The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte Part 12

At the first appearance of Tettenborn's Cossacks, Hamburg rose and drove out the French, remaining in possession of the allies until the end of May; but the trusty French garrisons in Dantzic, Stettin, Kustrin, Glogau, Modlin, and Zamosc, having been reinforced by Eugene, held their respective strongholds, and were left to do so. The absence of these much-needed veterans was the first element of weakness in Napoleon's army. A second was the insufficiency of real cavalry, brave as had been the parade of horses in France. It was the great captain's firm conviction, repeatedly and emphatically expressed, that without active cavalry, armed with long-range guns, offensive warfare was not possible. This defect he had hoped to remedy in the last three weeks before opening the campaign. The third element in a fatal triad was the temper of his generals, which was restless and insubordinate almost from the outset. They were his mightiest men: Berthier as chief of staff; Mortier commanding the guard; Davout, Ney, Bertrand, Lauriston, Marmont, Reynier, Macdonald, and Oudinot, each in readiness with a corps; Victor coming up with another; Augereau preparing to lead the Bavarians, Rapp at Dantzic, Poniatowski in Galicia-twelve corps in all.

The French soldiers formed a great army: two hundred and thirty-five thousand men on paper, actually two hundred thousand, of whom a hundred and thirty-five thousand were mobile and in readiness when the Emperor took command. Eugene had forty-seven thousand more. Consequently when Napoleon, troubled by the exaggerated reports of his enemy being stronger and more forward in preparation than he had believed possible, set out for Saxony three weeks earlier than the day originally fixed by him for the beginning of hostilities, he was already a victim of his own nervous apprehensions. In colder phlegm he would have foreseen the truth. Russia had become apathetic as soon as the seat of war was transferred beyond her borders; strenuous as were the efforts of Prussia, Scharnhorst's means were slender, and he could not work miracles. All told, the allies had at the moment only seventy thousand men ready for the field. Wittgenstein was for the moment commander-in-chief. The monarchs, utterly uncongenial, were struggling to act in harmony, but double weakness is not strength. They had only a single advantage-excellent horses in abundance for both cavalry and artillery. "The worse the troops, the greater the need of artillery"; "great battles are won with artillery"; these were two of Napoleon's aphorisms. The great strategist had lost his reconnoitering arm in Russia and Poland, the artillery specialist must have scorned the antiquated guns which now replaced the splendid field-pieces that rested on the bottom of ponds and rivers whither he had flung them on his disastrous retreat. With his high officers sullen, his ranks untried, his cavalry feeble, his artillery hastily collected from a.r.s.enal stores, his staff incomplete, and his prestige waning, the Emperor might well abdicate temporarily and exclaim, as he did, "I shall conduct this war as General Bonaparte." This resolution was sacredly kept.

The premature opening of the campaign was certain to make Austria pivotal in European politics once again. Her preparations were not well advanced, but her strength was growing daily, while that of her rivals was sure to diminish until in the end the coalition would be powerless without her. This Napoleon saw, and he arranged his strategy to checkmate what he now felt to be a hostile neutrality. Believing that the enemy would meet him half way, his first plan showed all the marks of greatness which characterized the similar one he had so successfully executed at Jena. Its central idea was a ma.s.s formation with Eugene to break through the enemy's line, then by a wheel toward the south to annihilate their left, and finally to present himself victorious before Austria. If successful he might dictate his own terms. But the enemy did not advance; it was perhaps well for the Emperor of the French that they did not. An eye-witness declared that on what was supposed to be the very eve of battle there was little real discipline outside the sphere of the commander's personal observation, that the officers had no confidence in their men and the men but little in their officers, that the superiors were absorbed in securing some measure of physical comfort, that the inferiors were listless and disobedient. The forward movement was successful, and the union with Eugene was effected on April twenty-eighth. Two whole days elapsed, however, before the enemy was found, and it was May first when the French van drove in the Russian outposts from Lutzen, ever famous as the scene of Wallenstein's overthrow by Gustavus Adolphus a hundred and eighty-one years earlier. The Russian center was concentrated between the Elster and the Pleisse; Napoleon's line was more extended, overlapping his enemy's, both right and left. In a preliminary skirmish at the pa.s.s of Rippach, Bessieres, rashly exposing himself at the head of the cavalry of the guard, was killed. His loss in such a crisis was like the ruin of a great cohort on the eve of a close battle. Marmont, forgiven for his failure in Spain, was near; but close to Napoleon as he was, even he could not replace the gallant, trusted cavalry leader who for nearly seventeen years had scarcely quitted his Emperor's side.

Owing probably to the inadequate scouting force of Napoleon, the battle of Lutzen was in the nature of a surprise. Wittgenstein had detached five thousand men as if to cover Leipsic, toward which the French line was advancing; then, concentrating the ma.s.s of his center and left, he crossed the Elster early on May second in order to attack Ney's corps on the Emperor's right. About nine Lauriston's corps, with which Napoleon was, came upon the enemy, and was fiercely engaged-so hotly, indeed, that it seemed as if it must be the Russian right wing which barred the way. A messenger was immediately despatched to bring in Ney, who arrived about eleven. The marshal and his emperor at once advanced to reconnoiter, and were just remarking that there was only a small force between them and the city, which through their field-gla.s.ses they could dimly discern in the background, its roofs crowded with curious onlookers, when behind, on the right, was heard the sound of heavy cannonading. General Bonaparte was himself at once. No movement is considered more difficult than that by which an army marching in columns wheels when attacked on its flank, so as in turn to outflank the a.s.sailants. In a flash, and apparently without a thought, the Emperor issued minute orders for this intricate manuver, and his generals accomplished it with a masterly dexterity. Napoleon then galloped forward toward Lutzen to carry the guard behind the center as a reserve, and Ney dashed into the thickest of the fight to take command of his boy conscripts, who were beginning to yield.

The conflict raged all day, with varying results, along the line from Great and Little Gorschen to Starsiedel, the latter hamlet being the scene of terrific fighting. At five the Prussians withdrew from Kaja, and began to yield along the whole line as far as the Gorschens, which they had so far held. Napoleon had from the outset been reckless, cheering his boys by presence and example until they fought like veterans. As the Prussians gave signs of weakness, he brought in his artillery, poor as it was, with the old grand style, and ordered the young guard into the gap he felt sure of making. A Russian reserve arrived, however, at the crucial instant, and stayed his onset until seven. At that hour Macdonald bore down his opponents at Eisdorf, and attacked the Russo-Prussian line on the flank; the second column was then hurled against its center, and the battle was ended. The Russian reserve was strong enough to prevent the retreat from becoming a rout, but since Lauriston had occupied Leipsic as early as two in the afternoon there was but one course open for the allies: to withdraw behind the Elbe. Napoleon gathered his army into three columns and followed; but slowly and circ.u.mspectly, because without cavalry he could not hara.s.s them. When, on May eighth, the French reached Dresden, they found that their enemy had blown up the bridges, and were entrenched in the Neustadt on the right, or north, sh.o.r.e. Thus the victory of Lutzen was, after all, indecisive.

And yet the utmost skill and bravery had been shown by the combatants on both sides. The field was strewn with the corpses, not of such rude and stalwart peasants as had hitherto filled the ranks of opposing armies, but of gentle youth from French lyceums and Prussian universities. There were forty thousand in all, an equal number from each army, who remained dead or wounded on the hard-contested field. They had fallen to little purpose. The victor captured neither prisoners nor guns in important numbers, and to him it was slight compensation for the loss of Bessieres that Scharnhorst was killed. The allies, though beaten, were undismayed; long experience had sharpened their wits and toughened their purpose; there was already much strategical ability at their headquarters, and there was about to be more, since Moreau, summoned from America, was soon to take service with his splendid powers against his country. Great as the battle was, it must therefore be reckoned as an ordinary victory; it served to prolong existing conditions, but it did not decide an issue. It was, however, something that it gave the French a self-confidence bordering on enthusiasm, and it was more that after Napoleon had commenced to rebuild the Dresden bridges, Frederick Augustus, the King of Saxony, declared himself favorable to the French. Abandoning Austria, he summoned his forces from Torgau, and the allies retreated eastward behind the Spree. The lower Elbe was also recovered. The King of Denmark had despatched an auxiliary force to Hamburg. Their commander, believing Napoleon's fortunes submerged already, at first a.s.sisted the Russians: but after Lutzen he turned his arms to Vandamme's a.s.sistance. The city was retaken, three thousand of Bernadotte's force marched out, and on May thirtieth Davout, with fifteen thousand of his own men and three thousand Danes, marched in.

Napoleon's chief purpose, however, was unfulfilled, for Austria was neither panic-stricken nor dismayed. On the contrary, she still stood forth as a mediator, and now with armaments to enforce her demands. Immediately after Lutzen, Stadion, sometime Austrian minister of war, was sent to the camp of the allies. He stated that the minimum terms of peace would be the dismemberment of Warsaw, the restoration of Prussia, the surrender by France of Holland, Oldenburg, and the Hanseatic lands, the abandonment of the protectorate over the Confederation of the Rhine by Napoleon, and the surrender to Austria of Illyria and Dalmatia, with a rectification of her western frontier. Almost simultaneously Bubna appeared at Napoleon's headquarters with suggestions for a general armistice, during which peace negotiations should be carried on as rapidly as possible by a congress of the powers. Dwelling on the necessity of territorial concessions by France for the sake of a general pacification of the Continent, the envoy declared that if this were accomplished, Great Britain, finding herself isolated, must yield, and grant to Napoleon a substantial indemnification from her vast colonial system. The propositions of Austria were received by the allies with open eagerness, by the Emperor of the French with apparent hesitancy. Next to the establishment of his continental empire, the humiliation of Great Britain was Napoleon's highest ambition. Compromise with her meant defeat. With a mixture of proud determination and anxiety, he therefore replied to Francis that he desired a pacification as ardently as any one; that he was ready for such a congress as was suggested; that he would even go further, and admit to it delegates from the insurgent Spaniards; that he would still further consent to a truce during its sessions: but that he would rather die at the head of his high-spirited Frenchmen than make himself ridiculous before England. Never was the writer's statecraft unfolded to greater daring. Long consultations were held with the King of Saxony, a man of gentleness and refinement, who was completely won by Napoleon's almost filial attentions, and Bubna was often kept at the council-table until after midnight. Eugene, however, was instantly despatched to raise a new army in Italy, with orders not to conceal his movements from Austria.

But Napoleon's chief efforts were put forth in the direction of Russia. The adroit Caulaincourt was chosen as a fitting envoy, and instructed not merely to reknit his personal relations with the Czar, but also to surrender every point which had been contested in the previous negotiations. He was to offer, first, the surrender of the Continental System as far as Russia was concerned; and, second, such a reconstruction of the map of eastern Europe as would put an end to the grand duchy of Warsaw forever. This mushroom state, with the domain of Dantzic, was to be divided between the Duke of Oldenburg, Alexander's near kinsman, and the King of Prussia; Prussia itself was to be a border state under Russian influence, with a capital at either Konigsberg, Dantzic, or Warsaw. Brandenburg, with Berlin, would fall to Jerome, and Saxony would doubtless get the territory around Krossen. No surrender could have been more complete. "Your chief concern," ran the final instruction, written on May seventeenth, "will be to secure a conversation with the Emperor Alexander. My intention is to build a golden bridge to save him from the intrigues of Metternich." Alas for such vain hopes! A new diplomatic star had risen at the Russian court in the person of the young Count Nesselrode, and the personal interview so earnestly desired by Caulaincourt was steadily refused; Napoleon's proposals, the envoy was informed, must be made through the Austrian cabinet, or not at all.

During the parleyings of Austria, Napoleon won a second great victory, which was utterly ineffectual because he had no cavalry force wherewith to pursue. For some days after the occupation of Dresden, for the same reason, he had been ignorant of his enemy's whereabouts. Learning at last that the allies had not been separated, as he had hoped, but were standing at Bautzen in a strong defensive position behind the Spree, he left Dresden at noon on the eighteenth of May, determined to strike a decisive blow. His enemy, having been reinforced by Barclay with sixteen thousand Russians and by Kleist with eleven thousand Prussians, was about ninety thousand strong. On the nineteenth both Barclay and York advanced from Bautzen; the former was defeated by Bertrand in a sharp struggle, the latter by Lauriston in a protracted fight; and at nightfall the French were before the place. In front was the unimportant stream, and beyond it were the allies in a double line, their front on the bank, their rear on the heights behind. About midday of the twentieth the French attacked. Macdonald stormed the bridge, Marmont and Bertrand crossed by pontoons; at three their footing was won, and the a.s.sault of the place began. For three hours the fighting was terrific, but at six a portion of the defenders withdrew behind the town to the second line; at eight the rest did likewise. Next morning at five, Napoleon, after a sleepless night, issued his orders; at eight the conflict opened all along the line. Then first, the Mameluke body-servant having spread a couch of skins, the Emperor sought repose; he slept to the lullaby of cannon and musketry for several hours, calmly a.s.sured of his combinations working perfectly. By one Ney had rolled up the Russian right under Barclay, and Napoleon, waking, sent Marmont and Bertrand around the right of the enemy's center. By four the allied armies were in full retreat. Then would have been the moment for artillery to crash and cavalry to pursue; but neither was efficient, and while the French army did what men could do, at best they could only follow at equal speed with the foe, and could not throw his ranks into disorder. "What! no results from such carnage?" said Napoleon. "Not a gun? Not a prisoner?"

There was worse to come. From time to time the flying columns wheeled and poured a heavy artillery fire into their pursuers. Near Reichenbach, Bruyeres was killed by a ball; then Kirchener by another, which, ricochetting from a tree, mortally wounded Duroc, the commander's faithful aid, his second self. Such a blow was stupefying indeed, for it was the loss of his closest confidant, of one who through every vicissitude had been a near, true friend, almost the only companion of a man reduced to solitude by his great elevation. Napoleon was stricken to the heart, and, halting, gave way until nightfall to his despair. "Poor man!" said the troopers one to another, "he has lost his children." "Everything to-morrow," was the sorrowing ruler's one reply to all suggestions. From time to time he betook himself to the bedside of the dying man; at last Duroc himself could no longer endure his Emperor's prostration, and besought him to rejoin the soldiers. The friends parted in a long embrace. Thereupon the pursuit was continued, but without ardor and without success.

The nature of Napoleon's victory at Bautzen was his undoing. Had it been a second Friedland, Caulaincourt no doubt would have met Alexander; but, as it was, the allies had saved their army, and Austria's accession to the coalition would still insure their success. Nesselrode was convinced that Metternich would a.s.sent, and, dark as was the hour, persisted in refusing to communicate with France except by way of Austria. Wittgenstein lost his command, Barclay was fully reinstated as commander-in-chief, and, to gain time for Austria to try her vaunted mediation, a short armistice was proposed to Napoleon. Had the latter known the weakness, the discord, the exhaustion of his foe, wretched as was the state of his own army and depressed as were his spirits, he might have refused, and even the monumental error of 1812 might now have been made good. As it was, the year 1813 is the date of his one irreparable blunder, the initiation of his final disaster. Other mistakes he had made, but they were all petty compared with the great one to which he was now tempted. But his faithful officers were falling like standing grain under a hail-storm; his boy soldiers, though fighting like veterans, inspired little confidence, for there was the same uneasiness among the humble privates as among the great officers; he had neither cavalry nor artillery, and his available force was reduced to a hundred and twenty thousand, men and boys; Barclay might, as for a moment he contemplated doing, draw off into the Russian steppes; the traitors in Paris were already stirring; in short, the Emperor felt that he must at least consider. This was the monumental blunder of his life because it put him at Austria's mercy without her being forced to reveal her policy.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

The Nations in Grand Array.[49]

Condition of Affairs after Bautzen - The Armistice of Poischwitz - Austria's New Terms - Napoleon's Reliance on his Dynastic Influence - Intervention of British Agents - Napoleon's Interview with Metternich - The Emperor's Wrath - Metternich's Determination - Wellington's Victories - Napoleon at Mainz - The Coalition Completed - Diplomatic Fencing - Renewal of Hostilities - The Responsibility.

Napoleon determined, however, to deliberate on the strongest possible vantage-ground, and for this reason continued his pursuit as far as Breslau, which was occupied by the end of the month. Simultaneously Berlin was threatened by Oudinot, Victor had relieved Glogau, and Vandamme was marching to Davout's a.s.sistance, so that Hamburg was safely in hand. The allied forces stood behind Schweidnitz, and by the same marvelous strategy as of old the various corps of the French army were disposed, under Ney, Lauriston, Reynier, Macdonald, and Bertrand, so as virtually to engirdle the enemy. Napoleon was at Neumarkt with the guard; a single bold dash southward toward the Eulen Mountains with his concentering force, and he would have crushed his opponents. But another victory like Lutzen and Bautzen would reduce his army still further, and then in his weakness he would be confronted by the hundred thousand Austrians which, according to the best advices, his father-in-law had a.s.sembled in Bohemia. In that juncture Francis might risk a battle, and if successful he could dictate not merely an armistice, but the terms of peace-a contingency more terrible than any other. Time, moreover, seemed quite as valuable to the Emperor of the French as to his foe: while they were calling in reserves and strengthening their ranks, his hundred and eighty thousand conscripts of 1814 could be marched to the Elbe, and Eugene could complete his work in Italy. Ignorant of the panic at his enemy's headquarters, the uneasy conqueror decided therefore that his best course was, by exhibiting a desire for peace and a.s.senting to an armistice, to avoid the general reprobation of Europe. Accordingly, he took another disastrous step, and accepted the proposal of the allies for a conference.

How earnestly Napoleon desired peace appears from his spontaneous concessions. He would agree to the evacuation of Breslau for the sake of harmony, and would consent to such a truce as the majesty of a ruler and the rights of a successful general might alike exact; but he would not be treated like a besieged commander. Hamburg should remain as it was at the conclusion of negotiations, and the duration of the armistice must be longer than the term proposed-six weeks at the least. On these two points he took his stand. The fatal armistice of Poischwitz was signed at that village on June fourth by three commissioners, Shuvaloff for Russia, Kleist for Prussia, and Caulaincourt for France. It was a compromise providing for a neutral zone, stretching from the mouth of the Elbe southeastward to Bohemia, which was to separate the combatants until July twentieth. Hostilities might not be renewed until August first. Breslau was to be evacuated; Hamburg was to remain as the truce found it. These terms were reached only after much bl.u.s.ter, the allies, weak and disorganized as they were, demanding at first the evacuation of both Breslau and Hamburg, with a cessation of arms for a month. This stand they took in reliance partly on England, partly on Austria. The compromise, as mutually accepted, was reached in spite of British influence when Francis, apparently nervous and anxious, arrived at Gitschin, near the Bohemian frontier, and opened a conference with Nesselrode.

At Vienna men had said, when the news of Bautzen came, that the conqueror was perhaps an angel, perhaps a devil-certainly not a man. The cabinet had seen with alarm his attempt to negotiate directly with the Czar. Success in winning Russia would put Austria again at Napoleon's mercy; Alexander must be kept in warlike humor at all hazards. Nesselrode demanded nothing less than Austria's adherence to the coalition; Francis was still unready to fight; and Metternich, displaying all his adroitness, finally wrung from Nesselrode a basis for mediation comprising six articles: the extinction of Warsaw, the enlargement of Prussia by her Polish provinces and Dantzic, the restoration of Illyria to Austria, the independence of the Hanseatic towns, the dissolution of the Rhenish Confederacy, and the restoration of Prussia's western boundaries to the lines of 1806. This was a "minimum" considerably smaller than that proposed before Bautzen; but the allies could well accept it if Austria would promise never to take sides with France, as Metternich is said to have verbally a.s.sured the Czar in a secret meeting would be the case. On June twenty-seventh it was formally arranged that a congress to pacify the Continent on this basis should be held preliminary to a general peace including England; and the treaty binding Russia, Prussia, and Austria to alliance in case of Napoleon's refusal was signed that day in secret at Reichenbach. Should Napoleon reject Austria's articles of mediation, she was, on July twentieth, to join the coalition, and fight not only until he was driven behind the Rhine, but until the fortresses on the Oder and the Vistula were evacuated, Italy liberated, Spain restored to the Bourbons, and Austria reenlarged to her boundaries of 1805.

"If the allies do not in good faith desire peace," said Napoleon on June fifth, as he left his headquarters for Dresden, "this armistice may prove fatal to us." Late in life he believed that if he had in his great crisis marched right on, Austria would not have declared against him. Shrewd as he was, he was a tyro in dynastic politics. Austria has been made, aggrandized, and saved by marriages; but no conception of the duty imposed on families by that relation as understood in private life has ever controlled her politics. Francis was never unwilling to use his daughter for public ends, and seems to have delighted in the construction of family feeling formed in his son-in-law's mind by homely sentiment. It is preposterous to suppose that Napoleon really entertained such a view of his marriage as that of the Parisian bourgeois; but viewing himself as an established dynastic ruler, he could well imagine that when Austria had her choice between two purely dynastic alliances, she would, for the sake of Maria Louisa, have chosen that with France. This rather simple conception he seems to have entertained for a time, because when Maret and Metternich met, the former urged the matrimonial bond as a consideration. "The marriage," rejoined the latter, with a cough-"yes, the marriage; it was a match founded on political considerations, but-" and the conclusion of the sentence was a significant wag of the head.

Napoleon's first instinct of treachery was that of the general, and it was sound. His suspicions were fully aroused as soon as he reached Dresden; for Bubna began at once to stickle for antiquated formalities in negotiation, and stung Napoleon to exasperation by his evident determination to procrastinate. Accordingly the Emperor summoned Metternich to a personal meeting. The minister could not well explain. Since Castlereagh's return to power in January, 1812, Great Britain had kept at Berlin, St. Petersburg, and Vienna able diplomats ready, with purse in hand, to pay almost any sum for a strong coalition. It had been the appearance of Sir Charles Stewart from Berlin, and of Lord Cathcart from St. Petersburg, at the allied headquarters which accounted for the arrogant firmness of Shuvaloff and Kleist, and determined the character of the armistice. On June fourteenth and fifteenth those envoys further concluded treaties with Prussia and Russia respectively which explain the performances of Bubna at Dresden, and of the congress which later met at Prague. Prussia promised, in return for a subsidy of two thirds of a million pounds sterling, to cede a certain portion of lower Saxony, with the bishopric of Hildesheim, to the electorate of Hanover, and agreed to keep on foot eighty thousand men; Russia was to maintain a hundred and sixty thousand men, in return for one and a third million pounds, and for the care of English vessels in her harbors she was to receive a further sum of half a million. Great Britain and Russia were in conjunction to emit an issue of paper money to the amount of five millions sterling, and this loan was to be guaranteed by England, Prussia, and Russia conjointly. In conclusion it was solemnly stipulated that neither Russia nor Great Britain should negotiate separately with France.

In view of the successive stages of Napoleon's isolation,-namely, the armistice, these two subsidy treaties, and the secret treaty of June twenty-seventh signed at Reichenbach,-it seems futile to discuss the question whether or not Napoleon really wished peace in his famous interview with Metternich on June twenty-seventh-an interview which lasted from a quarter before twelve at midday until nearly nine at night, and has improperly been considered as the turning-point in Napoleon's career. Up to that moment Metternich's intervention had amounted to nothing short of selfish double-dealing. Of this Napoleon had written evidence. No wonder the shifty minister described his interview as "a most curious mixture of most heterogeneous subjects, of intermitting friendliness with the most pa.s.sionate outbreaks," and strove in his account to deepen the shadows of his picture by discreet silence as to certain points-a trick he may have learned from Whitworth. The unfriendly narrator declares that Napoleon, when told that his soldiers were only boys, flung his hat into a corner, and hissed, "You do not know what pa.s.ses in a soldier's mind; I grew up in the field, and a man like me troubles himself little about a million men." The Austrian statesman further reported the French emperor to have characterized his second marriage as a piece of stupidity, and to have charged his princely interlocutor with venality!

Probably all this is true: the professional soldier's point of view is terrible to the laity. Kossuth declared to a trustworthy witness that he had seen the letters of Maria Louisa which betrayed her husband to her father; and no one has ever denied that Napoleon was a fair judge of character, and called a spade a spade when he was angry. And angry he was. Here was the man who had plumed himself on the Bonaparte-Hapsburg alliance, who had hitherto professed the most ardent personal esteem for Napoleon himself, and who had so far found Austria's highest welfare in supporting the Napoleonic system. And what was his conduct? A complete and sudden reversal of his previous behavior, personal insolence, and public scorn. Then and there he demanded the suspension, at least temporarily, of the treaty of alliance between Austria and France-a paper solemnly negotiated by himself but little more than one short year earlier; then, too, he demanded a further prolongation of the armistice while the peace congress held its sessions, and, coldly throwing every other consideration to the winds, gave his victim to understand that Austria was no longer a mediator, but an armed arbiter, determined to regain her glory by the line of least resistance-that is, by alliance with Russia, in order to secure a continental peace, to which Great Britain should not be a party.

Is it wonderful that under such provocation Napoleon's hot Corsican blood boiled over, or that his unruly tongue uttered startling language? The time had come when he must recognize masters and laws, and it was not easy. At thirty, as he liked to boast, he had gained victories, appeased a popular storm, fused parties, and rallied a nation. Further, for years he had made sport of European dynasties, and in particular had found that of Austria both double-faced and time-serving. Having taken a leaf from her book, he had become her dupe, and it was hard to bear the consequences. The stormy side of the famous interview is therefore unimportant historically; its only significance is that it marks the last stage in the evolution of Austrian diplomacy. Being now strong enough to rea.s.sert equality with France in the councils of Europe, the Hapsburg empire was about to act. Metternich believed that Alexander's aid would be more valuable than Napoleon's, and in a letter to his master, written two days after the famous interview, he explained that through a continental peace lay the line of least resistance. The arrangement he suggested to Napoleon would leave England and France to renew the struggle and fight until exhausted, while Austria, Russia, and Prussia were recuperating. Napoleon's one weapon against England was his Continental System; on the morrow of a victorious campaign he could not so easily throw it down. If there was to be a continental peace, and not a general one, it must be made after a final decisive victory; and to a.s.semble his troops for a grand battle with Austria, Russia, and Prussia, he needed time. The Poischwitz armistice was his first fatal blunder; before the close of the interview he consented to its prolongation until August tenth, ostensibly that the Congress of Prague might arrange terms for a continental peace; and this was his undoing.

The Congress of Prague was a puppet-show, and has no place in history except as it displayed the character of Metternich, deceiving himself to its close with the belief that he was what he professed to be-an armed mediator turning the course of European politics back into dynastic channels. In reality it was as Napoleon said-he believed himself to be directing everybody, when everything was directing him. Behind the puppets were Alexander's fatalism, Prussia's regenerated nationality, the half-awakened sensibility of Austria, and lastly, British gold with British victories. Wellington had finally focused the national power of Spain, and was actually menacing the soil of France. His famous "march to Vitoria," as it has been called because of the decisive battle fought at that place on June twenty-first, 1813, forced Napoleon finally to abandon Spain. Already the Emperor had withdrawn his choicest veterans thence, and he was well aware how futile any further struggles for Joseph's throne must be. His conduct, therefore, was perfectly consistent; with a bold front he laid down the ultimatum of uti possidetis for the congress, and left for Mainz, where he remained from July twenty-fifth to August first, arranging his military plans for the defense of the Pyrenees, and despatching Soult, who went against his will, for the campaign which sealed the marshal's reputation as a great soldier. Doubtless, too, Napoleon felt that distance from the absurd congress would absolve him from the guilt of its empty pretense.

There, too, he met his empress; perhaps he fondly dreamed that she might intercede with her sire; in the long interviews they held he was probably drilling her in the functions of a regent chosen to sustain in Paris the tottering cause of her consort and her child. Fouche, too, was recalled from his suspicious retirement to untangle the thread of Austrian duplicity. But the long hours of consultation, arrangement, and execution were mainly concerned, we may suppose, with the hurrying in of new levies, the raising of cavalry, the creation of artillery, and the general preparation for the life-and-death struggle which was soon to take place. The Danish alliance was strengthened, and Murat by strenuous efforts was kept within the shadowy lines of the vanishing Napoleonic system. Beugnot, then head of the French regency of Berg, was one day called at a moment's notice to act as amanuensis, and in a flurry twice took his Emperor's chair. "So you are determined to sit in my seat," was Napoleon's simple remark; "you have chosen a bad time for it." The mayor of Mainz was St. Andre, a stanch conventional of the old school; another day he and Beugnot, with the Prince of Na.s.sau, accompanied the visitor on a river excursion, and the Emperor, scanning with intense interest the castle of Biberich, leaned far over the boat. "What a curious att.i.tude," whispered the veteran revolutionary to the terrified Beugnot; "the fate of the world depends on a kick or two."

The fate of the world was not in jeopardy, and the seat of Napoleon as Emperor of the West was not to be occupied by another; but the affairs of the Continent were to be readjusted, the beneficent work of the Revolution was to be transferred to other hands, and the notion of Western empire was to vanish like other baseless fabrics. The diplomacy of Lord Aberdeen, Castlereagh's envoy at Vienna, had succeeded before Napoleon returned to Dresden, and the treaty of eventual triple alliance, signed at Reichenbach on June twenty-seventh, was made good on August first by Francis, who agreed, in return for an enormous subsidy from Great Britain, to join Russia and Prussia with two hundred thousand men. The rosters of Austria's army had been surrept.i.tiously obtained by French agents in Prague. Napoleon was aghast as he read the proof of her gigantic efforts. At once he redoubled his own, and began to unfold a marvelous diplomatic shrewdness. With Poland's three despoilers thus united in England's pay, his isolation would be complete; a few days only remained until the expiration of the armistice; he had but one arrow left in his quiver, and he determined to speed it: to bribe Austria into neutrality by accepting her conditions and restoring the national equilibrium of Europe.

The proposition was made, and staggered Francis; for two days he dallied, and then made a counter-proposition with a new clause, which secured, not the emanc.i.p.ation of states, but dynastic independence for the sovereigns of the Rhine Confederation. This drew the veil from Metternich's policy. Afraid of a German nationality in which Prussia would inevitably secure the hegemony, he was determined to perpetuate the rivalries of petty potentates, and regain Austria's ascendancy in Germany as well as in Italy. This, too, would strip Napoleon of his German troops, and confine France to the west sh.o.r.e of the Rhine, even though it left Westphalia and Berg under French rulers. Such a contingency was abhorrent to one still pretending to Western empire, and Napoleon in turn procrastinated until the evening of the ninth, when, as a final compromise, he offered the dismemberment of Warsaw, the freedom of Dantzic and Illyria, including Fiume, but retaining Triest. But by this time dynastic jealousy had done its work at Prague, and when these terms were communicated to the plenipotentiaries unofficially, Cathcart's bellicose humor, which was heightened by the news from Wellington, served to complement Alexander's jealousy of Austria's rising power. The Prussian nationalists, too, saw their emanc.i.p.ation indefinitely postponed; and since the communication of Napoleon's ultimatum was unofficial, and an official notification had not arrived at midnight on the tenth, the commissioners of Russia and Prussia rose at the stroke of the clock, and informed Metternich that, their powers having expired, he was bound by the terms of Reichenbach.

Metternich kept up his mask, and continued to discuss with Caulaincourt the items of Napoleon's proposition, but the other diplomats gave vent to their delight. Humboldt lingered until Austria's formal declaration of war was under way to Dresden; simultaneously beacons, prearranged for the purpose on Bohemian hills, flashed the welcome news to the expectant armies of Russia and Prussia. Napoleon still stood undismayed by forms, for under the terms of the armistice a week's notice must be given before the renewal of hostilities. On the thirteenth he offered Austria everything except Hamburg and Triest; on the fifteenth he offered even these great ports. But technical right was on the side of war, and his proposals were refused.

Where the blame or merit for the renewal of hostilities rests will ever remain a matter of opinion. Amid the tangles of negotiation, it must be remembered that on March twenty-fourth, 1812, Russia and Sweden began the coalition; that Russia and Prussia were forced into union on February twenty-eighth, 1813, by the element of interest common to Alexander's dynasty and the Prussian people; that Great Britain entered on the scene in her commercial agreement with Sweden on March third, 1813; and that English diplomacy combined with the interests of Austrian diplomacy to complete and cement the coalition with the necessary subsidies. If we view the negotiations of Poischwitz and Prague in connection with Napoleon's whole career, they appear to have run in a channel prepared by his boundless ambition; if we isolate them and scrutinize their course, we must think him the moral victor. Whatever he may have been before, he was now eager for peace, and sincere in his professions. Believing himself to have acted generously when Austria was under his feet, he was outraged when he saw that he had been duped by her subsequent course. The concessions to which he was forced appear to have been made slowly, because what he desired was not a continental peace in the interests of the Hapsburgs, but a general peace in the interest of all Europe as represented by the Empire and the dynasty which he had founded. At this distance of time, and in the light of intervening history, some credit should be given to his insight, which convinced him that strengthened nationality, as well as renewed dynastic influence, might r.e.t.a.r.d the liberalizing influences of the Revolution, which he falsely believed himself still to represent. For the duration of the Holy Alliance this was to a certain extent true. It will be noticed that throughout the closing negotiations no mention was made of the "Continental System." That malign concept of the revolutionary epoch perished in Napoleon's decline, and history knows its name no more.[Back to Contents]

END OF VOLUME III

Footnote 1: References as before.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 2: References more specifically valuable for this and the next chapter are Hausser, Czartoryski, Marbot, Lejeune, Oudinot, Lettow-Vorbeck, Sir R. Wilson, with the Castlereagh Letters and Napoleon's Correspondence.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 3: On the refusal of Russia and Prussia to join Austria, see Vandal: Napoleon et Alexandre Ier, Vol. I, Chapitre Preliminaire.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 4: References as before.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 5: Oudinot: Memoires, Ch. II.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 6: Yorck von Wartenburg: Napoleon als Feldherr, I, XIII.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 7: On the character of Alexander, see Vandal: Napoleon et Alexandre, Vol. I, Ch. I.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 8: For the years of the Franco-Russian alliance the French archives contain a wealth of doc.u.mentary material: regular despatches, verbatim reports of conversations between the French amba.s.sadors and the Czar, the news of the day in St. Petersburg and the gossip of society. Savary and Caulaincourt may be said to have kept their master in personal touch with their friend and ally. There is likewise the ordinary regular diplomatic correspondence with Austria, Prussia, Turkey, and the other European states. An interesting and invaluable peculiarity of French archives is, that bound up with despatches received are the outlines of those sent, and generally not merely a sketch, but the first draft with all annotations and corrections, these quite often in Napoleon's almost cryptic but still decipherable handwriting. Much of course is in cipher, but the key is available and sometimes the official decipherment. The archives of St. Petersburg are also available for properly accredited searchers; Tratchefski has gone a considerable distance in publishing the decisive papers, and Tatistcheff has printed many important doc.u.ments in various periodicals. Other sources have been already indicated: the published correspondence of Napoleon and of Pozzo di Borgo, the histories of Bignon, Lefebvre, and Rambaud, and the monumental work of Vandal: Napoleon et Alexandre Ier, are all of the first importance. Bertrand: Lettres inedites de Talleyrand a Napoleon, contains the replies of the minister to his chief. Duckworth's check at Constantinople is fully explained by Juchereau de Saint Denys: Revolutions de Constantinople en 1807 et 1808. Cf. also Ha.s.sel: Geschichte der Preussischen Politik, 1807 bis 1815. Choiseul-Gouffier: Reminiscences sur Napoleon Ier et Alexandre Ier. Adami: Louise de Prusse, Erinnerungen der Grafen von Voss. Savary: Memoires. Life of Sir Robert Wilson.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 9: On this point, see Vandal: Napoleon et Alexandre Ier, Ch. I.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 10: The importance of American commerce at that time has not usually had due recognition; statement of its value see Mahan: The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, Vol. II, pp. 231-2.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 11: References as before. Further: Lefebvre: Histoire des cabinets de l'Europe. Tatistcheff: Alexandre Ier et Napoleon. Ranke: Hardenberg und die Geschichte des Preussischen Staates von 1793-1813. Pingaud: Les Francais en Russie et les Russes en France.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 12: For an interesting comment on Talleyrand's diplomacy, see Sorel: L'Europe et la Revolution Francaise, Vol. VI, pp. 23-25.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 13: References: Jauffret: Memoires historiques sur les affaires ecclesiastiques de France pendant les premieres annees du XIXe siecle. Thorsoe: Den danske Statspolitiske Historie 1800-1864. Lemoine: Napoleon et les Juifs. Lemann: Napoleon et les Israelites; La preponderance juive.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 14: See discussion of this question by J. H. Rose, "A British Agent at Tilsit," in English Historical Review, Oct., 1901.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 15: See Lemoine: Napoleon et les Juifs.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 16: See Blanc: Napoleon Ier. Taine: Le regime moderne. Pasquier: Memoires, Histoire de mon temps. Meneval: Napoleon et Marie-Louise. Vte de Broc: La vie en France sous le premier empire. Metternich: Memoires. Mme. de Remusat: Memoires.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 17: In general, for the censorship of the press see Welschinger: La censure sous le Premier Empire. Sorel: Essais d'histoire et de critique.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 18: Sorel, Vol. VII, pp. 191-2.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 19: References as before, and Mahan: Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire. Loir: Etudes d'histoire maritime. Clowes: The Royal Navy. Stanhope: Life of Hon. William Pitt.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 20: See Oman: Peninsular War. Martins: Historia de Portugal. Delagrave: La Campagne de Portugal. Also Memoirs, etc., by Barkhausen, Brandt, Gomm, Moore, Naylies, Roverea, Savary, Miot de Melito.[Back to Main Text]

Footnote 21: See Baumgarten: Geschichte Spaniens vom Ausbruch der Franzosischen Revolution bis auf unsere Tage. Manini: Historia de la marina real espanola. Arteche y Maro: Guerra de la Independencia. Torino: Guerra de la Independencia.