by Alan Schom
There, medical orderlies — with an average of three weeks’ total training — were forced to carry out many hundreds of amputations themselves, the only supervision a passing surgeon quickly “marking the place for the incision with a piece of chalk.” When such “operations” were carried out in the field, there were practically no survivors, the victims dying in the greatest agony — there was no anesthesia for soldier or officer — their amputated limbs tossed on one of the stacks of arms, legs, feet, and organs typical of all such French battlefields. To compound matters, the wounded were not separated from the large numbers with infectious diseases. What is more, Turiot lamented, among the wounded, many were “adolescent conscripts whose bodies were not yet fully developed and capable of coping with these hardships.”
But still no French Military Health Service organization in existence, Turiot concluded. “It is essential that the means put at the disposal of the Health Service be increased to cope with the efficacy of the new more murderous arms and tactics.” Fortunately, Turiot closed, “military virtue has not weakened in the greatest of war leaders, those civil virtues, and the sight of the blood, tears, suffering, and cries of agony that Your Majesty always reacts to so profoundly will not have suppressed in him that which makes him the greatest of sovereigns.”
The initial peace negotiations that followed at Altenburg, beginning on August 18 between Champagny and Metternich, were to prove fruitless in the face of Austrian instransigence. By September 9 an impatient Bonaparte had had enough of “this Altenburg farce,” as he called it. When Franz I sent his personal envoy, General Bubna, to talk with him, Napoleon gave him a message that left the Austrian emperor trembling: “You can tell Monsieur von Metternich that if the emperor wants to abdicate in favor of the Grand Duke of Würzburg, I shall leave your country as it is, with its present independence, and shall then form an alliance with you that will allow you to govern yourself.” If the emperor proved contrary, Bonaparte continued, then he would strip further large sections of Austrian territory from the Habsburg Empire. (He had of course already taken much of its land.) If he could suppress the thousand-year-old Holy Roman Empire, he could obviously do the same to the remainder of the truncated Austrian Empire. Franz I was Napoleon’s most stubborn continental opponent at this stage, and Bonaparte wanted him out of the way.
Although Franz I then dispatched Prince von Liechtenstein to reason with the emperor, Napoleon remained unshakable. Nor was Franz I any more willing to compromise, even after consulting with senior members of the Austrian royal family. He refused even to consider abdication. Meanwhile the Austrian ruler had been negotiating secretly with the czar, his special envoy returning from St. Petersburg empty-handed, however. The French emperor’s victory had frightened everyone. Both the Prussians and Russians insisted that they wanted to support the Austrian emperor, but they felt they were too weak to do so at this time.
There had been nothing secret about growing Prussian frustration with the French forces occupying their land and dictating their state policy, and their fervent wish to oust the French once and for all. Not surprisingly, the Prussian envoy to Paris had been intriguing against France, as Fouché informed Napoleon. “Then expel that animal!” the French emperor instructed his police minister-cum-acting interior minister with the usual Bonaparte panache.
In Prussia State Minister Goltz warned Queen Louise that “if the King hesitates much longer to take the resolve to stand up against France now as demanded by public opinion, an immediate revolution will be inevitable.”
Of course there had already been very real recent attempts at military rebellion, any one of which might have ignited not only Prussia and the Germanic world but also the whole of a seething Europe, almost all of which was occupied by hundreds of thousands of French bayonets. Thanks to King Jérôme’s feckless administration of his newly minted kingdom of Westphalia, that entire region was now a veritable hotbed of intrigue and unrest, especially after the endless new tax assessments inflicted on the people by their new master(s), not to mention the extension of military conscription insisted upon by Napoleon. The result was the famous Dörnberg affair of April 22, 1809. To be sure, the Dörnberg plot had been nipped in the bud, narrowly, followed by Major Schill’s uprising, which was put down bloodily at Stralsund on May 30, 1809. In consequence Napoleon had been required to keep several thousand troops around Westphalia, troops that otherwise could have been sent to Austria, and had finally created the X Observation Corps of twenty thousand men, initially under Junot’s command and then under Kellermann’s, though still under the titular command of King Jérôme.
With those embryonic rebellions snuffed out for the moment, and the new campaign opening against the Austrians, Napoleon had ordered brother Jérôme’s corps to proceed to Dresden at once. In the post-Wagram battle that ensued there, Junot was defeated and Jérôme fled. When Napoleon learned that Dresden had been abandoned, as Jérôme returned hastily with his entire “royal entourage” to Kassel and the comforts of his castle, Napoleon attacked him without restraint:
I have just seen an order issued by you that makes you the laughingstock of Germany, Austria, and France! Have you no friends there who can advise you and tell you a few home truths? You are king, and brother of the emperor, qualities that are quite ridiculous in wartime. One must be a soldier first, and then a soldier again, and finally, still a soldier. There must be no ministers, no diplomatic corps accompanying you, no pomp. You must campaign with the advance guard of the army, be in the saddle day and night, and march with the forward units in order to be up-to-the minute as to what is happening. But you make war like a satrap! God, almighty, you haven’t learned such things from me! I, with an army of 200,000 men now, am always to be found at the head of my troops...Stop making an utter fool of yourself: send the diplomatic corps back to Kassel, take no baggage train with you, and bring just enough provisions for yourself alone. Make war like the young soldier that you are, a soldier in search of glory and fame, and try to merit the rank you have been given, to be worthy of the estime of France and Europe, who are watching your every move. And by God! be sensible enough to write and speak in a civil manner!
As if Napoleon did not have enough on his plate already, the worries multiplied: anxious reports from Spain with the English on the move again; insurrections or threats of rebellion throughout the German-speaking world; reports by his own spies of anti-French communications flowing from Berlin, Russia, and Austria; and now warnings from Fouché of English plans for the landing of an enormous expeditionary force at Walcheren Island in the North Sea, apparently with the aim of seizing Flushing and Antwerp. Then, too, there were the ramifications of his seizure and arrest of the pope. Life was indeed complicated: All was in jeopardy.
With the defeat of the Austrians at Wagram, followed by the submission of Archduke Karl in July, despite postponements by Emperor Franz I and delays to avoid concluding a final peace treaty, Napoleon continued to put pressure on the Austrians following the stalemated talks at Altenburg in mid-September. Prince von Liechtenstein warned, “He [Napoleon] spoke of one thing only — partitioning the Austrian monarchy and establishing instead several independent states out of the ruins, unless Emperor Franz abdicates.” That threat was dismissed out of hand by the Habsburg ruler. “The destruction of the Austrian monarchy would be a calamity for the whole of Europe,” the czar pleaded directly with Napoleon.
Metternich, who had recently replaced the unsuccessful Stadion as the Austrian chancellor, now in turn pleaded with French Foreign Minister Champagny: “Let us join your [Continental] System and then you will be able to be really sure of us,” but keep Franz I as the Austrian ruler and do not partition the great Habsburg Empire. “That is the basis — honorable for us, practical for you — upon which we hope to establish peace.”
As for the position of the French and their allies, the Russians and the Poles, neither Champagny nor Napoleon was content. “The Russians did not fire a shot against the Austrians. In f
act the only blood they spilt was Polish,” the French foreign minister complained to Napoleon even as Metternich was confiding to Franz I that Russia “has privately assured us of her support for our side.” Metternich had to convince the Austrian emperor of the necessity of signing a peace treaty now and biding his time until he was in a better position to act, his advice resembling very much Czar Alexander’s on that subject to his mother earlier. “Our principles remain unalterable,” Metternich insisted to Franz, “but we also face certain elementary realities. We have no choice but to conserve our strength for better times to come, while gradually preparing for that moment.” Peace had to be made with the French, but only as a means to the final end of one day overthrowing the French invaders.
As for Napoleon’s stalwart allies, the Poles, who had volunteered tens of thousands of troops to the Grand Army in hopes of an ultimate national settlement in their favor, Napoleon privately informed Champagny that he had other plans, as Champagny in turn revealed to Caulaincourt:
The Emperor not only does not want to see the revival of the idea of a rebirth of Poland — an idea very far from his views — but he is even disposed to work with Emperor Alexander in doing everything possible to eliminate the very memory of such a thing from the heart of those people. His Majesty approves the idea of ensuring that the words ‘Poland’ and ‘Polish’ disappear not only from all our negotiations but from European history itself.
This was reflected in all of Napoleon’s subsequent actions.
Even before the negotiations had been concluded, Prussia’s Friedrich Wilhelm III was also secretly seeking to rally allies, in particular the Russians, against the French. “How different the situation would be, Sire,” he wrote Czar Alexander “if you were to judge it in the best interests of your empire to renounce your current foreign policy by declaring yourself against France.” If officially the now much more cautious Alexander avoided open commitments of any kind, the situation was nevertheless patently clear. Although in no position to oppose the French on the battlefield, Prussia, Russia, and Austria were preparing for the future, and under the circumstances Franz I had no alternative but to agree to a “temporary” peace treaty ending the Second Danube Campaign.
After many weeks of negotiating and unpleasant haggling, the Treaty of Schönbrunn (or of Vienna, as it was variously known thereafter) was signed and exchanged during the night of October 13-14, 1809. In its eighteen patent — and six secret — articles, Austria paid a staggering price for its independence, including the loss of some 42,000 square miles of territory, and 3,500,000 Austrian subjects. The real estate lost came from Austria’s provinces in Poland (including Krakow), which were first handed over to the king of Saxony and thereafter annexed to Napoleon’s Duchy of Warsaw, a small section of western Austria — handed over to Napoleon and annexed to Bavaria — and finally a large section of Austria’s “Yugoslav” provinces to the south. All this became part of the ever-growing Confederation of the Rhine. What is more, Austria was required to reduce the size of its standing army and pay a war indemnity to Napoleon Bonaparte of 85 million francs.[755]
For all the French threats, a shaken Franz I did remain on his throne (albeit much reduced), angrier than ever, despite Metternich’s official soothing words and rationale. Alexander felt betrayed and cheated because of the small Polish tidbits of Galicia eventually thrown his way from the French feasting table, while Prussia’s Friedrich Wilhelm felt more determined than ever to destroy France and Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon’s “victorious” second Danube campaign, concluded on the plains of Wagram, had ensured his own eventual downfall.
One of the reasons Napoleon had put immense pressure on Austria during the negotiations — which explained at the same time why Austria had so dithered — was the knowledge that the government of England’s George III, under Lord Portland, was preparing an unprecedented troop landing somewhere along the Belgian or Dutch coast. A successful British operation might spark a European conflagration that even a Bonaparte could not stanch. He therefore had to break the spirit of Britain’s allies in advance. British troops might land, but they would receive no help from Berlin or Vienna.
For all that, this pending English invasion was to rock Napoleon’s fragile empire to its very foundations, frightening him as no Austrian army ever had, and dividing the French government in Paris as never before.
It had all begun in the late winter of the previous year (1808), when Police Minister Fouché reported to the government the first signs of what appeared to be unusual military preparations in England, reports that had been dismissed out of hand both by Admiral Decrès at the Naval Ministry and by War Minister Clarke. Archchancellor Cambacérès, ever unswervingly loyal to Napoleon, yet a weak, cautious man afraid of making decisions and commitments, was fully supported by the ministers of every portfolio — Champagny (Foreign Office), Mollien (Treasury), Gaudin (Finance), and Bigot de Préaumeneu (Religious Affairs) — in rejecting Fouché’s harum-scarum warnings. Time and again the police minister had produced incorrect prognostications. Or could this be yet another pretext for yet another plot by Fouché himself? In Paris no one trusted either his neighbor or his colleague.
Over the months, however, more reports reached the ministers confirming Fouché’s claims, and Clarke agreed to hold a couple of battalions along the Scheldt River, Decrès contributing a few warships along the coast, but nothing beyond that.
Aggravating the international uncertainty was Napoleon’s ill-advised and worse-timed decision of May 16, 1809, to annex the Papal States (occupied by France since January 1808), followed by the further gaffe on July 6 of arresting and kidnapping Pope Pius VII himself, who had just excommunicated Napoleon. Europe was already roused against the French, and this act against the Roman Catholic Church deepened the resolve of his foes everywhere — of course he no longer had friends anywhere. Populations, including those of Belgium and Holland, which would be needed to reinforce the French against a British invasion, were still further estranged, indeed outraged, against the French forces occupying their lands.
With the opening of the second Danube campaign in April 1809, King Louis Bonaparte had written to Napoleon pleading for troops with which to defend his kingdom, a request his brother had ignored. Hard pressed by having to wage war on two fronts, and already calling up young students and older retired soldiers, Napoleon had stripped French garrisons to the minimum everywhere, and in the instance of Holland leaving a bare nine thousand men (and those unfit for front-line service) for the entire country.
And then Fouché’s warnings were fully confirmed. News reached the French capital by special courier late on July 29, 1809, that an English armada had indeed arrived off the Dutch coast and was preparing for a landing. An armada, not just a few ships with a few hundred men. (Sir Arthur Wellesley, of course, had landed earlier that same year in Portugal with another thirty thousand men, which had since resulted in two French defeats in the peninsula, at Oporto in May, when he had defeated Soult and reconquered that country, and at Talavera in July.) Unlike the previous British naval attacks along the French coast over the years, however, now 264 warships and troop transports were landing some forty thousand troops on Walcheren Island.
Thanks to Fouché’s urging, the first of a series of emergency cabinet meetings was convened that same day at the Tuileries by Cambacérès. After much hemming and hawing, Fouché, in his capacity as interim interior minister, got approval to mobilize the National Guardsmen of the fifteen districts between Antwerp — the primary objective of the English — and Flushing and Walcheren. Some thirty thousand citizen-soldiers would be under arms wdthin a few days. Even now, however, Cambacérès was aghast at Fouché’s audacity, including his insistence on naming the recently fired Marshal Bcrnadotte, now back in disgrace from Wagram, as the man to command them. The reason? There simply was no one else with corps command experience available, Fouché explained.
When on August 12 Napoleon finally received word in Vienna of what had trans
pired in Paris during the crisis, he was incredulous that all his ministers had pooh-poohed Fouché’s earlier warning of such a landing and then had even tried to prevent the organizing of enough troops with which to repel any invaders. “I am most upset that during the ministerial meeting you did not take it upon yourself to call up the National Guards,” Napoleon lashed out at an amazed Cambacérès, hitherto immune from imperial ire: “That really was most irresponsible.” And then Cambacérès had authorized the calling up of a mere thirty thousand men! “You must have 80,000 men armed and ready, and impress the nation so as to discourage the English from any further such expeditions, by seeing that the French people are ready to take up arms against them. Walcheren Island must be retaken...Convene the council of ministers regularly,” he ordered Cambacérès. “Don’t let the English catch you napping!” he snapped at War Minister Clarke. As for Fouché, “He simply did what you yourself ought to have done.”
French troops and National Guardsmen were soon marching, the British, under the baleful command of Lord Chatham, failing to take their objective of Antwerp. Falling back to Walcheren, where some 4,000 died of disease and illnesses in the marshy land, and another 106 in the actual fighting, most of the British force was whisked away to safety in a complex if spectacular Royal Navy operation on September 30 by Admiral Lord Strachan, and the final contingent was rescued on December 22. If — unlike their skillful operations in Portugal — the English expedition in the Low Countries proved a lamentable fiasco, it was thanks alone to its extraordinarily inept commander, not because of the equally incompetent French who had done nothing to prevent their initial landing.