The Convention of Tauroggen became the starting-point of Prussia's regeneration.

As the news of the destruction of the Grande Arme spread, and the appearance
of countless stragglers convinced the Prussian people of the reality of the
disaster, the spirit generated by years of French domination burst out. For the
moment the king and his ministers were placed in a position of the greatest
anxiety, for they knew the resources of France and the boundless versatility of
their arch-enemy far too well to imagine that the end of their sufferings was yet
in sight. To disavow the acts and desires of the army and of the secret societies
for defence with which all north Germany was honeycombed would be to imperil
the very existence of the monarchy, whilst an attack on the wreck of the Grand
Army meant the certainty of a terrible retribution from the new armies now
rapidly forming on the Rhine.[1]

But the Russians and the soldiers were resolved to continue the campaign, and
working in collusion they put pressure on the not unwilling representatives of the
civil power to facilitate the supply and equipment of such troops as were still in
the field; they could not refuse food and shelter to their starving countrymen or
their loyal allies, and thus by degrees the French garrisons scattered about the
country either found themselves surrounded or were compelled to retire to avoid
that fate. Thus it happened that the viceroy of Italy felt himself compelled to
depart from the positive injunctions of Napoleon to hold on at all costs to his
advanced position at Posen, where about 14,000 men had gradually rallied
around him, and to withdraw step by step to Magdeburg, where he met
reinforcements and commanded the whole course of the lower Elbe