rival emperor, and on the 25th of June the two sovereigns met
at Tilsit, on a raft which was moored in the middle of the
Niemen. The details of the conference are a secret, as
Napoleon's subsequent account of it is untrustworthy, and no
witnesses were present. All that is certain is that Alexander
I., whose character was a curious mixture of nobility and
weakness, was completely won over by his conqueror. ...
Napoleon, ... instead of attempting to impose extreme terms
upon a country which it was impossible to conquer, ... offered
to share with Russia the supremacy in Europe which had been
won by French arms. The only conditions were the abandonment
of the cause of the old monarchies, which seemed hopeless, and
an alliance with France against England. Alexander had several
grievances against the English government, especially the
lukewarm support that had been given in recent operations, and
made no objection to resume the policy of his predecessors in
this respect. Two interviews sufficed to arrange the basis of
an agreement. Both sovereigns abandoned their allies without
scruple. Alexander gave up Prussia and Sweden, while Napoleon
deserted the cause of the Poles, who had trusted to his zeal
for their independence, and of the Turks, whom his envoy had
recently induced to make war upon Russia. The Treaty of Tilsit
was speedily drawn up; on the 7th of July peace was signed
between France and Russia, on the 9th between France and
Prussia. Frederick William III. had to resign the whole of his
kingdom west of the Elbe, together with all the acquisitions
which Prussia had made in the second and third partitions of
Poland. The provinces that were left, amounting to barely half
of what he had inherited, were burthened with the payment of
an enormous sum as compensation to France. The district west
of the Elbe was united with Hesse-Cassel, Brunswick, and
ultimately with Hanover, to form the kingdom of Westphalia,
which was given to Napoleon's youngest brother, Jerome. Of
Polish Prussia, one province, Bialystock, was added to Russia,
and the rest was made into the grand duchy of Warsaw, and
transferred to Saxony. Danzig, with the surrounding territory,
was declared a free state under Prussian and Saxon protection,
but it was really subject to France, and remained a centre of
French power on the Baltic. All trade between Prussia and
England was cut off. Alexander I., on his side, recognised all
Napoleon's new creations in Europe--the Confederation of the
Rhine, the kingdoms of Italy, Naples, Holland, and Westphalia,
and undertook to mediate between France and England. But the
really important agreement between France and Russia was to be
found, not in the formal treaties, but in the secret
conventions which were arranged by the two emperors. The exact
text of these has never been made public, and it is probable
that some of the terms rested upon verbal rather than on
written understandings, but the general drift of them is
unquestionable. The bribe offered to Alexander was the
aggrandisement of Russia in the East. To make him an
accomplice in the acts of Napoleon, he was to be allowed to
annex Finland from Sweden, and Moldavia and Wallachia from
Turkey. With regard to England, Russia undertook to adopt
Napoleon's blockade-system, and to obtain the adhesion of
those states which still remained open to English
trade--Sweden, Denmark, and Portugal."
_H. Lodge,
History of Modern Europe,
chapter 24, section 25._
"'I thought,' said Napoleon at St. Helena, 'it would benefit
the world to drive these brutes, the Turks, out of Europe. But
when I reflected what power it would give to Russia, from the
number of Greeks in the Turkish dominions who may be
considered Russians, I refused to consent to it, especially as
Alexander wanted Constantinople, which would have destroyed
the equilibrium of power in Europe. France would gain Egypt,
Syria, and the islands; but those were nothing to what Russia
would have obtained.' This coincides with Savary's [Duke de
Rovigo's] statement, that Alexander told him Napoleon said he
was under no engagements to the new Sultan, and that changes
in the world inevitably changed the relations of states to one
another; and again, Alexander said that, in their
conversations at Tilsit, Napoleon often told him he did not
require the evacuation of Moldavia and Wallachia; he would
place things in a train to dispense with it, and it was not
possible to suffer longer the presence of the Turks in Europe.
'He even left me,' said Alexander, 'to entertain the project
of driving them back into Asia. It is only since that he has
returned to the idea of leaving Constantinople to them, and
some surrounding provinces.' Due day, when Napoleon was
talking to Alexander, he asked his secretary, M. Meneval, for
the map of Turkey, opened it, then renewed the conversation;
and placing his finger on Constantinople said several times to
the secretary, though not loud enough to be heard by
Alexander, 'Constantinople, Constantinople, never. It is the
capital of the world.' ... It is very evident in their
conversations that Napoleon agreed to his [Alexander's]
possessing himself of the Turkish Empire up to the Balkan, if
not beyond; though Bignon denies that any plan for the actual
partition of Turkey was embodied in the treaty of Tilsit.
Hardenberg, not always well informed, asserts that it was.
{1514}
Savary says he could not believe that Napoleon would have
abandoned the Turks without a compensation in some other
quarter; and he felt certain Alexander had agreed in return to
Napoleon's project for the conquest of Spain, 'which the
Emperor had very much at heart'"
_C. Joyneville,
Life and Times of Alexander I.,
volume 1, chapter 8._
ALSO IN:
_Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe, 1789-1815,
chapter 46 (volume 10)._
_Count Miot de Melito,
Memoirs,
chapter 24._
_P. Lanfrey,
History of Napoleon,
chapters 3-4._
_Prince de Talleyrand,
Memoirs,
part 3 (volume 1)._
_A. Thiers,
History of the Consulate and the Empire,
book 27 (volume 2)._
GERMANY: A. D. 1807 (July).
The collapse of Prussia and its Causes.
"For the five years that followed, Prussia is to be conceived,
in addition to all her other humiliations, as in the hands of
a remorseless creditor whose claims are decided by himself
without appeal, and who wants more than all he can get. She is
to be thought of as supporting for more than a year after the
conclusion of the Treaty a French army of more than 150,000
men, then as supporting a French garrison in three principal
fortresses, and finally, just before the period ends, as
having to support the huge Russian expedition in its passage
through the country. ... It was not in fact from the Treaty of
Tilsit, but from the systematic breach of it, that the
sufferings of Prussia between 1807 and 1813 arose. It is
indeed hardly too much to say that the advantage of the Treaty
was received only by France, and that the only object Napoleon
can have had in signing it was to inflict more harm on Prussia
than he could inflict by simply continuing the war. Such was
the downfall of Prussia. The tremendousness of the catastrophe
strikes us less because we know that it was soon retrieved,
and that Prussia rose again and became greater than ever. But
could this recovery be anticipated? A great nation, we say,
cannot be dissolved by a few disasters; patriotism and energy
will retrieve everything. But precisely these seemed wanting.
The State seemed to have fallen in pieces because it had no
principle of cohesion, and was only held together by an
artificial bureaucracy. It had been created by the energy of
its government and the efficiency of its soldiers, and now it
appeared to come to an end because its government had ceased
to be energetic and its soldiers to be efficient. The
catastrophe could not but seem as irremediable as it was
sudden and complete." There may be discerned "three distinct
causes for it. First, the undecided and pusillanimous policy
pursued by the Prussian government since 1803 had an evident
influence upon the result by making the great Powers,
particularly England and Austria, slow to render it
assistance, and also by making the commanders, especially
Brunswick, irresolute in action because they could not, even
at the last moment, believe the war to be serious. This
indecision we have observed to have been connected with a
mal-organisation of the Foreign Department. Secondly, the
corruption of the military system, which led to the surrender
of the fortresses. Thirdly, a misfortune for which Prussia was
not responsible, its desertion by Russia at a critical moment,
and the formation of a close alliance between Russia and
France."
_J. R. Seeley,
Life and Times of Stein,
part 2, chapter 5 (volume 1)._
GERMANY: A. D. 1807-1808.
The great Revolutionary Reforms of Hardenberg, Stein and
Scharnhorst.
Edict of Emancipation.
Military reorganization.
Beginning of local self-government.
Seeds of a new national life.
"The work of those who resisted Napoleon--even if no one of
them should ever be placed in the highest class of the
benefactors of mankind--has in some cases proved enduring, and
nowhere so much as in Germany. They began two great works--the
reorganisation of Prussia and the revival of the German
nationality, and time has deliberately ratified their views.
Without retrogression, without mistake, except the mistake
which in such matters is the most venial that can be
committed, that, namely, of over-caution, of excessive
hesitation, the edifice which was then founded has been raised
higher and higher till it is near completion. ... Because
Frederick-William III. remains quietly seated on the throne
through the whole period, we remain totally unaware that a
Prussian revolution took place then--a revolution so
comprehensive that the old reign and glories of Frederick may
fairly be said to belong to another world--to an 'ancien
regime' that has utterly passed away. It was a revolution
which, though it did not touch the actual framework of
government in such a way as to substitute one of Aristotle's
forms of government for another, yet went so far beyond
government, and made such a transformation both in industry
and culture, that it deserves the name of revolution far more,
for instance, than our English Revolution of the 17th century.
... In Prussia few of the most distinguished statesmen, few even
of those who took the lead in her liberation from Napoleon,
were Prussians. Blücher himself began life in the service of
Sweden, Scharnhorst was a Hanoverian, so was Hardenberg, and
Stein came from Nassau. Niebuhr was enticed to Berlin from the
Bank of Copenhagen. Hardenberg served George III. and
afterwards the Duke of Brunswick before he entered the service
of Frederick-William II.; and when Stein was dismissed by
Frederick-William III. in the midst of the war of 1806, though
he was a man of property and rank, he took measures to
ascertain whether they were in want of a Finance Minister at
St. Petersburg. ... We misapprehend the nature of what took
place when we say, as we usually do, that some important and
useful reforms were introduced by Stein, Hardenberg, and
Scharnhorst. In the first place, such a word as reform is not
properly applied to changes so vast, and in the second place.
the changes then made or at least commenced, went far beyond
legislation. We want some word stronger than reform which
shall convey that one of the greatest events of modern history
now took place in Prussia. Revolution would convey this, but
unfortunately we appropriate that word to changes in the form
of government, or even mere changes of dynasty, provided they
are violent, though such changes are commonly quite
insignificant compared to what now took place in Prussia. ...
The form of government indeed was not changed. Not merely did
the king continue to reign, but no Parliament was created even
with powers ever so restricted. Another generation had to pass
away before this innovation, which to us seems the beginning
of political life, took place. But a nation must be made
before it can be made free, and, as we have said, in Prussia
there was an administration (in great disorder) and an army,
but no nation.
{1515}
When Stein was placed at the head of affairs in the autumn of
1807, he seems, at first, hardly to have been aware that
anything was called for beyond the reform of the
administration, and the removal of some abuses in the army.
Accordingly he did reform the administration from the top to
the bottom, remodelling the whole machinery both of central
and local government which had come down from the father of
Frederick the Great. But the other work also was forced upon
him, and he began to create the nation by emancipating the
peasantry, while Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were brooding over
the ideas which, five years later, took shape in the Landwehr
of East Prussia. Besides emancipating the peasant he
emancipated industry,--everywhere abolishing that strange
caste system which divided the population rigidly into nobles,
citizens, and peasants, and even stamped every acre of land in
the country with its own unalterable rank as noble, or
citizen, or peasant land. Emancipation, so to speak, had to be
given before enfranchisement. The peasant must have something
to live for; freewill must be awakened in the citizen; and he
must be taught to fight for something before he could receive
political liberty. Of such liberty Stein only provided one
modest germ. By his Städteordnung he introduced popular
election into the towns. Thus Prussia and France set out
towards political liberty by different roads. Prussia began
modestly with local liberties, but did not for a long time
attempt a Parliament. France with her charte, and in imitation
of France many of the small German States, had grand popular
Parliaments, but no local liberties. And so for a long time
Prussia was regarded as a backward State. ... It was only by
accident that Stein stopped short at municipal liberties and
created no Parliament. He would have gone further, and in the
last years of the wartime Hardenberg did summon deliberative
assemblies, which, however, fell into disuse again after the
peace. ... In spite however of all reaction, the change
irrevocably made by the legislation of that time was similar
to that made in France by the Revolution, and caused the age
before Jena to be regarded as an 'ancien regime.' But in
addition to this, a change had been made in men's minds and
thoughts by the shocks of the time, which prepared the way for
legislative changes which have taken place since. How
unprecedented in Prussia, for instance, was the dictatorial
authority wielded by Hardenberg early in 1807, by Stein in the
latter part of that year and in 1808, and by Hardenberg again
from 1810 onwards! Before that time in the history of Prussia
we find no subject eclipsing or even approaching the King in
importance. Prussia had been made what she was almost entirely
by her electors and kings. In war and organisation alike all
had been done by the Great Elector or Frederick-William I., or
Frederick the Great. But now this is suddenly changed. Everything
now turns on the minister. Weak ministers are expelled by
pressure put upon the king, strong ones are forced upon him.
He is compelled to create a new ministerial power much greater
than that of an English Prime Minister, and more like that of
a Grand Vizier, and by these dictators the most comprehensive
innovations are made. The loyalty of the people was not
impaired by this; on the contrary, Stein and Hardenberg saved
the Monarchy; but it evidently transferred the Monarchy,
though safely, to a lower pedestal."
_J. R. Seeley,
Prussian History (Macmillan's Magazine,
volume 36, pages 342-351)._
ALSO IN:
_J. R. Seeley,
Life and Times of Stein,
parts 3-5 (volumes 1-2)._
_R. B. D. Morier,
Agrarian Legislation of Prussia
(Systems of Land Tenure: Cobden Club Essays,
chapter 5)._
GERMANY: A. D. 1808.
The Awakening of the national spirit.
Effects of the Spanish rising, and of Fichte's Addresses.
The beginnings of the great rising in Spain against Napoleon
(see SPAIN: A. D. 1808, and after) "were watched by Stein from
Berlin while he was engaged in negotiating with Daru; we can
imagine with what feelings! His cause had been, since his
ministry began, substantially the same as that of Spain; but
he had perhaps understood it himself but dimly, at any rate
hoped but faintly to see it prosper. But now he ripens at once
into a great nationality statesman; the reforms of Prussia
begin at once to take a more military stamp, and to point more
decisively to a great uprising of the German race against the
foreign oppressor. The change of feeling which took place in
Prussia after the beginning of the Spanish troubles is very
clearly marked in Stein's autobiography. After describing the
negotiations at Paris and Berlin, ... he begins a new
paragraph thus: 'The popular war which had broken out in Spain
and was attended with good success, had heightened the
irritation of the inhabitants of the Prussian State caused by
the humiliation they had suffered. All thirsted for revenge;
plans of insurrection, which aimed at exterminating the French
scattered about the country, were arranged; among others, one
was to be carried out at Berlin, and I had the greatest
trouble to keep the leaders, who confided their intentions to
me, from a premature outbreak. We all watched the progress of
the Spanish war and the commencement of the Austrian, for the
preparations of that Power had not remained a secret;
expectation was strained to the highest point; pains were
necessary to moderate the excited eagerness for resistance in
order to profit by it in more favourable circumstances. ...
Fichte's Addresses to the Germans, delivered during the French
occupation of Berlin and printed under the censorship of M.
Bignon, the Intendant, had a great effect upon the feelings of
the cultivated class.' ... That in the midst of such weighty
matters he should remember to mention Fichte's Addresses is a
remarkable testimony to the effect produced by them on the
public mind, and at the same time it leads us to conjecture
that they must have strongly influenced his own. They had been
delivered in the winter at Berlin and of course could not be
heard by Stein, who was then with the King, but they were not
published till April. As affecting public opinion therefore,
and also as known to Stein, the book was almost exactly of the
same date as the Spanish Rebellion, and it is not unnatural
that he should mention the two influences together. ... When
the lectures were delivered at Berlin a rising in Spain was
not dreamed of, and even when they were published it had not
taken place, nor could clearly be foreseen. And yet they teach
the same lesson. That doctrine of nationality which was taught
affirmatively by Spain had been suggested to Fichte's mind by
the reductio ad absurdum which events had given to the
negation of it in Germany.
{1516}
Nothing could be more convincing than the concurrence of the
two methods of proof at the same moment, and the prophetic
elevation of these discourses (which may have furnished a
model to Carlyle) was well fitted to drive the lesson home,
particularly to a mind like Stein's, which was quite capable
of being impressed by large principles. ... Fichte's Addresses
do not profess to have in the first instance nationality for
their subject. They profess to inquire whether there exists
any grand comprehensive remedy for the evils with which
Germany is afflicted. They find such a remedy where Turgot
long before had looked for deliverance from the selfishness to
which he traced all the abuses of the old regime, that is, in
a grand system of national education. Fichte reiterates the
favourite doctrine of modern Liberalism, that education as
hitherto conducted by the Church has aimed only at securing
for men happiness in another life, and that this is not
enough, inasmuch as they need also to be taught how to bear
themselves in the present life so as to do their duty to the
state, to others and themselves. He is as sure as Turgot that
a system of national education will work so powerfully upon
the nation that in a few years they will not be recognisable,
and he explains at great length what should be the nature of
this system, dwelling principally upon the importance of
instilling a love of duty for its own sake rather than for
reward. The method to be adopted is that of Pestalozzi. Out of
fourteen lectures the first three are entirely occupied with
this. But then the subject is changed, and we find ourselves
plunged into a long discussion of the peculiar characteristics
which distinguish Germany from other nations and particularly
other nations of German origin. At the present day this
discussion, which occupies four lectures, seems hardly
satisfactory; but it is a striking deviation from the fashion
of that age. ... But up to this point we perceive only that
the subject of German nationality occupies Fichte's mind very
much, and that there was more significance than we first
remarked in the title, Addresses to the German Nation;
otherwise we have met with nothing likely to seem of great
importance to a statesman. But the eighth Lecture propounds
the question, 'What is a Nation in the higher signification of
the word, and what is patriotism? It is here that he delivers
what might seem a commentary on the Spanish Revolution, which
had not yet taken place. ... Fichte proclaims the Nation not
only to be different from the State, but to be something far
higher and greater. ... Applied to Germany this doctrine would
lead to the practical conclusion that a united German State
ought to be set up in which the separate German States should
be absorbed. ... In the lecture before us he contents himself
with advising that patriotism as distinguished from loyalty to
the State should be carefully inculcated in the new education,
and should influence the individual German Governments. It
would not indeed have been safe for Fichte to propose a
political reform, but it rather appears that he thought it an
advantage rather than a disadvantage that the Nation and the
State should be distinct. ... I should not have lingered so
long over this book if it did not strike me as the prophetical
or canonical book which announces and explains a great
transition in Modern Europe, and the prophecies of which began
to be fulfilled immediately after its publication by the
rising in Spain. ... It is this Spanish Revolution which when
it has extended to the other countries we call the
Anti-Napoleonic Revolution of Europe. It gave Europe years of
unparalleled bloodshed, but at the same time years over which
there broods a light of poetry; for no conception can be more
profoundly poetical than that which now woke up in every part
of Europe, the conception of the Nation. Those years also led
the way to the great movements which have filled so much of
the nineteenth century, and have rearranged the whole central
part of the map of Europe on a more natural system."
_J. R. Seeley,
Life and Times of Stein,
part 4, chapter 1 (volume 2)._
GERMANY: A. D. 1808 (January).
Kehl, Cassel and Wesel annexed to France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1807-1808 (NOVEMBER-FEBRUARY).
GERMANY: A. D. 1808 (April-December).
The Tugendbund, and Stein's relations to it.