Faust’s Metropolis: A History of Berlin. Alexandra Richie

the German Volk by ridding it of the foreign presence; in 1811 he put these ideas into practice by forming the Turnerschaft in Berlin’s Hasenheide. Two hundred gymnasts gathered not only to exercise together but to stage medieval tournaments, complete with crossbow competitions and mock sword fights. Young people were to be ready for war and all these activities – from poetry readings to night marches – were meant to instil a communal spirit. By 1812 the Deutsches Bund had spawned other groups, including the Charlottenburger Bund which included Gneisenau, Schleiermacher and Reimer amongst its members. The wave of anti-French activity increased dramatically when Napoleon began preparations for a new campaign in 1812. In the end, however, it was neither the reformers nor Romantic ideas nor the patriotism of men like Fichte or Görres which drove Napoleon from Berlin. It was the result of Napoleon’s one great mistake – the invasion of Russia.

      By the end of 1811 relations between France and Russia had started to break down and both sides began to plan for war. The French preparations were staggering. Napoleon assembled an army of 1,100,000 men in Europe. Five hundred thousand, including Dutch, German, Polish and Swiss troops, were moved to the east. To the annoyance of the local population thousands were stationed in Berlin. Worse still, Napoleon forced the Prussian king not only to maintain the troops on his soil but to provide 20,000 troops for the army. From March 1812 Berlin once again endured the economic hardships of the occupation of a vast army. Many of the reformers were so disgusted by the king’s support of France that they left the country: around 500 officers resigned their commissions – Boyen and Clausewitz went to Russia, Gneisenau went to England, and the head of the Prussian police went to Prague. Civil servants, journalists, writers, philosophers and others who yearned for a war of liberation continued to organize underground. Some Berliners were visibly hostile to the French troops in their midst; when the foreign soldiers celebrated Napoleon’s birthday on 15 August a handful of people pelted them with stones and had to be driven back with bayonets. The Deutsches Bund and other groups began to sabotage French supply lines and attack guard posts. This did not amount to a popular uprising against the French – far from it – but some Berliners used the opportunity to demonstrate their hatred of France for the first time.

      The war began on 24 June 1812. A vast army of 422,000 men struggled across the river Niemen and entered Russia. Napoleon had high hopes of victory. He believed that the Russian serfs would rise up and join him in their demands for the principles of liberty, equality and brotherhood. But the Russian serfs knew little of the principles of 1798. Napoleon hoped he might be reconciled with the tsar before Christmas and decided not to burden his troops with heavy fur coats, boots or ice shoes for the horses. But the tsar did not negotiate. Compared to the mighty French force bearing down on it the Russian army was weak and Napoleon thought it would be easy to crush. But instead of fighting it continued to retreat into the vast landscape, burning villages and fields on the way thereby depriving the French army of food. By the end of that fiery August the invaders had already lost 150,000 men to illness and desertion and so many horses were dying in the heat that the basic provision of food and supplies simply ceased.⁵² Just before Moscow, at Borodino, Marshal Kutuzov finally turned and fought the French, but although it was a Russian bloodbath their army remained intact. The French continued on to Moscow with 100,000 troops but found the city deserted and emptied of supplies. It was a hollow victory. By the time Napoleon arrived there winter was closing in. As he paced the Kremlin wall and looked over his latest conquest he realized that he had been trapped.

      The winter of 1812 was particularly bitter. Napoleon ordered his army to retreat down the Smolensk road pursued by Kutuzov. Many were killed by Cossacks and partisans but more simply froze to death on the way home as temperatures reached –21°C at Smolensk, –24°C at Minsk, –30°C at Molodeze. The suffering was immense. On 5 January the pro-Russian activists vom Stein and Arndt left a liberated St Petersburg to the sound of church bells and followed the retreating French army down the road from Pskov. The carnage was terrible to behold. Their sledge passed over the dead bodies of horses and men which were strewn on either side of the road; all the villages they passed had been ransacked or burned. On 11 January they reached Wilna and found a pyramid of corpses in the courtyard of the monastery ‘as high as a third storey window and all frozen together’. Stein wrote to his wife: ‘We see nothing but wagons full of corpses which are found in the high road partly eaten by wolves or are carried out of the hospitals (in Wilna alone there are 15,000 in hospitals) or gangs of prisoners in rags, hollow-eyed, with blue-grey skin, awaiting death in sullen silence.’⁵³ Over 20,000 men were lost crossing the river Berezina alone, and when the remnants of the Grande Armée finally struggled over the Niemen into Poland only 18,000 troops remained. Napoleon had lost 380,000 men, making this one of the most costly campaigns in history.⁵⁴

      The majority of Berliners had remained passive throughout the French occupation, unmoved even by Fichte’s speeches and the activities of the Bund, but rumours of Napoleon’s defeat in Russia brought anti-French sentiments to life. French army soldiers quartered in people’s homes were turfed out on to the street. By the end of 1812 the remnants of the Grande Armée had started to struggle back into Berlin; Ludwig Rellstab saw the wagons filled with wounded men roll slowly into the city and noted that ‘the appearance of the unfortunates was terrible’.⁵⁵ As the Grande Armée struggled west General Hans Yorck, then in command of a Prussian auxiliary corps of 14,000 troops, had deliberately disobeyed the king – unthinkable behaviour for a Prussian officer in an army whose motto was ‘Obedience’ – and had changed sides. The Convention of Tauroggen, signed in December 1812, opened the border to the tsar’s army and the two had pursued the French into Prussia together. Gustav Parthey noted that above all it was ‘the young generation which greeted [Yorck’s action] with joy’.⁵⁶

      On 6 February 1813 Berliners had their first contact with the victorious Russian army when an advance party of 300 Cossacks entered the city and demanded the surrender of Napoleon’s 10,000 troops there. The French barricaded the city but Russian reinforcements arrived and on 4 March Berlin was liberated. Many who had remained loyal to France fled the city in disgrace and on 17 March General Yorck made his triumphal entry into Berlin. At the same time Stein had travelled to Breslau to try to persuade the king to change sides and enter the war against France. On 23 February Frederick William, who had finally broken his ties with Napoleon, read the proclamation An Mein Volk (To My People), appealing to his subjects to rise up and volunteer for service. On 3 March he introduced a new medal for bravery in battle to be awarded irrespective of rank. It was designed by Schinkel, and was called the Iron Cross.

      Friedrich William III’s change of heart heralded the true start of the Wars of Liberation. The Prussian army openly called for men and the clandestine organizations were transformed into recruitment centres: members of Jahn’s organization rushed to join the Landwehr under Adolf von Lützow, who adopted the uniform of black frock coat, red lapels and gold oak branches – the first manifestation of the black-red-gold which would later become the colours of the German nationalist movement. Theodor Körner wrote poetry glorifying the national fight; he was later killed in action and became a hero – there are still two streets named after him in Berlin. Thirteen thousand Prussians from all walks of life joined up – 6,500 from Berlin, including Schadow, Fichte and Iffland, who came in outlandish medieval outfits. Berlin businessmen raised 1.2 million thalers to pay for the volunteer army and many women gave their gold jewellery in return for ornate filigree iron bracelets and necklaces which were worn with patriotic pride. On 24 March Frederick William finally returned to his capital confident that the city was now safe. The final battle near Berlin took place at Grossbeeren on 23 August 1813, when a French force of 70,000 men met an army of Swedish, Russian and Prussian troops under Bernadotte. The French defeat there foreshadowed the most important battle of the Wars of Liberation, the ‘Battle of the Nations’ at Leipzig.

      This battle was the largest so far in history. It was fought by the coalition of Austria, Prussia and Russia; Austria alone contributed 127,000 men, Prussia 228,000 infantry and 31,000 cavalry, while Napoleon had a force of 442,000. The battle began on 16 October 1813. The mammoth armies clashed for three days and when smoke finally cleared the rolling fields, now hills of mud, could be seen littered with dead and wounded men, mutilated horses, discarded weapons and twisted wreckage. The French lost a staggering 38,000 men while 30,000 were taken prisoner.⁵⁷ The battle