Part 38

As the Austrians had been equally unlucky in defending their Italian territories, the Treaty of Pressburg, December 20, 1805, showed how greatly the traditional balance of power was altered, giving place to Napoleon’s scheme for dominating the whole of Europe. Austria lost the territories of Venice, Istria except Trieste, Dalmatia; she recognized Napoleon as King of Italy and was forced to surrender valuable possessions to the German princes who were allies of the French. There was also a titular diminution of power, because Francis II now surrendered the title of Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, which gave him a theoretical sovereignty over the German states, and accepted the territorial title of hereditary Emperor of Austria. To these extreme measures of humiliation Napoleon obstinately adhered, though his foreign minister, Talleyrand, wisely preached moderation to him, urging with unique diplomatic vision that if Austria were to be deprived of so much territory in the west, there should be compensation made for her losses by handing over to her Turkish provinces in the lower valley of the Danube. France, he pointed out, would profit by this act of generosity, for Austria would give up looking to England for support, and, as a power in the East, would be certain to excite the jealousy of Russia, because Russia had always looked to inherit the Ottoman domains. But Napoleon’s plans would tolerate no scheme by which any European state would be helped to preserve more than a fictitious independent existence.

After Austerlitz the Confederation of the Rhine was created, a league of sixteen dependent German princes, of which the French Emperor was the head. Bavaria and Wurtemburg were especially favored, receiving the title of kingdoms, while their royal houses were drawn close into the orbit of French influence by marriages with members of the Bonaparte and Beauharnais families. Italy being now absorbed, Napoleon’s sisters were rewarded with Italian principalities, while his brother Joseph took the place of one of the Bourbons on the throne of Naples. Only the Pope was left as an independent sovereign in the much reduced temporal dominions of the Church. Holland, in accordance with the fully developed imperial system, became a kingdom, in place of a republic, with Louis, the Emperor’s brother, as its sovereign. Only one member of the family proved recalcitrant to Napoleon’s plans, and, therefore, was not rewarded in this division of the spoils of conquest. This was Lucien, who had saved the day on the 19th Brumaire and had made it possible for his brother to climb into absolute power. He refused to divorce his wife and marry a princess, and, therefore, he shared none of the favors that were being distributed. Napoleon’s mother, Letitia Bonaparte, who took Lucien’s side in this quarrel, was never declared a princess, and had to be satisfied with the honorary title of Madame Mère. Napoleon had conferred upon himself officially the title of Great (1806). His birthday was kept as a national and imperial holiday on which was celebrated a quasi-religious feast of apotheosis, modeled after the precedents of the Roman Empire.

Although Austerlitz called forth a new distribution of the map of Europe, and elevated, as if by a miracle, the members of the house of Bonaparte, it did not give peace to France. Russia had not shared in the Treaty of Pressburg, and even the English government, which, after the death of Pitt, was headed by the liberal pro-French statesman Fox, could make no satisfactory peace terms with the Emperor of the French. Prussia, whose neutrality was suspected, was treated with little consideration and no frankness by Napoleon’s government. It is true that he handed Hanover to it, but he made no secret of the fact that he would withdraw his gift provided that, if he restored Hanover to England, that power would consent to make peace. There was an active war party in Prussia who were anxious to try conclusions with the French army, because they relied on the traditions of the perfect military machine established by Frederick the Great. They boasted of their ability to destroy Napoleon’s army which had only conquered Austrians and Russians. Alexander of Russia was also anxious to renew the conflict, and England poured out its treasures to the extent of 6,000,000 pounds.

The result was the Fourth Coalition against France, made up of England, Prussia, Russia, and Sweden. Hostilities began with an inflated ultimatum from the King of Prussia, ordering Napoleon to evacuate Germany and to give up the Confederation of the Rhine. The declaration of war on the part of Prussia was most ill-timed, for the Austrians had not yet recovered from the defeat of Austerlitz, and the Russians were not prepared to act the part of effective allies at the beginning of the campaign. To this carelessness in selecting the time for commencing hostilities was added over-confidence in the military superiority of the Prussian army. As a machine, it presented the outward semblance of the creation of Frederick the Great; but there was an absence of intelligent direction. The soldiers were badly treated under a régime of poor diet and strict discipline, while the officers were a privileged class, who remained in active service long after they had passed the prime of life. This artificial system collapsed like a pack of cards; as Heine said, “Napoleon breathed on Prussia and Prussia ceased to exist.”

In preparing for this new campaign, Napoleon repeated the strategy of the Austerlitz campaign. He disguised, by feigned hostile movements and by ostentatiously remaining in Paris, his intention of striking one of his rapid, certain strokes at the enemy’s weakest spot. Led into a false self-confidence, the Prussians took the offensive with 150,000 men. By means of quick concentration, Napoleon’s army was brought up to a strength of 175,000. With this force, instead of coming into contact with the Prussians on the northwest, as had been expected, he turned their army on the southeast and threatened their communications with Berlin. The victory was won by two skilfully conducted pitched battles, at Jena and also at Auerstadt (the 14th of October, 1806), where Davout, with an army much inferior to that opposed to him, specially distinguished himself. The Prussian armies were reduced to a mass of fugitives; there were 20,000 killed and wounded and 18,000 prisoners, but the victory cost the French 12,000 men, for the Prussians had fought bravely, though their generalship was poor.

There was later a spectacular entrance into Berlin by the victorious army, arranged after the manner of a Roman triumph, with the Prussian regiment of the guards disarmed and following their conquerors. Napoleon interpreted his victory as giving him a chance to show his power of wreaking a personal vengeance on those who had so rashly questioned his power. “I will render this court nobility so small,” he said, “that they will be obliged to beg their bread.” He acted in the spirit of these words, and outraged public sentiment by carrying off, as part of the booty of Berlin, the sword of Frederick the Great. Over the conquered country was extended a network of officials, intrusted with the duty of collecting large money contributions. No community was allowed to escape the imposition, and all were made to feel their responsibility for the war. There was also a rearrangement of German territories, under which Jerome, the Emperor’s youngest and least competent brother, was provided with a throne under the title of King of Westphalia.

After the defeat of Prussia, the Russians, who had been slowly drawing together great masses of men, kept up an obstinate struggle against Napoleon’s generals, and little progress was made by the French. Marbot describes the campaign in all its hardships; the weather, he says, was terribly cold, but the troops seem to have suffered even more in their marches from the thaws which rendered the bad roads impassable. While the French army was encamped for the winter, Benningsen, the Russian general, tried, early in February, to force his way between the two divisions of the French army under Ney and Bernadotte. The plan failed because Bernadotte was not taken by surprise; his defense was a brilliant one, and gave Napoleon an opportunity for attempting a turning movement on Benningsen’s army. This purpose could not be carried out because the despatch announcing it to the French subordinate commanders fell into the hands of the Russians, who got away in time. In the pursuit, the Russians turned on the French, and the result was a “soldiers’ battle,” fought at Eylau, February 8, 1807, in which for a time the Emperor’s position was most critical, for his army was half encircled and suffered terribly from the enemy’s artillery fire. The day was finally saved by a remarkable cavalry charge, led by Murat, who passed through three Russian lines and broke up their attack. But despite this terrible massacre of men at Eylau,--10,000 French and 30,000 Russians,--no final result was attained by it. Neither side could claim to be victorious; it was something, however, to prove that Napoleon was not invincible, and, as Eylau was not a Russian defeat, the Russians interpreted it as a victory. The two powers, Prussia and Russia, agreed not to make a permanent treaty with France until the banks of the Rhine were accepted as her frontiers.

During the spring each side remained inactive, for both were in need of reinforcements. Benningsen with 100,000 men took the offensive, but after some preliminary hard fighting, placed himself, still on the offensive, in an unfavorable position near Friedland. He had brought his army into a narrow ravine with the river Alle behind him, so that in case of a check he had only the bridges to depend upon for withdrawing his men. These bridges were cut in a turning movement, made by Ney, while Lannes, with 26,000 French against 82,000 Russians, kept Benningsen from leaving his position, during a space of thirteen hours. By the evening the Russian army had but 25,000 men under arms and was hopelessly demoralized.

After this defeat the Fourth Coalition was at an end. The Peace of Tilsit was drawn up as the result of a personal interview between Alexander of Russia and Napoleon on a raft anchored in the river Niemen. After several private meetings Napoleon succeeded in attracting to himself the enthusiastic sympathy of his obstinate opponent. There was outlined a common plan of action by which both sides were to benefit, Russia was to gain territory in Finland, at the expense of Sweden, and in the East, at the expense of Turkey. Even more important was the winning over of Alexander to agree to Napoleon’s continental blockade against England, by which all English goods were to be kept out of continental ports.

But even by making this volteface in Russian policy, Alexander could secure no favorable terms for his late ally, Prussia. That power was denuded of territory to the east which it had originally acquired in the partition of Poland; for of this was constructed one of Napoleon’s new creations, the grand duchy of Warsaw, of which the elector of Saxony, approved by Napoleon for his pro-French policy, became sovereign with the title of King. On the west, all lands beyond the Elbe were taken, to be added to the new kingdom of Westphalia. Frederick of Prussia had besides to accede to the anti-British economic measures of Napoleon, to pay a war indemnity of $20,000,000, and to be humbly grateful for the return of four provinces in the northeast that had been detached from Prussia after the battle of Jena.

VI AT THE ZENITH OF POWER

After Tilsit it was plain that Napoleon was no longer a French monarch; his schemes of conquest were now not made in the interest of France, for France, like the other powers of central Europe, was to be only a province of a vast territorial empire, managed for the personal profit of a single individual, who bestowed and took away power and territory, according to his caprice. England still stood in his way after his diplomatic success at Tilsit, but no armies were left to oppose him. It seemed, therefore, a comparatively easy matter to master England by cutting her off from the sources of her wealth. No power or state was allowed to be neutral, for those who declared themselves so were proscribed along with England (decree of Milan, 1807). A hard fate awaited any refractory nation, for nationalism now lived only on sufferance. To suspend the economic life of millions of people, to transform habits of industry peculiar to sea-going populations was to Napoleon’s mind no greater task than to annihilate armies and partition kingdoms. From Tilsit dates the effort to attain the impossible, and with it begins, in a succession of rapid changes, the decline of the imperial system, the strain being greater than any such artificial construction could bear. Externally the establishment of peace consolidated Napoleon’s power and influence at home; the last campaigns had been a severe drain, but the diplomatic success of Tilsit compensated for the losses in the battlefield.

Napoleon’s familiar method of using a period of peace for extending his power at every weak point of contact was now resumed. Portugal, as a state closely connected with England, was to be detached from British influence by force of arms. Nor was any consideration to be paid to Spain, loyal though she had been to France, her ally. A loyalty which had cost her dear already became more fatal still when Napoleon began to plan for a cession of Spanish territory and the substitution of a member of his own house for the Bourbons. In the north, Denmark was to be required to renounce her position of neutrality and to hand over her valuable fleet of twenty ships to coöperate with the French. It was in anticipation of this step, that an English fleet, outdoing the lawless code of their adversaries, bombarded, in July, 1807, Copenhagen, the capital of a state with which it was at peace, and seized the Danish ships in the harbor.

This was the act which drove Alexander into closer relations with Napoleon, who adroitly used the opportunity for arranging a formal alliance, by which common action against the English in the East, as well as the West, might be secured. His plans in their full scope are given in the following letter addressed to the Czar of Russia in February, 1808: “An army of 80,000 men, Russian and French, perhaps a few Austrians, which will advance on Asia by the road of Constantinople, will not have to reach the Euphrates, to make England tremble and bring her to our feet on the continent. I am ready on the spot in Dalmatia, your Majesty is on the Danube. A month after we have agreed to act, the army can be on the Bosphorus. The news of it will be heard in India, and England will give in. I do not refuse to accept any of the preliminary stipulations necessary to attain an end so great. But the mutual interest of our two states should be well combined and balanced. All can be signed and decided before the 15th of March. On May 1, our troops can be in Asia, and at the same time your Majesty’s troops in Stockholm. Then the English, threatened in India, chased out of the Levant, will be broken under the weight of the events by which the atmosphere will be charged. Your Majesty and myself would prefer the enjoyment of peace and to pass our life in the midst of our vast empires, busied in vitalizing them and making them happy by the methods and benefits of our government. The enemies of the world will not have it so. We must be greater in spite of ourselves. It is the part of wisdom and policy to do what fate ordains and to go where the irresistible march of events is leading us.... In these few lines I am expressing to your Majesty my whole mind. The work of Tilsit will regulate the destinies of the world. Perhaps so far as your Majesty and I are concerned, a little pusillanimity would have us prefer a certain actual good to a better and more perfect condition. But since, after all, England does not wish it, let us recognize that the time for great events and for great changes has come.”

This vision Alexander desired to transform into hard realities without delay; the first step was to divide the dominions of Turkey. The question arose as to what disposition should be made of Constantinople and the Dardanelles. But while the Russians were arguing as to the proposed increase of territory in the Orient, Napoleon, without consulting his correspondent at St. Petersburg, was manipulating the situation in the West by the virtual annexation of Spain to France. The haggling with Russia was dropped, and Napoleon hastened to embark in the adventure which was ultimately to lead to his downfall.

Disgust with Godoy, the court favorite, had brought about a revolutionary movement in Spain, which aimed to substitute for the reigning monarch, Charles IV, his son Ferdinand. These family difficulties were laid before Napoleon, who traveled to Bayonne, post haste from Paris, to act as arbitrator. With a duplicity worthy of a profound student of Machiavelli, he caused to be placed in his hands an abdication, signed by both the royal father and his son; the impartial arbiter handed over the crown to a third party, his brother Joseph, King of Naples. So, by a juggle that a sporting gamester might have envied, a Bonaparte came to reside in the royal palace of Madrid, and if kingships went by personal capacity, and not by descent, it must be said that, mediocre as was Napoleon’s elder brother, he was far better fitted for governing Spain than either the feeble Charles IV or his scoundrelly son and heir, Ferdinand.

Alexander heard of these transactions from the pen of his assiduous correspondent, but he cared for none of these things; his mind was filled with the spoliation of Sweden and Finland as a preliminary step to realize his dream of Oriental conquest. It was arranged that the two emperors should meet at Erfurt to settle the terms of their proposed dual domination of the world; only by a personal interview could the question as to the possession of Constantinople be decided. In the meantime there were elaborate plans for the sailing of fleets to Egypt, and around the Cape of Good Hope, to overawe the English.

Events in Spain put an awkward stop to this program. The population of the country had never been awakened by the French Revolution; they hated foreign interference, and, when their Bourbon king was dethroned, they rose _en masse_ in revolt, with the spirit of the Vendée. News soon came to Paris of the defeat of a French army in which 18,000 men surrendered. This defeat, the capitulation of Baylem, was soon followed by a disaster to the army corps which was operating in Portugal against a combined Portuguese and English force. The effect of the Spanish resistance was enormous; in all parts of central Europe it revived the hope of successful revolt against the domination of the French system. It stirred Prussia and Austria to renewed efforts; there was great activity of secret societies in Prussia, directed against the French occupation, and Austria was busy in reorganizing its military forces for a fresh struggle.

Napoleon realized the critical situation; antedating his letter to Alexander, to give the impression that it was written before the bad news from Spain had reached him, he announced his purpose to withdraw the French troops from Prussia, and promised to give up the Danubian principalities, without compensation, provided Russia would be willing to see that the Germans were kept quiet, and would influence Austria to abandon her warlike preparations. Alexander showed much complacency, even going so far as to express his sympathy for the eclipse of the French arms in Spain.

Nothing was spared at Erfurt, where the two emperors met, to impress upon the world the security and the extent of Napoleon’s rule. It was the fête of a cosmopolitan society, where men of distinction in all spheres of life were brought together at the bidding of the Emperor of the French. Goethe was present, also Talleyrand, who left on record his impression of the atmosphere of adulation that prevailed. The two central figures, Alexander and Napoleon, showed marked cordiality to each other. Alexander spoke of his friend as not only the greatest but the best of men. Yet there were visible rifts in the friendship; Alexander refused to show hostility to Austria, an attitude which was secretly encouraged by Talleyrand, who had begun to fear the result of Napoleon’s grandiose schemes, and wished to make friends before fortune turned. Napoleon proved obdurate, when Alexander urged upon him a more generous treatment of Prussia.

In the formal treaty, the result of the meeting, there was incorporated a proposition of peace with England on the basis of the _status quo_--i.e., Finland and the Danubian principalities for Russia and the deposition of the Bourbons in Spain. Alexander would go no further as regards Austria than the prospect of armed coöperation, if Austria went to war against France. Among the subjects proposed was the marriage of Napoleon with a Russian princess. He had been considering for some time a divorce from Josephine, a plan now resolved upon after the birth of an illegitimate son had convinced him that there was the possibility of a direct heir. Alexander, encouraged by Talleyrand’s advice, refused to make a frank engagement to forward this scheme, saying that to his mother alone belonged the disposition of his sisters’ marriage arrangements.

After the meeting at Erfurt, Napoleon hastened to Spain, where, fighting several successful battles, he restored his brother to his capital at Madrid, and forced an English army under Moore to retreat towards the sea coast. This was in January, 1809. Then Napoleon was obliged to withdraw from Spain because of the threatening attitude of Austria, now firmly resolved on opening hostilities with France. There were also evidences brought him of a plot in Paris, the responsibility for which rested on Talleyrand and Fouché, both long in service under him. It was arranged between them that in case of a reverse or a successful attempt on Napoleon’s life, they were to take charge of the government, giving it a figurehead in the person of Murat, Napoleon’s brother-in-law. Long before he was expected, Napoleon appeared suddenly in Paris, having ridden from the north of Spain in six days. For a while Talleyrand was in disgrace, but acts of personal revenge were forgotten in the preparation for crushing Austria. It was a most distasteful task, for he feared to break up his friendship with Alexander, the necessary result of dismembering the Austrian Empire. He therefore tried to secure the intervention of Russia, but Alexander refused to act at all vigorously.

Hostilities broke out in April, 1809. There was no longer a question of purely dynastic interests in this armed protest of Austria against the Napoleonic system; the army of 310,000 men represented a general patriotic movement of self-defense that had penetrated all classes of society in the Hapsburg dominions. It stood ready to resist the power that was crushing out racial and territorial distinctions; it spoke for a nation in arms conscious of its national right to exist. At home the French Emperor had to deal now with a population that was weary of warfare and satiated with military glory. To meet, on Austrian territory, this massive attack of the Fifth Coalition, which was made up of England, Spain, and Austria, there was no longer the material at hand that had secured for the conqueror the brilliant achievements at Austerlitz and Marengo. His latest army consisted of new recruits and old soldiers from France and of levies from dependent states.