THE PEACE OF SCHOeNBRUNN[32]
[Footnote 32: See Majol de Lupe: Fournier: Gentz und der
Friede von Schoenbrunn in Deutsche Rundschau, tom. 44. Un pape
prisonnier a Savone, d'apres des documents inedits. In Le
Correspondant, 6 articles, du 10 mars au 25 mai. Clair: Hofer
et l'insurrection du Tyrol.]
Schill and the Duke of Brunswick -- Andreas Hofer -- The
Armistice of Znaim -- The Northern Powers Adhere to France --
Wellesley's Successes in the Peninsula -- The Walcheren
Expedition -- Negotiations for Peace -- Austria a Second-rate
Power -- Attempt on Napoleon's Life -- His Great Uneasiness --
The Tyrol Subdued -- The Pope a Prisoner.
Napoleon's course was probably somewhat influenced both by the
mutterings of national discontent in France and by the actual
insurrections which were taking place in Germany. Schill, after
leaving Berlin, had been successively harassed by the Dutch, the
Westphalians, and the Danes, until in despair he threw himself into
Stralsund in hope of cooeperation from an English fleet. The city was
immediately beleaguered, and on May thirty-first it fell. The King of
Prussia had already denounced the gallant adventurer and his
companions as a robber band of outlaws. As has been told, the daring
patriot was killed in the assault, and only a hundred and fifty of his
comrades escaped. The officers who fled into Prussia were
court-martialed, and punished by a light sentence of imprisonment.
Those captured in Stralsund were taken to Brest and sentenced to penal
servitude. Frederick William, the young Duke of Brunswick, deprived
by Napoleon of his throne, and determined to avenge his father, had
raised, during the progress of the French campaign in Austria, a corps
of Bohemian and other adventurers, which was soon famous for its
extraordinary exploits, and became world-renowned as the Black Legion.
With this force, assisted by that of the Austrian commandant in
Franconia, General Kienmayer, he defeated the Saxons at Nossen, a
French army under Junot at Berneck, and repelled King Jerome of
Westphalia; he then seized Dresden, Leipsic, and Lindenau, holding at
the time of Wagram a considerable portion of Franconia. Napoleon's
victory rendered his situation desperate, but with fifteen hundred men
he cut his way northward through Leipsic, Halle, Halberstadt, and
Brunswick, defeating the Westphalian, Saxon, and Dutch troops which
sought to intercept him, and reached the shores of the North Sea at
Elsfleth, where, seizing a merchant flotilla, he embarked with his men
for England. He was received in London with jubilation, and was richly
pensioned for his heroic adventures.
Almost simultaneously the Tyrolese, taking advantage of Lefebvre's
withdrawal, rose again. The exploits of their hero, Andreas Hofer,
form a romantic episode of history, but they very indirectly affected
the central story, if at all. In the five weeks intervening between
Aspern and Wagram, that able and devoted man had virtually reorganized
his country and cleared it of intruders. Even the double invasion of
French and Bavarians, on one side from Klagenfurth, on the other down
the valley of the Inn, was successfully repelled. The tactics of
Hofer's men were most effective against regular troops, who, marching
in thin lines through mountain defiles, were cut down by
sharp-shooters, overwhelmed with rocks hurled from high ledges over
the precipitous walls of ravines, entrapped by ambushes, or
slaughtered by the scythes, clubs, and pitchforks of the peasantry.
Leaving Eugene to hold the Marchfeld, Napoleon and his army pressed on
after Marmont in pursuit of Charles. Before Znaim, which was reached
on the eleventh, the vanguard had just suffered something very like a
repulse, and the Emperor made ready for another battle if it should be
necessary. In the very midst of the preparations came a proposition
from Charles for an armistice. After a long discussion by the French
generals, Napoleon accepted it. "You must fight only when the hope of
any fortunate turn is gone," he wrote about this time; "for in its
nature the result of a battle is always doubtful." The Archduke's
motive was to gain time. The Emperor Francis had accepted a plan
proposed by John for a reunion of the Austrian armies on the confines
of Hungary to continue the war, and he was still hoping to retrieve
the blunder he had made in not negotiating on equal terms with
Prussia. He therefore acquiesced in Charles's proposal, though not
intending the armistice as a preliminary of peace. Napoleon affected
uncertainty, and demanded an enormous cession of territory as the
price of a truce. Francis in turn demurred, but finally yielded. To
this again Charles, confident in his ability to carry on the war,
would not listen. His quarrel with Francis and John was growing more
bitter; and the Emperor felt that in order to compose the family
difficulties and allay jealousies, time must now be gained at any
price. Francis therefore persisted, Charles resigned the command, and
the former assumed it himself.
The Austrian Emperor's first step was to open negotiations in the hope
of prolonging them until he could rearrange the control of his army
and recuperate his strength, trusting that in the interval the
kaleidoscope of European diplomacy might entirely change. He was not
disappointed in the fact of a change, but the change was far different
from what he had expected. The King of Prussia now definitely withdrew
the propositions which he had half-heartedly made before Wagram. He
thought it was better to reign behind the Oder than not to reign at
all. The Czar kept the promise made at Erfurt most unwillingly; but
having at last secured Finland, he felt bound to fulfil the letter of
his engagement. Prince Galitzin had been put at the head of thirty
thousand unwilling Russians, and sent to invade Galicia. Crossing the
frontier, his officers declared their distaste for the task, and knew
they were reflecting the sentiments of an overpowering majority of
their own nation. The invasion turned out a farce, and was rather in
the nature of a friendly reception by the inhabitants.
Francis therefore hoped for something from Alexander's lukewarmness.
The latter, however, would do nothing, for nominally, and in
occasional skirmishes really, he was fighting Turkey, and meant, after
the peace, to claim the fulfilment of Napoleon's promise. It would be
impolitic to jeopardize his whole ambition by any deviation from the
letter of the Erfurt agreement. Francis therefore was informed that he
must make the best terms with Napoleon that he could. As to Great
Britain, the chances seemed better. In the seas that bordered Italy
and the Ionian Isles, off the coasts of Spain and Portugal, on the
waters of the Baltic, her flag was seen. Wellesley had been landed in
the Iberian peninsula, and, driving Soult before him, had not only
expelled the French from Portugal, but had defeated Victor at
Talavera, and was preparing for the invasion of Spain. The English
government had in readiness another army of forty thousand men and
another fleet of thirty-five ships of the line. Where best could they
employ them? After long deliberation the selfish policy was adopted of
using them, not to cripple Napoleon, but for England's immediate
advantage. They were not sent to reinforce Wellesley and insure the
conquest of Spain, nor to save Schill, nor to strengthen Austria. By
any one of these courses the European uprising against the French
emperor would have been inaugurated that very year.
As it was, they were despatched to destroy the dockyards of the
Netherlands, where it was said, and perhaps believed, that Napoleon
was building ships to dispute British supremacy at sea. After
disembarking on the island of Walcheren, the army combined with the
fleet in a successful attack on Flushing, which fell on August
fifteenth. This was their only success. Fouche raised an army of
national guards, and Bernadotte, who, having incurred the Emperor's
displeasure at Wagram for his slowness and lack of success, had been
sent home in disgrace, was induced to put himself at its head. The
army and navy officers of the English disagreed as to how they should
meet him. The result was separation and disaster; the fleet sailed
back to England and the army withdrew to Walcheren, where it was held
in check while the swamp-fever devastated its ranks. About the same
time a plague also broke out in the Austrian army, and, as was
claimed, destroyed its efficiency. Wellesley, unsupported, saw himself
threatened by a flank movement of Soult and drew back, while, in
August, Sebastiani defeated a division of the Spanish army.
These were the circumstances which turned the pretended peace
negotiations of Francis into reality. When proceedings first began at
Altenburg they were simply farcical. Napoleon really needed peace, if
Prussia and Russia were meditating war; but the first proposal made
by Austria he scorned, and talked of Francis's abdication, with a
partition of Hapsburg lands among the new Napoleonic states. When the
nominal plenipotentiaries, Champagny and Metternich, actually met, the
former still scouted anything like reasonable terms, demanding for his
Emperor the lands occupied by French troops. The Austrian, anxious to
gain time, replied with equally impossible propositions. But as the
summer passed, and Francis's hopes of support grew fainter and
fainter, he sent a personal representative, General Bubna, to
Napoleon, and this plenipotentiary began to display sincerity.
Thereupon the Emperor of the French manifested his earnest desire for
peace. So far he had relied on the Czar, who stood by the alliance in
the face of his people's opposition. How much longer, Alexander must
have asked himself, could this state of things continue? It was
praiseworthy in him that he cared nothing for popular opinion, but he
might not be able to hold out against it much longer. It was very
significant that in a formal note just received from St. Petersburg by
the hand of a Russian officer, Alexander advised peace. To this
messenger, when speaking of the chances for renewing hostilities,
Napoleon exclaimed in undisguised horror, "Blood, blood, always
blood!" And then, with a sudden change of manner, he said: "I am
anxious to get back to Paris." Like his generals, the Emperor of the
French was plainly sick of war. His sad countenance, like theirs, was
an open book in which the Russian could clearly read this important
fact. Indeed, the anxious, war-worn, unsettled Napoleon actually
contemplated an alliance with Austria. It was clear that if her
territories were left intact she would gladly join in one. He had need
to be done with her in order to settle his affairs in Spain and
elsewhere. But he feared Francis, and hoped that such a vacillating
temporizer might abdicate in favor of some thoroughly trustworthy
successor. Napoleon confessed to Bubna that he admired the Austrian
troops; they were as good as his own, and under his leadership would
be victorious. Champagny's demands, he admitted, were not final, but
certain territories on the south, on the west, and in Galicia he must
have.
With this understanding, full powers were given to Prince
Liechtenstein, and he went direct to Schoenbrunn. The terms of peace
turned out very hard indeed. A war indemnity of a hundred million
francs was first incorporated in the treaty itself; but afterward, in
a secret article, Francis was required to reduce his army to a hundred
and fifty thousand men, and the indemnity was diminished to
eighty-five millions. This would have been an awful burden to lay on
the empire even as it had been, and Austrian territory was now to be
seriously diminished. Salzburg, Berchtesgaden, and the Inn quarter
went to the Confederation of the Rhine, New Galicia to the grand duchy
of Warsaw, along with a large district in East Galicia and the town of
Cracow. A small strip of the same province was reserved for Russia.
But the most deadly blow was the constitution of a subsidiary
government, to be known as Illyria, by the surrender directly to
France of Goerz, Monfalcone, Triest, Carniola, Willach in Carinthia,
and Croatia east of the Save. This made Austria not only a
second-class, but an inland power, cutting her off entirely from the
sea; but she was, nevertheless, to enter the Continental System
against England, and recognize all that Napoleon had done or might do
in Spain, Portugal, and Italy. These were the hard but imperative
conditions which the Emperor laid down. Liechtenstein accepted them
subject to his sovereign's approval.
But the conqueror was in haste. On October twelfth there had been a
great review of his troops at Schoenbrunn. In the crowd was a youth,
scarcely more than a child, who pressed forward to gain access to
Napoleon. His urgency attracted the attention of Berthier, and he was
seized by General Rapp. On his person was a large knife, and he openly
avowed his purpose of assassination. He was confronted with his
intended victim. His name, he said, was Staps, and he was the son of a
Protestant pastor at Naumburg. The Emperor coldly asked what he would
do if pardoned. "Try again to kill you," was the culprit's reply. He
avowed no penitence, but declared he had no personal feeling. He would
gladly have reasoned with Napoleon, he further said, if he could but
have gained an interview; if unsuccessful in his plan, he would have
thought it a deed of honor to smite down the world's oppressor. The
would-be assassin was secretly shot, and the police had instructions
to say, if there should be much talk, that he was crazy. This event
seemed deeply to impress the intended victim with the intensity of
feeling among the common people of Germany, and he was anxious to be
gone. His fears were well founded; assassination was in the minds of
many unbalanced men. A captain in the Austrian army actually sought a
furlough, giving as his reason that he desired to kill Napoleon.
This mania for assassination completed the depression of spirits which
for some time past had been noticeable in the French emperor. Severely
wounded in the great toe at Ratisbon, he had there been compelled to
exercise enormous self-control to prevent a panic in the army. Knocked
senseless by a fall from his horse on the road to Schoenbrunn, he had
for the same reason been forced to enjoin silence on nearly two
hundred persons who were aware of the fact. At Essling he had thought
it necessary to throw himself into the bullet hail to sustain the
morale of his troops, and having saved Lannes from drowning during a
preliminary reconnaissance of the Danube banks, he had finally lost
him under the most distressing circumstances. To cap the climax of
these experiences, it now seemed as if his own life were in constant
jeopardy. When, therefore, the official articles of the peace were
drawn up on the fourteenth, and Liechtenstein departed to lay them
before Francis, the French cannon did not wait for formalities, but
proclaimed the peace as already made. The next night Napoleon was on
his way to Paris.
The armistice of Znaim had utterly crushed the hopes of the Tyrolese,
but they continued to fight in despair. The peace of Schoenbrunn set
free the entire French army to overwhelm them. A second double
invasion was organized. Prince Eugene offered amnesty to the
insurgents, and the Austrian ministry advised them to cease
resistance. But Hofer had by this time convinced himself that his
mission was more than earthly. After some hesitation, he refused to
accept Austria's advice, and the conflict was renewed. The Tyrolese
were now alone, and after a vain resistance the combatants dispersed
among the mountains. The land was again reduced to submission. Hofer
remained safely hidden for some time, but he was eventually betrayed,
captured, and sent to Mantua for the formality of a trial. Napoleon's
directions to Eugene were very concise. Whenever the order should
reach him, the viceroy was to name a court-martial, try the prisoner,
and have him shot. Throughout suffering and imprisonment the hero
displayed the greatest firmness, and met his death with lofty
devotion. In the previous spring, when at Austria's instigation the
Tyrol had risen, he had been ennobled; ten years later the title and
estates of Passeyr were bestowed on his family. Among the eastern
Alps the name of Andreas Hofer is like that of William Tell among the
mountains of Switzerland. His rugged virtues are celebrated in verse,
and tradition lingers about his haunts.
Napoleon's decree of May seventeenth, depriving the Pope of his
secular power, reached Rome in due time, and Murat proceeded without
delay to execute it. There were no difficulties, for it will be
remembered that in February General Miollis had occupied the city. A
committee of administration was immediately named, whose duties were
to prepare the way for incorporation with Italy. On June tenth formal
proclamation was made that Pius VII was no longer a secular prince,
his dominion having passed to the King of Italy. He was still to
reside in Rome as spiritual head of the Catholic Church. That night
the Pope promulgated a bull excommunicating Napoleon and his
adherents, favorers, and councilors. Unlike similar instruments of his
predecessors, it contained a clause declaring the punishment to be
purely spiritual, and prohibiting every one from using it as a
sanction for attack on the persons of those against whom it was
issued. On the night of July fifth a French general with his guard
forced the doors of the Quirinal palace, and demanded from Pius a
formal renunciation of his secular power. The Pope having firmly and
quietly refused, he was informed that he must make ready to leave the
city. At three the next morning he was placed in a carriage with a
single cardinal, and on a second dignified and solemn refusal to
comply was carried to Florence. There he was separated from his one
companion and put in charge of the gendarmes. Traveling by day and
night, sometimes in a litter, sometimes by sea, the aged man was
finally brought to Grenoble. The devout French of that city could not
understand the secrecy and haste of his journey, and hastened to pay
him homage. So great were the crowds and so intense was the feeling
that very soon his presence in France was considered dangerous. He was
therefore carried back to Savona, where he remained a state prisoner
under rigid supervision in decent but plain apartments until 1812,
when he was conducted to Fontainebleau and lodged like a prince.