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large numbers of Russians, perhaps 120,000 men, were in the process of marching to join the Prussians. With them was the British officer, Sir Robert Wilson, and according to him, officers and men alike were eager to avenge the defeat of Austerlitz. Referring to the subsequent decision of the Russian advance guard to fall back before Napoleon, he wrote, ‘When Bennigsen retired from Yankova on the approach of Bonaparte and sought to evade the enemy by forced marches . . . the Russian murmur at retreat was so imposingly audacious, the clamour for battle so loud and reiterated . . . that Bennigsen was obliged to . . . soothe their discontents by an assurance that he was marching to reach an appropriate theatre of combat.’33 Aided though he was by fresh German allies, most notably Saxony, which had changed sides, and Hesse-Kassel, which had hastily abandoned its initial neutrality, the emperor was none the less in a difficult position, particularly as it was by no means clear that Austria would not attack him in the rear. Nor could it be guaranteed that Britain would not send a force of troops to the Baltic. When the weary grande armée trudged into Warsaw on 28 November, its troops therefore had little hope of going quietly into winter quarters.

On one count at least, Napoleon need not have worried. If there was one direction from which no aid was to be expected, it was that of Great Britain. News of Jena and Auerstädt had caused little stir in political circles, there being a strong opinion that it was only to be expected. As Joseph Farington confided to his diary, ‘[James] Boaden I met while walking before dinner. We talked of the defeat of the Prussians. “What else”, said he, “could be expected? The weaker are overpowered by the stronger.” ’34 And amongst the Foxites, in particular, there reigned a mixture of glee and indifference. ‘Let these devils punish one another,’ wrote Sir Phillip Francis. ‘I have no pity for any of them. Bonaparte is an avenging demon sent on purpose to scourge these nations for submitting to be the slaves and instruments of mean, barbarous tyrants who differ from him in nothing, but that, with equal malignity, they have none of his magnanimity and not the smallest portion of his abilities.’35 Nor were such views confined to the radical wing of politics: himself a north German ruler, George III always had good reason to fear Prussia, and had been outraged by the loss of Hanover, while there was a general feeling among men like Grenville that Prussia simply could not be trusted. To these deep-seated prejudices there were now added reports of the most depressing kind. The first British envoy sent to Prussia, Lord Morpeth, had fled back to Britain in the wake of Jena and Auerstädt, and it was some time before a replacement reached Frederick William’s refuge in Memel in the person of Lord Hutchinson. What he found there did not make for much in the way of confidence. There were few troops and the regime was bankrupt and the court in great disarray: one German eyewitness speaks of seeing ‘the young and unfortunate Queen Louise, eyes reddened by tears, wandering through the muddy and badly paved streets of that little town with her children’.36 All that was forthcoming was some £200,000 in treasury bills. This is understandable enough: confined to the poorest and most remote corner of his dominions, Frederick William would not have been able to do very much even with the most substantial bankroll. Yet amazingly, Grenville being determined to keep down government expenditure, the British applied the same thinking to Russia. Desperate for assistance, Alexander appealed for 60,000 muskets; the guarantee of a £6 million loan on the London market, of which £ million was to be advanced straightaway in coin; and the dispatch of an expeditionary force to Western Europe. All he got was the muskets and £500,000 in silver, and £80,000 of that was confiscated by Sweden when the ship carrying it reached the agreed handover point of Göteborg, on the grounds that it was owed her for previous services. It was also made