Battle of Heilsberg.
Battle of Heilsberg.
Meanwhile, however, the pleasant season had mended the roads and dried the swamps. The Russians were refreshed by their long rest, and, children of nature as they were, felt the summer's warmth as a spur to activity. Bennigsen had by that time about ninety thousand men, excluding the Prussians, who now numbered eighteen thousand. By his delay he had lost the services of his best ally, the inclement weather; but he had at least come to a decision, and forestalling Napoleon's scheme, advanced on June sixth to the Passarge, against Ney's corps, which was the French advance-guard. Ney retreated, and the seventh was spent in manœuvers which resulted in uniting his corps with the main army. Bennigsen, having hoped to cut off and destroy his division before attacking in force, felt compelled, in consequence of failure, to retreat in turn, and this movement left Lestocq at a dangerousdistance to the right. At this juncture Napoleon determined to assume the offensive himself. On the eighth he began to concentrate his troops, and took measures to find the enemy in order to force a battle. Bennigsen had withdrawn beyond the river Alle; Soult and Lannes, with Murat in advance, were sent up its left bank to Heilsberg; Davout and Mortier were to pass farther on, as part of a general movement to surround; Ney and the guard were held in reserve, while Victor was despatched to block Lestocq.
The first shock occurred on the morning of the tenth, in the neighborhood of Heilsberg; for Bennigsen had sent a considerable number of his troops back over the river to feel the enemy. The Russians were slowly driven across the plain, fighting fiercely as they went, until by six in the evening they reached the heights near the town, which had been intrenched. Here they turned, and for five hours hurled back one advancing French column after another until eleven o'clock at night, when, fortunately for the attacking troops,—so at least thought Savary, who was with them,—it grew too dark, even near the summer solstice and in those high latitudes, to fight longer. Next morning Napoleon woke after his bivouac and looked to see his enemy gone, as at Pultusk and Eylau. But this time a repetition of that pleasant experience was denied him. His losses had been so serious the day before that he spent the eleventh in manœuvers, further concentrating his army before Heilsberg, and despatching Davout to throw himself between Lestocq and Bennigsen, thus turning the latter's right and checking the former, if all went well. This movement determined the character of the whole campaign. It had the desired effect, and on the morning of the twelfth the trenches in front of him were empty. The Russians had stolen away, and for twodays they steadily retreated down the Alle in the general direction of Königsberg, until on the evening of the thirteenth they reached Friedland.
Bennigsen had expected to retreat still farther, hoping to reach Wehlau, and cross to the right bank of the Pregel for a strong defensive position before Königsberg. Lestocq with the Prussians was well forward on the extreme right toward that place. But at three in the morning of June fourteenth the head of Lannes's column appeared before Friedland, and the Russian commander, supposing he had to do with a single division, turned, and crossing to the left bank of the Alle, passed through Friedland in order to meet his enemy in the open. His evident intention was to follow the Napoleonic plan of overwhelming the attacking divisions one by one as they arrived. His right wing was stationed in the rear of the hamlet of Heinrichsdorf, his left rested on a forest known as the Sortlack. When his arrangements were completed it was nine o'clock in the morning. What information he had is unknown, but what he did remains inexplicable. Starting to seize Heinrichsdorf, he was, after a short conflict, repulsed; for Lannes had stretched his line far to the left for the same purpose, and had been reinforced by Mortier's vanguard. Bennigsen withdrew about noon to his first position, and stood there in idleness for three long hours, exchanging useless volleys with his foe. Having his entire force already on the field, he remained absolutely inactive while the enemy formed their line. In respect to his having massed his forces before the French could form, his position was exactly parallel to that which the latter had occupied at Jena with regard to the Prussians, and which was used by Napoleon with such vigor for a flank attack. But Bennigsen lacked the promptness and insight necessary to use his advantage, and the long delay was decisive.In the interval, Ney, Victor's artillery, and the guard arrived; at three the Emperor issued his orders for forming the line; and two hours later he gave the signal for Ney to attack on the right. The Russians had but shortly before learned that the main French army was in front of them, and were beginning their retreat with the intention of recrossing the Alle, many having entered Friedland, which lies on the left bank of the stream. In the first rush toward the town, Ney was repulsed with dreadful loss; but as Ney's corps rolled back to right and left, Dupont appeared with Victor's first division in the very middle of the breaking lines, and at the same moment Sénarmont pressed forward close to the Russian ranks with all Victor's artillery,—thirty-six pieces,—and began to pour in a deadly fire. This routed the enemy, who fled through the town and over the stream; but their right wing, being thus turned into the rear-guard, was caught by Lannes before it reached the crossing, and checked. The wooden bridge was set in flames, and before nightfall that portion of the Russian army which had not yet crossed was virtually annihilated.
About eighty thousand French and about fifty-five thousand Russians took part in this battle; the former lost seven thousand men, the latter sixteen thousand, with eighty field-pieces. It was the only one of Napoleon's great engagements in which he admitted his numerical superiority to his enemy. The same day Soult and Davout, with Murat's cavalry, drove Lestocq into Königsberg, and prepared to invest the town. But Lestocq's troops, with the garrison and the court, escaped, flying for refuge toward the Russian frontier. Bennigsen collected at Allenburg the troops he had saved, and, retreating in good order, crossed the Niemen at Tilsit four days later. He then had the option ofawaiting Napoleon, who was close behind, or of making peace, or of withdrawing into the interior beyond the enemy's reach, as Alexander had done after Austerlitz. As a matter of fact, he confessed utter defeat. "This is no longer a fight, it is butchery," he wrote to the Czar's brother, the Grand Duke Constantine. "Tell the Emperor what you will," he said again, "if only I can stop the carnage."[5]
The campaign of Friedland shows either less genius or more than any other of Napoleon's victories, according to the standpoint from which it is judged. If he is to be regarded throughout its duration merely as a general, then his conduct shows comparatively little ability. He came on his enemy where he did not expect a battle. Although he had ample time to evolve and execute an admirable plan, and while his loss was trifling compared with that of his opponents, yet, nevertheless, Friedland was a commonplace, incomplete affair. It compelled the foe to abandon Heilsberg, but it did not annihilate him or necessarily end the war. Bennigsen found all Russia behind him after his defeat: twenty-five thousand men came in from Königsberg, Prince Labanoff brought up the Russian reserves, and thus was formed a substantial army. A retreat with this force into the vast interior would have left Napoleon as a general just where he was before. This ineffectual result was entirely due to a single deliberate move which terminated his scheme of surrounding and annihilating the foe—the detachment of Davout against Lestocq on the enemy's extreme right.
But when viewed from the statesman's point of view, Friedland appears in a very different light.[6]It is a strange coincidence that in the month previous a rebellion ofthe janizaries had deprived Selim III of his throne, and that, Sebastiani's influence being thus ended, France's position in the Oriental question was utterly changed. The formal despatches announcing this fact did not reach Tilsit until June twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth, but there is a strong probability that it was known to Napoleon before the battle of Friedland. Is it possible that the Emperor intended Friedland to do no more than satisfy his army's eagerness for glory, and yet leave Alexander in a humor to unite with him for the gratification of those well-known Oriental ambitions of his which he had so recently seen jeopardized by the Franco-Turkish alliance and the consequent ascendancy of French influence at Constantinople? Such a hypothesis is by no means wild; nevertheless, a careful study of the campaign seems to prove that Napoleon, in suddenly changing from the defensive to the offensive, and so finding himself at Heilsberg face to face with defeat, took the quickest and easiest means to relieve a critical situation. It would have appeared something very much like bravado had Davout's corps penetrated between Lestocq's division and the Russian army, and thus have exposed itself to a rear attack. If the easy self-reliance Napoleon felt after a winter of robust health had been somewhat less, and if his intellectual acumen had been somewhat greater, the whole situation might have been foreseen and provided for. As neither was the case, he did as a general the best thing that was possible at the moment. Admitting this, we shall find the statesman making the most of the general's poor situation; for the treaty which followed Friedland is unique in the history of diplomacy.
There were forcible reasons on both sides for arriving at an understanding. It has been remarked that Napoleon never discharged the stings and darts of personalabuse at Alexander I as he did at the persons of other enemies. In what was almost a personal correspondence at an earlier time the Czar had exhibited his noblest qualities and an enlightened liberalism. To be sure, every humiliation had been heaped on Russia in spurning the Oubril treaty of the previous year and by the light disdain of peace obligations solemnly taken. Yet Napoleon was alive to the present and imperative need of a strong ally if his mercantile attack on England were to have even a chance of success. With Austria he had employed all the diplomatic arts of Talleyrand and Andréossy to no avail: the Polish campaign had made Francis alert, that of Russia was reviving the bellicose spirit of the Austrian army. Negotiation with Frederick William had failed because based on the concept of a new Prussia eastward of the Elbe, a menace alike to Russia and Austria, and a confession of defeat by the King, who preferred to place his trust in Alexander. Francis was equally adverse to Talleyrand's elaborate scheme of a realm eastern in fact as in name, stretching away down the Danube valley to the Euxine, a buffer against Russian aggression, a menace or a support to Turkey as occasion required. It was therefore a categorical imperative which determined the Emperor of the French to woo the Emperor of all the Russias at this juncture. When a proposition for an armistice was made by Bennigsen on June twenty-first, it was not only courteously but impressively accepted, and within a very short time things were moving as if the two emperors were no longer enemies, but rather as if they were already intimate friends, anxious to embrace. At least, even before their meeting, such was the attitude they assumed in their communications with each other and ostentatiously displayed to those about them. Some things are perfectly patent in the Czar's desire forpeace. Russian autocracy as a system was still unshakable, but the authority of his house was not: in sixty years there had been no fewer than four revolutionary upheavals, either by the soldiery or by a palace cabal. The instability of the throne had sadly diminished the prestige of the country, and after Austerlitz the nation had been treated with contempt in the person of the Czar, both in his political and his military character, the rest of Europe being profoundly indifferent to Russian chagrin. His situation was not improved by Pultusk, Eylau, or Friedland. Dissensions in the field were not concealed by the hallelujahs and hosannas of the populace in the cities; victory bore no fruits; without Austria the next step could not be taken, and hesitancy still marked that uneasy monarchy as its own. Prussia, although the principal in the fight, was but a feeble power. England, though reaping the harvest of Russia's commerce, had become niggardly in regard to subsidies, and had delayed the long-promised, much-vaunted Baltic expedition until it was useless. The King of Sweden was so hated by his own subjects that his efforts as an ally had been rendered almost futile. In Russia itself there was a strong party, led by the Grand Duke Constantine, which steadily denounced the war as one in the interest of strangers, and in it were included most, if not all, the Russian officers. It was evident that Alexander as an auxiliary would lose no prestige at home in withdrawing from a quarrel which was not Russia's, and in which he had more than paid any debt he owed to Prussia by the sacrifice in her behalf of his guards and of the flower of his army. Moreover, misery abounded among the survivors, and Russian finances were not exactly in a flourishing condition. Such was the general discontent with the war that men of importance—at least so it was said at thetime—ventured to remind Alexander of his father's violent death.
On the other side the urgency was becoming acute. As the strategists say, Napoleon had won a battle, but not a victory, at Friedland. The situation in Paris continued highly unsatisfactory. The threatened English expedition to the Baltic might arrive at any time. Contemptible as was Gustavus of Sweden, he was in Pomerania with an Anglo-Hanoverian army of ten thousand men. Most disquieting of all, there were movements both of intellectual agitation and of active partizan warfare in Prussia that presaged a speedy convalescence on her part. It is evident that an alliance with Russia was better for France than one with Prussia as regards both the Oriental and European plans of Napoleon. He therefore determined to suggest the most glittering prospects to Alexander's messenger—nothing less than the partition of Turkey, and the Vistula as the Russian frontier on the Baltic.
Battle of Friedland.
Battle of Friedland.
But all these reasons on both sides seem inadequate to explain the extraordinary character of the events preliminary to the meeting of the two emperors at Tilsit, of what occurred at that meeting, and of the treaty there negotiated. When Bennigsen first proposed an armistice, Napoleon demanded as a guarantee the three fortresses of Pillau, Kolberg, and Graudenz. His messenger returned with the reply that they were not Russia's to give. Soon Duroc was despatched to the hostile camp. Would the Czar make a separate peace? To do so would be to betray Prussia by expressly violating the Bartenstein treaty. Technically the document was invalid, for Austria had never signed it, although she would gladly have done so when brought to face a Franco-Russian alliance. Morally it would be base for Alexander to negotiate separately, for FrederickWilliam had refused a similar offer.[7]The young Czar, however, cared nothing for the royal Europe of former days, and but little for the theory of a Western empire under Napoleon. What he did care for was Russian influence in geographical Europe under whatever name, for the dismemberment of Turkey, and for the extension of his empire toward the west by the acquisition of Finland from Sweden. Having failed to realize his purpose by a coalition of so-called legitimate sovereigns, and having heard the almost incredible suggestions which Napoleon had made to Prince Labanoff, his messenger, he was overpowered by the temptation thus held out, and, deserting Prussia, answered, "Yes." On the twenty-first an armistice without serious guarantees was concluded between France and Russia; but none was made with Prussia, for the terms offered to her were so severe that, desperate as was her King, he could not endure the thought of accepting them. She was no longer an equal with either France or Russia, but a dependent on either and on both; her nomad court was reduced to Frederick William, his minister Hardenberg, and a few followers who were here to-day and there to-morrow, wherever they felt most was to be gained from the self-interest of either their former ally or their conqueror. The Queen and royal family were at Memel, the farthest outpost of Prussia's shattered domain.
The attitude of the Czar toward Napoleon was markedly different from that of his predecessors in defeat. Frederick William's ancestor had only a century before bought his title by supplying Prussian troops to the German-Roman emperor, and, like Napoleon, had set the crown on his own head. Francis I of Austria was the grandson of Maria Theresa, a powerful and masterfulwoman, who held her throne in direct contravention of legitimist theories, because she had conquered it. Both were nevertheless overpowered by the sense of their legitimacy and sacred aloofness. When Francis humiliated himself before his conqueror after Austerlitz, his mien was distant and his salute haughty; the miserable King of Prussia was, like him, dignified and severe even in his beggary. The Czar was too close to the crime which had set him on his throne to assume any airs of superiority with the French Cæsar. Having taken the first step, he began to show a childish eagerness for a personal meeting with Napoleon. The Emperor was far from averse, and made a formal proposal to that effect, which was promptly accepted; the intercourse between French and Russian officers grew warmer and closer every day, and the arrangements for an interview between the would-be Eastern and Western emperors were soon completed.[Back to Contents]
The Floating Pavilion — Emperor, Czar, and King — The Two Principals — Their Relation to Frederick William — A Diplomatic Novelty — Napoleon's Motives — Great Britain and the World's Commerce — The Orders in Council — Napoleon's Decrees — Russia as an Ally — The Ministers and the Negotiations — Imperial Amusements — The Fate of Turkey — The Two Friends — Work after Play.
On the morning of June twenty-fifth, 1807, there lay anchored in the middle of the Niemen, before Tilsit, a pavilion ingeniously constructed by French soldiers from boats and boards. It was gaily decorated, according to the taste of their country, with flags and garlands. The front bore a large monogram composed of the letters N and A interlaced. Within were two comfortable rooms, one for the sovereigns, one for their suites. At a signal two skiffs put out, one from each shore, amid the mingled cheers of the French and Russian guards, drawn up in view of each other across the interveningstream. The dull roar of cannon intoned the tidings of reconciliation. In one boat was Alexander, suitably arrayed in uniform; in the other was Napoleon, wearing the traditional gray coat and undress hat. The Emperor of the French was first on board the float, and received his guest with all that winning grace which he could so well command. After a formal embrace he began an informal conversation, which then continued without a break as the two schemers withdrew to the apartment arranged for their interview. The staff, at a respectful distance, could catch nothing of what was said, and although the interview lasted nearly two hours, no words of it are known except the opening phrases, reported by Napoleon himself. "Sire," remarked the Czar, "I shall second you against the English." "In that case," was the reply, "everything can be arranged, and peace is made." Some doubt has been cast on the literal truth of this momentous dialogue, since it rests on a single authority. For a century it has not been denied, and the cup of bitterness which England had held to Alexander's lips was certainly brimming. Since the beginning of hostilities Great Britain had failed in every single engagement. Her naval force in the Baltic was puny, but it preyed on Russian commerce; the promised war material did not arrive; her support at Constantinople was farcical; she had no more heart inTurkish partition than before and ever since; Canning was less than half-hearted and favored Austria to Russia's disadvantage; even the money support expected and tacitly promised was refused. The Czar knew that he had been betrayed by England in the interest of Austria: he did not know how grave had been Napoleon's coquetry in a similar suit. He was as much bent on the emancipation of Russian commerce from English tyranny as Napoleon on the "freedom of the seas," the revolutionary phrase for British humiliation. The conversation may well have taken place literally as reported: even though the Czar hoped to postpone the rupture for some months, he may have given his complete confidence under four eyes. Who can measure the fascination under which the young enthusiast fell at first sight? In any case nothing apparently occurred to disturb the amiability of either monarch. It was doubtless agreed that they should form a dual alliance, absolute and exclusive.[9]"I have often slept two in a bed," the suave but inelegant Napoleon was heard to say at a subsequent meeting, "but never three." Savary declared that the smiling and complacent young Czar thought the remark delightful. The meaning of the riddle, if riddle there be, was, of course, that Austria could no longer count as an equal in the Continental Olympus, the membership of which was thus reduced to two.
The Czar's conscience smote him in regard to hisdesertion of Prussia, but with no great effort he obtained material concessions for her from his new ally. The same afternoon an armistice was arranged with Frederick William, by the terms of which he temporarily kept his strong places in Silesia and Pomerania; but his propositions for an alliance were incontinently rejected. Next day there was another meeting on the same raft, but this was tripartite, for the King of Prussia was present. Napoleon was blunt and imperious, reproaching Frederick William with the duplicity of his policy, vindictively (the descriptive word he used himself), and with emphasis, demanding Hardenberg's dismissal. At parting he invited Alexander to dinner, but ostentatiously omitted to include Frederick William in the request. It was agreed that to expedite the final negotiations the three monarchs should remain on the ground; one half the town of Tilsit was neutralized and divided into three portions, each of the three parties to take up his residence in one. This closed the preliminaries, and the two emperors returned with mutual satisfaction to the respective sides of the river from which they had come. The sensations of Frederick William, who accompanied Alexander, must have been those of a soldier on the field under a capital operation in surgery. That very afternoon the Czar removed to the quarter of Tilsit appropriated to him. The King of Prussia took lodgings in the house of a miller, but spent only a part of each day in them, preferring the melancholy solitude of the neighboring hamlet of Piktupönen, where he and Hardenberg had last alighted.
Alexander was now thirty years of age, sanguine, ambitious, impressionable, and mature in proportion to his years. His features were well formed on Slavic lines, his look was sympathetic, and his form elegant. The many graces of his mind and person were natural. "Myfriend," wrote Napoleon to Josephine on the twenty-fifth, "I have just met the Emperor Alexander. I have been much pleased with him; he is a very handsome, good young emperor; he has more intelligence than is generally thought." Napoleon himself was only eight years older, but his mind was more penetrating and adroit by a whole generation. The classic cast in his features, which only a few years before made sculptors mold him like the statue of the young Augustus, had nearly disappeared. A complete transformation had been produced in his bodily appearance by the robust health he had for some time enjoyed. He had become more of a primitive Italian and less of a Roman. His skin was now clear and of a rich, dark tint. His powerful frame was fully developed, and while fat, he was not obese; the great head sat on a neck which was like a pillar in thickness and strength. His expression was slightly sensuous about the mouth and chin, but his eyes were quick and penetrating in their glance. It was rarely that his gaze was intent. The good manners and polished courtesy in which he indulged at this time were an unwonted luxury.
Cobenzl said that the last step but one to universal conquest was to divide the world between two. At that moment there was little doubt as to which of these two would ultimately survive. Alexander was impressionable and eager for friendship. He was flattered by the attentive and considerate manner of the greatest man in Europe. The glittering, intoxicating generalities of Napoleon attracted his aspiring mind, while the fascination of the Emperor's person strongly moved his heart. On the other hand, the influence of the Czar on the Emperor was substantial. Beneath his frank and chivalric manners, behind his enthusiasm and romanticism, lay much persistence and shrewd commonsense. The advantages which he gained were granted by Napoleon mainly from motives of self-interest, for Russia, strong, was the best helper in reducing Austria to impotence; nevertheless, they were secured largely through personal influence, and were substantial advantages which might be permanent in case of disaster to a single life. Frederick William was only two years younger than Napoleon. His development had been slow; he was well-meaning but dull, proud but timid. Though destined to see a regeneration of Prussia under his own reign, he had as yet done nothing to further it, and in an access of resentment had declared a war in which she had been virtually annihilated. His former ally insisted that he should occasionally attend the conferences, but his presence was distasteful to Napoleon. Thus he sat, dejection and despair stamped on his homely face; haughty, yet a suppliant; a king, yet only by sufferance. Fortunately his queen, Louisa, the woman of her day, beautiful, virtuous, and wise, came finally to his support. Her hopes were destined to be rudely shattered, and her charm was to be used in vain; but it was her presence alone which gave any dignity to Prussia at Tilsit.
Both from the place and circumstances, from the station and character of the persons negotiating, as well as from the nature of the results, the meeting at Tilsit is the most remarkable in the history of diplomacy. The motives which disposed Napoleon to an armistice were plain enough; those which determined his later conduct can only be divined. Prussia had seemed to the French liberals of the Revolution to belong by nature to their system: they were quite as angry with her persistent neutrality as was either Austria or England, both of whom thought she should adhere to them, if only for self-preservation. Napoleon's repeated but vainattempts to secure a Prussian alliance before Jena, or a separate negotiation afterward, rooted this traditional bitterness in his mind. To secure the prize for which he was fighting he had only two courses open: either to restore Poland as the frontier state between the civilization of his empire and the semi-barbarism and ambitions of Russia, or else to negotiate with Russia herself.
The former course meant an interminable warfare with Russia, Austria, and Prussia, at a distance of fifteen hundred miles from Paris; for Russia would fight to the death rather than lose the only possessions which put her into the heart of Europe, and thus be relegated to the character of an Asiatic power. The Emperor of the French had already seen after Eylau how untrustworthy the grand army was, even in Poland; if dejected and insubordinate there, as he may well have recalled was actually the case, what would it be on the banks of the Dnieper, in the plains of Lithuania? Such considerations probably determined not only the fact of peace, but its character. In order to secure what he had gained in western, southern, and central Europe, England must be brought to terms. Russia must therefore not only be an ally, but a hearty ally: as the price of her subscription to the Berlin Decree, and the consequent closing of her harbors to English shipping, she could gratify any reasonable ambition, and might virtually dictate her own terms. With an engine in his hands as formidable as Russia's adhesion to his commercial policy, he could act at the nick of time,—which, as he declared at this very season to Joseph, was the highest art of which man is capable,—could destroy England's commerce, and in a long peace could consolidate the empire he had already won. His empire thus consolidated, he would be virtual master of half the solid earth in the Eastern hemisphere. If ambition shouldstill beckon him on, he would still be young; he could then consider the next step to universal empire.
It may safely be said that Great Britain was never more haughty than at this moment. Her king had turned the ministry of "All the Talents" out of doors; for after Fox's death the combination lost all dignity and power. The Duke of Portland was now prime minister. He was a blind but energetic conservative, his Toryism, unlike that of Pitt in his enlightened days, being of the sort which lay close to his sovereign's heart. England's monopoly of European commerce seemed assured: Sweden, Denmark, and the Hanse towns were the only important seafaring powers of Europe that retained a nominal neutrality, and it was only a question of time when they must accept terms either from France or from her. With every other European nation embroiled in the Napoleonic wars and deeply concerned for its own territorial integrity, the United States of America was her only real maritime rival, and she had bullied us into a temporary acquiescence in her interpretation of international law.[10]
When colonies were first recognized as essential to the prosperity of European nations, the rule was universally observed that only the mother country could trade with her own. In 1756 France endeavored to break this rule by permitting neutral ships to engage in traffic between herself and her West Indian possessions. England at once laid down the "rule of 1756," that neutrals should not exercise in time of war privileges of traffic which they were not permitted to enjoy in time of peace; and this principle she was able to maintainmore or less completely until 1793, when France declared war on her, and again invited neutral commerce to French colonial harbors. England, having regained her supremacy of the seas, reasserted in 1793 the rule of 1756, but nevertheless so modified it the following year that she permitted neutral traders to break, in their own or in her harbors, their voyages from or to colonial ports. In 1796 France notified all neutrals that she would treat them just as they permitted Great Britain to treat them, and in 1798 shut all her harbors to any vessel which had even touched at a British port. This state of affairs continued until the peace of Amiens. When war was renewed in 1803 between England and France the former again asserted the rule of 1756 as binding, while indirect trade between neutral ports and the ports of an enemy was again allowed, but under the new proviso that the neutral ship did not on her outward voyage furnish the enemy with goods contraband of war. This privilege of indirect trade was invaluable to American ship-owners, and for two years the ocean commerce of all Europe was in their hands. The fortunes they thus accumulated were enormous, while Great Britain saw her own manufactures displaced by those of continental nations, and the colonies of her enemies prospering as never before. In 1805, therefore, she withdrew the privilege of indirect trade, and her flag being, after Trafalgar, the only belligerent one left on the ocean, proceeded both to enforce the new rule and to abuse the proviso concerning neutral vessels carrying contraband of war by ruthlessly exercising the right of search. Under the orders in council of September fifth, 1805, every neutral ship must be examined to see whether its lading was a cargo of neutral goods, or whether it contained anything contraband. This could only mean that every American ship laden with other than American goods wasto be seized; and in May of the following year, by the still more notorious order of the sixteenth, Great Britain declared that every European harbor from Brest to the mouth of the Elbe was blockaded. This was a distance of eight hundred miles, and even she had not ships enough to enforce her decree. Trafalgar had turned the heads of English statesmen.
This paper blockade was the challenge which called forth the Berlin Decree from Napoleon. American ships, like those of the French, were for a time seized, searched, and detained by the British on the slightest suspicion that they were either leaving or were destined for a hostile port, while their sailors were pitilessly impressed. The government at Washington authorized reprisals, but American ship-owners found it more profitable to compromise than to resist, and Monroe came to an understanding with the English ministry; the prosperity of American shipping was again revived, and the merchants of the United States continued to prosper by carrying English wares under the American flag into harbors where the union jack was forbidden. By this evasion Great Britain retained her commercial supremacy, and her prosperity was rather increased than diminished. She withheld a similar coöperation from Sweden and Russia until it was too late, her enterprise being chiefly concerned to open new channels for her commerce in Egypt and in South America.
How was this leviathan, which was drawing the wealth of all Europe to its stores, and eluding or repelling all attack on its chosen element—how was this tyrant of the ocean to be slain? Clearly the Americans must be so harassed and annoyed that in the end the public spirit of the United States would be aroused to resent English control, and bid defiance to Great Britain's assumption of maritime supremacy. To this end therigid enforcement of the Berlin Decree would be well adapted in the long run, but in the interval much could be done: if its principle could be extended to the destruction of all smuggling, to the absolute exclusion of British commerce from the entire Continent—not only from the seaports, but from the markets—the end would be gained. With Russia's coöperation alone was this possible. Napoleon's present plan, therefore, was to secure France and the French Empire, as far as won, by compelling the world to a lasting peace through the immediate establishment of a counterpoise, the French and Russian empires against Great Britain, leaving time to do its perfect work of exasperating the rising naval power of the United States into open hostility against the parent land.
These, it seems, must have been the considerations which controlled the course of affairs at Tilsit. The deliberations were both formal, so called, and informal. At the former were present the three sovereigns with their ministers—Talleyrand for France, Kurakin and Labanoff for Russia, Kalkreuth and Goltz for Prussia; at the latter were sometimes all three of the monarchs, frequently only the two principals, for they found Frederick William a damper on their hilarity. The generals, the staff, and the men of the two great armies which had fought so bravely at Friedland harmonized in mutual respect; but the unwarlike King and his suite, both military and civil, were outsiders. Immediately after the formal and brilliant entry of Alexander into Tilsit, Napoleon began the exchange of prisoners, and despatched messengers commanding his forces in Germany to restore to their sovereign the territories of Mecklenburg, whose reigning house was kin to the Czar. For Frederick William there was scarcely a show of kindness—nothing, in fact, but a cold condemnationof Hardenberg, to whose influence, combined with that of the military party, the conqueror charged Prussia's declaration of war. This minister, banished at Napoleon's instance, was near by. The King pleaded in vain that he might still serve as mentor in the coming negotiation; the Emperor scornfully refused. There were no others available, rejoined the King. Napoleon named several: among them, and probably not by inadvertence, Stein. This great name is welded to the regeneration of Prussia, but its bearer was a liberal in the measures he enforced. Hardenberg, great and adroit as he was, stood for the passing conservatism, and while he was indefatigable to the end, he was after all a worker at twilight, unable to see the coming metamorphosis of old Europe into the new. It was a proposition outlined by him which brought forward the first vital question, the partition of Turkey. His sovereign's stateliest lands had been gained by the partition of Austria and of Poland; he now suggested that Russia and Austria should divide the Danubian principalities between them, that France should take Greece and her isles, and that Poland should be restored and given to the King of Saxony, who in turn should hand over his German domains to Prussia. The Czar accepted the paper, which was communicated to him as approved by the King, but kept silence.
A favorite amusement of the two emperors was playing with the French army. Napoleon delighted in the display of his condescension to the men, and in the exhibition of their enthusiastic affection for him. Their drill, their uniforms, the niceties of military ceremonial, the gorgeous drum-majors twirling their batons or marching in puffy state—every detail fascinated the Czar, whose house, said Czartoryski, was affected with the disease of paradomania.
Napoleon Exposition, 1895.NAPOLEON, by Ingres.From nature, during a mass at the Tuileries.Belonging to M. Germain Bapst
Napoleon Exposition, 1895.
NAPOLEON, by Ingres.
From nature, during a mass at the Tuileries.Belonging to M. Germain Bapst
At an opportune moment on one of these reviewing expeditions, Napoleon, surrounded by all the splendors of his power, was approached by a hurrying courier, who put into his hands despatches announcing the overthrow of the Sultan Selim. "It is a decree of Providence, announcing the end of Ottoman empire!" he cried. Thenceforth he talked incessantly of the Orient. As if inspired by prophetic fire, he sketched a missionary enterprise for the liberation and regeneration of Greece, and for the emancipation and reorganization of the lands and peoples on the Danube and in the Levant by distributing them among enlightened sovereigns. It was language identical with that which Catherine the Great employed to inspire her people and her descendants for Russia's policy. But the millennium must wait; for the present the barbarous Turks must be driven back, not by force, but by a steady, continuous application of the policy thus outlined; the consummation, when reached, would be permanent. For the moment more immediate and pressing matters must be settled; when Alexander should pay his promised visit to Paris they would have more abundant leisure to discuss ulterior plans. These dazzling prospects were a part of the Czar's consideration. He promised in return to conclude a separate peace with Turkey, which, in the absence of French support, he doubted not he could make most favorable. But in case the Porte should prove obdurate, a provisional plan of partition was drawn up to indicate approximately what Russia might expect.
As the days passed, a routine life was gradually established. The two emperors met privately in the morning, and chatted about every conceivable point, pacing the floor or bending with heads touching over the map of Europe to consider its coming divisions. Alexander had said at the outset that his prejudice against Napoleondisappeared at first sight, and later he exclaimed, "Why did we not meet sooner?" He now repudiated any fondness whatever for the "legitimate" politics of Europe; he had visited the Bourbon pretender, the so-called Louis XVIII, at Mittau, and had found him of no account; he even accepted the light suggestion of his new-found friend that the Russian councilor Budberg should have no share in the conferences, as being possibly too closely wedded to old ideas. "You be my secretary," said Napoleon, "and I will be yours." In the afternoon the King of Prussia, with his staff, was generally invited to join their cavalcade for a ride. The Emperor of the French gave in later years a malicious account of these jaunts. Himself a fearless though awkward horseman, he spurred his charger to full speed, and the Czar followed with glee, while the King, as timid in the saddle as in the cabinet, jounced and bounced, often knocking Napoleon's arms with his elbows. The French and Russian officers paired in good-fellowship, while the few Prussians rode together. Constantine gathered Murat, Berthier, and Grouchy about him, and treating them on equal terms, displayed the strongest proofs of his regard. The dinners which followed, though always large and stately, were made short, for the emperors wished to be alone as quickly and as long as possible. The Czar was full of curiosity. How did Napoleon win victories? How did he rule men? What were his family relations? How did he regulate his inner life? The Emperor was full of good humor: he told again and again the tale of his victories, and expounded the principles on which he had won them; he explained with candor and in detail the structure and workings of his administrative machine; he opened his heart, and told how its strings had been wrung by the death of the "Little Napoleon," the eldest son of Queen Hortense.
In such pleasant converse the hours of ease rolled swiftly by, and then the work of negotiation began once more. Where differences appeared, Napoleon evaded close discussion and passed to other matters. Next morning early, the Czar would receive a carefully worded, concise note on the points at issue, together with an argument. Sometimes he replied in writing, more frequently not. When they met again, Napoleon sought, or appeared to seek, a compromise, and never in vain. The council of ministers, in which there was not a single man of force except Talleyrand, received the conclusions from time to time, and elaborated the details.[Back to Contents]
Two Equal Empires — Central Europe and the Orient — Prussia as a Second-rate Power — The Grand Duchy of Warsaw and the Kingdom of Westphalia — Napoleon and Frederick William — Queen Louisa of Prussia — The Meeting of Napoleon and Louisa — Courtesy and Diplomacy — The Bitterness of Disappointment — The Last Plea — Prussia's Humiliation — The Parting of the Emperors — Alexander's Disenchantment — Napoleon's Gains and Losses.
By such hitherto unknown simplicity and address diplomacy at Tilsit was rendered most expeditious. The negotiations were complete, the treaties drawn up, and the signatures affixed on July seventh. There were three different documents: a treaty of peace, a series of seven separate and secret articles, and a treaty of alliance. The first point gained by Napoleon was the recognition of all his conquests before 1805. The Czar admitted for the first time absolute equality between the two empires, and recognized the limits of the French system as it then existed: first, the Confederation of the Rhine, with any additions yet to be made; second, the kingdom of Italy, including Dalmatia; third, the vassalage of Holland, Berg, Naples, and Switzerland. There was a verbal understanding, it is said, that Napoleon might do as he liked in Spainand the Papal States, while the Czar should have the same liberty in regard to Finland. Subsequent events attested the probability of this statement. To illustrate Napoleon's attitude toward the recent, but now dissolved alliance, Prussia was given to understand that she owed to Russia what remnants of territory she retained; the stipulations with regard to her were therefore included in the treaty with Russia.
Still, there was to be a Prussia. Between the two great empires was to lie, in realization of a long-cherished plan, a girdle of neutral states like the "marches" established by Charles the Great. In this line Silesia was the only break. Prussia and Austria, one on each side of this mark, shorn of their strength and prestige, might await their destiny. France was to mediate for peace between Russia and Turkey, Russia between England and France. In case Great Britain should not prove tractable,—that is, admit the sanctity of all flags on the high seas, and restore all the colonies of France and her allies captured since 1805,—then Russia, in common with France, Denmark, Sweden, Portugal, and Austria, would declare commercial war on England, and complete the continental embargo on British trade. Should Turkey refuse favorable terms, the two empires would divide between them all her European lands except Rumelia and the district of Constantinople. Alexander afterward declared that Napoleon gave a verbal promise that Russia should have a substantial increment on the Danube. The rumor was that Bessarabia, Moldavia, Wallachia, and Bulgaria were indicated to the Czar as his share.
No mention was made of Austria, which the treaty of Presburg had sufficiently dismembered. But Prussia? In order to complete the great "march" between east and west, Silesia was essential. At first Napoleonthought of combining it with Prussian Poland to form a kingdom. This would not restore the real Poland, but it would create a Poland, and give him a Polish army. It was already decided that the Elbe should form Frederick William's western frontier; to weaken his strength still further would destroy all balance between Prussia and Austria. Moreover, Alexander made a tender appeal, and adroitly suggested a distasteful counter-proposition. Accordingly it was settled that the great province should remain Prussian. This was a large concession to the Czar.
To make some pretense of fulfilling the lavish but indefinite promises made to the Poles, the lands of Warsaw and the province of Posen, with a considerable tract not now contained in it, were erected into the grand duchy of Warsaw. Under the influence of historical reminiscence this was given, not as a province but as a separate sovereignty to the Elector of Saxony, who was simultaneously made king and a member of the Rhine Confederation. The Czar, in return for his cessions to the grand duchy of Warsaw, received the Prussian district of Bielostok. As a compensation for the Bocche di Cattaro and the Ionian Islands, Dantzic was restored to its position of a free city. The Prussian lands of the Elbe, together with Hesse-Cassel and many minor domains, were erected into the kingdom of Westphalia for the Emperor's brother Jerome. We have almost forgotten in our day how, less than a century ago, Germany was divided into insignificant fragments. It is instructive to recall that the formation of this new kingdom beneficently ended the separate existence of no fewer than twenty-four more or less autonomous powers—electorates, duchies, counties, bishoprics, and cities. It contained the all-important fortress of Magdeburg, the possession of whose frowning walls carried withit the command of the Elbe, and virtually made Prussia a conquered and tributary state.
This seemed to Frederick William the climax of his misfortunes. He had daily information from the Czar of what was under consideration, and the rescue of Silesia by his mediator gave him high hopes for the preservation of Magdeburg. But his poor-spirited behavior wearied even Alexander, who, willing at the outset to atone for desertion by intervention, became toward the end very cold. When the King desired permission to plead in person for Magdeburg, Napoleon refused. The Prussian case might be presented by counsel. Goltz was speedily summoned to the task, but though he was always about to have an interview with the French emperor, he never secured it.
It was at this crisis of Prussia's affairs that the King, after much urging, consented to summon his Queen. The rumors and insinuations concerning the Czar's undue admiration of her, so industriously spread by Napoleon, had made him over-sensitive; but as a last resort he felt the need of her presence. She came with a single idea—to make the cause of Magdeburg her own. She had suffered under the malicious innuendos of Napoleon regarding her character; she had shared the disgrace of the Berlin war party in the crushing defeat at Jena and Auerstädt; she had been a wayfarer among a disgraced and helpless people; but her spirit was not broken, and she announced her visit with all the dignity of her station. The court carriage in which she drove, accompanied by her ladies in waiting, reached Tilsit on July sixth, and drew up before the door of the humble miller under whose roof were the rooms of her husband. Officers and statesmen were gathered to receive and encourage her with good advice; but she waved them away with an earnest call for quiet, so that she might collect her ideas.
In a moment Napoleon was announced. As he climbed the narrow stairway she rose to meet him. Friend and foe agree as to her beauty, her taste, and her manners; her presence, in a white dress embroidered with silver, and with a pearl diadem on her brow, was queenly. In her husband's apartments she was the hostess, and as such she apologized for the stair. "What would one not do for such an end!" gallantly replied the somewhat dazzled conqueror. The suppliant, after making a few respectful inquiries as to her visitor's welfare, and the effect of the Northern climate on his health, at once announced the object of her visit. Her manner was full of pathos and there were tears in her eyes as she recalled how her country had been punished for its appeal to arms, and for its mistaken confidence in the traditions of the great Frederick and his glory. The Emperor was abashed by the lofty strain of her address. So elevated was her mien that she overpowered him; for the instant his self-assurance fled, and he felt himself but a man of the people. He felt also the humiliation of the contrast, and was angry. Long afterward he confessed that she was mistress of the conversation, adding that she stood with her head thrown back like Mlle. Duchesnois in the character of Chimène, meaning by this comparison to stigmatize her attitude and language as theatrical. So effective was her appeal that he felt the need of something to save his own rôle, and accordingly he bowed her to a chair, and in the moment thus gained determined to strike the key of high comedy. Taking up the conversation in turn, he scrutinized the beauties of her person, and, complimenting her dress, asked whether the material was crape or India gauze. "Shall we talk of rags at such a solemn moment?" she retorted; and then proceeded with her direct plea for Magdeburg. Inthe midst of her eloquence, when the Emperor seemed almost overcome by her importunity, her meddling husband most inopportunely entered the room. He began to argue and reason, citing his threadbare grievance, the violation of Ansbach territory, and endeavoring to prove himself to be right. Napoleon at once turned the conversation to indifferent themes, and in a few moments took his leave. "You ask much," he said to the Queen on parting; "but I promise to think it over." The courageous woman had done her best, but her cause—if, indeed, it was ever in the balance—was lost from the moment she put her judge in an inferior position. Her majestic bearing was fine, but it was not diplomacy. She might, nevertheless, have succeeded had she been the wife of a wiser man. Long afterward Napoleon thought her influence on the negotiations would have been considerable if she had appeared in their earlier stages, and congratulated himself that she came too late, inasmuch as they were already virtually closed when she arrived.
The remainder of the day passed for the Queen in a whirl of excitement, receiving messengers from Napoleon with the pardons of Prussian prisoners and accepting polite attentions from his adjutants. She gladly consented to dine with Napoleon, and Berthier was chosen to escort her to his Emperor's lodging. On arrival she was received with distinction, and assigned at table to the seat of honor between the host and the Czar. The Emperor was all politeness, offering unwelcome consolations to Frederick William, and expressing astonishment at the Queen's courage. "Did you know my hussars nearly captured you?" he said to her. "I can scarcely believe it, sire," was the reply; "I did not see a single Frenchman." "But why expose yourself thus? Why did you not wait for me at Weimar?""Indeed, sire, I was not eager." There is a tradition that Talleyrand, whose work the treaty really was, grew anxious and whispered to Napoleon later in the evening that surely he would not surrender the benefits of his greatest conquest for the sake of a pretty woman. Whether this admonition was given or not, the Emperor was respectful and polite, but non-committal. After dinner he conversed long with his fair guest. To her lady in waiting, the Countess Voss, he offered snuff—a singular mark of condescension. Next day, in a note to Josephine, he said that he had been compelled continually to stand on his guard; and the day following, July eighth, he again wrote to his Empress: "The Queen is really charming, using every art to please me; but be not jealous: I am like a waxed cloth from which all that glides off. It would cost me too much to play the gallant." The Emperor's courtesy had deceived the poor Queen entirely, and she is said to have returned to her husband's lodgings at Piktupönen in the highest spirits.
On that very night, immediately after the dinner, the step she so much dreaded was taken, and orders were given to conclude the treaty as it stood. At the last hour Goltz secured his interview to plead the expectations awakened in the Queen, but the Emperor coldly explained that his conduct had been politeness, and nothing more; the house of Prussia might be glad to recover a crown at all. Talleyrand showed a completed and final draft of the treaty ready for signature, and said that his master was in haste, that in two days the documents would be signed. This was the news which greeted Louisa next morning. She returned at once to Tilsit, her eyes swollen with weeping; but she appeared in a stately dress, and with a smile on her lips. Again she was the object of the most distinguished courtesyfrom Napoleon's adjutants, but the expected visit from himself was not made. However, she was again the Emperor's honored guest at dinner. The host at once began to speak of her costume. "What, the Queen of Prussia with a turban! Surely not to gratify the Emperor of Russia, who is at war with the Turks!" "Rather, I think," replied the Queen, "to propitiate Rustan," rolling her large, full eyes toward the swarthy Mameluke behind his master's chair. She had the air, according to Napoleon's account, of an offended coquette. After the meal it was Murat who took the part filled the previous evening by the Emperor. "How does your Majesty pass the time at Memel?" "In reading." "What does your Majesty read?" "The history of the past." "But our own times afford actions worthy of commemoration." "It is already more than I can endure to live in them."
Before parting, Napoleon spent a few moments at her side, and at the end, turning, pulled from a bunch a beautiful rose, which he offered with gestures of gallantry and homage. Hesitating a moment, the Queen at last put out her hand, and said as she accepted it, "At least with Magdeburg." "Madame," came the frigid reply, "it is mine to give and yours to accept." But he gave his arm to conduct her to the carriage, and as they descended the stair together the disappointed guest said, in a sentimental and emotional voice, "Is it possible that, having had the happiness to see so near the man of the century and of all history, he will not afford me the possibility and the satisfaction of being able to assure him that he has put me under obligations for life?" With solemn tones Napoleon replied, "Madame, I am to be pitied; it is a fault of my unlucky star." Queen Louisa's own lady in waiting related that her sovereign's bitterness overcame her at the last, andas she stepped into the carriage she said, "Sire, you have cruelly deceived me." It is certain that next day she overwhelmed Duroc with reproaches; but she afterward frankly confessed that she could recall no definite promise made by Napoleon. To Talleyrand she said, with fine sarcasm, that only two persons regretted her having come to Tilsit—he and she. Her duty, she believed, as a loving wife, as a tender mother, as the queen of her people, was fulfilled; but her heart was broken. Queen Mary of England said of the loss of Calais, "Should they open my heart, they will find the name of Calais inscribed in bloody letters within." Queen Louisa pathetically recalled this moan; she could say the same of Magdeburg.
The treaty with Prussia, signed two days later, did not modify in the least the terms arranged with Alexander, and for six years that country remained in a mutilated and conquered condition, compelled to obey with outward respect the behests of Napoleon. Every domain she had owned west of the Elbe went to the kingdom of Westphalia, the circle of Kottbus went to Saxony, the Polish provinces of south Prussia and new east Prussia to the grand duchy of Warsaw, the circle of Bielostok to Russia. Napoleon is said to have urged the Czar to seize Memel and the strip of Prussian land east of the Niemen; but this is denied, and in any case, Alexander, desiring to be at peace with his neighbor, firmly refused; moreover, he verbally stipulated for the evacuation of the Hohenzollern lands by French troops at an early date. Nominally, therefore, the King of Prussia regained sovereignty over less than half of his former territory. For this consideration he was to pay an indefinite but enormous and almost impossible indemnity, which was to cover the total cost of the war. To guarantee this a large portion of the French army was,in spite of Alexander's demand, still left quartered in the Hohenzollern lands, so that the Prussian people were daily reminded of their disgrace, as well as irritated by extortionate taxation. First and last, the war cost Prussia, in the support of the French army and in actual contributions to France, over a billion of francs—about the gross national income of thirteen years. The process of Prussian consolidation begun three years before was thus hastened. What Pozzo di Borgo called a masterpiece of destruction turned out in the end to be the beginning of a new birth for the nation. But the royal pair were stricken down: the high-souled Queen died, three years later, of chagrin; the King lived to see his people strong once more, but in a sort of obstructing stupor, being always an uncompromising conservative. When he died, in 1840, he left to his successor a legacy of smothered popular discontent.
The treaties of Tilsit between France and Russia were signed, as was said, on July seventh. The principal personages engaged on both sides in this grand scene of reconciliation were on that day reciprocally decorated with the orders of the respective courts, while the imperial guards of both emperors received food and drink for a great festivity. Next day Napoleon paid his farewell visit. At his morning toilet he had his valet loosen the threads which fastened the cross of the Legion of Honor to his coat, and as the Czar advanced to meet him he asked in audible tones permission to decorate the first grenadier of Russia. A veteran named Lazaref was summoned from the ranks, and with a wrench the Emperor tore off his cross, and fastened it on the breast of the peasant. The welkin rang with applause, while Lazaref kissed his benefactor's hands and the hem of his coat. Next day Alexander crossed the Niemen. Savary went with him as a French envoy, partly tokeep up the Czar's courage and spirits, which would be endangered by the sullen humor of the court circles in St. Petersburg, partly to study the temper of the Russian people.
To the last moment of their intercourse the Czar appeared to be under the spell of Napoleon's seductive powers. He came as a conquered prince; he left with an honorable peace, with the friendship of his magnanimous conqueror, and with an unsmirched imperial dignity. He had saved his recent ally from destruction, and had secured a small increase of territory for himself; for the future there were Finland and the fairest portion of Turkey. But in a few days the magic began to pass. He had not secured Constantinople, and he had promised to evacuate Wallachia and Moldavia; he had not secured the complete evacuation of Prussia; he had risked a rupture with England; he had, above all, submitted to the creation of a state which, under the thin disguise of another name, was but the germ of a reconstructed Poland. It began to appear as if he had been wheedled. There is sufficient evidence that such bitter reflections made their appearance very soon; but they were repressed, at first from pure shame, and afterward from stern necessity, when England began to vent her anger. But the Russians themselves could not be repressed. Before long Savary was hated and abused by the public, the more because he maintained his ascendancy over the Czar. The reports sent home by the former police agent were clever and instructive, but their pictures of factional disputes and Oriental plots at court, of aristocratic luxury and general poverty, of popular superstition and barbarous manners, were not reassuring, and confirmed in his Emperor's mind doubts felt from the beginning as to the stability of the alliance consummated at Tilsit, an alliance outwardly fair, but,like all Talleyrand's diplomacy, more showy than substantial.[12]
Napoleon left for Königsberg the same day on which he bade adieu to Alexander. His route was by way of Dresden. He was not in the slightest degree deceived. The peace of Europe, he said, was in St. Petersburg; the affairs of the world were there. But he had gained much. The outposts of his empire were established, and from one of them he could touch with his hand the enchanted East. He had secured the temporary coöperation of Russia, and with that as a beginning he might consolidate the Continent against England, and complete the stage in his progress now gained. Above all, he could at once restore the confidence of France by the proclamation of peace and the upbuilding of her prosperity. To be sure, he had forecast a division of his prospective Eastern empire with Russia, he had left Prussia outraged and bleeding, and Austria was uneasy and suspiciously reserved; but he had checkmated them all in the menace of a restored Poland, while their financial weakness and military exhaustion, combined with the reciprocal jealousies of their dynasties, might be relied on to prevent their immediate hostility. Besides, while he had sung a certain tune at Tilsit, in the future he would, as he sarcastically said somewhat later, have to sing it only according to the written score.[Back to Contents]
Napoleon and the Neutral Powers — The Protectorate of Portugal and the End of Etruria — Annexation of the Papal Legations — Seizure of the Danish Fleet by Great Britain — The Degradation of Spain — Godoy's Impolicy — The Spanish Court and the Heir Apparent — Effects of the Russian Alliance in Paris — Napoleon's Commentary on the Treaty — His Administrative Wisdom — Public Works in France — The Jews in France — The Sanhedrim — Napoleon's Successful Reforms — War Indemnities and Finance — Annoyances of the Continental System.
But in order to fulfil the purposes and realize the possibilities which were indicated in the treaties of Tilsit, no time was to be lost. The fate of Sweden and the Hanse towns having been virtually settled, there remained three small maritime states in Europe which still maintained a nominal neutrality—Denmark, Portugal, and Etruria. One and all, they must choose between England and France. To each a summons was to be addressed, and Napoleon wrote the preliminary directions at Dresden. Between the lines of his despatches it was clear that the precious naval armaments of all three powers—ships, arsenals, stores, and men—must be put at the disposal of France. "A thing must needs be done before the announcementof your plan," was one of Napoleon's own principles, and it was his intention so to proceed in this case. At Dresden, also, was promulgated the new constitution of Warsaw. Modeled on that of France, it was far from liberal; but it abolished serfdom, made all citizens equal before the law, and introduced the civil code.
In 1804 Portugal had purchased her neutrality for the duration of the war with the sum of sixteen million francs. She was now ordered to close her ports to the British, to seize all their goods and ships, and finally to declare war against Great Britain. Junot, formerly imperial ambassador at Lisbon, was despatched with twenty-seven thousand men, designated as a "corps of observation," to be ready on the frontier to enforce the command. In reply, England seized the Portuguese fleet, and kept it in security until the close of the war. During the late campaigns in Poland and Prussia, King Louis of Etruria had died, and his helpless widow, the Spanish infanta, Maria Louisa, acting as regent for her young son, had admitted the English to the harbor of Leghorn. Prince Eugène was now ordered to take another "corps of observation" of six thousand men, and drive them out. He did so promptly. Duroc at once suggested to the Spanish minister that Napoleon would like some proposition for the indemnification of Maria Louisa for the loss of Etruria—say one portion of Portugal for her, and the rest for Godoy, the Prince of the Peace.
This "deformity" removed from the Italian peninsula, it revealed a still greater one—the fact that the Papal States disturbed the connection between the two kingdoms of Italy and Naples. Pius VII, returning disillusioned and embittered after the coronation ceremony, and finding that his temporal weapons had failed him, had taken a stand with his spiritual armor. It hasalready been recalled that he began to refuse everything Napoleon desired,—the coronation as Western emperor, the extension of the Concordat to Venice, the confirmation of bishops appointed in France and Italy by the temporal power, the annulment of Jerome's marriage, the recognition of Joseph's royalty,—except in return for a guarantee of his own independence and neutrality; in short, he feebly abjured the French alliance and all its works. There now came a demand from Napoleon that henceforth there should be as many French cardinals as Roman, that the agents of hostile powers should be banished from the Papal States, and that the papal ports should be closed to England. The Emperor was weary, too, of the petty squabbles in connection with the Church, of the threats to excommunicate him and declare his throne vacant. Did they mean to put him in a convent and whip him like Louis the Pious? If not, let the full powers of an ambassador be sent to the cardinal legate at Paris; in any case, let there be an end to menaces. At the same time Eugène showed to Pius a personal letter from his stepfather, which, though marked confidential, was intended to be thus shown. It contained the threat that the Emperor contemplated calling a council of the Gallican, Italian, German, and Polish churches to liberate those peoples from the domination of Roman priests. The Pontiff was terrified, and hastened to yield the most pressing demands made in the message which he had himself received, among them the nomination of a negotiator. But he childishly refused the letter of the Emperor's demand, and commissioned, not the French cardinal legate at Paris, but an Italian cardinal. Napoleon notified the See that he would treat only with Bayanne, the French cardinal at Paris, and that longer dallying would compel him to annex Ancona, Urbino, andMacerata to the kingdom of Italy. Pius yielded at once, nominating Bayanne, agreeing to enter the federation with France, and promising to crown Napoleon; but the annexation took place quite as expeditiously as the surrender—was, in fact, complete before it!
Of the three minor sea powers, Denmark, commanding as she did the gateway of the Baltic, was far the most important. Bernadotte was already on her borders with an army. She was notified by him that she must declare war against England immediately, or lose all her continental possessions. Her government promised to obey, but procrastinated. It has been claimed that English spies at Tilsit had caught scraps of the bargain contained in the secret articles, and that the Portland cabinet, in which Canning was secretary for foreign affairs and Castlereagh for war and the colonies, had divined the rest. It is now known that Canning believed there were no secret articles, but was convinced that the two emperors had reached a secret understanding hostile to England.[14]During the summer the ministry received what they called the most positive information—what was its extent and how it was obtained have never been made known—that the French intended to invade Holstein and force Denmark to close the Sound to British commerce. The danger seemed imminent: the Danish fleet contained no fewer than twenty ships of the line, eighteen frigates, nine brigs, and a number of gunboats. Such a reinforcement of the French navy would put it again on a war footing. The English ministry, therefore, offered to defend Denmark, guarantee her colonies, and give her every means of defense, naval, military, pecuniary, if only she would surrender her fleet to England, to be restored in the event of peace.The Danish regent was already committed to France, and did not accept. Accordingly the English army under Cathcart landed, and laid siege to Copenhagen, while the fleet bombarded it for three days, until the government agreed to their stipulations. This shameful deed of high-handed violence must be laid at Canning's door. It was the first step in the humiliation of a fine people, to their loss of Norway, and ultimately of Schleswig and Holstein. Moreover, it was impolitic in the highest degree, making the Czar a bitter enemy of England for four years. The wretched country, in distraction, threw itself into the arms of Bernadotte. Christian VII had long been an imbecile, and his son, Frederick VI, though energetic and well-meaning, turned Denmark into another vassal state of France by the treaty of Fontainebleau, signed October thirtieth, 1807.
In none of their many sovereignties had the incapacity of the Bourbons been more completely demonstrated than in Spain. With intermittent flickerings, the light of that famous land had been steadily growing dimmer ever since Louis XIV exultingly declared that the Pyrenees had ceased to exist. Stripped of her colonial supremacy, shattered in naval power, reduced to pay tribute to France, she looked silently on while Napoleon trafficked with her lands, mourning that even the memory of her former glories was fading out in foreign countries. The proud people themselves had, however, never forgotten their past; with each successive humiliation their irritation grew more extreme, and soon after Trafalgar they made an effort to organize under the crown prince against the scandalous régime of Godoy. Both parties sought French support, and the quarrel was fomented from Paris until the whole country was torn by the most serious dissensions.