kept and arranged records. Thanks to these records, it has been found possible to clear up, beyond all reasonable doubt, many disputed and obscure points. Amongst these are the question whether Napoleon intended to storm the village of Eylau on the 7th February, 1807; the course of events in the village of Schloditten during the night of the 8th February; the exact extent of Ney’s disobedience in pushing towards Koenigsberg in January, 1807; and the history of the famous captured despatch to Bernadotte, of the 31st January. References to documents supporting these conclusions are made in the footnotes, which, it is hoped, will be found to give chapter and verse for almost every disputable or doubtful statement in the text.

Is the campaign worth the attention of the military student? It is hoped that a perusal of this history of it may show that it is so. The campaign in Poland was the first occasion on which Napoleon found himself pitted against Russia as his principal opponent; for, before it commenced, Prussia, as a military power, had been practically obliterated. The small corps which she was able to put into the field, in support of Russia, covered itself, and Lestocq its leader, with glory, and was able, on one memorable occasion at least, to play an all-important part. Still its numbers were too small to render it more than a secondary factor in the great events of the war.

The glamour of the campaigns of Austerlitz and Jena has eclipsed that of their successor. Yet Napoleon’s great scheme for the destruction of Bennigsen in February, 1807, though it failed, largely in consequence of the capture of a single despatch, is hardly inferior, as a strategic combination, to the marches upon Ulm and Jena. As a tactician, he perhaps never exhibited to greater advantage his appreciation of the features of a battlefield than at Friedland. Modern weapons have, no doubt, rendered the interest of the tactics of 1807 merely academic; but it is not so with the strategy. So long as campaigns are conducted on the surface of the earth, the principles of strategy which have guided Alexander, Cæsar, Turenne, Marlborough, Frederick, Wellington, Napoleon, and every other great general of the past, will hold equally good. If ever the perfection of aerial navigation should introduce a third dimension into the operations of war, a new theory of strategy, as well as of tactics, may become necessary; unless, indeed, war should then become so destructive as to be impossible.

In organising his armies, his supplies, his finances, and his lines of communication, Napoleon never surpassed his efforts in 1806 and 1807.

It is of the military aspect of the war in Poland that this history mainly treats. The politics of the time are dealt with only in so far as they directly affected the course of military events. The campaign marks the zenith of Napoleon’s power in Europe. In the beginning of October, 1806, he still had to oppose him three great powers – Prussia, Russia, and England. By July, 1807, one only was left – England. Europe had her chance, in the three eventful years 1805-7, of throwing off the yoke of the tyrant. The campaign of 1807 is the record of her failure. Had its issue been different, Leipzig and Waterloo might have been anticipated by several years. Napoleon’s military talents had, in 1805 and 1806, shone forth in their greatest glory, his army had scarcely begun to decline or to be composed largely of allies. Was it likely that the next campaign would show any falling off in either respect?

Another fact which adds interest to the campaign is that in it Napoleon first had a foretaste of the difficulties of campaigning in winter in Northern Europe. Even in 1806 he considered the campaign he was entering on to be the greatest enterprise he had ever undertaken. He had yet to learn the value of the Russian troops. It is impossible to doubt that he stored up in his memory all the trials of 1807 when he was preparing for his fatal enterprise of 1812. His enormous preparations for the invasion of Russia, in the latter year, show how he had learnt to appreciate the difficulties of his task. It was only at Moscow that his troubles of 1807 seem to have faded from his recollection.

A few words on the maps attached to this volume. They have been prepared with great care from many sources. The requisites of a good map for the study of a campaign, the writer thinks, are (1) that it should show the name of every place mentioned in the text, and (2) that it should not be encumbered or confused by names not alluded to. With these requirements, save in the omission of a very few unimportant villages, it is believed the maps comply.

If his work succeeds in attracting some attention to an episode in Napoleon’s military career which seems hitherto to have been unduly neglected, the writer’s object will have been attained.

This edition, as regards the text, differs from its predecessors only by a few typographical and other unimportant corrections. The illustrations are the most marked feature of change. As in the author’s Napoleon’s Conquest of Prussia, 1806, the great majority are reproductions of engravings in the collection of Mr. A. M. Broadley, of the Knapp, Bridport, who has kindly allowed Mr. Lane to utilise them. The photograph of Eylau, in March, 1901, was taken for the author from the Landsberg road. When compared with the frontispiece, it shows that the church is new just as it was on the day of the battle. It also has the advantage of showing the scene covered with snow as it was this day 100 years ago.