Tilsit destroyed the Third Coalition and made
Napoleon master of the Continent. Only Great Britain and Sweden
remained under arms, and against the latter country Napoleon was now
able to employ both Denmark and Russia.
[Sidenote: Humiliation of Sweden]
Early in 1808 a Russian army crossed the Finnish border without any
previous declaration of war, and simultaneously a Danish force prepared
to invade Sweden from the Norwegian frontier. The ill-starred Swedish
king, Gustavus IV (1792-1809), found it was all he could do, even with
British assistance, to fight off the Danes. The little Finnish army,
left altogether unsupported, succumbed after an heroic struggle against
overwhelming odds, and in 1809 the whole of Finland and the Aland
Islands were formally ceded to Russia. Finland, however, did not enter
Russia as a conquered province, but, thanks to the bravery of her
people and not less to the wisdom and generosity of the Tsar Alexander,
she long maintained her free constitution and was recognized as a semi-
independent grand-duchy with the Russian tsar as grand-duke.
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