But he gradually steeled himself to the conviction that war with Alexander was inevitable, and that the help of Austria and Prussia would enable him to beat back the Muscovite hordes into their eastern steppes.

For a time he had unquestionably thought of destroying Prussia before he attacked the Czar; but he finally decided to postpone her fate until he had used her for the overthrow of Russia.[257] After the experiences of Austerlitz and Friedland, the advantages of a defensive campaign could not escape the notice of the Czar.

As early as October, 1811, when Scharnhorst was at St.Petersburg, he discussed these questions with him; and not all that officer's pleading for the cause of Prussian independence induced Alexander to offer armed help unless the French committed a wanton aggression on Koenigsberg.

Seeing that there was no hope of bringing the Russians far to the west, Scharnhorst seems finally to have counselled a Fabian strategy for the ensuing war; and, when at Vienna, he drew up a memoir in this sense for the guidance of the Czar.[258] Alexander was certainly much in need of sound guidance.

Though Scharnhorst had pointed out the way of salvation, a strategic tempter was soon at hand in the person of General von Phull, an uncompromising theorist who planned campaigns with an unquestioning devotion to abstract principles.