Spain having proved to be, not a meek purveyor of fleets, but a devourer of French armies, there was the more need of a close accord with the Czar.  Napoleon desired, not only to assure a further postponement of the Turkish enterprise, but also to hold Austria and Germany in check.  The former Power, seeing Napoleon in difficulties, pushed on apace her military organization; and Germany heaved with suppressed excitement at the news of the Spanish Rising.  The dormant instinct of German nationality had already shown signs of awakening.  In the early days of 1808 the once cosmopolitan philosopher, Fichte, delivered at Berlin within sound of the French drums his “Addresses to the German Nation,” in which he dwelt on the unquenchable strength of a people that determined at all costs to live free.

On the philosopher’s theme the Spaniards now furnished a commentary written with their life-blood.  Thinkers and soldiers were alike moved by the stories of Baylen and Saragossa.  Varnhagen von Ense relates how deep was the excitement of the quaint sage, Jean Paul Richter, who “doubted not that the Germans would one day rise against the French as the Spaniards had done, and that Prussia would revenge its insults and give freedom to Germany....  I proved to him how hollow and weak was Napoleon’s power:  how deeply rooted was the opposition to it.  The Spaniards were the refrain to everything, and we always returned to them.”

The beginnings of a new civic life were then being laid in Prussia by Stein.  Called by the King to be virtually a civic dictator, this great statesman carried out the most drastic reforms.  In October, 1807, there appeared at Memel the decrees of emancipation which declared the abolition of serfdom with all its compulsory and menial services.  The old feudal society was further invigorated by the admission of all classes to the holding of land or to any employment, while trade monopolies were similarly swept away.  Municipal self-government gave new zest and energy to civic life; and the principle that the army “ought to be the union of all the moral and physical energies of the nation” was carried out by the military organizer Scharnhorst, who conceived and partly realized the idea that all able-bodied men should serve their time with the colours and then be drafted into a reserve.  This military reform excited Napoleon’s distrust, and he forced the King to agree by treaty (September, 1808) that the Prussian army should never exceed 42,000 men, a measure which did not hinder the formation of an effective reserve, and was therefore complied with to the letter, if not in spirit.