THE NATIONS IN GRAND ARRAY[49]
[Footnote 49: References: Von Odeleben, Napoleons Feldzug in
Sachsen im Jahre 1813. Yorck, Napoleon als Feldherr. Weil,
Campagne de 1813.]
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 assistance, 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 Luetzen 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 assembled 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 assenting 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 bluster, 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 assured 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 passionate 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 passes 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 reassert 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 assemble 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 Nassau, 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 attitude,"
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 surreptitiously 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 emancipation 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 shore 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 emancipation
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 retard 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.
END OF VOLUME III