Alexander I- the Tsar Who Defeated Napoleon

by Marie-Pierre Rey

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  Alexander partially rallied to this plan. During a conversation in September 1814 with Czartoryski and Novosiltsev, the tsar appeared to accept the integration of the western provinces of the empire into a new Polish entity,78 but in fact, to Czartoryski’s great regret, he still hesitated about an issue that was extremely sensitive in Russian opinion.

  When the Congress opened, Alexander demanded that the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, which had been aggrandized thanks to territories taken from Prussia and Austria during the partition, form a state of which he would be the sovereign, a sort of buffer state that would ensure Russian security. To plead his cause among the other powers, the tsar insisted on the breadth of the sacrifices to which he had consented during the war, demanding “just” compensation and stressing the need for Russia to make its western border secure by means of this new state. But he also resorted to a threat: “I conquered the Duchy,” he declared to the Congress, “and I have 480,000 soldiers to defend it.”79 In exchange for concessions to be made by Austria and Prussia, he proposed giving Austria Lombardy, Venetia, the Tyrol, the region of Salzburg and Dalmatia, while Prussia would obtain a part of Saxony, with the remainder going to Weimar and Coburg. But these proposals appeared tantamount to a hegemonic ambition: British diplomats led by Castlereagh and then by Wellington (after mid-February 1815) did not believe in the fiction of an independent Polish state80 and saw these demands only as a means for Russia to increase her power. Other states, including Austria, took the British side and advocated either the reconstitution of a completely independent Poland or else a new partition. There were fierce and tense debates throughout September and October.

  Wanting to reassume the diplomatic offensive, Alexander sent to the Austrian, British, and Prussian delegates a new treaty proposal, presented by Nesselrode by the end of December: the text called for giving the Poznan region to Prussia and Tarnopol to Austria, and it made Krakow and Thorn free cities. All the rest of the duchy of Warsaw would go to Russia, which reserved the right to establish a constitution there. Free trade would be created throughout Polish lands, and the Polish subjects of Austria and Prussia would have national institutions. But this new proposal was opposed by the former coalition partners; the Austrians were particularly hostile to national institutions within territories under Habsburg rule. Skillfully and cynically manipulated by Talleyrand, who saw it as an opportunity to bring France into the international game, this opposition resulted in the signature on January 3, 1815, of a secret defensive alliance between France, Austria, and Britain—against Russia and Prussia. Telling Louis XVIII of this achievement, Talleyrand wrote proudly: “The coalition is dissolved—and forever.”81 But Napoleon’s landing on March 1, 1815, suddenly changed the whole situation. Alexander’s lively letter to his mother is worth quoting at length:

  An unexpected event, dear Mama, that will astonish you as much as it has us, has just given a different direction to all ideas. […] The Bourbons not only did not take precautions to prevent [Napoleon] from leaving his island, but the pretenders to the empire of the seas, the English, who had with Napoleon a Colonel Campbell, did not know how to choose for this important mission an individual able to fulfill it or to furnish him with the necessary vessels. In the end, Napoleon left his Island of Elba on February 26—but not alone! Embarking with all his men, two battalions and two hundred cavalrymen with some artillery, were 1,200 men in all!!! They left on two feluccas and two corsair boats that he had on the island to protect against Barbary pirates. His guards were insouciant and clumsy enough not to perceive his escape until the next day. As far as we can tell, he remained in sight the whole day, headed toward the southern coast of France. Calm weather prevented the English and French ships from pursuing him. Here it is generally supposed that this was only a feint, that he was actually headed toward Naples. I did not share this assumption and I thought from the outset that he would go to the south of France, probably having support there. Finally, we received the news from Genoa that he did disembark in Cannes, near Antibes, on March 1. He tried to take the castle by surprise but failed, the fortress having been shut up by the commander. Then he marched with his troops toward Grasse several leagues from there, and his destination appeared to be Grenoble, where the French government was gathering a corps to act against Murat in the Kingdom of Naples. At first sight, the appearance of an execrated individual who was the scourge of the human race with such a small troop, right in the middle of a country that had been liberated from his slavery and most of whom were against him, a country that was governed by his mortal enemies, perhaps did not seem important for the outcome, which might have announced his total destruction as well as that of his adjutants. But when one reflects about the clumsiness of the new government when it had to capture minds and above all to galvanize them for all that could be cajoled from the army, when one thinks of the number of Napoleon’s partisans who remained in this army, then this surprising appearance is right to produce the grimmest thoughts. As with the beginning, everything depended on the turn taken by events. If the government had managed to send against Napoleon as few as three regiments, but whose colonels did their duty, with enough hold over their troops to make them obey, then in all likelihood this man would be destroyed. But if instead Napoleon managed to take a few donjons and use them for support, thus swelling his little army, if only to 20 or 20 thousand men, very probably he would march with it on Paris. In this case, I doubt that the Bourbons would have enough hold to find another army to oppose him, and with a fight between the two becoming impossible, it is very probable that Napoleon would take Paris and re-assume the reins of government. From the moment he again became the emperor of the French as in the past, we, if we did not want to succumb again one by one to his rule, would be forced to recommence our struggle more vigorously than ever, to prevent him from seizing more […]. I admit, Mama, that this prospect is devastating. After having seen Napoleon in all his glory, and admired his clarity and a fall so complete as my first example, and the second no less striking of having seen him in the abyss, to see him again on the throne of France—how not to infer that men’s wisdom is only folly, and that which is great and solid is solely what God achieves! Yet my conviction that this evil genius would end up one way or another brought down and destroyed, this conviction does not leave me, I base it on the words of our Holy Religion, provided that we take it to the end as is prescribed for us. Also, dear Mama, I proposed more energetic measures. […] A mass of 850,000 would be ready to combat and crush the evil genius if he tried to exercise his wicked empire even briefly. Yet this apparatus, imposing and reassuring as any human thing can be, did not prevent me from thinking first of you, dear Mama, and of all the pain you are going to feel at the very idea of a new struggle. […]

  Finally, let us put ourselves in the hands of the Almighty with resignation and without complaining, and try our best to fulfill his Supreme Will. That is the only goal that we should have in sight. I did not stop to take [illegible] about my person, which will take place tomorrow, to be able to leave as soon as my engagements were done. The overly long duration of the Congress at least had the advantage that we were all together when this singular news arrived, and consequently all measures could be taken in concert. This event also has the other advantage that it will accelerate the termination of the Congress. […]

  Here is a very long letter, dear Mama, that I end by asking you to put your entire trust in God alone and telling you that our first duty is to obey his Holy Will.82

  This missive to his mother, both pragmatic and inspired, was how Alexander reacted to the news of Napoleon’s invasion. First of all, this hastily written letter demonstrates his perceptiveness about the situation and the stakes. There is no doubt he thought that the Bourbon government, which had not rallied public opinion, would not be able to oppose an emperor who could still count on many partisans on French soil. Hence the necessity to act quickly, to reorganize forces that could fight the despot, while counting
on God’s help.

  In fact, after having landed on French soil in March 1815, Napoleon did reassume leadership of his country once Louis XVIII had fled. Soon the secret treaty between the French, Austrian, and British states (opposed by Prussia and even more so by Russia), came out, with a copy enabling the tsar to point a finger at his allies’ treachery. But this revelation, while it made Alexander angry and bitter, did not change anything about the direction he had chosen. Napoleon remained the enemy to beat; the coalition had to be summoned again, and the preparation of the final text of the Congress of Vienna was accelerated so it could be signed on June 9, 1815. The flight of the eagle was rather short: the Hundred Days ended on June 18 with the catastrophic Battle of Waterloo, in which Russia did not participate. Four days later Napoleon I signed his second abdication, and this was now the true end of his venture.

  At the end of June, Alexander was again in Paris to negotiate the second treaty of Paris, which would be concluded on November 20. This time he stayed at the Elysée Palace as the guest of Louis XVIII, where he played the generous master of ceremonies. He wrote to Chef Antonin Carême, then in the service of Talleyrand, putting him in a requisitioning situation to “design and direct a banquet to take place on September 10 at the ‘Plaine de Vertus’”83 after reviewing the troops. There were no fewer than three grand banquets for 300 people, which Carême consummately directed at the head of a brigade of 35 cooks, although his heart was not in it. “I never did anything as beautiful; anger made me a genius,”84 later wrote the chef known for his attachment to Napoleon.

  Meanwhile, negotiations proved harder than the year before. The British and especially the Prussian emissaries (Blücher the keenest of all) wanted to impose pitiless conditions on France. In September, worried about this fierceness, Louis XVIII asked Alexander to intervene in France’s favor, and in order to give a pledge of his goodwill, the tsar named to foreign affairs the Duke of Richelieu; governor of Odessa for twelve years, the latter enjoyed the trust and personal esteem of the tsar. And in fact Alexander did manage to limit the territorial losses: it was on his insistence that France kept Alsace, Lorraine, the Franche-Comté, and Burgundy, on which Prussia had designs. It was also thanks to him that the conditions of the foreign occupation of France were softened. Alexander’s intervention is again explained by his concern for an equilibrium in the face of Great Britain, Prussia, and Austria, and it was saluted by the French themselves. The Count of Molé, a great figure in the Bourbon Restoration, wrote in his memoirs:

  In 1815, Russia defended against everybody—I will not say just the interests but the very existence of our unfortunate homeland. If France is still France, it is thanks to three men whose names it should never forget: Alexander and his two ministers, Kapodistrias and Pozzo de Borgo. England, Prussia, and Austria only wanted to weaken us. On the contrary Russia had every interest in our remaining a power of the first order.85

  The Russian sovereign brought unfailing support to Louis XVIII, who this time knew he was beholden, and Franco-Russian relations became firmer on the geopolitical level. But Alexander still left Paris full of bitterness toward the coalition. He wrote to Catherine on October 13:

  Dear and good friend, here I am outside this horrid Paris! In fact I see around me only a desire to grow fat from France and the desire to give in to the passion of vengeance that I detest above all.86

  For, despite Russian support, the second Paris treaty was disastrous for France, which was reduced to its 1790 borders. It could keep Avignon and the Comtat Venaissin, Montbelliard, and Mulhouse, but it lost the duchy of Bouillon and the fortresses of Philippeville and Marienburg to Holland, Sarrelouis and Sarrebruck to Prussia, Landau to Bavaria, the Gex region to Switzerland, and a large part of Savoy to Piedmont. As regards its colonies, the loss of St. Lucia, Tobago, and Malta were confirmed. And financial sanctions were added to the territorial losses: France had to pay 700 million francs (the coalition had initially demanded 800 million but lowered the amount at Alexander’s insistence), of which 137 million were to be devoted to erecting fortresses to keep an eye on the French border. It had to suffer five years of military occupation (and not seven as initially requested by the coalition, which once again yielded to Alexander) in its northern and eastern border zones—which it had to finance entirely (150,000 men). So the Hundred Days episode cost it a lot, in land and money as well as politically, despite efforts made by Talleyrand, the Duke of Richelieu, and Louis XVIII. The same day (November 20, 1815) the four allies solemnly renewed the pact concluded at Chaumont. France remained a pariah on the international scene.

  Meanwhile, the Polish question was finally settled, thanks to a compromise. A friendship treaty between Russia, Austria, and Prussia (May 1815), made by Prince Razumovsky and ratified by Alexander six days later, sealed the fate of Poland, for most of its decisions were incorporated in the final act of Vienna. In relation to his initial ambitions, the tsar accepted major concessions: he kept the major part of the Warsaw duchy, which allowed him to control Warsaw and the central basin of the Vistula; he obtained the right to use the title of king of Poland, but he had to cede northwest regions (including Poznan and Kalisch, or about 810,000 inhabitants) to Prussia and Western Galicia (meaning Tarnopol with 400,000 subjects) to Austria.87 Cracow became a free city. The treaty recognized that, despite the new territorial arrangements, the Polish nation now constituted a single historical identity, but without its eastern part. Its article 5 stated the right of Poles to benefit from national and representative institutions—this key idea would be reprised in article 1 of the Congress of Vienna’s final act, which made provision for free trade between the various Polish regions. So the international community had thus consented (on Alexander’s insistence) to put the rights of the Poles to benefit from representative government into a diplomatic text.

  On both subjects—French borders and the status of Poland—the positions defended by the tsar demonstrate a dual concern: to defend Russia’s geopolitical and security interests and to serve the liberal and constitutional ideas to which he was attached. He had pushed the Bourbons to adopt the charter and had put into the treaty the right of Poles to have representative institutions. In homage to Laharpe, he also contributed to the establishment of an independent and neutral Swiss confederation, enlarged by cantons from the republic of Geneva and by the principalities of Neuchatel and Valais.

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  To ensure the application of this second Paris treaty, the coalition powers intended to maintain the Quadruple Alliance formed in Chaumont and to do so by future meetings on a frequent and regular basis. But for Alexander this commitment was not sufficient; they had to profit from current circumstances—the fall of Napoleon and the presence of the allies at the same congress—to elaborate a new system of international relations based on spiritual and moral foundations.

  Back in January 1814 Alexander had confided in a note to his state secretary Kapodistrias his diplomatic grand design: with the help of Providence he aspired to construct a general alliance to ensure a lasting peace in Europe. He was thus returning to two major goals already formulated in 1804 when he wrote to Prime Minister Pitt: to reach an equitable regulatory system that would both respect the identity of each nation and guarantee the peace of Europe by means of a grand alliance to prevent conflicts. But now this plan was strongly tinged with strong religious connotations. We recall the references to God and to Providence in his meeting with the Countess of Choiseul-Gouffier in December 1812, quoted above.

  In a note of December 1814 addressed to the plenipotentiaries of the other allied states who were in Vienna, Alexander proposed that a reform of the Quadruple Alliance be undertaken on the new foundation of “immutable principles of the Christian religion.”88 The proposal is very important: it shows that for Alexander I in 1815 liberalism, constitutionalism, and attachment to Christianity were mutually compatible. But the plan remained very general; so the interlocutors of the Russian sovereign, believing it was a purely formal de
claration of intention, did not follow up. Alexander renewed his attack in the following months. He offered the Austrian emperor and the Prussian king a “holy alliance” that would consider that the three states—Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox—belonged to the same family, the “Christian nation,” and would stress the need to promote fraternal relations among them in accordance with the principle of Christian charity. With this radically new religious reference, the peaceful community that the tsar had dreamed of back in 1804 henceforth became increasingly a moral and spiritual one.

  Barely launched, the text caused a sensation. It ran up against the skepticism of the British, who saw it as a “piece of sublime mysticism and nonsense,”89 against the irony of Metternich, who denounced “philanthropic aspirations disguised under the mantle of religion,”90 and the hostility of the pope, who was not inclined to foster ecumenical temptations. But the then-dominant position of Russia on the European scene obliged the Austrian and Prussian governments to make concessions, and on September 26 Franz I and Frederick-Wilhelm III agreed “in the name of the Very Holy and Indivisible Trinity” to sign the “Holy Alliance”—having obtained amendments. The text’s preamble inscribes the document within a Christian paradigm that was intended to serve as the basis for any diplomatic action.