COMMOTIONS IN EUROPEAN POLITICS
The Directory and the Legislature -- Motives of the French Army
-- Augereau's Blunders -- Humiliation of the Batavian Republic --
Seizure of Piedmont -- Proclamation of the Roman Republic --
Swiss Territory Remodeled -- Antagonism of Prussia and Austria --
Bernadotte's Mission to Vienna -- Prussian Neutrality -- Unstable
Equilibrium of Europe.
During the winter of 1797-98 it was the custom of Bonaparte, as the
constructive commander-in-chief of the French forces, to share in the
deliberations of the various civil authorities; sometimes they seemed
uneasy under his influence, but a threat of retirement generally
brought them to terms. They yielded because every faction believed
that the unrelenting attitude of the Directory toward royalists,
emigrants, and ecclesiastics would revive in the country the hatred of
Jacobinism and give its enemies a victory in the spring elections of
1798. Animosity was all the more fierce since the press had been
virtually throttled by closing during the winter the offices of some
sixteen papers, in addition to many already silenced. Should the
chambers be hostile to the executive, they would certainly attempt a
civil revolution, and Bonaparte with his troops would be the
arbitrator. The royalists, therefore, made approaches to him once
more, this time through Mme. Bonaparte, who diplomatically
procrastinated, and kept the suitors in expectancy. But while all was
movement and plot under the surface, the Parisian populace only
occasionally had evidence of aught but perfect harmony in all parts
of the government. They were fond of contrasting the brilliant results
of Campo Formio with the unostentatious demeanor of the great general
who had humbled Austria, and, as he himself had said in his festival
speech, had brought two centers of light, "the finest parts of
Europe,"--Italy and the Netherlands,--under the brighter rays of
French illumination.
In later years the unexampled capability of Bonaparte for scheming and
machination unfolded itself to such unheard-of limits that it is
customary in our day to attribute every detail of European history in
those times to his manipulation. This is the more natural because the
events of that winter, beyond the boundaries of France, contributed in
the highest degree to that political conflagration which preceded the
ascendancy of Napoleon and the complete rebuilding of the European
state system. And yet the most acute historians often overlook the
evident causes in their search for hidden ones; in this case the
former are sufficient to account for the results. With the Italian
campaign republican armies ceased to fight either for the integrity of
France, for her "natural" frontiers, or for the revolutionary system.
They were often self-deceived, and thought themselves to be
propagating liberal ideas; but glory and plunder were thenceforward
the mainsprings of action in the majority of both officers and men.
[Sidenote: 1797--98]
Accordingly, what might have been foreseen actually occurred.
Augereau, during the autumn of 1797, sought to emulate in southwestern
Germany the political policy initiated by Bonaparte in Italy. But his
rude blundering compelled his recall, a step which was softened by his
transfer to the Pyrenees, where an army stood ready to intervene in
Spain whenever opportunity should be ripe. The movement in Germany
spent itself in shameless plundering both east and west of the
Rhine--a double disgrace in view of the fact that the war was ended,
that Mainz was surrendered, that the whole left bank, though not yet
formally ceded, was in French control; and that the Congress of
Rastadt was discussing how the princes who had surrendered their
possessions to France should be compensated within the boundaries of
the empire.
The course of affairs in the Low Countries was equally disastrous to
the prestige of the Revolution. Holland had not only lost all her
colonies, including the Cape of Good Hope, by her compulsory enrolment
in the republican system, but at Camperdown on October eleventh, 1797,
the fleet of the Batavian Republic was battered to pieces by that of
England under Duncan. The new commonwealth was thus rendered
contemptible, and made entirely dependent on France. Twenty-five
thousand soldiers were already quartered on the Dutch, and now they
were held to enormous contributions of ships, money, and men for the
proposed landing in England. Delacroix and Joubert were the respective
civil and military agents in these exactions.
Bonaparte's departure from Italy made no change in French policy or
conduct with regard to her. The Venetian possessions had been
literally stripped by Berthier of every valuable article before their
definitive surrender to Austria. Formal negotiations for a treaty of
offensive and defensive alliance with the Cisalpine Republic were
opened as soon as the new state was recognized, but the same pillage
continued as during its conquest. By that treaty, which was not
concluded until March, 1798, the new "free" state was bound to support
twenty-five thousand French troops, and to raise nearly four million
dollars a year to pay them. As to the new Ligurian Republic, its
boundaries were incomplete without Piedmont. Before the end of June,
1798, revolutionary fires having been kindled in Turin by the old
efficient methods, two French armies under Jacobin generals seized
Piedmont, and incorporated it with the other "free" state, which was
then bound to France in the same terms as Cisalpina. Charles Emmanuel,
having thus lost all his possessions on the mainland, retired to
Sardinia, where he was destined to become, under protection of the
English fleet, the focus of a new coalition against France.
Rome had called to her service, for the reorganization of her army,
Provera, one of the Austrian generals who had been active in the last
campaign. Joseph Bonaparte demanded his dismissal. This spark fired
the revolutionary spirit of the few determined liberals at the
capital, and a rising took place in which General Duphot, who was
expecting soon to become Joseph's brother-in-law, was killed. The
insurgents were defeated, and sought refuge in the French Embassy. The
papal authorities humbled themselves to make restitution, but Joseph
would not be appeased, and demanded his passports. Within a month, on
February tenth, 1798, Berthier and his soldiers entered the Eternal
City, and proclaimed the Roman Republic. With no consideration for his
estimable personal character, the French agents stripped Pius VI, the
aged and feeble Pope, of all his jewels: his very rings were drawn
from his fingers by their hands. The papal government was declared at
an end, and the cardinals were forbidden to elect a successor. The
Pope himself was allowed to withdraw to Siena; but disappointing his
captors' expectations of his speedy demise, he was removed at their
convenience from place to place, until at last he died in the
following year at Valence. Naples, of course, was in an agony of fear,
but her hour had not yet struck.
Finally the flames caught in Switzerland, where the democratic
district of Vaud declared its independence of the Bernese aristocracy.
The fire was fanned by Bonaparte's agent, Peter Ochs, the liberal
burgomaster of Basel. France intervened, nominally in order to compel
Bern to liberate all her political prisoners and to emancipate Vaud,
but really to plunder and remodel the whole country. The entering army
pillaged friend and foe alike. The desperate resistance of Bern, in
which even women and children shared, was of no avail. At its close
the Helvetian Republic was constituted under a new charter, like those
of Cisalpina and Batavia; it likewise entered at once into an
offensive and defensive alliance with France. Bern's indemnity was the
surrender of her "treasure," or cash reserve--a sum of one million
three hundred thousand dollars. Swiss historians state that besides
the cash there were nearly two and a half million dollars in bonds. A
fifth of this was sent at once to Toulon, where the fleet was fitting
out; the rest went to the army and its commander, General Brune.
Fribourg, Solothurn, and Zurich were likewise stripped for the benefit
of the military chest. It is thought that from all the enormous sums
seized during the winter nothing reached the national treasury.
Napoleon in exile declared that Paris knew nothing of all this. But
more serious still were the contemplated changes of territory. The
Valtellina had already been incorporated with the Cisalpine Republic;
the Frick valley was soon to be delivered to Austria along with the
Inn Quarter; and eventually Geneva, with the upper Rhone valley, was
to become a part of France itself, in order that the Simplon, another
gateway into Italy, might be assured to her armies in case the
difficult passes on the Mediterranean shore should ever be closed.[4]
[Footnote 4: See Daendliker: Geschichte der Schweiz, Vol. III,
p. 350.]
The effect of all this upon the politics of Europe was like that of a
torch in dead stubble. The German-Roman Empire was an antiquated
institution. Prussia had risen to importance as the representative of
a new Protestant German nationality. Frederick the Great, inheriting
his shrewd father's army and policy, thoroughly understood that for
the attainment of this end Roman Catholic Austria must be humbled and
reduced to a secondary position. His success was only partial, but it
was so far effective. The relations between these two great rivals in
the Germanic body, therefore, were so strained that Prussia, in her
antagonism to Austria, naturally leaned toward France. But the seizure
of German lands not only on the west bank of the Rhine, but of some
even on the eastern side, together with the behavior of the French
armies not only in southwestern Germany, but again in Bern, created
consternation at Berlin. Sieyes was sent to allay, if possible, the
fears of Frederick William III, and to woo him to the French alliance.
Meantime, the radical Directory, looking on the ecclesiastical
principalities of the empire as anachronisms, had been planning their
entire secularization. This would indemnify the secular powers; and
the sentiment of both Prussia and Austria favored this solution of the
problem. But Bonaparte, foreseeing that temporarily it would also
unify public opinion in Germany, and give France no ground for
meddling, had declared in Italy that if the Germanic body were
non-existent, France should create it for her own purposes; and he
impressed upon the French plenipotentiaries at Rastadt how important
it was that they should at least prevent a complete secularization of
the great bishoprics.
This was the first bone of contention thrown into that Congress; and
Austria soon began to see that the treaty of Campo Formio was to be
not merely an armistice, but a very short one. Bonaparte had formed
in Italy a legion of five thousand Poles. They were still under arms,
awaiting the event. It was notorious that French agents were fomenting
discontent in both Poland and Hungary. The Army of Italy had carefully
spared the hereditary dominions of the Emperor while hurrying toward
Leoben, and Bonaparte, repressing pillage with relentless severity,
had explained that France made war not with the good people of Europe,
but with their tyrannical dynasties. Even in Carinthia some enthusiasm
for revolutionary principles had been created. Thugut had cleverly
prevented Clarke from entering Vienna, because he feared the presence
of a republican among the inflammable elements of that city. Francis
had refused, on the conclusion of peace, to send a diplomatic agent to
Paris, because he did not wish for reciprocity, and was anxious lest a
French minister, if received at Vienna, might there create such a
focus of revolutionary agitation as existed wherever a French embassy
had been established. But now it was suddenly announced that the
French republic had accredited Bernadotte to his court. The report was
true, instructions having been given that the envoy suggest a
dismemberment of Turkey in lieu of the further indemnity Francis
expected, and ascertain how the reconstruction of Poland would be
regarded. He was to prevent Austria's interference in behalf of Rome,
and to insist on being treated with the same punctilio as had been
shown to the royal ambassadors of France. On the other hand, for the
sake of the radicals among the Fructidorians, he was to be
conciliatory, because it was of vital importance that France should
learn the inner workings of the court of Vienna before war broke out
again, especially if the directors were to forestall Bonaparte's
complete ascendancy. There is not a scintilla of evidence that, as
some have suggested, Barras, Sieyes, or Talleyrand tampered with
Bernadotte. He was still a rude soldier, and not the adroit man of
affairs he afterward became. They could rely upon his making a mess of
his mission, and he did so. In a haughty tone he at once demanded, as
he had been instructed to do, the suppression of the Bourbon orders in
Austria, and likewise the omission from the royal almanac of that
family as reigning sovereigns of France. At the same time he made such
an undue display of the tricolor and the republican cockade as to
arouse all latent antagonisms to the Revolution. These and other
similar indiscretions were successful in agitating the populace to
such a degree that finally the embassy was attacked by a mob.
Thoroughly frightened, and knowing that his mission regarding Poland
and Turkey was in vain, Bernadotte demanded his recall. He returned to
Paris, having, as was expected, brought the relations of France and
Austria to the verge of rupture. Arriving in April, 1798, he was
married soon afterward to Joseph Bonaparte's sister-in-law, who
quickly comforted herself after the death of Duphot.[5]
[Footnote 5: See Masson: Les Diplomates de la Revolution.]
By that time Prussia had been virtually checkmated; for although
Sieyes could not bring the court of Berlin to make an alliance with
the Directory, yet he had prevented her adhesion to its enemies,
promising that revolutionary propaganda should cease in Germany. In
return she agreed to observe the old strict neutrality, and to
recognize the Cisalpine Republic. This decision has been severely
criticized in recent years as a virtual delivery of herself to
Napoleon after he should have devoured Austria. It has even been
suggested that her statesmen ought to have looked a hundred years
ahead, and should have anticipated by a century the Prussian (p.~044)
alliance with the house of Savoy, which was at this later date the
only liberal monarchy in Europe. As Europe was in 1798, such a
conception was impossible.
In the spring of that year, therefore, everything presaged the general
outbreak which was soon to occur. It may be that Bonaparte had
foreordained it, and to the minutest detail had regulated events as
they took place. Taking each division of them into separate
consideration, a credulous admirer might believe that so much was
within the ability of a single man; but the complexity of the whole
makes the demoniac power to produce a crash in this way seem beyond
the capacities of even a Bonaparte, although he may have cherished the
desire for one. It is clear that he rode triumphant in the swift rush
of the times, and took every possible advantage from the instability
of European institutions in their moribund condition. To complete the
picture of Europe in 1798, we must recall that Augereau was in the
Pyrenees with forty thousand men, ready, when French agents should
have done their work of agitation, to cross the border at a moment's
notice, and liberate Spain from her Bourbon rulers. Such arbitrary
emancipation was possible elsewhere. Why did it eventually fail in
Spain? The answer is that there were no favorable antecedent
conditions beyond the Pyrenees. All the strange story of
transformation in Italy, in western and in northern Europe, would seem
a lying fiction except for the memory of a still more thorough
antecedent transformation in the spirit of their inhabitants by the
intellectual ferment of the century. This spiritual and rationalizing
movement had left Spain, Russia, and eastern Europe almost untouched.
It was for this reason that the schemes of Bonaparte as to Poland and
Turkey at once healed the breach between Russia and Austria, neither
of which was deeply influenced by the idealism of the age, and both
of which were prompted only by dynastic motives. Elsewhere Napoleon
seemed like a magician; in those lands his spell was vain. In culture
and intelligence England was an age ahead of him, as the others were
an age behind him; and the two opposing forces of ignorance and
enlightenment crushed him in the end like the upper and the nether
millstone.