by Alan Schom
By 2:30 P.M. the Austro-Russian force was completely severed into three separate units, all hastily fleeing the battlefield, Bagration up the Olmütz Road in the center; Liechtenstein’s, Constantine’s, and Kollowrat’s corps now at Austerlitz; and Buxhöwden’s corps crossing the ponds and marsh along Napoleon’s right, southern flank. The fighting had been intense, fierce, and grim everywhere, the French with orders to take no prisoners at all — to leave no man standing, whether he surrendered or not — until the final hour of the battle, when Napoleon finally relented. “Let no one escape!” Davout had echoed.
By three o’clock most of the serious fighting was over as entire Allied divisions threw their arms in the air, while General Doctorov’s remaining few thousand men tried to escape over the frozen marshland and lakes. Seeing this, Napoleon directed the fire of twenty-five cannon to smash the thick ice beneath the feet of the fleeing cavalry, infantry, and artillery crews, resulting in as many as two thousand Russians drowning in Satschon Pond in their heavy winter uniforms, packs, and boots, along with thirty-eight guns and at least 130 horses. Rarely had Napoleon shown himself to be so vicious. General Thiébault, himself gravely wounded after a heroic fight, summed up the results of the battle of Austerlitz: fifteen thousand Russian and Prussian dead, thanks to Napoleon’s initial inhuman policy of taking none alive; twelve thousand prisoners including 270 lower officers; ten colonels and eight generals; fifty flags and 180 pieces of artillery (which were soon dispatched to Paris to be transformed into a national monument in the Place Vendôme).[675]
The victory was complete — indeed no victory could have been more so, as every Russian and Austrian soldier and officer who could flee, did so, including the Austrian and Russian emperors (Czar Alexander, abandoned by his own guard, was nearly captured). Austerlitz — the Battle of the Three Emperors — was over. The Allies, who had not practiced the same brutality on the battlefield battle, had killed only 1,350 French, leaving another 6,940 wounded.
Thus the Battle of Austerlitz, occurring one year to the day after Napoleon’s imperial coronation in Nôtre-Dame, and inaugurated under the most anxious of circumstances, finally resulted in the extraordinary victory he so badly needed. Not only did it bring the Allied armies to their knees and the campaign to a brilliant if bloodthirsty end, it resounded throughout the French capital and Empire with such force as to put an end to the financial collapse that had been threatening France’s very existence.[676] “I have defeated the Austro-Russian Army commanded by the two emperors,” Napoleon proudly informed a most anxious Josephine. “The battle of Austerlitz is the finest of all I have fought.”[677] No one could argue with that. But little did Napoleon, or indeed anyone at that time, realize that by having refused to settle accounts peaceably prior to this “successful” military campaign, he had sown the seeds of his own ultimate downfall. The Austerlitz campaign was in fact not to prove his great triumph, ensuring the continuation of his empire. It was rather the first stroke of the death knell of the House of Bonaparte, incurring as it did the irrevocable enmity — ultimately — of the whole of Europe, a Europe that would never rest until Emperor Napoleon I reigned no more. The Austerlitz campaign was to prove one of the greatest mistakes of his career.
Chapter Twenty-Five – The Marches of Empire
‘Your Holiness [Pope Pius VII] is sovereign of Rome, but I am its emperor.’
Napoleon’s return from Austerlitz had been triumphant. As he traversed the German states, crossing the Rhine, church bells rang as he passed beneath a long series of triumphal arches of flowers in one city after another. The people of Paris cheered even more loudly, giving balls and elegant dinners for this man who, only a few weeks earlier, had been thought to be finished, and with him his tinsel empire. As a part of these celebrations, Imperial Master of the Hunt Marshal Berthier gave hunting parties for Napoleon, including one of his Corsican favorites, a rabbit hunt. Berthier, who personally preferred stag, had gone to considerable trouble to buy approximately one thousand “hares.”
On the day of the hunt all was in readiness, the rabbits in massive cages along the wooded sides of an open field, as several carriages finally appeared, Napoleon and his staff soon emerging in full hunting regalia. As Napoleon walked across the field, the signal was given to release the rabbits, and hundreds upon hundreds of black-and-white rabbits leaped forward, enjoying their new freedom. But as the intrepid hunters prepared to go in for the kill, the animals, instead of fleeing in the opposite direction, perversely turned straight for the hunters, coming at them in magnificent bounds.
At first Napoleon could not believe his eyes, nor could anyone else, laughing at the comic absurdity of the whole thing. But laughter soon gave way to perplexity, and perplexity to concern, as the hundreds of animals continued to head directly for Napoleon. Finally a bit anxious himself, he turned and ordered those around him, even the coachmen and postilions, to grab sticks and chase away the insolent animals now poking fun at the emperor’s reputation as a distinguished huntsman. But all to no avail. They swarmed around Napoleon, entwining themselves between his legs, even leaping into his arms. He tried beating them off with his riding crop, but more arrived. At last his aides-de-camp and coachmen came to his rescue and got him back safely into his carriage, though it too was quickly besieged.
It had been a narrow escape! A furious Berthier, humiliated by the absurd event, learned only afterward that his men, instead of trapping hares, had purchased a thousand tame rabbits — due to be used for pate — from farmers. And the mighty victor of Austerlitz, who had soundly defeated a combined force of 85,000 Russian and Austrian troops armed with cannon, muskets, and sabers, had now ignominiously scurried off another battlefield, pursued by a thousand unarmed rabbits, who had mistaken him for the kindly man who was due to give them their daily feed.[678]
“I have few prejudices, and I shall be very glad if the peace treaty dates from the reintroduction of the Gregorian calendar [January 1, 1806], which presages, I hope, as much happiness for my reign as it did for the ancien régime,” Napoleon had written Talleyrand from the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna on December 23, 1805.[679] In fact the suppression of the revolutionary calendar in favor of the old Gregorian one was preceded by the treaty by just a few days. It was signed at Pressburg near Vienna on December 26 by Foreign Minister Talleyrand and Prince John of Liechtenstein and Gyula.
The results were painful indeed for Austria’s Emperor Franz, who had to recognize the territories previously lost to France as a result of the treaties of Campo Formio and Lunéville, now adding Venice, Istria, and Dalmatia. Moreover the hapless Habsburg was also forced to recognize Napoleon as king of Italy. Napoleon’s new German allies were to be rewarded for their ties with, and support of, France, the electors of Bavaria and Wiirttembcrg being raised to monarchs in their own right, their states enhanced by important fresh slices of the former Austrian Empire. The mint-new king of Bavaria thus received Passau, the Tyrol, Brixen, Trent, Augsburg, and the Vorarlberg, while the king of Württemberg’s domains were extended to include five small towns on the Danube, the landgraviate of Nellenberg, part of Breisgau, and a few smaller places. Napoleon’s other new ally, the elector of Baden, received the remainder of Breisgau and the lovely lakeside city of Constance. The only compensation the Austrian emperor was to receive for his territorial losses would be in the form of Salzburg and Berchtesgaden, which were transferred to him from the lands of his brother, the Archduke Ferdinand (the former grand duke of Tuscany), while Ferdinand received the principality of Würzburg. As for Napoleon, he had secured three delighted new allies, who were to form the nucleus of his new German buffer, along with the previous west bank Rhineland territories, not to mention the forty million gold francs Napoleon was to receive from the defeated Emperor Franz.
“Never had a victor imposed harder conditions on the vanquished,” Joseph Bonaparte’s good friend Miot commented, little realizing that this was nothing compared to what Napoleon had in store for the vanquished of th
e future.[680] “Charlemagne was a conqueror and not a founder,” Talleyrand had pointed out to the French Senate back on March 18, 1805, when Napoleon first announced the creation of the Kingdom of Italy. “Alexander the Great, incessantly expanding the limits of his conquests, left only death and destruction in his wake...Like these great men...we have seen Your Majesty advance rapidly with his arms in Europe and Asia.” But, the foreign minister preached, Napoleon was no mere marauding warrior. He was a statesman, a man who would conquer “by the wisdom of your moderation...Your Majesty wanted to remind France of the necessity of order and peace.”[681] It was wishful thinking on Talleyrand’s part, and Napoleon looked more annoyed than pleased by the remarks. Indeed it was this same Napoleon who at his Italian coronation in May 1805 had placed yet another crown on his head, declaring in Italian: “Heaven gave it to me. Woe unto him who touches it!” That said it all.
At Pressburg he had continued in the same vein, despoiling the Austrian Empire while failing to comprehend how his acts were hastening the disintegration of that empire, with direct effects on Europe as a result. Talleyrand alone seemed to foresee the full extent of the tragedy of Napoleon’s ruthless buccaneering and lack of understanding. “I persist in the hope that Your Majesty’s latest victory may permit him to assure some repose for Europe, while guaranteeing the security of the civilized world against the invasion of the barbarians.” But, the foreign minister then counseled,
Your Majesty is now in a position to break the Austrian monarchy, or to support and reerect it. Once broken, however, even Your Majesty will not possess power enough to reassemble the ruins of shattered states and to recompose it as the unit it formerly was. And yet the existence of this single unit is most necessary. Indeed, it is quite indispensable for ensuring the future health of all civilized nations.
For, as he explained, “The Austrian monarchy...is a poorly composed mass of different states, almost all of them with their own languages, mores, religions, and political and civil systems of administration, and whose only common link is their leader.” Put together over the past thousand years, the Holy Roman Empire was in a state of precarious balance, resulting from the quarrels and battles between princes, Protestants, and Catholics, involving more than three hundred principalities, duchies, landgraviates, and free cities, which had been united by the Habsburgs into a relatively peaceful equilibrium. “Today, defeated and humiliated, the Austrian Empire needs a generous, understanding hand from its conqueror...It is that which all the true friends of your glory expect from your political forethought and magnanimity.[682]
The Napoleon who had refused to take alive thousands of defeated Russians and Austrians at Austerlitz was hardly likely to show moderation at Pressburg, nor did he do so. Setting out from Vienna, Napoleon was determined to upset the entire fragile political cohesion of the Holy Roman Empire. There must be a new order in Europe, a Napoleonic order (that would provide him with even larger armies and annual subsidies). There was room for nothing else. Talleyrand was a fool, a dinosaur living in another age.
On his return to Paris on January 26, 1806, Bonaparte wanted to get to work at once. To begin with, the critical financial situation of the government and nation had to be addressed and stabilized. Next the lands taken from Austria and the defunct Holy Roman Empire had to be reorganized to create a vast new northeastern flank for the French Empire, this time on the right bank of the Rhine, as a buffer against central and eastern Europe. And then there was the matter of brothers Joseph, Louis, and later, Jérôme, whom Napoleon had decided to invest with limited monarchical powers of their own, along the marches of his expanding fiefdom.
Within twenty-four hours of his return, Napoleon summoned the finance, treasury, and police ministers to the newly refurbished Tuileries, then ordering that the financiers Desprès, Vanderberghe, and Ouvrard “return” tens of millions (actually of their own money) to government coffers. “I made a dozen rogues cough up,” he crudely boasted to Josephine afterward.[683] It had all begun when, at bayonet point, Napoleon had forced Spain to sign a defense pact with Paris, requiring among other things a monthly payment of 6 million francs to the French treasury. (This treaty, signed by the Spanish king under duress, was not legally valid, like most of those drawn up by Napoleon for his allies.) Treasury Minister Barbé-Marbois had just repaid Desprès (representing Ouvrard’s interests in the Company of United Merchants) as much as 80 million francs owed his firm. The hard-pressed Spanish government had accepted a large loan from Ouvrard to meet the regular payment due Paris, as well as for grain shipments. In return Ouvrard received tobacco and mining concessions. In addition, on Spain’s declaration of war against England, Ouvrard signed enormous contracts by which he was to provision French and Spanish naval vessels in various ports. Spain for its part promised to repay Ouvrard and the French government with government drafts secured by the Mexican treasury. (At the end of 1804 Ouvrard received the first of these Spanish drafts.) It was all as fantastic as it was complicated. By September 1805 the French treasury owed Ouvrard close to one hundred million francs for unpaid war contracts alone. Nor was Spain able to repay the French government for its grain purchases, not to mention the “war subsidies” owed Paris, and the value of the real collapsed, resulting in the freezing of Spanish credits everywhere. By September 1805, as Napoleon was about to set out on his Austerlitz campaign, the Bank of France was all but bankrupt. Meanwhile Vanderberghe, a major war contractor, had to suspend his activities, having no more cash with which to buy materials. Barbe-Marbois finally agreed to repay Vanderberghe’s firm some 80 million francs taken directly from the state tax collectors. But by January 1806 Vanderberghe was still owed 147 million francs by the government. Unable to proceed, he terminated his government contract, which infuriated Napoleon. On his return in January, Napoleon extorted more money from the Company of United Merchants, rather than repaying the vast amounts he owed them (and never fully honored).[684]
Napoleon was now blaming others for the financial débâcle besetting the government, when in reality the financial crisis was a result of his stripping French coffers to the bone for his invasion of England. Napoleon then fired a quaking Barbé-Marbois — “a fool,” he called him to his face — replacing him as treasury minister with Mollien. Next he reorganized the Bank of France, permitting his own hand-picked governor from the Treasury Ministry to administer and control its affairs thereafter, while creating a government disbursement office to regulate the flow of money from the treasury.[685]
The business community was shaken, both by the resounding catastrophe that had caused the failure of some of the most prestigious banks and merchant houses of the nation, and by the harsh threats against their esteemed confrères Desprès, Vanderberghe, and Ouvrard. “I should have had them shot,” Napoleon declared to Josephine.[686]
Nevertheless, as a result of Austerlitz, government “rentes,” or investment yields, rose within a fortnight from 45 to 66 percent (though still well below their former wartime highs), while interest rates of 24 percent remained forbidding. Austrian gold would literally start pouring in from the vanquished Habsburgs, not to mention the vast new income source he would be tapping from the Germanic states he was intending to reorganize. The treasury would never again be empty. Moreover, commerce and industry were to be encouraged officially by the French government, and there would be an increase in agricultural production as well (the latter one of Napoleon’s few temporary successes).[687] In an attempt ostensibly further to increase French revenues (and his own), but actually to harm England, Napoleon was set on creating his Continental System, closing all European markets and ports to British ships, goods, and products. He would bring “haughty England,” as he referred to it, to its knees, and any European country violating Napoleon’s injunctions concerning this was to be dealt with by his eloquent long sabers. He would brook no disobedience.
Back in November 1805 Elector-Archbishop Dalberg, Baden’s minister of state, had submitted a proposal to Napoleon callin
g for the suppression of the traditional princely houses of the Rhineland then comprising the Holy Roman Empire. Instead they were to be reconstituted as a confederation of such states to serve as a buffer, “to protect it [the French Empire]” from Austria, Prussia, and Russia. Dalberg followed with a plan of his own, and with the conclusion of the Treaty of Pressburg on December 26, 1805, this concept was further developed by Napoleon, Talleyrand, and their advisers.[688] On February 15, 1806, a Franco-Prussian Treaty of Cooperation was signed in Paris by Napoleon’s closest confidant, Duroc, and the Prussian minister, Haugwitz, for which the Prussians were promised British Hannover in exchange.
With the preliminaries out of the way, Napoleon now concentrated on the new Rhineland scheme, and the plan for its inception, the Act of Confederation, was duly signed in Paris by Talleyrand on July 12. If the foreign minister himself was not pleased with this destruction of a working political organism and the subsequent seizure of hundreds of sovereign states, he had done his best in the circumstances to reconstitute some sort of balance in their new guise.
First Napoleon had to have strong pro-French leadership within the confederation, and thus had the former archchancellor of the Germanic Confederation, Dalberg, named its leader with the new title of prince primate. Signatories included the new kings of Bavaria and Württemberg, Elector-Archbishop Dalberg of Baden, the duke of Berg (Murat), the landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, various princes, the duke of Aremberg, and Count von Leyen (Dalberg’s nephew).