With the defeat in East Prussian Friedland in 1807 Prussia's fight against Napoleon came to an end. On neutral ground – on a raft on the river Memel – the French victor negotiated the terms of peace with the Russian tsar Alexander, initially under the humiliating exclusion of the Prussian king.
The loss of territory and compulsory payments were a heavy burden on Prussia. East Prussia in particular suffered in the following years from the ban on trade with England.
In 1812 Napoleon's army, the largest in Europe until then, crossed the Memel to resume its campaign against Russia, which ended in a military catastrophe. Prussian units under Yorck von Wartenburg, who were forced to join the French Grande Armée (Great Army), seized the opportunity and agreed on a truce with Russia, known as the "Convention of Tauroggen". This treaty and the Königsberg Landwehr (territorial army) initiated a patriotic movement that liberated Europe from the French yoke.
Illustration:
Napoleon’s Great Army takes up its quarters in Sensburg on 13th June 1812, lithograph by Albrecht Adam, around 1812
It was the East Prussian country people who suffered severely under the Great Army because they "lived off" the land. The scene depicted is the overcrowded market place of the Masurian small town with its covered wagons, barouches and heavily laden carts with cows tied to the back of them.