The merest layman can not only see the colossal proportions of this plan, but he must recognize as well the symmetry of its parts. It is a matter of opinion whether Napoleon devised it in the few days between the receipt of news that Villeneuve had failed him and the departure for Germany, or whether its combination was the result of a long-studied and carefully concealed design. Either hypothesis borders on the miraculous, and yet, paradoxical as it may appear, it requires less strain on one's reason to believe that both are in a measure correct; the test imposed on the navy having failed, the alternative which was long foreseen and always preferred became imperative. So rapid was the wonderful march that scouts could scarcely outrun it with reports, and the newspapers were either without information or dared not print what they knew. It was a force of about two hundred thousand men which crossed the Rhine, and, passing through Hesse, Baden, andWürtemberg to crush the utterly disproportionate and feeble Austrian army, reached the Danube valley near Ulm early in October. It was the third of September before Francis declared war; on the twenty-first, his forces, sixty thousand strong, were on the Iller in sight of Ulm. It was not so much Bavaria that he had in mind; it was Italy for which he was concerned. Austria's weight in the balance now depended upon her keeping the Venetian lands, and her generals made no haste in an advance which would not only put the Alps between her own two armies, but separate her van from her approaching auxiliaries.
The agreement with Russia was that her army, now on the borders of Galicia, and eighty thousand strong, should enter Austria in three divisions, the first of which should reach the Inn on October sixteenth. The Archduke Charles was to command the main force in Italy; the youthful Archduke Ferdinand, under the direction of Mack as quartermaster-general, that in Germany. Napoleon had made the acquaintance of this officer six years before while he was a prisoner of war at Paris, and considered him entirely mediocre—"likely to get a lesson if ever opposed to a first-rate French general." Now that the two were matched the Emperor must have laughed in his sleeve, for he played with his adversary in a spirit of confident and amused assurance.
In order to apprehend Napoleon's supernal greatness it is essential at this period of his life to shut out of view the politician, and fix the eye again on the general; to see him, moreover, solely as a strategist. It may be said that he was for the first and last time unhampered. His political independence and personal popularity were alike secure. His army was the best in Europe, composed of young and well-drilled conscripts, who had been eighteen months under arms, with a large nucleus oftrained veterans. Of the generals who commanded the seven corps destined for Germany only two, Augereau and Bernadotte, were over forty years of age. The Emperor himself, Soult, Lannes, and Ney were thirty-six, Davout was thirty-five, and Marmont only thirty-one. Of the division commanders one half were between thirty and forty, while only a single one was fifty. Not one of these men was commonplace. They knew their profession, and had practised it with success; they were without an exception self-reliant and enterprising, familiar with their leader's methods and requirements.
And yet there was the imperfection of all human arrangements even in this masterful and stupendous campaign. An inferior commander might easily have pleaded one of many excuses for failure in such an enterprise. The Rhine crossing was delayed by insufficiency of transport carriages and pontoons, though the further advance was amply arranged. There were many desertions from the ranks, there was an insufficiency of officers, the artillery force was unduly delayed in coming up, the subsistence was scanty and imperfect, and the supply of clothing, especially shoes, was a source of anxiety. Most of all, the French treasury was utterly disorganized, pay was in arrears, no ready money was forthcoming for either ordinary or extraordinary expenses, there was slackness and distrust among the civil officials, and Mollien declares that the situation was so desperate that "in victory alone" Napoleon "saw and sought the remedy."
These facts shed a bright light on the course of affairs throughout the autumn. They explain why Napoleon forgot entirely that he was an emperor, and was first and last throughout the campaign a general. Every highway and cross-road from Boulogne to the Danube had been surveyed by his confidential officers and circumstantiallydescribed to him; and out of these reports he evolved a plan for the march which in the teeth of every hindrance was executed to the letter. The order for crossing the Rhine is a classic in military literature. No sooner was the advance from one line to another complete than reserve camps were established in the rear, the strong places fortified, and depots of munitions established. The Austrians had chosen for defense the line of the Iller. In addition to their main force of sixty thousand, there were twelve thousand in the fortified camp at Braunau, which contained their stores, and fifteen thousand on Lake Constance. They had not compelled Bavaria either to disarm or to accept their alliance, and the Elector had consequently gathered an army at Bamberg. Such was the situation when the French and Austrians came within striking distance of each other. The latter did not know that their foe was so near, for by a masterly and seemingly reckless use of his cavalry Napoleon had temporarily misled them as to the true position of his columns, which had flanked the Black Forest, and were holding the northeast line from Weissenburg southwesterly to Ulm by Nördlingen and Aalen, being actually in the rear of their enemy.
The next move of Napoleon was one of daring genius. By a series of carefully prescribed marches, continuing for a week, the seven corps were all thrown northward to the left as if to surround the enemy. Bernadotte, violating the Prussian neutrality, crossed the duchy of Ansbach to Ingolstadt; Marmont was at Neuburg; the other five held the line from Heidenheim to Offingen. Mack learned the facts, and believing, like every Austrian, that the French people hated Napoleon, concluded that his enemy was facing about in order to retreat by the southerly line to France! The French people, he thought, were threatening revolution andcausing anxiety; the English, he was positive, were about to make a landing. So he stood still and waited until, on October seventh, the French, instead of marching for home, began to cross the Danube.
Three weeks after the passage of the Rhine, the Emperor wrote to Josephine: "I have destroyed the enemy merely by marches." It was literally true. On October ninth, the French, having beaten the parties sent out to harry them, had crossed the Danube also. Soult seized Memmingen and cut off the retreat to the Tyrol; Bernadotte and Davout remained to observe the Russians, whom they expected to see at any moment. In a sort of dazed uncertainty Mack finally marched out from Ulm to cross the Danube at Günzburg; but he found Ney in possession of the bridge, and in the night of the tenth he returned to the city. Two days were spent in discussions as to the probable course of the French, Mack persisting in the hallucination that they had retreated, the archduke, with better sense, perceiving that the toils were ever drawing closer about his army.
On the twelfth Napoleon moved with his whole force. The Archduke Ferdinand escaped into Bohemia with three battalions of infantry and eleven cavalry squadrons; but Mack, now stubbornly insisting that the Emperor was going to attack the Russians, remained, as he said, to strike the passing columns of the French on their flank! On the thirteenth it became clear that the goal of the enemy was Ulm; on the fourteenth they had virtually beset the town; and on the sixteenth the mortified commander opened negotiations for surrender, which were completed the following day. "If within a week," ran the stipulations, "the auxiliary forces do not appear, the army of Ulm are prisoners of war: except the officers, who march out on parole." On theeighteenth, Murat captured the division of Werneck at Nördlingen. In a personal interview between the Emperor and Mack on October twentieth, three days before the expiration of the limit, the latter was wheedled into admitting the terms as already complete, and twenty-three thousand Austrians laid down their arms. During the scene, according to the journal of one of Mack's officers, Napoleon, "in the uniform of a common soldier, with a gray coat singed on the elbows and tails, a slouch hat, without any badge of distinction, on his head, his arms crossed behind his back and warming himself at a camp-fire, conversed with vivacity and made himself agreeable." An Austrian corps had started from Vienna to guard the crossing of the Inn; the Archduke John was advancing from the Tyrol; the Archduke Charles was holding the Adige. A month later all these were able to unite at Marburg in Styria; but they were too few to assume the offensive, and Mack's capitulation at Ulm was the virtual destruction of Austria's power. The safety of Vienna depended not on its feeble garrison, but on the Russians, who had gathered on the Inn at Braunau and on the Enns at Wels. Almost immediately the French, who had been "gathered to strike," were "separated to live," as their commander's motto ran. Ten days later Braunau with all its stores fell into the hands of Lannes without a blow, and the van of the allies began a somewhat precipitate retreat toward the river Enns, the line which the Aulic Council at Vienna had determined to defend.
But Kutusoff, the Russian general, was not of the same mind, and in order to secure, if possible, the support of the second division of his emperor's army, which was advancing under Buxhöwden from the frontier, crossed to the left bank of the Danube at Krems, and hastened northeastward by Znaim toward Brünn, thecapital of Moravia. Murat had been instructed to hang on the enemy's skirts and harass his retreat. Instead, he kept down the right bank of the Danube, hastening toward Vienna for the laurels he hoped to seize in occupying that undefended capital. "I cannot explain your behavior," wrote Napoleon to his brother-in-law; "you have lost me two days, and thought only on the glory of entering Vienna." In fact, an unsupported division under Mortier was caught by the Russians at Dürrenstein on the left bank and utterly destroyed. A victory won at Leoben by Ney over the Austrian division of Merveldt was unfortunately productive of no results and left Napoleon's situation very difficult. There was nothing now possible but for Murat to secure the river at Vienna, cross with two army corps, and hurry backward toward the northwest to prevent Kutusoff from reaching Moravia. This was possible only if the Austrians had not yet destroyed the bridges over the Danube. It was their bad habit, as Marmont has remarked, when defending the passage of a river to leave the bridge intact to the last moment for the sake of a counter-attack. This they had done at both Lodi and Arcola in Italy, and they had done it once again, all three times to their utter undoing.
Entering Vienna on the twelfth, Murat hastened to the Tabor bridge, which, as had been his hope and expectation, he found all laid with combustibles ready to be set on fire by a garrison troop of Austrians who had retreated to the opposite shore, but had not destroyed the bridge. The danger was real and the crisis imminent. Taking advantage of the fact that on the third the Emperor Francis had vainly endeavored to open negotiations with Napoleon, Murat declared to the Austrian commander what he knew to be an untruth—that an armistice had been concluded, and that there was stillsome prospect of peace. Bertrand fortified the statement by his word of honor; the Austrians withheld their torches, and the French crossed the bridge, while the victimized garrison drew back in the direction of Brünn. The union of the two Russian divisions with the remnants of the Austrian army was thus rendered doubtful, and their chances of defeating the reunited French were doubly uncertain. Napoleon's reputation as a strategist was saved in extremity. By another series of almost superhuman marches his main army reached Vienna on the next day, ready to follow on Murat's heels. On the fourteenth Napoleon's headquarters were established in the palace of Schönbrunn.
The English Navy — Villeneuve's Plight — Preliminary Manœuvers — The Attack off Trafalgar — Victory of the English — Suicide of Villeneuve — The Effects of the Battle — Prussia and the Continental Campaign — Napoleon's March to Vienna — The Combat near Hollabrunn — Napoleon's Situation — The Czar Decides for Battle — The Struggle for Position — Plans of the Antagonists — The Eve of Conflict — The Battle-field of Austerlitz — The Struggle for Pratzen — The Allies Overwhelmed — Napoleon and Francis — Conduct of the Czar — The Fighting at Austerlitz — The New Tactics.
In spite of Villeneuve's retreat to Cadiz, Great Britain was by no means sure of her naval superiority. The French had fought bravely at the battle of the Nile; Nelson, though not exactly outwitted in the chase to the West Indies and back, had failed to catch his opponent, who had escaped a second time without serious loss. In the administration of the admiralty there had been great slackness, except during Barham's short term; and it is now generally agreed that the navy was not highly efficient. Every official except Admiral Collingwood was totally in the dark as to the enemy's plans, and even he was correct only in one surmise, thefirm belief that Villeneuve would return at once from the West Indies; he was wrong in his conviction that Ireland was Napoleon's mark. The united French and Spanish fleets made a fine appearance in the accounts which reached the admiralty, and the activity of the French dockyards was alarming. England's naval ascendancy appeared to the English to be seriously jeopardized.
Villeneuve and his subordinates were apparently the only ones who positively knew that the show made by the allied fleets was deceptive. They complained bitterly, as has been said, of the deficiencies in the equipment of both, and had good cause to do so. That Napoleon was not altogether unaware of this is sufficiently proved by the fact that some one less despondent than Villeneuve was not put in his place. In justice to the French admiral it should be remembered that after his return from the West Indies he displayed great ability. It was a series of masterly movements in which he withdrew from before Calder, entered Ferrol, sailed thence and beat up against a storm to enter the Channel until he was informed that a powerful British fleet was in his path. Many of his ill-equipped craft were much damaged by the gale, and recalling the Emperor's alternative orders, he ran for Cadiz, entering the harbor with thirty-five ships. Collingwood drew off his little blockading squadron, but immediately returned to hover before the port, reinforcements being already on their way from England. Villeneuve remained at anchor. On September twenty-fifth he received orders which had been issued on the fourteenth to weigh anchor, pass through the Strait of Gibraltar, take up the ships lying at Cartagena, and proceed to Naples, in order to cooperate with the army under Saint-Cyr. He was to engage the enemy whereverfound. The wretched admiral was in despair; for lack of stores he had been unable to improve his equipment, and the number of his ships was an embarrassment rather than a source of strength. He prepared to obey, but sent home a remonstrance. On the very heels of his first order, Napoleon despatched Rosily to supersede Villeneuve, who was to return immediately to Paris and answer charges preferred by Napoleon himself. The news outran Rosily's speed. Villeneuve, hearing of the disgrace which had overtaken him, hastened his preparations, and sailed on October nineteenth with thirty-three ships of the line, five frigates, and two brigs. It is easy to see what a tremendous effect the presence of such a naval power in the Mediterranean would have had upon the grand campaign Napoleon had arranged against Austria.
Meantime the total number of ships of the line in the blockading fleet had been raised to thirty-three. On September twenty-eighth Nelson himself came to take command, Collingwood remaining as second. The great admiral hoped for nothing short of absolutely annihilating the naval power of the allies. But he was compelled to send his vessels to Gibraltar for water in detachments, and consequently had only twenty-seven present and available when called on to fight. These were disposed southwestwardly from Cadiz toward Cape Spartel, the main body being fifty miles away when Villeneuve sailed, believing that there were only twenty confronting him. On October tenth Nelson published to his fleet the plan of the coming battle, but in order not to terrify his enemy he hovered at a long distance from the shore. On the twentieth he advanced toward the northwest, having learned from his frigates, which had been watching Cadiz, that the allies had started. Next morning at daybreak hiswatch descried the enemy sailing southeasterly, just north of Cape Trafalgar. The French fleet, simultaneously descrying the English, at once turned northward so as to be ready for retreat toward Cadiz; and Villeneuve, skilful but ever despondent, drew up his ships for battle in two long lines parallel with the shore, those of the rear covering the spaces between those of the first, so as to make the whole virtually a single compact curved line, concave toward the enemy, and therefore prepared to deliver a cross-fire.
It was a bright morning, with a light westerly breeze, but a heavy ocean swell, as the British, with the advantage of the wind, slowly advanced in two columns, one led by Nelson in theVictory, the other by Collingwood in theRoyal Sovereign. All was silent when at the appointed moment the famous signal fluttered from the flag-ship: "England expects every man to do his duty." Responsive cheers burst from ship after ship, and the French admiral murmured, "All is lost!" Nelson had given a stirring order: "In case signals cannot be seen or clearly understood, no captain can do wrong if he places his ship alongside that of an enemy." Villeneuve's was scarcely less so: "Any captain not under fire is not at his post, and a signal to recall him would be a disgrace." It was a splendid audacity on Nelson's part which, fearing lest the light wind might make an engagement impossible, offered each of his ships in two attacking columns, one after the other, to the fire of a whole fleet. Collingwood's line—the southern—came into action first, just at noon, and broke through the enemy's ranks, as was expected; but although this was by prearrangement with Nelson, yet theRoyal Sovereign, having outsailed her consorts, went too far, and was isolated for twenty minutes, being exposed to the fire of all the enemy's ships which could reach her, and was nearlylost before she could manœuver or her consorts come to her assistance.
TheVictoryhastened on against theBucentaure, which carried the standard of Villeneuve, as fast as the treacherous breeze would permit, and in turn attacked on the north. She too was in advance of her consorts, and was riddled before they could come to her relief. For a time theRedoutablewithstood the onset both of theVictoryand the next in line; but three more British vessels coming up, the five finally broke through, capturing theBucentaure, theRedoutable, and theSantissima Trinidad. Both the English flag-ships were saved, but the fighting was terrific on both sides. To the over-confidence of the British was opposed a dull timidity in their opponents, and in the end this began to tell. The allied van failed to use their guns with either rapidity or precision, while their inner line drifted away to leeward and was enveloped by the enemy. It was about half-past one when Nelson received a mortal wound from the maintop of theRedoutable, but he lived to hear the news of victory. He was a victim to his own system, which subordinated caution and every other idea to the single one of success. His men loved him just as Napoleon's did, and fought desperately for his approval. He was still in his prime, and in many minds his loss offset the victory. Of the whole armada, eleven ships—five French and six Spanish—escaped under Gravina; four put to sea under Dumanoir, but were eventually captured.
That night there was a violent storm. It continued throughout the twenty-third, and on the twenty-fourth three of the eleven vessels which had escaped under Admiral Gravina, having put out to cut off prizes from the British, were dashed to pieces on the shore; all but four of the English prizes were wrecked, and of Villeneuve'sproud squadron only eleven were finally left. He himself was taken prisoner, and released on parole. Early in the following April he landed at Morlaix, and, proceeding to Rennes, asked for an opportunity to plead his cause before the Emperor. What the reply was is not known, but on the twenty-second he was found dead in his room, stabbed in several places, the knife embedded in the last wound. The reproaches Napoleon had heaped upon him must have been in the main undeserved, for he was never degraded; but they broke his spirit, and he doubtless committed suicide.
The effect of Trafalgar in England was enormous. No doubt of her superiority on the seas could now remain, for the navies of her foes were wiped out. She had been freed from the fear of invasion by Napoleon's great countermarch, and, in spite of the tremendous subsidies paid on the Continent, might now hope for a revival of industry and trade on whatever shores the oceans rolled. Napoleon's career was one long, thick shadow which hung menacingly over English life. The victory of Trafalgar was a great rift in the cloud. It ended French maritime aggressions for the duration of the war, but it scarcely changed the eventual course of affairs on land, and it in no way interfered with Napoleon's operations for the moment. It did not necessitate, as has been claimed, the notorious continental system, for that system was already in existence; it merely hastened the effort to enforce it rigorously enough to lame England by attacking her commerce. Her naval supremacy had been from the beginning a factor in determining French policy; it became after Trafalgar the most powerful element in molding Napoleon's policy, though it was not the only one. The continental allies of England, while of course they rejoiced, felt that, after all, the effects of Nelson'svictory were remote. For the moment Austria and Russia were engaged in a struggle which even Trafalgar did not influence to their advantage. Napoleon's simple but characteristic remark on receiving the news was, "I cannot be everywhere." He began at once the reconstruction of a navy for the purpose of destroying commerce, but he never again assigned it any other share in his plans. In France there was a stunned feeling, but it quickly passed away under the influence of another event which marked nearly the highest point ever reached by the imperial power. The one most noticeable result of Trafalgar was the quick dejection it produced in Napoleon's grand army; this was symptomatic of an evil still in its initiatory stages, which, though easily cured for the moment, became in a short time periodic, and finally fatal.
Napoleon Exposition, 1895NAPOLEON, FIRST CONSUL, BY INGRESBelonging to M. Germain Bapst.
Napoleon Exposition, 1895
NAPOLEON, FIRST CONSUL, BY INGRES
Belonging to M. Germain Bapst.
He was almost immediately confronted by a new foe, but there is no link between the destruction of his sea power and that fact. While the French had been crossing from the valley of the Rhine into that of the Danube, they had treated the minor German states with scant courtesy, using their territories as those of either conquered people or dependent allies. This ruthless treatment did not, however, awaken a spirit of resentment among them. But Prussia, still considering herself a great power, grew furious when Bernadotte rashly violated her neutrality and marched over her lands at Ansbach. The Czar, who had already directed his troops toward the Prussian frontier in order to coerce Frederick William into joining the coalition, and intended, if necessary, to violate Prussian neutrality as Napoleon had done, appeared in Berlin about the middle of October. The court party, headed by Queen Louisa, sympathized with the coalition, and used the French ruthlessness to arouse public opinion for itself. Aidedby Alexander's presence, it then gained a temporary victory in the treaty with Russia, signed at Potsdam on November third, which virtually ended the policy of neutrality so carefully cherished for ten years by Frederick William, and in the pursuit of which Prussia had lost her vigor and her political importance. The wavering king finally bound himself to armed mediation, to put his army on a war footing, and then either to secure from the Emperor of the French the liberties of Naples, Holland, and Switzerland, with the separation of the crown of Italy from that of France, and an indemnification for the King of Sardinia, or else to enter the coalition with one hundred and eighty thousand men. The Russian troops might occupy or cross Prussian territory whenever needful. It was believed that the necessary negotiations with Napoleon would turn one way or the other by the middle of December. Shortly afterward the two monarchs, who had wrought themselves into an exalted fervor, swore eternal friendship over the tomb of Frederick the Great. Their dramatic oath initiated the policy of secret dealing in everything pertaining to the imperial usurper who had defied all Europe, and with whom no faith in any literal sense could be kept. There was some momentary compensation to the Emperor of the French for the serious blow he had received by this new alliance in the fact that he could now openly consolidate his power in western and southern Germany, relying on the interested friendship of the three electors who had gained so much by the enactment of the imperial delegates, so called, in 1803—those, namely, of Baden, Würtemberg, and Bavaria. The grateful Elector of Bavaria personally thanked Napoleon for his condescension, and again occupied Munich, from which the Austrians had driven him. His visit was short, for Napoleon was in haste; in fact,his position was critical. As to the immediate future, Russia and Austria were in front, and if he should give unsatisfactory answers to the envoy from Berlin, Prussia would be in his rear. All depended, therefore, on a quick and decisive struggle with the two allied empires.
During his advance to Vienna, Napoleon, without a single conflict which might justly be called a pitched battle, had manœuvered both Austrians and Russians out of his way. By serious inadvertence he had suffered the division of Mortier, left isolated on the left bank of the Danube, to be annihilated at Dürrenstein; and through Murat's vainglorious stubbornness, Kutusoff had escaped with the Russian contingent. Nevertheless, as has been told, the main French army had, by the most amazing marches, reached Vienna on November fourteenth, and the same day Napoleon had established his headquarters in the neighboring palace of Francis at Schönbrunn. Murat was hurrying forward with his cavalry, and the divisions of Suchet and Lannes were close on the heels of Murat. If these should attack one Russian flank while a second army turned the other, Kutusoff's force could be dispersed. But two important duties demanded immediate attention. The troops had been scattered over a wide territory to live on the country; now they must be gathered in to strike. It was consequently essential that regular provision-trains be organized and supplied. Both these tasks were pursued with untiring zeal. "They say I have more talent than some others," Napoleon wrote to Marmont on November fifteenth, "and yet to defeat an enemy whom I am accustomed to beat I feel I can never have enough troops. I am calling in all I can unite."
Murat pushed onward after the retreating Russians, and in spite of their tremendous marches overtook themon the fifteenth. Kutusoff's men were so weary that they could proceed no farther without a rest, and from Schrattenthal he sent back a subordinate, Bagration, to Hollabrunn, with six thousand of the freshest troops, to check the French advance, if possible. Believing the main army of Kutusoff to be before him, the French leader felt unable to engage. Accordingly he despatched a messenger under a flag of truce with the statement, purely fictitious, though speciously based on certain irrelevant facts, that negotiations had been opened for a general armistice. Kutusoff, pretending to be familiar with the details of the falsehood, heartily entered into a proposition to negotiate, using the time thus gained to prepare his further retreat. A paper was duly drawn up, signed, and sent to Napoleon at Schönbrunn, where the bearer arrived on the sixteenth. The Emperor, seeing how Murat had been outwitted, immediately sent off an adjutant to him with peremptory orders to attack at once. When this command arrived at Hollabrunn, Soult had come in with three divisions, but Kutusoff with his army was far away on the highroad to Znaim. Murat fought bravely, but Bagration's vastly inferior force resisted with equal stubbornness until eleven at night, when, their purpose of gaining time having been accomplished, they followed the main army. Napoleon had by this time come up to take charge in person, but it was too late: Murat had "destroyed the fruits of a campaign." Near Brünn, Kutusoff met the Vienna garrison, and at Wischau the united force of forty-five thousand men joined the first detachment, fourteen thousand strong, of a second Russian army, which was advancing under Buxhöwden. The second detachment of this army, ten thousand strong, was found next day, November twentieth, at Prossnitz. The great fortress of Olmütz was just beyond, with agarrison of about fifteen thousand; Alexander had arrived with his imperial guard; and Bennigsen, one of Paul's assassins, who had been preferred to high command by Alexander, was already marching from Breslau with another army of forty-five thousand. The Archduke Ferdinand was in Bohemia with an Austrian corps to guard the right, and the Archduke Charles was on his way to Vienna with the Austrian army from Italy—the two together about eighty thousand strong.
At first sight it appears as if Napoleon were outnumbered, his detachments scattered, and his communications endangered; and these charges have been brought in order to attribute his subsequent success to good fortune alone. But a scrutiny of the Emperor's grand strategy will show that he could be perfectly secure. From far and near his scattered but well-trained divisions were moving on. Masséna had left Italy; Ney, having swept the enemy from the Tyrol, was coming up; and all about the southern line divisions were moving to guard strategic points, to stop the hurrying Austrians, and yet be within "marching distance." With this comfortable assurance, the great captain advanced to the Moravian capital, and there established his headquarters on the nineteenth. Once again, by his amazing power of combination, he had gained the advantage, his troops being so disposed that in one day he could call in fifty-four thousand men; in two, seventy-five thousand; in four, eighty-five thousand; and his line of retreat was secure. If compelled to withdraw, he could fall back on Davout, Mortier, and Klein, assemble one hundred thousand men, and again make a stand. If Kutusoff and Charles should march straight to Vienna to effect a junction, he could oppose to their combined army of a hundred and sixty-nine thousand troops a hundred and seventy-two thousand of his own.The defensive position of his foes was virtually impregnable, but they could not unite for attack as swiftly or advantageously as he. His own defensive position was less strong, because he had for some distance about and behind him a hostile country. What the allies, therefore, needed was time; what Napoleon wanted was a battle.
But where and how? There would be little advantage and much danger in simply attacking the foe to drive them farther back into their own lands. The battle must be swift and conclusive, or else the year, with all the prestige of Ulm, would be lost. In this juncture what Napoleon chose to call his fate or destiny signally favored him; in reality it was his own calm assurance which misled his opponents. The Austrians had too often felt the weight of Napoleon's hand, and all their officers except Colonel Weirother, a favorite of Alexander's, were cautious; the Russians, recalling that Napoleon had never fought with them, were eager to destroy his renown. Czartoryski, though he had resigned his post of foreign minister, was again at Alexander's side. "Our true policy—and this I told to every one who would listen," he wrote, in 1806, "was to wear out the foe with skirmishes and keep the main army out of reach, secure Hungary, and unite with the Archduke Charles." But the Czar's other advisers were the more intent because there was no love lost between them and Austria. Francis had already despatched two able agents, Gyuläi and Stadion, to coöperate with the Prussian envoy Haugwitz in negotiating with Napoleon for peace. These negotiations, if successful, would greatly diminish Russia's importance. Moved, therefore, by a characteristic pride, Alexander harkened to those who clamored for battle, and, taking the momentous decision on his ownaccount, began to prepare. Napoleon could scarcely realize the possibility of such rashness, and received the news with delight. Haugwitz and the Austrian diplomats were directed toward Vienna, where Talleyrand was to conduct the negotiations; Napoleon's adjutant, Savary, was sent direct to Alexander himself, nominally to see whether he would consider a partition of Turkey, in reality to observe the state of the Russian forces. The crafty disposition of the diplomats was the never-failing second bow-string, in case the decision of arms should be doubtful; Savary's mission was a feint to gain time and information.
Napoleon heard on November twenty-seventh, from a deserter, that the enemy was actually advancing, but he could not believe it. Next day the news was confirmed by his own cavalry, and in such a way as to indicate the method of attack—a flank movement against the French right. That night his own plan was completed and the outlying divisions were summoned. They came so promptly that the very next morning found him on the heights above Austerlitz, twelve miles to the east of southeast from Brünn, and ready to meet the enemy. Bernadotte accomplished what seemed impossible, and on December first was in position across the highway between Brünn and Olmütz. Davout was close behind, and the same night reached the cloister of Great Raigern, seven miles south of Brünn, and about twelve from Austerlitz. There are on record no such feats of marching as those performed by French troops, with incredible swiftness, on the days preceding Austerlitz. Friant's division marched from Leopoldsdorf through Nikolsburg to Raigern, seventy-eight miles, in exactly forty-two hours!! And after six hours' rest, they marched five miles further, engaged the columns of the allied left wing and fought againstterrific odds for eight hours!!! There are records of other similar feats in the same campaign by single brigades, but nothing approaching this in the annals of warfare.[34]But the enemy was not yet visible in force on November twenty-ninth, and it was only when Savary returned from the Russian camp with complete and precious information that there seemed no longer room for doubt. Accordingly the French were withdrawn during that day in a line southwesterly from Austerlitz, to take up a position stronger than that in which they stood. To preserve the appearance of sincerity, Savary was sent back in hot haste to Alexander with a second meaningless proposition. As a return move Prince Dolgoruki was sent on the thirtieth with a like message from Alexander to Napoleon. The prince was utterly hoodwinked, and some have thought that the Russian decision to fight was due to his report that the French were on the point of retreat.
On the highest hilltop between Brünn and Austerlitz, still known as "Napoleon's Mount," the Emperor bivouacked during the night of November thirtieth. Having been aware since morning that the enemy's slowness would give him yet another day, he had carefully examined the land in front and far to his right. The result was a daring resolution. The Czar's advisers had determined to turn the right wing of the French: this Napoleon had now learned through a traitor in the Russian camp. It would be easy to thwart them by occupying a high plateau to the right, on which stood the hamlet of Pratzen, with his right wing on the Littawa stream; in which case he would win "an ordinary battle," to use his own phrase. But it was not such a victory that he wished: his aim was nothing less than the annihilation of the coalition. So he determined to leavethis apparently commanding position, feeling sure that his over-confident foe would occupy it as a manifest vantage-ground.
On December first the hostile army appeared, marching in five columns, and before night the two divisions of the center were drawn up, on and behind the plateau of Pratzen; the three which composed the left were on and before its southern slopes. Their movements and their position convinced the experienced observer that his information was exact. Late in the afternoon was held a council of war in which every general received the most minute directions. Soult especially was carefully instructed as to the "manœuver of the day"—an advance in echelon, right shoulder forward. Nicely poised combinations need careful attention, and the uneasy but confident Emperor spent the night passing from watch-fire to watch-fire, encouraging and observing his men. With noisy enthusiasm they besought him not to expose his life on the morrow, and promised to bring him a suitable bouquet for the anniversary of his coronation. For a time the whole camp was illuminated with extemporized torches of hay. But, though excited, the troops, as well as their general, were confident; they understood his casually uttered but carefully considered words, which passed from mouth to mouth: "While they are marching to surround my right, they will offer me their flank." For a time, also, he rode in the darkness to reconnoiter the enemy's position, and being convinced that no movement was to be made before morning, he returned to his tent about three and slept until dawn. He has been charged with having for the first time shown cowardice at Austerlitz. This is because in a proclamation he promised not to risk his life, as his men had requested; but this promise was expressly conditioned on their doing their duty, and he kept hisword because they kept theirs. General Bonaparte had led his soldiers where danger was greatest, but Napoleon the Emperor, having won his stake, had no need to take such risks; having more to lose, he now for the first time used the ordinary caution of a man whose life is worth that of many common men. It was only what every great royal and imperial general is accustomed to do.
The early hours of December second, 1805, were misty, although there was a sharp frost; but by seven the sun had dimly risen, and soon the thick fog lay only along the streams. At that hour the Russians and Austrians began their marching. Those behind the Pratzen heights passed swiftly up, and, uniting with those already there, marched in the general direction of the forest near Turas, intending to cross the intervening Goldbach and with their own left, which stood at Telnitz and Sokolnitz, surround Napoleon's right wing. The battle-field of Austerlitz is approximately an isosceles triangle, the short base extending north and south between Raigern and Brünn, a distance of about seven miles, and the equal sides, twelve miles in length, converging in Austerlitz to the eastward. About half-way on a perpendicular let fall from the apex, and parallel with the base, the Goldbach flows on the west side of the Pratzen plateau, nearly due south, the villages of Schlapanitz, Puntowitz, Kobelnitz, Sokolnitz, and Telnitz being at about equidistant intervals from north to south on its banks. A mile north of Schlapanitz the road from Brünn to Olmütz forms the north side of the triangle; the forest of Turas lies about two miles to the west of Puntowitz, on a high plain. In a line eastward of Schlapanitz, about a mile from that village and from each other, are the villages of Girzikowitz and Blasowitz. Napoleon's bivouac was on the high hill northwest of Schlapanitz, at the base of which, on theother side, was Bellowitz. North of the Olmütz road is a commanding hill, dubbed by the veterans of the Egyptian expedition with an Egyptian name, Santon, from a fancied resemblance of the little spire which crowned it to a minaret. This was to be the pivot of the battle, and Napoleon fortified it with a redoubt and eighteen pieces of cannon. South of it stood the left wing under Lannes; next toward the south stood the cavalry under Murat; then the center under Bernadotte; and Soult with the right was west of Puntowitz. Oudinot was eastward, in front of the imperial bivouac, with ten battalions; and ten battalions of the guard, with forty field-pieces, were westward behind it. Davout, having arrived the night before, was at Raigern. Legrand stood between him and Sokolnitz, on a pond lying southeast of that village.
At five in the morning Davout marched from Raigern, and about nine joined Legrand to engage the enemy's left. Meantime, at a quarter to eight, Soult began to climb the Pratzen slopes with the divisions of Vandamme and Saint-Hilaire. In about twenty minutes—the exact time in which he had declared he could do so—he had made good his position, and was fiercely engaged with the column of Kollowrath, which formed the enemy's center, and with which Kutusoff was present in person. The latter, realizing for the first time what the loss of Pratzen would mean, endeavored to concentrate toward the right; but his efforts were unavailing: he could only stand and fight. The two Austro-Russian columns on his left swooped down to the Goldbach, and seized both Telnitz and Sokolnitz. Simultaneously with Soult's advance, Bernadotte and Murat moved forward, encountering between Girzikowitz and Blasowitz the enemy's cavalry under Prince Lichtenstein, and the Russian imperial guard under the Grand Duke Constantine.Napoleon advanced to observe the conflict, and a little before eleven, at the critical moment, when the regiment of his brother Joseph was on the verge of being engulfed and lost, he threw in the cavalry of his own guard, under Bessières and Rapp, upon the Russian guard, turned the scale against them, and with his own eyes saw Constantine withdraw. The Russian vanguard under Bagration had meantime come in from Bosenitz, and was hotly engaged with a portion of the French left. The entire cavalry mass of Lichtenstein and Murat was commingled in bitter conflict. With the retreat of Constantine began the rout of the whole Austro-Russian right wing. Lannes, supported by the Santon redoubt, had stood like a rock until then; at once he precipitated himself, with the divisions of Suchet and Caffarelli, upon Bagration, and drove him back. Lichtenstein, who, up to that moment, had at least held his own,—if, indeed, he had not shown himself the stronger,—could no longer stand, and late in the afternoon he too began to yield.
Between eleven and twelve Soult had cleared the Pratzen heights, and pushing ever toward the right, had finally, just as the sun burst in splendor through the clouds, separated the enemy's left wing from its center. The latter had been sadly weakened both by detachments to strengthen the left and by its losses in conflict. At noon it began to retreat, and Napoleon, having satisfied himself that all was well on his left to the north, rode south to join Soult, and in passing despatched Drouot's division against the fugitive Kutusoff, whose column was thus overpowered and thrown into utter confusion. Since nine in the morning Davout had stood on the west shore of the Goldbach, flinging back the successive charges of the enemy's overgrown left. The continuous struggles had been terrific; thestream literally flowed blood as the soldiers of both sides crashed through the ice, and, unable to disengage themselves from the muddy bottom, stood fighting until they died. By two o'clock, however, his labors were over: the great move of the day, Soult's echelon march, right shoulder forward, was complete; Saint-Hilaire and Vandamme had recaptured the villages of Sokolnitz and Aujezd; the three southernmost Austro-Russian columns were entirely surrounded, and only a few from each escaped to join the remnants of their right, center, and reserve, running for life across frozen ponds and ditches, by dikes, and over rough-plowed fields toward Austerlitz. About five thousand of the fugitives, mostly Russians under Doctoroff and Langeron, had risked themselves on the ice of the Satschan lake and were hurrying across when Napoleon arrived. He ordered the field-pieces to be turned on the ice so that the balls weakened and cracked it.[35]In a few moments it gave way; with shrieks and groans many sank into the slowly rising waters and disappeared under the tossing icefloes. According to the account of the bulletins, frequently doubted but never refuted, nearly two thousand of them were drowned: when the ponds were drained after the battle forty Russian guns and many corpses were found. The fighting strength of the coalition was destroyed; so likewise was their moral courage. Shortly after Kutusoff's retreat, General Toll found Alexander seated weeping by the wayside, and accompanied by only a single adjutant.
Hostilities were scarcely ended for the day before Francis despatched Lichtenstein with proposals for an armistice. Napoleon received the envoy while making his round of the battle-field, but refused to treat for two days. He intended to reap the fruits of victory, and ordered a skilful, thorough pursuit. Such was the rout of the allies that the position of the shattered columns of Austria and Russia was not known until the fourth of December. The Czar was in such danger of being captured that early in the day he sent to Davout a flag of truce and a hastily penciled note declaring that the Austrian emperor had been in conference with Napoleon since six that morning, and that a truce had been arranged. This falsehood enabled Alexander to escape across the river March and avoid being made a prisoner of war. It was only in the afternoon that the Emperor Francis was received by Napoleon in a tent near Holitsch, and it was not before the sixth that the campaign was ended by Austria's acceptance of such terms for an armistice as the Emperor of the French chose to impose.
Considering the character of the battle, the terms first suggested were not hard: No loss of territory for Austria if the Russian emperor would withdraw to his own territories and shut out England from his harbors; otherwise Napoleon would take Venetia for Italy and Tyrol for Bavaria. Alexander would not listen to the embargo project, nor to Francis's desperate suggestion that they should continue the war. On the sixth, having, according to Savary, exchanged fulsome compliments with Napoleon, he marched away for Russia, leaving his ally to take the consequences of what was really his own rashness. This was a complete rupture of the coalition: its weightiest stipulation was that none of the members should make a separate peace. The only hope of Austria for endurable terms now lay inPrussian coöperation. But Haugwitz could no longer offer the ultimatum agreed upon at Potsdam; the battle had of course utterly changed the situation. Napoleon now demanded nothing less from Prussia than the long-desired alliance offensive and defensive. On December fifteenth Frederick William's envoy assented provisionally, and set out for Berlin to secure the royal assent, if possible. His master was to keep Hanover and close her ports to the English; to give Cleves, Wesel, and Neuchâtel to France; to cede Ansbach to Bavaria; and to acknowledge the latter as a kingdom, with such eastern boundaries as Austria would agree to yield.
For an instant Napoleon thought of continuing the war to annihilate Austria forever. Talleyrand's hand, however, had been crossed, as no one doubted, with an enormous bribe from Austrian sources, and he persuaded the Emperor not to follow the bad advice of his generals, but to "rise higher as a statesman" and make peace. With his assent to this went ever larger and harder demands, until Francis actually contemplated a renewal of the desperate and unequal struggle alone and unassisted. He had in all probability a fighting chance, but his longing for peace prevailed. When the treaty was signed, on December twenty-sixth, 1805, at Presburg, Austria surrendered Venice, with Friuli, Istria, and Dalmatia, to Italy; ceded Tyrol to Bavaria; consented to the banishment of the Bourbons from Naples; accepted all the new arrangements which had recently been made by Napoleon in Italy, and agreed to pay a war indemnity of forty million francs. The contributions laid on Austrian lands in irregular ways during the progress of the campaign had been probably more than as much again. The recognition of Bavaria as an independent kingdom, and the rearrangement of German territories, put an end to theempire; Francis, having in 1804 assumed the title Emperor of Austria, was heartily tired of the rather bedraggled imperial Roman style which he still wore. Würtemberg received five cities on the Danube, the counties of Hohenems and Wellenburg, with part of the Breisgau, and became a kingdom like Bavaria; Baden got the rest of the Breisgau, together with Ortenau, Mainau, and the city of Constance; Bavaria received not only Tyrol, with the Vorarlberg, but Brixen, Trent, Passau, Eichstädt, Burgau, Lindau, and other minor possessions, to round out her new frontier. In scanty amends Salzburg and Berchtesgaden were assigned to the Austrian Empire.
The fighting on both sides at Austerlitz was in the main superb. "My people," said the Emperor to his soldiers—"my people will see you again with delight; and if one of you shall say, 'I was at Austerlitz,' every one will respond, 'Here stands a hero.'" The legions of the Empire had indeed fought with unsurpassed bravery, as had likewise the Austrians. The Russians were not so steadfast. In their first experience of the "furia Francesa" their old notions of courage were wiped out. "Those who saw the battle-field," said the "Moniteur," "will testify that it lay strewn with Austrians where the fight was thickest, while elsewhere it was strewn with Russian knapsacks." Such was the effect upon his men that not only did Alexander leave his ally in the lurch and march back into Poland, but he felt called on to publish a bulletin asserting the valor of his own, and the timidity of the Austrian troops. But the "Battle of Austerlitz," as it is called in French phrase, the "Fight of the Three Emperors," as the Germans designate the day, was epochal, not merely for the courage displayed, but for the tactical revolution it wrought. It was the first true Napoleonic battle. Thenceforward the greatest conflicts were arranged onits commanding principle—a principle which had long been used, but was then for the first time fully developed and accepted.
Throughout the preceding period of warfare an army was set in motion as a whole, every portion being from first to last in the commander's hand ready for manœuvering. If any division was hemmed in, or any portion of the line was broken, the result was defeat. From 1805 onward any single part, center or either wing, could be annihilated, and the victory still be won elsewhere by the other parts. For this two things are essential: first, fresh troops to throw into the proper place at the proper time; second, a line of retreat, with a new basis for operations, previously prepared. The highest military authorities go so far as to say that in a well-arranged battle one portion of the line should even be sacrificed to the enemy in order to secure victory with the others. The pursuit after Austerlitz was as fine as the attack, and so colossal and comprehensive was Napoleon's genius that he had made complete arrangements for withdrawing in case of defeat, not, as the enemy thought, toward Vienna, but through Bohemia to Passau. The total numbers engaged were, on the side of the allies, about ninety thousand; on that of the French, about eighty thousand. The Austrians and Russians lost fifteen thousand killed and wounded, with twenty thousand taken prisoners, while the French had seven thousand killed and wounded in the long and dreadful stand made at the Goldbach by their right, and about five thousand elsewhere. The Emperor thought it a small price to pay for the hegemony of Europe, and his favorite title was "Victor of Austerlitz." "Soldiers," he cried at Borodino, as the sun burst through the dun clouds, "it is the sun of Austerlitz!" and his flagging army revived its drooping spirits.
The New Map of Europe — The Reapportionment of Italy — Treatment of the Papal States — Holland a Vassal Kingdom — Royal Alliances of the Napoleon Family — Prussia Humiliated — Negotiations with Great Britain and Russia — The Transformation of Germany — The Confederation of the Rhine — Napoleon's Disdain of International Law — Russia Enraged — Napoleon as Emperor — The Theocracy — Cares for the Army — The Financial Situation — Napoleon's Conceptions of Finance — Social Avocations.
Pitt was in Bath recovering from an attack of gout when he heard the news of Austerlitz; within twenty-four hours his features became pinched and blue, taking on an expression long known as the "Austerlitz look." Returning to his villa at Putney, with the hand of death upon him, he is said to have entered through a corridor on the wall of which hung a map of Europe. "Roll up that map," he hoarsely murmured to his niece; "it will not be needed these ten years." He died soon afterward, on January twenty-third, 1806, in his forty-seventh year; and the last words he was heard to utter were, "My country—oh, how I leave my country!" He had hoped, and, as the sequel proved,not in vain, that as England had saved herself by her own exertions, so she might save contemporary Europe by her example. In the new ministry, Fox was secretary of state, but, liberal as he was, he could not resist public opinion, which was outraged at the preëminence of France. Austria was stripped of leadership even in Germany; there was but a difference of degree in the subservience of Russia, Prussia, Bavaria, and Baden.
1805—06
The effect of Austerlitz in the French army was to silence criticism, which had been rife after Kutusoff's escape. In France itself the war had for some time been growing unpopular; the long-feared panic had actually begun; for since Trafalgar all prospect of colonial trade was at an end, while commerce with the East had well-nigh ceased. Though there were forty million francs in subsidies from Spain and Italy, loans thrice that sum were negotiated and only by the shrewdest manipulation of public finance could the increased establishment of the empire be supported. The people, moreover, groaned under the hardships of the ruthless conscription, and many cared more that France herself should be at peace than that she should have the ascendancy in Europe. But the news of Austerlitz was irresistible, and shifts were devised to tide over the financial crisis until the great administrator should return and, with the aid of his war indemnities, rearrange the pieces on the board of domestic affairs. Such victories were not dearly bought in money, but were an actual source of revenue. Other nations might be made contributory in a financial as well as a political way, or rather the two would go hand in hand, prestige and cash. The temptation was subtle.
Thus was opened the way for what was the most profound and influential effect of Austerlitz: the attempted substitution for the effete Holy Roman Empire under a German prince, of another Western empire to be ruled by the Emperor of the French, with territorial subdivisions under Napoleonic princes, all subject to the central power.
The first step taken toward establishing this new conception was a further advance in Italy. At the critical moment of the Austerlitz campaign, Caroline, the Queen of Naples, Napoleon's irreconcilable enemy, had broken her sourly given engagement with him. Her harbors were opened to English ships, and Russian troops occupied her territories. The Czar had prided himself on his guardian relation to the Two Sicilies: his check at Austerlitz and his dismissal from the scene of action were not a sufficient humiliation; the very next day an army order was issued which sent Masséna to Naples, and declared that the Bourbon dynasty had ceased to exist. By decree of the French senate, Joseph Bonaparte was on March thirtieth, 1806, made king of Naples and Sicily. It was with reluctance and under the sting of sharp admonitions that he left his elegant, important ease and took the crown upon his uneasy head, "to keep a firm hand" on unwilling subjects, "to be master" where he was at best an unwilling tool. The new monarch retained his French dignities, but assumed the rôle of a dependent ally of France. At the same time and in the same way all Venetia was incorporated with the kingdom of Italy. Elisa's appanage of Lucca was increased by the districts of Massa-e-Carrara and Garfagnana; the principality of Guastalla was made over to Pauline. Still further, twenty hereditary duchies were organized, either at once or later, bearing the titles of Dalmatia, Istria, Friuli, Cadore, Belluno,Conegliano, Treviso, Feltre, Bassano, Vicenza, Padua, Rovigo, Ragusa, Gaeta, Otranto, Taranto, Reggio, Lucca, Parma, and Piacenza. These were fiefs, not of France, but of the French Empire; the first duty of the holders was to the Emperor, their second to France. A landed aristocracy, thus founded, might be indefinitely enlarged and thus afford not merely society for the lonely summits of the hierarchy, but a comfortable intercalation as the seat of the throne, removed by one stratum from the restless foundation elements. To the Emperor himself the kingdom of Italy was not alone a bastion of political power, but a treasure house: it was to pay fourteen million francs a year, and the kingdom of Naples one million. Later the same system was extended to Germany and Poland. What could be plainer than the meaning of this?
The Pope, returning empty-handed from the coronation, had firmly refused to grant a divorce for Jerome Bonaparte, who had pusillanimously expressed repentance for his American marriage. In the Austerlitz campaign the Pontiff preserved an absolute neutrality. But the papal territories were nevertheless desecrated, since Bernadotte was made titular prince of Ponte Corvo, and Talleyrand, the unfrocked and married bishop, created prince of Benevento. French soldiers seized Ancona on the plea of maintaining it against the English heretics and pagan Turks. The Roman ports were declared shut to all enemies of France. It is credibly reported that Napoleon contemplated having himself crowned as Western emperor in St. Peter's, but whether this be true or not, he demanded recognition as Emperor of Rome, and exacted the expulsion of Russians, English, and Sardinians from the Papal States. The Pope pleaded that for the Emperor of the French to be recognized as Roman emperor would destroy the papal powerin all other lands, and obtained a respite by dismissing from his office as secretary of state Consalvi, who headed the opposition.
The title was unimportant compared with the reality, and this Napoleon set about securing still further by erecting Holland into a Napoleonic kingdom. Schimmelpenninck, Napoleon's stanch supporter, was still grand pensionary, and at a wink from the Emperor a deputation of Dutch officials came to Paris. Their chairman, Verhuel, was informed that his country was to receive a new executive in the person of Prince Louis; otherwise Napoleon could not, at the peace, hand back her colonies; that as to religion, the new king would keep his own, but every part of his kingdom should have the same right. The constitution should remain unchanged. The delegates protested, and pleaded the treaties of 1795 and 1803, which guaranteed Dutch independence; but the Emperor stood firm: either Louis as king, or incorporation with France. On May twenty-fourth, 1806, the "High and Mighty States" ceased to exist, and on June fifth a new king, much against his will, was added to the great vassals of the Empire. It was a sorry office, foredoomed both to disgrace and mortify its occupant; being, from the imperial side, little more than that of a stern customs-collector defying Great Britain on one hand, and on the other that of an economic tyrant compelling a proud people to commercial degradation by intolerable restraints on their natural activities. Louis Bonaparte was not of stern material; his irregular life, his morbid sensibility, his boundless self-esteem, his sensuality, each separately and all combined, rendered it impossible for him to play his assigned rôle. His personal pose was to transcend the official, to be king of his people, to be caressed by his court and the nation; to go his own way, in short, indifferent to the hand from which he had fed.
The humiliation of Germany was scarcely less profound than that of Italy and Holland. With the advance of years Napoleon's earlier religious impressions, always vague, had degenerated into a mild and tolerant deism. Less than a fortnight after Austerlitz he found time to reprimand sharply a member of the Institute for printing atheistic books; but Christianity, with its attendant morality, was for him, after all, only an important social phenomenon of which atheism would be destructive. Nevertheless, outward respect for Roman Catholicism had been a powerful lever for his ambitious purposes both in Italy and in France. In the latter country he had formed to his profit a stable alliance between Church and State, and this same lever he purposed to make use of for the complete overturning of the old political system of Germany. Among other complaints which he poured out to the Pope was one concerning the utter disorganization of the Church among the Germans. This was largely true, for some of the petty ecclesiastical princes were as licentious as their secular contemporaries. Protestant Germany was apathetic, and almost everywhere religion and morality were at a low ebb. The remnant of good men were as uneasy about the Church as the sensible masses were about the political tyranny under which they suffered. When Bavaria, Würtemberg, and Baden were enlarged and emancipated from the overlordship of Austria, the reigning princes either misunderstood what had actually occurred,—the transfer of their suzerainty from Austria to France,—or else they felt no sense of shame in becoming vassals of the French emperor. The so-called sovereigns occasionally made a mild endeavor to assert some little independence; but such efforts were so often followed by a message from Paris suggesting that they held their offices, not for themselves, butas part of the French system, that they soon desisted entirely. Yet they long rejected Napoleon's proposals for matrimonial alliances between their families and his. Austerlitz overcame their repugnance. On January fourteenth, 1806, Max Joseph of Bavaria yielded to the Empress Josephine's long-cherished desire, and gave his daughter Augusta as consort to the viceroy Eugène, breaking her engagement with the heir apparent in Baden. Soon after, Eugène's cousin Stéphanie, whose relations with Napoleon had made a scandal even in Paris, was married to the prince who had been Augusta's suitor. A year later, Jerome, in defiance of ecclesiastical laws, was wedded to the Princess Catharine, daughter of King Frederick of Würtemberg. Although these arrangements gratified the Emperor's personal pride, they were made primarily to support the new imperial state policy. In them there was nothing calculated to rouse England from the comparative lethargy into which she fell after Trafalgar, nor to exasperate Prussia unduly.
But this moderation was only apparent. There was a bolt in the forge which, if rightly wielded, would speedily reduce Prussia to vassalage, and eventually bring England herself to terms. When Haugwitz, the Prussian envoy, returned from Schönbrunn to Berlin, the treaty of alliance with France which he had felt bound to make was not welcomed, and with some suggestions for important changes the bearer was despatched to Paris by the King to see whether better terms could not be obtained. The Prussian monarch was, in fact, afraid of the Prussian national temper, and dared not face his people without something more than Hanover to show for his previous losses on the left bank of the Rhine, and the new cessions he had been compelled to make after Austerlitz. The Emperor received the plenipotentiary kindly, and seemed on the point ofyielding the modifications, which were that Frederick William should receive along with Hanover the cities of Hamburg, Bremen, and Lübeck. But the advent of Fox to power momentarily turned Napoleon's head. With one great liberal at the helm in England, and another autocratic in France, the two, he felt, could change the face of Europe and the character of the world. This delusion suggested peace with England, and the Emperor thought for an instant of keeping Hanover as a medium of exchange; his second thought, however, was not to buy peace, but to enforce it. Accordingly, even harder conditions than before were laid upon Prussia as to the exchange of territories, and besides she was compelled to enter the continental embargo on English trade. The King was in despair, but he yielded. Hardenberg, the head of his cabinet, was dismissed, at Napoleon's desire, because he represented the national self-respect; and Prussia, lately so proud but now humbled and disgraced, listened, stunned and incredulous, to the insults of the "Moniteur," while her King, on March ninth, 1806, set his hand to a paper which seemed to secure Hanover at the price of Prussian independence. Three months later, on June eleventh, Fox declared war against Prussia. At that very moment Napoleon was negotiating for the return of the electorate to George III of England, its hereditary prince, as the price of a peace with Great Britain.
Fox had found an opportunity to open communications with the French government in connection with the current report of a plot to assassinate the Emperor. Being given to understand that Napoleon would gladly make peace on the basis of the treaty of Amiens, negotiations were opened through Lord Yarmouth, one of the travelers detained in France under the Emperor's retaliatory measure when war was declared by England.Talleyrand offered as a basis for negotiation all that England could desire, including the restitution of Hanover and the principle ofuti possidetis, which meant that England could keep Malta with the conquered colonies; besides, the Naples Bourbons, though banished from the mainland, could reign in the island of Sicily. But the French minister stipulated, apparently for France, that Russia should not treat in common with Great Britain. With these seemingly favorable terms Yarmouth set out for London. In reality negotiations with Russia had already been opened, and it was Alexander's express injunction through Oubril, the special plenipotentiary sent to Paris for the purpose, that Russia should not join England in negotiation. The Czar was unwilling to hamper himself in the Orient by even a temporary alliance with Great Britain, his rival in that quarter. This was playing directly into the hands of Napoleon, whose diplomacy was, like his strategy, dependent for its overwhelming success on the utter surprises it prepared for his opponents. Such a one was now in readiness. No sooner had Yarmouth returned to Paris in June than the French government began to draw back. King Joseph could not get on without Sicily, and the only possible indemnity to the former rulers would be a domain formed from the Hanseatic cities. After a few weeks of such fencing, during which Yarmouth appeared to mirror by a yielding complacency the supposed peace policy of Fox's cabinet, Oubril provisionally signed just such a treaty with Russia as Napoleon desired. Then first the bolt thus far kept in concealment was loosed by publishing as an accomplished fact the organization of a great power subsidiary to France in the heart of Europe—the Confederation of the Rhine. This was the most audacious of all Napoleon's audacious schemes.
It meant, indeed, a new map of Europe, the minimizing of England's influence on the Continent, the permanent neutralizing of both Austrian and Prussian power, the exclusion of Russia from the councils of western Europe. The means by which it was brought about were as astute as the measure was momentous. Among the German princes who had lent their presence to the splendors of Napoleon's coronation was the only ecclesiastic who had maintained himself amid the changes incident to the general secularization which took place after the treaty of Lunéville—to wit, the Archbishop Dalberg, Elector of Mainz, who had formed the ambitious plan of securing that unity and efficiency of the German Church which both the Pope and Napoleon desired. Of an ancient and noble line, he found no difficulty in putting himself at the head of an extensive movement among the Roman Catholics of western and central Germany, who desired to restore the Church in Germany to a position of influence, and to secure her purity and power in a way similar to that which had been followed in France through the Concordat. The rulers of France had for more than a century been desirous of establishing between their own territories and those of the great German states, Prussia and Austria, a belt of weak states, to serve as a bulwark against their enemies and as a field for the extension of their own influence. Napoleon, making use of the malleable temper produced in Europe by the fires of Austerlitz, proceeded to realize the project. To the Pope he said that, since his authority was not sufficient to bring order out of the ecclesiastical chaos in Germany, he would intrust the task to Dalberg as primate.
Assured not only of subservient obedience from Bavaria, Würtemberg, and Baden, but of considerable good will from the devout inhabitants of western Germany,the Emperor of the French had formed the plan of confederating the three considerable powers above mentioned, with new ones to be formed by "mediatizing" most of the petty ones still remaining. This term was a euphemism to emphasize the transformation of their hitherto immediate into a mediate relation to the Empire. But immediacy was quasi-autonomy, mediacy was virtual annihilation, the rulers retaining only their personal effects and respective patrimonies. No sooner was the existence of this design whispered abroad than Talleyrand was beset by agents from the twenty-four princelings concerned. Their hands were not empty, and again the minister lined his coffers. When the papers were finally drawn up, and the necessary signatures were added, it was found that only a few of the little principalities and counties had escaped annihilation. For various reasons, those of Isenburg, Arenberg, Lichtenstein, Salm, Hohenzollern, and Von der Leyen were still permitted to live. The electors of Hesse-Cassel and of Saxony, who were friendly to Prussia, were excluded from the league. The components of this new power were Bavaria, Würtemberg, Baden, Nassau, Hesse-Darmstadt, the city and lands of Frankfort, with Dalberg as prince-primate, the six districts just enumerated, and, lastly, a new state, the grand duchy of Cleves and Berg, created for Murat, another Napoleonic prince, who reigned as Joachim I. These all declared themselves members of a federal state independent of both Prussia and Austria, but under the protection of the French Empire. Napoleon could introduce new members to the confederation, had the right of appointing the primate, and, most important privilege of all, was to control the army. This followed as a corollary of the article which declared that every continental war which one of the contracting powershad to wage was common to the others. Bavaria was to furnish thirty thousand men, Würtemberg twelve thousand, Baden eight thousand, Darmstadt four thousand, Berg five thousand, Nassau and the other pygmies four thousand. This arrangement, whereby sixty-three thousand soldiers were added to the armies of France, was then dignified by the name of "alliance."
The decree was published on July twelfth, 1806; on August first the Diet at Regensburg was informed that the Germanic Empire had ceased to exist: on August sixth the Emperor Francis, who had declared himself hereditary Emperor of Austria in 1804, now declared under compulsion that he laid down his Germanic crown. The way to true German national union was opened by Napoleon's contempt for local prejudice together with his wholesale and ruthless violation of dynastic ties. It was ostensibly to perfect his communications with this new ally that the Emperor now for the first time established a permanent garrison on the right bank of the Rhine. The spot he chose was Wesel, in the grand duchy of Cleves and Berg. To be sure, he gave a formal assurance that he did not intend to expand the borders of France beyond the Rhine. This doubtless was literally true; but the French Empire was another thing than France. The attitude of the Emperor was perfectly illustrated in his continued negotiations with Yarmouth, whose easy compliance had to be neutralized by a new commissioner, Lord Lauderdale, specially instructed by Fox to be peremptory about preserving the existing conditions of sovereignty on the Continent. Napoleon did not hesitate to offer England, as a substitute for Sicily, either Albania or Ragusa, or the Balearic Isles. In other words, the whole idea of territorial sanctity was in his opinion antiquated except when so-called sovereigns could make good theirclaim. Hanover had passed to Prussia by French conquest and treaty agreement, the Hanseatic towns were free cities, Albania belonged to Turkey, Ragusa was nominally independent under Austria's protection, and the Balearic Isles acknowledged the sovereignty of Spain; but he offered any one or all of them as if they were his own.