ERFURT
"At bottom the great question is--who shall have
Constantinople?"--NAPOLEON, May 31st, 1808.
The Spanish Rising made an immense rent in Napoleon's plans. It opened
valuable markets for British goods both in the Peninsula and in South
and Central America, and that too at the very time when the
Continental System was about to enfold us in its deadly grip.[195] And
finally it disarranged schemes that reached far beyond Europe. To
these we must now briefly recur.
Even amidst his greatest military triumphs Napoleon's gaze turned
longingly towards the East; and no sooner did he force peace on the
conquered than his thoughts centred once more on his navy and
colonies, on Egypt and India. The Treaty of Tilsit gave him leisure to
renew these designs. The publication in 1807 of his official Atlas of
Australia, in which he claimed nearly half that continent for France,
proves that he never accepted Trafalgar as a death-blow to his
maritime and colonial aspirations. And the ardour of his desire for
the conquest of India is seen in the letter which he wrote to the Czar
on February 2nd, 1808. After expressing his desire for the glory and
expansion of Russia, and advising the Czar to conquer Finland, he
proceeds:
"An army of 50,000 men, Russians, French, and perhaps a few
Austrians, that penetrated by way of Constantinople into Asia,
would not reach the Euphrates before England would tremble and bow
the knee before the Continent. I am ready in Dalmatia. Your
Majesty is ready on the Danube. A month after we came to an
agreement the army could be on the Bosporus.... By the 1st of May
our troops can be in Asia, and at the same time those of Your
Majesty, at Stockholm. Then the English, threatened in the Indies,
and chased from the Levant, will be crushed under the weight of
events with which the atmosphere will be charged."[196]
There were several reasons why Napoleon should urge on this scheme. He
was irritated by the continued resistance of Great Britain, and
thought to terrify us into surrender by means of those oriental
enterprises which convinced our statesmen that we must fight on for
dear life. He also desired to restore the harmony of his relations
with Alexander. For, in truth, the rapturous harmonies of Tilsit had
soon been marred by discord. Alexander did not withdraw his troops
from the Danubian provinces; whereupon Napoleon declined to evacuate
Silesia; and the friction resulting from this wary balancing of
interests was increased, when, at the close of 1807, a formal proposal
was sent from Paris that, if Russia retained those provinces, Silesia
should be at the disposal of France.[197] The dazzling vistas opened
up to Alexander's gaze at Tilsit were thus shrouded by a sordid and
distasteful bargain, which he hotly repelled. To repair this false
step, Napoleon now wrote the alluring letter quoted above; and the
Czar exclaimed on perusing it: "Ah, this is the language of Tilsit."
Yet, it may be questioned whether Napoleon desired to press on an
immediate partition of the Ottoman Power. His letter invited the Czar
to two great enterprises, the conquest of Finland and the invasion of
Persia and India. The former by itself was destined to tax Russia's
strength. Despite Alexander's offer of a perpetual guarantee for the
Finnish constitution and customs, that interesting people opposed a
stubborn resistance. Napoleon must also have known that Russia's
forces were then wholly unequal to the invasion of India; and his
invitation to Alexander to engage in two serious enterprises certainly
had the effect of postponing the partition of Turkey. Delay was all in
his favour, if he was to gain the lion's share of the spoils. Russian
troops were ready on the banks of the Danube; but he was not as yet
fully prepared. His hold on Dalmatia, Ragusa, and Corfu was not wholly
assured. Sicily and Malta still defied him; and not until he seized
Sicily could he gain the control of the Mediterranean--"the constant
aim of my policy." Only when that great sea had become a French lake
could he hope to plant himself firmly in Albania, Thessaly, Greece,
Crete, Egypt, and Syria.
For the present, then, the Czar was beguiled with the prospect of an
eastern expedition; and, while Russian troops were overrunning
Finland, Napoleon sought to conquer Sicily and reduce Spain to the
rank of a feudatory State. From this wider point of view, he looked on
the Iberian Peninsula merely as a serviceable base for a greater
enterprise, the conquest of the East. This is proved by a letter that
he wrote to Decrès, Minister of Marine and of the Colonies, from
Bayonne on May 17th, 1808, when the Spanish affair seemed settled:
"There is not much news from India. England is in great penury there,
and the arrival of an expedition [from France] would ruin that colony
from top to bottom. The more I reflect on this step, the less
inconvenience I see in taking it." Two days later he wrote to Murat
that money must be found for naval preparations at the Spanish ports:
"I must have ships, for I intend striking a heavy blow towards the end
of the season." But at the close of June he warned Decrès that as
Spanish affairs were going badly, he must postpone his design of
despatching a fleet far from European waters.[198]
Spain having proved to be, not a meek purveyor of fleets, but a
devourer of French armies, there was the more need of a close accord
with the Czar. Napoleon desired, not only to assure a further
postponement of the Turkish enterprise, but also to hold Austria and
Germany in check. The former Power, seeing Napoleon in difficulties,
pushed on apace her military organization; and Germany heaved with
suppressed excitement at the news of the Spanish Rising. The dormant
instinct of German nationality had already shown signs of awakening.
In the early days of 1808 the once cosmopolitan philosopher, Fichte,
delivered at Berlin within sound of the French drums his "Addresses to
the German Nation," in which he dwelt on the unquenchable strength of
a people that determined at all costs to live free.
On the philosopher's theme the Spaniards now furnished a commentary
written with their life-blood. Thinkers and soldiers were alike moved
by the stories of Baylen and Saragossa. Varnhagen von Ense relates how
deep was the excitement of the quaint sage, Jean Paul Richter, who
"doubted not that the Germans would one day rise against the French as
the Spaniards had done, and that Prussia would revenge its insults and
give freedom to Germany.... I proved to him how hollow and weak was
Napoleon's power: how deeply rooted was the opposition to it. The
Spaniards were the refrain to everything, and we always returned to
them."
The beginnings of a new civic life were then being laid in Prussia by
Stein. Called by the King to be virtually a civic dictator, this great
statesman carried out the most drastic reforms. In October, 1807,
there appeared at Memel the decrees of emancipation which declared the
abolition of serfdom with all its compulsory and menial services. The
old feudal society was further invigorated by the admission of all
classes to the holding of land or to any employment, while trade
monopolies were similarly swept away. Municipal self-government gave
new zest and energy to civic life; and the principle that the army
"ought to be the union of all the moral and physical energies of the
nation" was carried out by the military organizer Scharnhorst, who
conceived and partly realized the idea that all able-bodied men should
serve their time with the colours and then be drafted into a reserve.
This military reform excited Napoleon's distrust, and he forced the
King to agree by treaty (September, 1808) that the Prussian army
should never exceed 42,000 men, a measure which did not hinder the
formation of an effective reserve, and was therefore complied with to
the letter, if not in spirit.
In fact, in the previous month a plan of a popular insurrection had
been secretly discussed by Stein, Scharnhorst, and other patriotic
Ministers. The example of the Spaniards was everywhere to be followed,
and, if Austria sent forth her legions on the Danube and England
helped in Hanover, there seemed some prospect of shaking off the
Napoleonic yoke. The scheme miscarried, and largely owing to the
interception of a letter in which Stein imprudently referred to the
exasperation of public feeling in Germany and the lively hope excited
by the events in Spain and the preparations of Austria. Napoleon
caused the letter to be printed in the "Moniteur" of September 8th,
and sequestered Stein's property in Westphalia. He also kept his grip
on Prussia; for while withdrawing most of his troops from that
exhausted land, he retained French garrisons in Stettin, Glogau, and
Küstrin. Holding these fortresses on the strong defensive line of the
Oder, he might smile at the puny efforts of Prussian patriots and hope
speedily to crush the Spanish rebels, provided he could count on the
loyal support of Alexander in holding Austria in check.
To gain this support and to clear away the clouds that bulked on their
oriental horizon, Napoleon urgently desired an interview with his
ally. For some months it had been proposed; but the Spanish Rising and
the armaments of Austria made it essential.
The meeting took place at Erfurt (September 27th). The Thuringian city
was ablaze with uniforms, and the cannon thundered salvoes of welcome
as the two potentates and their suites entered the ancient walls and
filed through narrow streets redolent of old German calm, an abode
more suited to the speculations of a Luther than to the
world-embracing schemes of the Emperors of the West and East. With
them were their chief warriors and Ministers, personages who now threw
into the shade the new German kings. There, too, were the lesser
German princes, some of them to grace the Court of the man who had
showered lands and titles on them, others to hint a wish for more
lands and higher titles. In truth, the title of king was tantalizingly
common; and if we may credit a story of the time, the French soldiery
had learnt to despise it. For, on one occasion, when the guard of
honour, deceived by the splendour of the King of Würtemberg's chariot,
was about to deliver the triple salute accorded only to the two
Emperors, the officer in command angrily exclaimed: "Be quiet: it's
only a king."
The Emperors at Erfurt devoted the mornings to personal interviews,
the afternoons to politics, the evenings to receptions and the
theatre. The actors of the Comédie Française had been brought from
Paris, and played to the Emperors and a parterre of princes the
masterpieces of the French stage, especially those which contained
suitable allusions. A notable incident occurred on the recital of the
line in the "Oedipe" of Voltaire:
"L'amitié d'un grand homme est un bienfait des dieux."
As if moved by a sudden inspiration, Alexander arose and warmly
pressed the hand of Napoleon, who was then half-dozing at his
side.[199] On the surface, indeed, everything was friendship and
harmony. With urbane facility, the Czar accompanied his ally to the
battlefield of Jena, listened to the animated description of the
victor, and then joined in the chase in a forest hard by.
But beneath these brilliant shows there lurked suspicions and fears.
Alexander was annoyed that Napoleon retained French garrisons in the
fortresses on the Oder and claimed an impossible sum as indemnity from
Prussia. This was not the restoration of Prussia's independence, for
which he, Alexander, had pleaded; and while the French eagles were at
Küstrin, the Russian frontier could not be deemed wholly safe.[200]
Then again the Czar had been secretly warned by Talleyrand against
complaisance to the French Emperor. "Sire, what are you coming here
for? It is for you to save Europe, and you will only succeed in that
by resisting Napoleon. The French are civilized, their sovereign is
not. The sovereign of Russia is civilized, her people are not.
Therefore the sovereign of Russia must be the ally of the French
people."[201] We may doubt whether this symmetrical proposition would
have had much effect, if Alexander had not received similar warnings
from his own ambassador at Paris; and it would seem that too much
importance has been assigned to what is termed Talleyrand's
_treachery_ at Erfurt.[202] Affairs of high policy are determined, not
so much by the logic of words as by the sterner logic of facts. Ever
since Tilsit, Napoleon had been prodigal of promises to his ally, but
of little else. The alluring visions set forth in his letter of
February 2nd were as visionary as ever; and Romantzoff expressed the
wish of his countrymen in his remark to Champagny: "We have come to
Erfurt to set a limit to this conduct." It was evident that if
Napoleon had his way completely, the partition of Turkey would take
place at the time and in the manner desired by him; this the Czar was
determined to prevent, and therefore turned a deaf ear to his ally's
proposal that they should summon Austria to explain her present
ambiguous behaviour and frankly to recognize Joseph Bonaparte as King
of Spain. If Austria put a stop to her present armaments, the
supremacy of Napoleon in Central Europe would be alarmingly great.
Clearly it was not to Russia's interest to weaken the only
buffer-state that remained between her and the Empire of the West.
These fears were quietly fed by a special envoy of the Court of
Vienna, Baron Vincent, who brought complimentary notes to the two
Emperors and remained to feel the pulse of European policy. It boded
peace for Austria for the present. Despite Napoleon's eager arguments
that England would never make peace until Austria accepted the present
situation in Spain, Alexander quietly but firmly refused to take any
steps to depress the Hapsburg Power. The discussions waxed warm; for
Napoleon saw that, unless the Court of Vienna were coerced, England
would persist in aiding the Spanish patriots; and Alexander showed an
unexpected obstinacy. Napoleon's plea, that peace could only be
assured by the entire discouragement of England, Austria, and the
Spanish "rebels," had no effect on him: in fact, he began to question
the sincerity of a peacemaker whose methods were war and intimidation.
Finding arguments useless, Napoleon had recourse to anger. At the end
of a lively discussion, he threw his cap on the ground and stamped on
it. Alexander stopped, looked at him with a meaning smile, and said
quietly: "You are violent: as for me, I am obstinate: anger gains
nothing from me: let us talk, let us reason, or I go." He moved
towards the door, whereupon Napoleon called him back--and they
reasoned.
It was of no avail. Though Alexander left his ally a free hand in
Spain, he refused to join him in a diplomatic menace to Austria; and
Napoleon saw that "those devilish Spanish affairs" were at the root of
this important failure, which was to cost him the war on the Danube in
the following year.
As a set-off to this check, he disappointed Alexander respecting
Prussia and Turkey. He refused to withdraw his troops from the
fortresses on the Oder, and grudgingly consented to lower his
pecuniary claims on Prussia from 140,000,000 francs to 120,000,000.
Towards the Czar's Turkish schemes he showed little more complaisance.
After sharp discussions it was finally settled that Russia should gain
the Danubian provinces, but not until the following year. France
renounced all mediation between Alexander and the Porte, but required
him to maintain the integrity of all the other Turkish possessions,
which meant that the partition of Turkey was to be postponed until it
suited Napoleon to take up his oriental schemes in earnest. The golden
visions of Tilsit were thus once more relegated to a distant future,
and the keenness of the Czar's disappointment may be measured by his
striking statement quoted by Caulaincourt in one of his earlier
reports from St. Petersburg: "Let the world be turned upside down
provided that Russia gains Constantinople and the Dardanelles."[203]
The Erfurt interview left another hidden sore. It was there that the
divorce from Josephine was officially discussed, with a view to a more
ambitious alliance. Persistent as the rumours of a divorce had been
for seven years past, they seem to have emanated, not from the
husband, but from jealous sisters-in-law, intriguing relatives, and
officious Ministers. To the most meddlesome of these satellites,
Fouché, who had ventured to suggest to Josephine the propriety of
sacrificing herself for the good of the State, Napoleon had lately
administered a severe rebuke. But now he caused Talleyrand and
Caulaincourt to sound the Czar as to the feasibility of an alliance
with one of his sisters. The response was equally vague and discreet.
Alexander expressed his gratification at the friendship which
proffered such a request and his desire for the founding of a
Napoleonic House. Further than this he did not go: and eight days
after his return to St. Petersburg his only marriageable sister,
Catherine, was affianced to the heir to the Duchy of Oldenburg. This
event, it is true, was decided by the Dowager Empress; but no one,
least of all Napoleon, could harbour any doubts as to its
significance.
In truth, Napoleon's chief triumphs at Erfurt were social and
literary. His efforts to dazzle German princes and denationalize two
of her leading thinkers were partly successful. Goethe and Wieland
bowed before his greatness. To the former Napoleon granted a lengthy
interview. He flattered the aged poet at the outset by the words, "You
are a man": he then talked about several works in a way that Goethe
thought very just; and he criticised one passage of the poet's
youthful work, "Werther," as untrue to nature, with which Goethe
agreed. On Voltaire's "Mahomet" he heaped censure, for its unworthy
portraiture of the conqueror of the East and its ineffective fatalism.
"These pieces belong to an obscure age. Besides, what do they mean
with their fatalism? Politics is fatalism." The significance of this
saying was soon to be emphasized, so that misapprehension was
impossible. After witnessing Voltaire's "La Mort de César," Napoleon
suggested that the poet ought to write a tragedy in a grander style
than Voltaire's, so as to show how the world would have benefited if
the great Roman had had time to carry out his vast plans.
Finally, Goethe was invited to come to Paris, where he would find
abundant materials for his poetic creations. Fortunately, Goethe was
able to plead his age in excuse; and the world was therefore spared
the sight of a great genius saddled with an imperial commission and
writing a Napoleonized version of Cæsar's exploits and policy. But the
pressing character of the invitation reveals the Emperor's
dissatisfaction with his French poetasters and his intention to
denationalize German literature. He had a dim perception that Teutonic
idealism was a dangerous foe, inasmuch as it kept alive the sense of
nationality which he was determined to obliterate. He was right. The
last and most patriotic of Schiller's works, "Wilhelm Tell," the
impassioned discourses of Fichte, the efforts of the new patriotic
league, the Tugendbund, and last, but not least, the memory of the
murdered Palm, all these were influences that baffled bayonets and
diplomacy. Conquer and bargain as he might, he could not grapple with
the impalpable forces of the era that was now dawning. The younger
generation throbbed responsive to the teachings of Fichte, the appeals
of Stein, and the exploits of the Spaniards; it was blind to the
splendours of Erfurt: and it heard with grief, but with no change of
conviction, that Goethe and Wieland had accepted from Napoleon the
cross of the Legion of Honour, and that too on the anniversary of the
Battle of Jena.
After thus finally belittling the two poets, he shot a parting shaft
at German idealism in his farewell to the academicians. He bade them
beware of idealogues as dangerous dreamers and disguised materialists.
Then, raising his voice, he exclaimed: "Philosophers plague themselves
with weaving systems: they will never find a better one than
Christianity, which, reconciling man with himself, also assures public
order and repose. Your idealogues destroy every illusion; and the time
of illusions is for peoples and individuals alike the time of
happiness. I carry one away, that you will think kindly of me." He
then mounted his carriage and drove away to Paris to resume his
conquest of Spain.[204]
The last diplomatic proceeding at Erfurt was the drawing up of a
secret convention which assigned Finland and the Danubian Provinces to
Russia, and promised Russia's help to Napoleon in case Austria should
attack him. The Czar also recognized Joseph Bonaparte as King of Spain
and joined Napoleon in a joint note to George III. summoning him to
make peace. On the same day (October 12th) that note was drawn up and
despatched to London. In reply, Canning stated our willingness to
treat for peace, provided that it should include all parties: that,
although bound by no formal treaty to Ferdinand VII. and the Spanish
people, yet we felt ourselves none the less pledged to them, and
presumed that they, as well as our other allies, would be admitted to
the negotiations. Long before this reply reached Paris, Napoleon had
left for Spain. But on November 19th, he charged Champagny to state
that the Spanish rebels could no more be admitted than the Irish
insurgents: as for the other parties to the dispute he would not
refuse to admit "either the King reigning in Sweden, or the King
reigning in Sicily, or the King reigning in Brazil." This insulting
reply sufficiently shows the insincerity of his overtures and the
peculiarity of his views of monarchy. The Spaniards were rebels
because they refused to recognize the forced abdication of their young
King; and the rulers of Sweden, Naples and Portugal, were Kings as
long as it suited Napoleon to tolerate them, and no longer. It is
needless to add that our Government refused to desert the Spaniards;
and in his reply to St. Petersburg, Canning expressed George III.'s
deep regret that Alexander should sanction
"An usurpation unparalleled in the history of the world.... If
these be the principles to which the Emperor of Russia has
inviolably attached himself ... deeply does His Majesty [George
III.] lament a determination by which the sufferings of Europe
must be aggravated and prolonged. But not to His Majesty is to be
attributed the continuance of the calamities of war, by the
disappointment of all hope of such a peace as would be compatible
with justice and honour."[205]
No open-minded person can peruse the correspondence on this subject
without concluding that British policy, if lacking the breadth, grip
and _finesse_ that marked that of France and Russia, yet possessed the
sterling merits of manly truthfulness and staunch fidelity. The words
quoted above were the words of Canning, but the spirit that animated
them was that of George III. His storm-tossed life was now verging
towards the dread bourne of insanity; but it was given to him to make
this stern yet half-pleading appeal to the Czar's better nature. And
who shall say that the example of constancy which the aged King
displayed amidst the gathering gloom of his public and private life
did not ultimately bear fruit in the later and grander phase of
Alexander's character and career?
Meanwhile Napoleon was bursting through the Spanish defence. The
patriots, puffed up with their first successes, had been indulging in
dreams of an invasion of France; and their provincial juntas
quarrelled over the sharing of the future spoils as over the
apportionment of English arms and money. Their awakening was terrible.
With less than 90,000 raw troops they were attacked by 250,000 men led
by the greatest warrior of the age. Everywhere they were routed, and
at a last fight at the pass over the Somosierra mountain, the
superiority of the French was strikingly shown. While the Spaniards
were pouring down grapeshot on the struggling masses of the
assailants, the Emperor resolved to hurl his light Polish horse uphill
at the death-dealing guns. Dashingly was the order obeyed. Some forty
or fifty riders bit the dust, but the rest swept on, sabred the
gunners, and decided the day. The Spaniards, amazed at these
unheard-of tactics, took to their heels, and nothing now stayed
Napoleon's entry into Madrid (December 4th). There he strove to
popularize Joseph's rule by offering several desirable reforms, such
as the abolition of feudal laws and of the Inquisition. It was of no
avail. The Spaniards would have none of them at his hands.
After a brief stay in Madrid, he turned to crush Sir John Moore. That
brave soldier, relying on the empty promises of the patriots, had
ventured into the heart of Leon with a British force of 26,000 men. If
he could not save Madrid, he could at least postpone a French conquest
of the south. In this he succeeded; his chivalrous daring drew on him
the chief strength of the invaders; and when hopelessly outnumbered he
beat a lion-like retreat to Corunna. There he turned and dealt the
French a blow that closed his own career with glory and gained time
for his men to embark in safety.
While the red-coats saw the snowy heights of Galicia fade into the
sky, Napoleon was spurring back to the Pyrenees. He had received news
that portended war with Austria; and, cherishing the strange belief
that Spain was conquered, he rushed back to Paris to confront the
Hapsburg Power. But Spain was not conquered. Scattered her armies were
in the open, and even brave Saragossa fell in glorious ruins under
Lannes' persistent attacks. But the patriots fiercely rallied in the
mountains, and Napoleon was to find out the truth of the Roman
historian's saying: "In no land does the character of the people and
the nature of the country help to repair disasters more readily than
in Spain."
There was another reason for Napoleon's sudden return. Rumours had
reached him as to the _rapprochement_ of those usually envious rivals,
Talleyrand and Fouché, who now walked arm in arm, held secret
conclaves, and seemed to have some understanding with Murat. Were they
plotting to bring this ambitious man and his still more ambitious and
vindictive consort from the despised throne at Naples to seize on
power at Paris while the Emperor was engulfed in the Spanish quagmire?
A story ran that Fouché had relays of horses ready between Naples and
Paris for this enterprise.[206] But where Fouché and Talleyrand are
concerned, truth lurks at the bottom of an unfathomable well.
All that we know for certain is that Napoleon flew back to Paris in a
towering rage, and that, after sharply rebuking Fouché, he subjected
the Prince of Benevento to a violent tirade: just as he (Talleyrand)
had first advised the death of the Duc d'Enghien and then turned that
event to his sovereign's discredit, so now, after counselling the
overthrow of the Spanish dynasty, he was making the same underhand use
of the miscarriage of that enterprise. The Grand Chamberlain stood as
if unmoved until the storm swept by, and then coldly remarked to the
astonished circle: "What a pity that so great a man has been so badly
brought up." Nevertheless, the insult rankled deep in his being, there
to be nursed for five years, and then in the fullness of time to dart
forth with a snake-like revenge. In 1814 and 1815 men saw that not the
least serious result of Napoleon's Spanish policy was the envenoming
of his relations with the two cleverest of living Frenchmen.
NOTE TO THE THIRD EDITION.--In the foregoing narrative, describing the
battle of the Somosierra, I followed the usually accepted account,
which assigns the victory solely to the credit of the Polish horsemen.
But Mr. Oman has shown ("History of the Peninsular War," vol. i., pp.
459-461) that their first charge failed, and that only when a brigade
of French infantry skirmished right up to the crest, did a second
effort of the Poles, supported by cavalry of the Guard, secure the
pass. Napier's description (vol. i., p. 267), based on the French
bulletin, is incorrect.
* * * * *