PRUSSIA AND THE NEW CHARLEMAGNE
An eminent German historian, who has striven to say some kind words
about Frederick William's Government before the collapse at Jena,
prefaces his apology by the axiom that from a Prussian monarch one
ought to expect, not French, English, or Russian policy, but only
Prussian policy. The claim may well be challenged. Doubtless, there
are some States concerning which it would be true. Countries such as
Great Britain and Spain, whose areas are clearly defined by nature,
may with advantage be self-contained until their peoples overflow into
new lands: before they become world Powers, they may gain in strength
by being narrowly national. But there are other States whose fortunes
are widely different. They represent some principle of life or energy,
in the midst of mere political wreckage. If the binding power, which
built up an older organism, should decline, as happened to the Holy
Roman Empire after the religious wars, fragments will fall away and
join bodies to which they are now more akin.
Of the States that throve among the crumbling masses of the old Empire
the chief was Brandenburg-Prussia. She had a twofold energy which the
older organism lacked: she was Protestant and she was national; she
championed the new creed cherished by the North Germans, and she felt,
though dimly as yet, the strength that came from an almost single kin.
Until she seized on part of the spoils of Poland, her Slavonic
subjects were for the most part germanized Slavs; and even after
acquiring Posen and Warsaw at the close of the eighteenth century, she
could still claim to be the chief Germanic State. A generation
earlier, Frederick the Great had seen this to be the source of her
strength. His policy was not merely Prussian: in effect, if not in
aim, it was German. His victory at Rossbach over a great polyglot
force of French and Imperialists first awakened German nationality to
a thrill of conscious life; and the last success of his career was the
championship of the lesser German princes against the encroachments of
the Hapsburgs. In fact, it seems now a mere commonplace to assert that
Prussia has prospered most when, as under Frederick the Great and
William the Great, her policy has been truly German, and that she has
fallen back most in the years 1795-1806 and 1848-1852, when the
subservience of her Frederick Williams to France and Austria has lost
them the respect and support of the rest of the Fatherland. A State
that would attract other fragments of the same nation must be
attractive, and it must be broadly national if it is to attract. If
Stein and Bismarck had been merely Prussians, if Cavour's policy had
been narrowly Sardinian, would their States ever have served as the
rallying centres for the Germany and Italy of to-day?
The difficulties which beset Frederick William III. in 1805 were not
entirely of his own making. His predecessor of the same ill-omened
name, when nearing the close of his inglorious reign, made the Peace
of Basel (1795), which began to place the policy of Berlin at the beck
and call of the French revolutionists. But the present ruler had
assured Prussia's subservience to France at the time of the
Secularizations, when he gained Erfurt, Eichsfeld, Hildesheim,
Paderborn, and a great part of the straggling bishopric of Münster.
Even at that time of shameless rapacity, there were those who saw that
the gain of half a million of subjects to Prussia was a poor return
for the loss of self-respect that befell all who shared in the
sacrilegious plunder bartered away by Bonaparte and Talleyrand.
Frederick William III. was even suspected of a leaning towards French
methods of Government; and a Prussian statesman said to the French
ambassador:
"You have only the nobles against you: the King and the people are
openly for France. The revolution which you have made from below
upwards will be slowly effected in Prussia from above downwards:
the King is a democrat after his fashion: he is always striving to
curtail the privileges of the nobles, but by slow means. In a few
years feudal rights will cease to exist in Prussia."[54]
Could the King have carried out these much-needed reforms, he might
perhaps have opposed a solid society to the renewed might of France.
But he failed to set his house in order before the storm burst; and in
1803 he so far gave up his championship of North German affairs as to
allow the French to occupy Hanover, a land that he and his Ministers
had long coveted.
We saw in the last chapter that Hanover was the bait whereby Napoleon
hooked the Prussian envoy, Haugwitz, at Schönbrunn; and that the very
man who had been sent to impose Prussia's will upon the French Emperor
returned to Berlin bringing peace and dishonour. The surprise and
annoyance of Frederick William may be imagined. On all sides
difficulties were thickening around him. Shortly before the return of
Haugwitz to Berlin, the Russian troops campaigning in Hanover had been
placed under the protection of Prussia; and the King himself had
offered to our Minister, Lord Harrowby, to protect Cathcart's
Anglo-Hanoverian corps which, _with the aid of Prussian troops_, was
restoring the authority of George III. in that Electorate.
Moreover, Frederick William could not complain of any shabby treatment
from our Government. Knowing that he was set on the acquisition of
Hanover and could only be drawn into the Coalition by an equally
attractive offer, the Pitt Ministry had proposed through Lord Harrowby
the cession to Prussia at the general peace of the lands south-west of
the Duchy of Cleves, "bounded by a frontier line drawn from Antwerp to
Luxemburg," and connected with the rest of her territories.[55] This
plan, which would have planted Prussia firmly at Antwerp, Liège,
Luxemburg, and Cologne, also aimed at installing the Elector of
Salzburg in the rest of the new Rhenish acquisitions of France; while
the equipoise of the Powers was to be adjusted by the cession of
Salzburg, the Papal Legations, and the line of the Mincio to Austria,
she in her turn giving up part of her Dalmatian lands to Russia.
Prussia was to be the protectress of North Germany and regard any
incursion of the French, "north of the Maine or at least of the Lahn,"
as an act of war. Great Britain, after subsidizing Prussia for 100,000
troops on the usual scale, pledged herself to restore all her
conquests made, or to be made, during the war, with the exception of
the Cape of Good Hope: but no questions were to be raised about that
desirable colony, or Malta, or the British maritime code.[56]
At the close of 1805, then, Frederick William was face to face with
the offers of England and those brought by Haugwitz from Napoleon.
That is, he had to choose between the half of Belgium and the
Rhineland as offered by England, or Hanover as a gift from Napoleon.
The former gain was the richer, but apparently the more risky, for it
entailed the hatred of France: the latter seemed to secure the
friendship of the conqueror, though at the expense of the claims of
honour and a naval war with England. His confidential advisers,
Lombard, Beyme, and Haugwitz, were determined to gain the Electorate,
preferably at Napoleon's hands; while his Foreign Minister,
Hardenberg, a Hanoverian by birth, desired to assure the union of his
native land with Prussia by more honourable means, and probably by
means of an exchange with George III., which will be noticed
presently. In his opposition to French influence, Hardenberg had the
support of the more patriotic Prussians, who sought to safeguard
Prussia's honour, and to avert war with England. The difficulty in
accepting the Electorate at the point of Napoleon's sword was not
merely on the score of morality: it was due to the presence of a large
force of English, Hanoverians, and Russians on the banks of the Weser,
and to the protection which the Prussian Government had offered to
those troops against any French attack, always provided that they did
not move against Holland and retired behind the Prussian
battalions.[57] The indignation of British officers at this last order
is expressed by Christian Ompteda, of the King's German Legion, in a
letter to his brother at Berlin: "My dear fellow, if this sort of
thing goes on, the Continent will soon be irrecoverably lost. The
Russian and English armies will not long creep for refuge under the
contemptible Prussian cloak. We are here, 40,000 of the best and
bravest troops. A swift move on Holland only would have opened the
road to certain success.... And this is Lombard's and Haugwitz's
work!"[58]
What meanwhile were George III.'s Ministers doing? At this crisis
English policy suffered a terrible blow. Death struck down the
"stately column" that held up the swaying fortunes of our race.
William Pitt, long failing in health, was sore-stricken by the news of
Austerlitz and the defection of Austria. But the popular version as to
the cause of his death--that _Austerlitz killed Pitt_--is more
melodramatic than correct. Among the many causes that broke that
unbending spirit, the news of the miserable result of the Hanoverian
Expedition was the last and severest. The files of our Foreign Office
papers yield touching proof of the hopes which the Cabinet cherished,
even after Vienna was in Napoleon's hands. Harrowby was urged to do
everything in his power--short of conceding Hanover--to bring Prussia
into the field, in which case "nearly 300,000 men will be available in
North Germany at the beginning of the next campaign, which will
include 70,000 British and Hanoverian troops employed there or in
maritime enterprises."[59] To this hope Pitt clung, even after hearing
the news of Austerlitz, and it was doubtless this which enabled him to
bear that last journey from Bath to Putney Heath, with less fatigue
and far more quickly than had been expected. He arrived home on
Saturday night, January 11th. On the following Wednesday his friend,
George Rose, called on him and found that a serious change for the
worse had set in.
"On the Sunday he was better, and continued improving till Monday
in the afternoon, when Lord Castlereagh insisted on seeing him,
and, having obtained access to him, entered (Lord Hawkesbury being
also present) on points of public business of the most serious
importance (principally respecting the bringing home the British
troops from the Continent), which affected him visibly that
evening and the next day, and this morning the effect was more
plainly observed: ... his countenance is extremely changed, his
voice weak, and his body almost wasted."
It is clear also from the medical evidence which the diarist gives
that the news from Hanover was the cause of this sudden change. On the
previous Sunday, that is, just after the fatigue of the three days'
journey, the physicians "thought there was a reasonable prospect of
Mr. Pitt's recovery, that the probability was in favour of it, and
that, if his complaint should not take an unfavourable turn, he might
be able to attend to business in about a month."[60] That unfavourable
turn took place when the heroic spirit lost all hope under the
distressing news from Berlin and Hanover. Austerlitz, it is true, had
depressed him. Yet that, after all, did not concern British honour and
the dearest interests of his master.
But, that Frederick William, from whom he had hoped so much, to whom
he was on the point of advancing a great subsidy, should now fall
away, should talk of peace with Napoleon and claim Hanover, should
forbid an invasion of Holland and request the British forces to
evacuate North Germany--this was a blow to George III., to our
military prestige, and to the now tottering Ministry. How could he
face the Opposition, already wellnigh triumphant in the sad Melville
business, with a King's Speech in which this was the chief news?
Losing hope, he lost all hold on life: he sank rapidly: in the last
hours his thoughts wandered away to Berlin and Lord Harrowby. "What is
the wind?" he asked. "East; that will do; that will bring him fast,"
he murmured. And, on January 23rd, about half an hour before he
breathed his last, the servant heard him say: "My country: oh my
country."[61]
Thus sank to rest, amidst a horror of great darkness, the statesman
whose noon had been calm and glorious. Only a superficial reading of
his career can represent him as eager for war and a foe to popular
progress. His best friends knew full well his pride in the great
financial achievements of 1784-6, his resolute clinging to peace in
1792, and his longing for a pacification in 1796, 1797, and 1800,
provided it could be gained without detriment to our allies and to the
vital interests of Britain. His defence lies buried amidst the
documents of our Record Office, and has not yet fully seen the light.
For he was a reserved man, the warmth of whose nature blossomed forth
only to a few friends, or on such occasions as his inspired speech on
the emancipation of slaves. To outsiders he had more than the usual
fund of English coldness: he wrote no memoirs, he left few letters, he
had scant means of influencing public opinion; and he viewed with
lofty disdain the French clamour that it was he who made and kept up
the war. "I know it," he said; "the Jacobins cry louder than we can,
and make themselves heard."[62] He was, in fact, a typical champion of
our rather dumb and stolid race, that plods along to the end of the
appointed stage, scarcely heeding the cloud of stinging flies. Both
the people and its champion were ill fitted to cope with Napoleon.
None of our statesmen had the Latin tact and the histrionic gifts
needful to fathom his guile, to arouse the public opinion of Europe
against him, or to expose his double-dealing.
But Pitt was unfortunate above all of them. It was his fate to begin
his career in an age of mediocrities and to finish it in an almost
single combat with the giant. He was no match for Napoleon. The
Coalition, which the Czar and he did so much to form, was a house of
cards that fell at the conqueror's first touch; and the Prussian
alliance now proved to be a broken reed. His notions of strategy were
puerile. The French Emperor was not to be beaten by small forces
tapping at his outworks; and Austria might reasonably complain that
our neglect to attack the rear of the Grand Army in Flanders exposed
her to the full force of its onset on the Danube. But though his
genius pales before the fiery comet of Napoleon, it shines with a
clear and steady radiance when viewed beside that of the Continental
statesmen of his age. They flickered for a brief space and set. His
was the rare virtue of dauntless courage and unswerving constancy. By
the side of their wavering groups he stands forth like an Abdiel:
"Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified,
His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal:
Nor number nor example with him wrought
To swerve from truth or change his constant mind,
Though single."
While English statesmanship was essaying the task of forming a
Coalition Ministry under Fox and Grenville, Napoleon with untiring
activity was consolidating his position in Germany, Italy, and France.
In Germany he allied his family by marriage with the now royal Houses
of Bavaria and Würtemberg. He chased the Bourbons of Naples from their
Continental domains. In France he found means to mitigate a severe
financial crisis, and to strengthen his throne by a new order of
hereditary nobility. In a word, he became the new Charlemagne.
The exaltation of the South German dynasties had long been a favourite
project with Napoleon, who saw in the hatred of the House of Bavaria
for Austria a sure basis for spreading French influence into the heart
of Germany. Not long after the battle of Austerlitz, the Elector of
Bavaria, while out shooting, received from a French courier a letter
directed to "Sa Majesté _le Roi_ de Bavière et de Suabe."[63] This
letter was despatched six days after a formal request was sent through
Duroc, that the Elector would give his daughter Augusta in marriage to
Eugène Beauharnais. The affair had been mooted in October: it was
clinched by the victory of Austerlitz; and after Napoleon's arrival at
Munich on the last day of the year, the final details were arranged.
The bridegroom was informed of it in the following laconic style: "I
have arrived at Munich. I have arranged your marriage with the
Princess Augusta. It has been announced. This morning the princess
visited me, and I spoke with her for a long time. She is very pretty.
You will find herewith her portrait on a cup; but she is much better
looking." The wedding took place at Munich as soon as the bridegroom
could cross the Alps; and Napoleon delayed his departure for France in
order to witness the ceremony which linked him with an old reigning
family. At the same time he arranged a match between Jerome Bonaparte
and Princess Catherine of Würtemberg. This was less expeditious,
partly because, in the case of a Bonaparte, Napoleon judged it needful
to sound the measure of his obedience. But Jerome had been broken in:
he had thrown over Miss Paterson, and, after a delay of a year and a
half, obeyed his brother's behests, and strengthened the ties
connecting Swabia with France. A third alliance was cemented by the
marriage of the heir to the Grand Duchy of Baden with Stéphanie de
Beauharnais, niece of Josephine.
In the early part of 1806 Napoleon might flatter himself with his
brilliant success as a match-maker. Yet, after all, he was less
concerned with the affairs of Hymen than with those of Mars and
Mercury. He longed to be at Paris for the settlement of finances; and
he burned to hear of the expulsion of the Bourbons from Naples. For
this last he had already sent forth his imperious mandates from
Vienna; and, after a brief sojourn at the Swabian capitals, he set out
for Paris, where he arrived incognito at midnight of January 26th.
During his absence of one hundred and twenty-five days he had captured
or destroyed two armies, stricken a mighty coalition to the heart,
shattered the Hapsburg Power, and revolutionized the Germanic system
by establishing two Napoleonic kingdoms in its midst.
Yet, as if nothing had been done, and all his hopes and thoughts lay
in the future, he summoned his financial advisers to a council for
eight o'clock in the morning. Scarcely did he deign to notice their
congratulations on his triumphs. "We have," he said, "to deal with
more serious questions: it seems that the greatest dangers of the
State were not in Austria: let us hear the report of the Minister of
the Treasury." It then appeared that Barbé-Marbois had been concerned
in risky financial concerns with the Court of Spain, through a man
named Ouvrard. The Minister therefore was promptly dismissed, and
Mollien then and there received his post. The new Minister states in
his memoirs that the money, which had sufficed to carry the French
armies from the English Channel to the Rhine, had been raised on
extravagant terms, largely on loans on the national domains. In fact,
it had been an open question whether victory would come promptly
enough to avert a wholesale crash at Paris.
So bad were the finances that, though 40,000,000 francs were poured
every year into France as subsidies from Italy and Spain, yet loans of
120,000,000 francs had been incurred in order to meet current
expenses.[64] It would exceed the limits of our space to describe by
what forceful means Napoleon restored the financial equilibrium and
assuaged the commercial crisis resulting from the war with England.
Mollien soon had reason to know that, so far from avoiding Continental
wars, the Emperor thenceforth seemed almost to provoke them, and that
the motto--_War must support war_--fell far short of the truth.
Napoleon's wars, always excepting his war with England, supported the
burdens of an armed peace. In this respect his easy and gainful
triumph over Austria was a disaster for France and Europe. It beckoned
him on to Jena and Tilsit.
While reducing his finances to order and newspaper editors to
servility, the conqueror received news of the triumph of his arms in
Southern Italy. There the Bourbons of Naples had mortally offended
him. After concluding a convention for the peaceable withdrawal of St.
Cyr's corps and the strict observance of neutrality by the kingdom of
Naples, Ferdinand IV. and his Queen Caroline welcomed the arrival at
their capital of an Anglo-Russian force of 20,000 men, and intrusted
the command of these and of the Neapolitan troops to General Lacy.[65]
This force, it is true, did little except weaken the northward march
of Masséna; but the violation of neutrality by the Bourbons galled
Napoleon. At Vienna he refused to listen to the timid pleading of the
Hapsburgs on their behalf, and as soon as peace was signed at
Pressburg he put forth a bulletin stating that St. Cyr was marching on
Naples to hurl from the throne that guilty woman who had so flagrantly
violated all that is sacred among men. France would fight for thirty
years rather than pardon her atrocious act of perfidy: the Queen of
Naples had ceased to reign: let her go to London and form a committee
of sympathetic ink with Drake, Spencer-Smith, Taylor, and Wickham.
This diatribe was not the first occasion on which the conqueror had
proved that he was no gentleman. In his brutal letter of January 2nd,
1805, to Queen Caroline, he told her that, if she was the cause of
another war, she and her children would beg their bread all through
Europe. That and similar outbursts afford some excuse for the conduct
of the Bourbons in the autumn of 1805. They infringed the neutrality
which their ambassador had engaged to observe: but it is to be
remembered that Napoleon's invasion of the Neapolitan States in 1803
was a gross violation of international law, which the French Foreign
Office sought to cloak by fabricating two secret articles of the
Treaty of Amiens.[66] And though troth should doubtless be kept, even
with a law-breaker, yet its violation becomes venial when the latter
adopts the tone of a bully. For the present he triumphed. Joseph
Bonaparte invaded Naples in force, and on January 13th the King,
Queen, and Court set sail for Palermo. The Anglo-Russian divisions
re-embarked and sailed away for Malta and Corfu. One of the Neapolitan
strongholds, Gaëta, held out till the middle of July. Elsewhere the
Bourbon troops gave little trouble.
The conquest of Naples enabled Napoleon to extend his experiment of a
federation of Bonapartist Kings. He announced to Miot de Melito, now
appointed one of Joseph's administrators, his intentions in an
interview at the Tuileries on January 28th. Joseph was to be King of
Naples, if he accepted the honour quickly. If not, the Emperor would
adopt a son, as in the case of Eugène, and make him King.--"I don't
need a wife to have an heir. It is by my pen that I get
children."--But Joseph must also show himself worthy of the honour.
Let him despise fatigue, get wounded, break a leg.
"Look at me. The recent campaign, agitation, and movement have
made me fat. I believe that if all the kings coalesced against me,
I should get a quite ridiculous stomach.... You have heard my
words. I can no longer have relatives in obscurity. Those who will
not rise with me, shall no longer be of my family. I am making a
family of kings attached to my federative system."[67]
The threat having had its effect, Joseph was proclaimed King of Naples
by a decree of Napoleon. "Keep a firm hand: I only ask one thing of
you: be entirely the master there."[68] Such was the advice given to
his amiable brother, who after enjoying a military promenade
southwards was charged to undertake the conquest of Sicily. It
mattered little that the overthrow of the Neapolitan Bourbons offended
the Czar, who had undertaken the protection of that House.
As though intent on browbeating Alexander by an exhibition of his
power, Napoleon lavished Italian titles on his Marshals and statesmen.
Talleyrand became Prince of Benevento; and Bernadotte, Prince of
Ponte-Corvo (two Papal enclaves in Neapolitan soil). To these and
other titles were attached large domains (not divisible at death),
which enabled his paladins and their successors to support their new
dignities with pomp and splendour; especially was this so with the two
titles which his bargains with Prussia and Bavaria enabled him to
bestow. Thanks to the complaisance of their Kings, the Grand Duchy of
Berg and Cleves was granted to Murat, while the energetic and trusty
Berthier was rewarded with the Principality of Neufchâtel and a truly
princely fortune.[69]
Thus was founded the Napoleonic nobility; and thus was fulfilled Mme.
de Staël's prophecy that the priests and nobles would be the
_caryatides_ of the future throne. The change was brought about
skilfully. It took place when pride in Napoleon's exploits was at its
height, and when the "Gazette de France" asserted:
"France is henceforth the arbitress of Europe.... Civilization
would have perished in Europe, if forth from the ruins there had
not arisen one of these men before whom the world keeps silence,
and to whom Providence seems to intrust its destinies."[70]
This adulation, which recalls that of the Court of Augustus or
Tiberius, gives the measure of French thought. In truth, Napoleon
showed profound insight into human nature when he judged the hatred of
an order of nobility to be a mere passing spasm of revolutionary
fever; and he evinced equal good sense in restoring that order through
the chiefs of the one truly popular institution in France, the army.
Besides, the new titles were not taken from French domains, which
would have revived the idea of feudal dependence in France: they were
the fruit of Napoleon's great victory; and the sound of distant names
like Benevento, Berg, and Dalmatia skilfully flattered the pride of
_la grande nation_.
It is now time to return to the affairs of Prussia and to point out
the chief stages in her downward course. On January 3rd, 1806, an
important State Council was held at Berlin in order to decide on
certain modifications to the Schönbrunn Treaty with Napoleon. The
chief change resolved on was as follows: Instead of the cessions of
territory being immediate and absolute, as proposed by Napoleon, they
were not to take effect before the general peace. Until that took
place, Frederick William resolved to occupy Hanover provisionally,
meanwhile answering to France for the tranquillity of the north of
Germany.[71] The Prussian Government therefore gave strong hints that
the presence of a British force there was objectionable, and the
troops were withdrawn.[72]
Napoleon was to be less pliable. And yet Haugwitz assured the Prussian
King and council that he had looked Napoleon through and through, and
had discerned an unexpressed wish to deal easily with Prussia. As to
his acceptance of these changes in the Schönbrunn Treaty, Haugwitz
felt no doubt whatever, at least so his foe, Hardenberg, states. But
the Prussian Ministers were now proposing, not the offensive and
defensive treaty of alliance that Napoleon required, but rather a
mediation for peace between France and England. They were, in fact,
striving to steer halfway between Napoleon and George III.--and gain
Hanover. Verily, here was a belief in half measures passing that of
women.
The envoy despatched to assure Napoleon's assent to these new
conditions was the very man who had quailed before the Emperor at
Schönbrunn. Count Haugwitz set out on January 14th for Munich and
thence for Paris; but long before any definite news was received from
him, the Court of Berlin decided, on the strength of a few oily
compliments from the French ambassador, Laforest, to regard the
acceptance of Napoleon as fully assured. Accordingly, on January 24th,
the Government resolved to place the Prussian army on a peace-footing
and recall the troops from Franconia, as a daily saving of 100,000
thalers might thereby be effected. Never was there a greater act of
extravagance. As soon as the retreat and demobilizing of the Prussian
forces was announced, the French troops in Bavaria and Franconia began
to press forward, while others poured across the Rhine. Affecting to
ignore these threatening moves, the Prussian Court strove peaceably to
acquire Hanover by secretly offering George III. a re-arrangement of
territories, whereby the Hanoverian lands east of the Weser, along
with a few districts west of Hameln and Nienburg, should pass to
Prussia. Frederick William proposed to keep Minden and Ravensburg, but
to cede East Frisia and all the rest of his Westphalian possessions to
King George, who would retain the electoral dignity for these new
lands.[73] The only reply that our ruler deigned to this offer was
that he trusted:
"His Prussian Majesty will follow the honourable dictates of his
own heart, and will demonstrate to the world that he will not set
the dreadful example of indemnifying himself at the expense of a
third party, whose sentiments and conduct towards him and his
subjects have been uniformly friendly and pacifick."[74]
But by the close of February this appeal fell on deaf ears. Frederick
William had decided to comply with Napoleon's terms and was about to
take formal possession of Hanover.
The conqueror was far from taking that easy view of the changes made
in the Schönbrunn Treaty which the discerning Haugwitz had trustfully
expected. At first, every effort was made by Talleyrand to delay his
interview with the Emperor, evidently in the hope that the subtle
flattery of Laforest at Berlin would lead to the demobilization of the
Prussian forces. This fatal step was known at Paris before February
6th, when Haugwitz was received by the Emperor; and the knowledge that
Prussia was at his mercy decided the conqueror's tone. He began by
some wheedling words as to the ability shown by Haugwitz in the
Schönbrunn negotiation:
"If anyone but myself had treated with you I should have thought
him bought over by you; but, let me confess to you, the treaty was
due to your talents and merit. You were in my eyes the first
statesman in Europe, and covered yourself with immortal glory."
Before that interview, forsooth, he had decided to make war on
Prussia; and only Haugwitz had induced him to offer her peace and the
gift of Hanover. Why, then, had that treaty been so criticised at
Berlin? Why had the French ambassador been slighted? Why was
Hardenberg high in favour? Why had not the King dismissed that tool of
England? Here the envoy strove to stem the rising torrent of the
Emperor's wrath; his words were at once swept aside; and the deluge
flowed on. As Prussia had not ratified the treaty pure and simple, she
was in a state of war with France; for she still had Russian and
English troops on her soil. Here again Haugwitz observed that those
forces were withdrawing, and that the Prussians were entering Hanover
in force. The storm burst forth anew. What right had Prussia thus to
carry into effect a treaty which she had not ratified? If her forces
entered Hanover, his troops should forthwith occupy Ansbach, Cleves,
and Neufchâtel: if Frederick William meant to have Hanover, he should
pay dearly for it. But he would allow Haugwitz to see Talleyrand, so
as to prevent an immediate war.[75]
The calm of the Foreign Minister was as dangerous as the bluster of
the Emperor. Talleyrand was no friend to Prussia. He had long known
Napoleon's determination to press on a war between England and
Prussia, and he lent himself to the plan of undermining the
Hohenzollerns. The scales now fell from the envoy's eyes. He saw that
his country stood friendless before an exacting creditor, who now
claimed further sacrifices--or Prussia's life-blood. The Emperor's
threats were partly fictitious; and when Haugwitz was thoroughly
frightened and ready to concede almost anything, Napoleon came to the
real point at issue, and demanded that the whole of the German
coast-line on the North Sea should be closed to English commerce. With
this stringent clause superadded, Hanover was now handed over to
Prussia. Never was a Greek gift more skilfully offered. The present of
Hanover on those terms implied for the recipient Russia's disapproval
and the hostility of England.[76]
This was the news brought by Haugwitz to Berlin. Frederick William was
now on the horns of the very dilemma which he had sought to avoid.
Either he must accept Napoleon's terms, or defy the conqueror to
almost single combat. The irony of his position was now painfully
apparent. In his longing for peace and retrenchment he had dismissed
his would-be allies, and had sent his own soldiers grumbling to their
homes. Moreover, he was tied by his previous action. If he accepted
peace from Napoleon at Christmas, when 300,000 men could have disputed
the victor's laurels, how much more must he accept it now! He not only
gave way on this point: he even complied with Napoleon's wishes by
keeping Hardenberg at a distance. He did not dismiss him--the
friendship of the spirited Queen Louisa forbade that: but Hardenberg
yielded up to Haugwitz the guidance of foreign affairs, and was
granted unlimited leave of absence.
Popular feeling was deeply moved by this craven compliance with French
behests. The officers of the Berlin garrison serenaded the patriotic
statesman, while Haugwitz twice had his windows smashed. Public
opinion, it is true, counted for little in Prussia. The rigorous
separation of classes, the absence of popular education, the complete
subjection of the journals to Government, and the mutual jealousy of
soldiers and civilians, prevented any general expression of opinion in
that almost feudal society.
But when the people of Ansbach piteously begged not to be handed over
to Bavaria, and forthwith saw their land occupied by the French before
Prussia had ratified the cession of that principality; when the North
Germans found that the gain of Hanover by Prussia was at the price of
war with England and the ruin of their commerce; when it was seen that
Frederick William and Haugwitz had clipped the wings of the Prussian
eagle till it shunned a fight with the Gallic cock, a feeling of shame
and indignation arose which proved that the limits of endurance had
been reached. Observers saw that, after all, the old German feeling
was not dead; it was only torpid; and forces were beginning to work
which threatened ruin to the Hohenzollerns if they again tarnished the
national honour.[77]
Meanwhile the first overtures for peace were exchanged between Paris,
London, and St. Petersburg. In the spring of 1806 there seemed some
ground for hope that Europe might find repose, at least on land, after
fourteen years of almost constant war. France was no longer
Jacobinical. Under Napoleon she had quickly fallen into line with the
monarchical States, and the questions now at stake merely related to
boundaries and the balance of power. The bellicose ardour of the Czar
had melted away at Austerlitz. The seizure of Hanover by Prussia moved
him but little, and he sought to compose the resulting strife. As for
the other Powers, they were either helpless or torpid. The King of
Sweden was venting his spleen upon Prussia. Italy, South Germany,
Holland, and Spain were at Napoleon's beck; and the policy of England
under the new Grenville-Fox Ministry inclined strongly towards peace.
There seemed, then, every chance of founding the supremacy of France
upon lasting foundations, if the claims of Britain and Austria
received reasonable satisfaction. Napoleon also seems to have wanted
peace for the consolidation of his power in Europe and the extension
of his colonies and commerce. As at the close of all his land
campaigns, his thoughts turned to the East, and on January 31st, 1806,
he issued orders to Decrès which, far from showing any despair as to
the French navy, foreshadowed a vigorous naval and colonial policy;
while his moves on the Dalmatian coast, and the despatch of Sebastiani
on a mission to the Porte, revealed the magnetic attraction which the
Levant still had for him.
A peculiar interest therefore attaches to the negotiations for peace
in 1806, especially as they were pushed on by that generous orator,
Fox, who had so long pleaded for a good understanding with France. On
February 20th, 1806, he disclosed to Talleyrand the details of a
supposed plot for the murder of the French Emperor, which some person
had proposed to him, an offer which he rejected with horror, at the
same time ordering the man to be expelled from the kingdom. It is more
than probable that the whole thing was got up by the French police as
a test of the esteem which Fox had always expressed for Bonaparte.
The experiment having turned out well, Talleyrand assured Fox of the
pacific desires of the French Emperor as recently stated to the Corps
Législatif, namely, that peace could be had on the terms of the Treaty
of Amiens. Fox at once clasped the outstretched hand, but stated that
the negotiations must be in concert with Russia, and the treaty such
as our allies could honourably accept. To this Talleyrand, on April
1st, gave a partial assent, adding that Napoleon was convinced that
the rupture of the Peace of Amiens was due solely to the refusal of
France to grant a treaty of commerce. France and England could now
come to satisfactory terms, if England would be content with the
sovereignty of the seas, and not interfere with Continental
affairs.[78] France desired, not a truce, but a durable peace.
To this Fox assented, but traversed the French claim that Russia's
participation would imply her mediation. Peace could only come from an
honourable understanding between all the Powers actually at war.
Talleyrand denied that Russia was at war with France, as the Third
Coalition had lapsed; but Fox held his ground, and declared there must
be peace with England _and Russia_, or not at all: otherwise France
would be seen to aim at "excluding us from any connection with the
Continental Powers of Europe."[79]
Such a beginning was disappointing: it showed that Napoleon and
Talleyrand were intent on sowing distrust between England and Russia,
who were mutually pledged not to make peace separately; and for a time
all overtures ceased between London and Paris, until it was known that
a Russian envoy was going to Paris. Hitherto the French Foreign Office
had won brilliant successes by skilfully separating and embittering
allies. But now it seemed that their tactics were foiled. Two firm and
trusty allies yet remained, Britain and Russia. To Czartoryski our
Foreign Minister had expressed his desire that the former offensive
alliance should now take a solely defensive character: "If we cannot
reduce the enormous power of France, it will always be something to
stop its progress." To these opinions the Russian Minister gave a
cordial assent, and despatched a special envoy to London to concert
terms of peace along with the British Ministry, while Oubril, "a safe
man on whose prudence and principles the two allied Courts may safely
rely," was despatched to Vienna and Paris.[80]
Oubril proceeded to Vienna, where he had long discussions with the
British and French ambassadors: Fox also requested that Lord Yarmouth,
one of the many hundreds of Englishmen still kept under restraint in
France, might have his freedom and repair at once to Paris for a
preliminary discussion with Talleyrand. The request being granted, the
prisoner left the depot at Verdun, and, early in June, saw that
Minister in his first flush of pride at the new title of Prince of
Benevento. At that time Paris was intoxicated with Napoleon's glory.
The French were lords of Franconia, whence they levied heavy
exactions: in Italy they defied the Pope's authority.[81] They were
firmly installed at Ancona, despite repeated protests of Pius VII.
King Joseph with an army of 45,000 men was planning the expulsion of
the Bourbons from Sicily. And in these early days of June, Louis
Bonaparte was declared King of Holland.
Yet Talleyrand was not so dazzled by this splendour as to slight the
idea of peace with England; and when Lord Yarmouth stated that George
III. would above all things require the restoration of Hanover, the
Minister, after a delay in which he consulted his master, stated that
that would make no difficulty. As to the other questions, namely,
Sicily and the maintenance of the Turkish Empire, he replied: "You
hold Sicily, we do not ask it of you: if we possessed it, it might
much increase our difficulties"; and as regards Turkey he advised
that England should speedily gain the guarantee of its integrity from
France--"for much is being prepared, but nothing is yet done." After
reporting these views at Downing Street, Lord Yarmouth returned to
Paris for further discussions, with the general understanding that the
principle of _uti possidetis_ should form their basis--except as
regards Hanover. He now was informed by Talleyrand that the
negotiations with Russia were to be kept separate, and that Napoleon
had other views about Sicily, as he looked on its conquest as
necessary for Joseph's security on the mainland.
Surprised at this change, our envoy stated that he could not discuss
any terms of peace in which Sicily was not kept for the Bourbons;
whereupon Talleyrand replied that things were altered, and that we
ought to be content with regaining Hanover from Prussia and keeping
Malta and the Cape of Good Hope. On Lord Yarmouth declining to proceed
further until the French claims to Sicily were renounced, the offer of
the Hanse Towns (Lübeck, Hamburg, and Bremen) was made for his
Sicilian Majesty; and on the refusal of that bait, Dalmatia, Ragusa,
and Albania were proposed.
As Napoleon had offered to guarantee the integrity of the Turkish
Empire, Lord Yarmouth showed some indignation at a proposal which
would have begun its partition; and, but for the expected arrival of
Oubril, would have broken off the negotiation. On July 8th he saw the
Russian envoy and found him a man of straw. Oubril approved
everything. He was glad that France would give back Hanover to
England, because that would sever the Franco-Prussian union and make
the Court of Berlin dependent on Russia. He even thought it might be
well for the Hanse Towns to go to the Neapolitan Bourbons, provided
those towns were placed under the Czar's protection. But even better
was the proposal that those Bourbons should have Dalmatia and
neighbouring lands; for that would drive a wedge between Napoleon and
Turkey. Such was the gist of this curious interview. Desirous of
testing the accuracy of his account of it, Lord Yarmouth read it over
to Oubril at their next interview, when the Russian envoy added the
following written corrections:
"N.B.M. d'Oubril believes, though he has no directions on this
subject, that it would be suitable to Russia, and even
advantageous for the assuring their own independence, that Hamburg
and Lübeck should pass under the suzerainty of Russia.--N.B.
Although M. d'Oubril has a positive order to insist on the
preservation of Sicily for the King of Naples, yet he is of
opinion that the acquisition of Venetia, Istria, Dalmatia, and
Albania" [should be an establishment for his Sicilian
Majesty].[82]
That a reed shaken by every breeze should bow before Napoleon's will
was not surprising; and late at night on July 20th Lord Yarmouth heard
that the Russian envoy had just signed a separate peace with France,
whereby the independence of the Ionian Isles was recognized (Russia
keeping only 4,000 troops in Corfu), and Germany was to be evacuated
by the French. But the sting was in the tail: for a secret article
stipulated that Ferdinand IV. should cede Sicily to Joseph Bonaparte
and receive the Balearic Isles from Napoleon's ally, Spain.
Such was the news which our envoy heard, after forcing his way to
Oubril's presence, just as the latter was hurrying off to St.
Petersburg. At that city an important change had taken place;
Czartoryski had retired in favour of Baron Budberg, who was less
favourable to a close alliance with England; and it appears certain
that Oubril would not have broken through his instructions had he not
known of this change. What other motives led him to break faith with
England, Sicily, and Spain are not clearly known. He claimed that the
new order of things in Germany rendered it highly important to get the
French troops out of that land. Doubtless this was so; but even that
benefit would have been dearly bought at the price of disgrace to the
Czar.[83]
Leaving for the present Oubril to face his indignant master, we turn
to notice an epoch-making change, the details of which were settled at
Paris in the midst of the negotiations with England and Russia. On
July 17th was quietly signed the Act of the Confederation of the
Rhine, that destroyed the old Germanic Empire.
Some such event had long been expected. The Holy Roman Empire, after a
thousand years of life, had been stricken unto death at Austerlitz.
The seizure of Hanover by Prussia had led the King of Sweden to
declare that he, for his Pomeranian lands, would take no more share in
the deliberations of the senile Diet at Ratisbon which took no notice
of that outrage. Moreover, Ratisbon was now merely the second city of
Bavaria, whose King might easily deny to that body its local
habitation; and the use of the term Germanic Confederation in the
Treaty of Pressburg sounded the death-knell of an Empire which
Voltaire with equal wit and truth had described as neither holy, nor
Roman, nor an Empire. In the new age of trenchant realities how could
that venerable figment survive--where the election of the Emperor was
a sham, his coronation a mere parade of tattered robes before a crowd
of landless Serenities, and where the Diet was largely concerned with
regulating the claims of the envoys of princes to sit on seats of red
cloth or on the less honourable green cloth, or with apportioning the
traditional thirty-seven dishes of the imperial banquet so that the
last should be borne by a Westphalian envoy?[84]
Among these spectral survivals of an outworn life the incursion of
Napoleon across the Rhine had aroused a panic not unlike that which
the sturdy form of Æneas cast on the gibbering shades of the Greeks in
the mourning fields of Hades. And when, on August 1st, 1806, the heir
to the Revolution notified to the Diet at Ratisbon that neither he nor
the States of South and Central Germany any longer recognized the
existence of the old Empire, feebler protests arose than came from the
straining throats of the scared comrades of Agamemnon. The Diet itself
uttered no audible sound. The Emperor, Francis II., forthwith declared
that he laid down his crown, absolved all the electors and princes
from their allegiance, and retired within the bounds of the Austrian
Empire.
Thus feebly flickered out the light which had shed splendour on
mediæval Christendom. Kindled in the basilica of St. Peter's on
Christmas Day of the year 800 in an almost mystical union of spiritual
and earthly power, by the blessing of Pope Leo on Karl the Great, it
was now trodden under foot by the chief of a more than Frankish State,
who aspired to unquestioned sway over a dominion as great as that of
the mediæval hero. For Napoleon, as Protector of the Rhenish
Confederation, now controlled most of the German lands that
acknowledged Charlemagne, while his hold on Italy was immeasurably
stronger. Further parallels between two ages and systems so unlike as
those of Charlemagne and his imitator are of course superficial; and
Napoleon's attempt at impressing the imagination of the Germans seems
to us to smack of unreality. Yet we must remember that they were then
the most impressionable and docile of nations, that his attempt was
made with much skill, and that none of the appointed guardians of the
old Empire raised a voice in protest while he imposed a constitution
on the fifteen Princes of the new Confederation.
They included the rulers of South Germany, as well as Dalberg the
Arch-Chancellor, who now took the title of Prince Primate, the
Grand-Duke of Berg, the Landgrave, now Grand-Duke, of Hesse-Darmstadt,
two Princes of the House of Nassau, and seven lesser potentates. In
some cases German laws were abolished in favour of the _Code
Napoléon_. A close offensive and defensive alliance was framed between
France and these States, that were to furnish in all 63,000 troops at
the bidding of the Protector. Napoleon also gained some control over
their fiscal and commercial codes--an important advantage, in view of
the Continental System, that was soon to take definite form.[85]
As a set-off to this surrender of all questions of foreign policy and
many internal rights, what did these rulers receive? As happened
almost uniformly in Napoleon's aggrandizements, he struck a bargain
extremely serviceable to himself, less so to those whose support he
sought, and in which the losses fell crushingly on the weak. His
statecraft in this respect was more cynical than that of the crowned
robbers who had degraded eighteenth-century politics into a game of
grab. Their robberies were at least direct and straightforward. It was
reserved for Napoleon at the Treaty of Campo Formio to win huge gains
mostly at the expense of a weak third party, namely, Venice. He
pursued the same profitable tactics in the Secularizations, when
France and the greater German Powers gained enormously at the final
cost of the Church lands and the little States; and now he ground up
the German domains that were to cement his new Rhenish system.
There were still numbers of Imperial Counts and Knights, as well as
free cities, that had not been absorbed in 1803. The survivors were
now wiped out by Napoleon for the benefit of his Rhenish underlings,
the spoliation being veiled under the term _Mediatization_. The
euphemism claims a brief explanation. In old German law the nobles and
cities that gained local independence by shaking off the control of
the local potentate were termed _immediate_, because they owed
allegiance directly to the Emperor, without any feudal intermediary:
if by mischance they fell under that hated control they were said to
be _mediatized_. This term was now applied to acts that subjected the
knight, or city, not to feudal control, but to complete absorption by
the king or prince of Napoleon's creation. Six Imperial or Free Cities
survived the Secularizations, namely, the three Hanse towns, and
Augsburg, Frankfurt, and Nuremberg. The northern towns still held
their ancient rights; but Augsburg and Nuremberg now fell to the King
of Bavaria, and Frankfurt was bestowed by Napoleon on Dalberg, the
Prince Primate of the Confederation.
German life began to lose much of the quaint diversity beloved of
artists and poets; but it also gained much. No longer did the Count of
Limburg-Styrum parade his army of one colonel, six officers, and two
privates in the valley of the Roehr: he and his passed under the sway
of Murat, and the lapse of these pigmy forces made a national army
possible in the dim future. No more did the Imperial lawyers at
Wetzlar browse on evergreen lawsuits: justice was administered after
the concise methods of Napoleon. The crops of the Swabian peasant were
now comparatively safe from the deer of His Translucency of the castle
hard by; for the spirit of the French Revolution breathed upon the old
game laws and robbed them of their terrors. And the German patriot of
to-day must still confess that the first impulse for reform, however
questionable its motives and brutal its application, came from the new
Charlemagne.
NOTE TO THE FOURTH EDITION.--In a volume of Essays entitled
"Napoleonic Studies" (George Bell and Sons, 1904) I have treated
somewhat fully the questions of Pitt's Continental policy, and of
Napoleon's relations to the new thought of the age, in two Essays,
entitled "Pitt's Plans for the Settlement of Europe" and
"Wordsworth, Schiller, Fichte, and the Idealist Revolt against
Napoleon."
* * * * *