by Philip Dwyer
Napoleon was aware that different sections of the French elite were unhappy with the proclamation of the Empire. The ceremony itself was supposed to have taken the various political and religious tendencies into consideration, but it was so complex as to remain unintelligible to the vast majority of onlookers. Republicans disliked the presence of the pope and the return to a ceremony used during the ancien régime. The Catholic faithful reproached Napoleon for his treatment of Pius VII, for not having taken Holy Communion and for having crowned himself. Royalists rejected the coronation outright. Throughout France over the coming months, anti-Napoleonic placards were posted on the walls of towns as important as Paris and as far away as the Corrèze, a department in the south of France, where one could read, ‘Long Live Louis XVIII! Down with Napoleon and his whole clique!’117 Napoleon represented everything royalists despised, especially the principle of meritocracy. The participation of the pope at the coronation, and in particular the anointment, was nothing short of a scandalous farce, a second death for Louis XVI, an insult to the memory of those who had died defending the monarchy.118
Many of the European monarchies were also circumspect about the coronation: the only princes to attend were from the German vassal states (Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, Hesse-Homburg, Solms-Lich, Nassau-Weilburg, Isenburg, Löwenstein, Löwenstein-Wertheim). The Austrian ambassador excused himself while the other courts of Europe (apart from England) sent either an ambassador or a minister. One should not read too much into this; it was not customary for great-power sovereigns to travel to their fellow sovereigns’ coronation ceremonies. Francis recognized the elevation of Napoleon to the imperial dignity but, as we have seen, he sugarcoated the pill by declaring himself Francis I, Emperor of Austria. Nevertheless, the French Empire was not universally accepted in Vienna and was perceived in some circles as a humiliation: Napoleon had after all crowned himself with the putative crown of Charlemagne, traditionally associated with the Habsburg monarchy, and had essentially taken Austria’s role in central Europe without consulting it.
If Napoleon had thought that by becoming a monarch he would ensure that French political institutions were ‘a little more in harmony with theirs [that is, with other monarchies]’, he was sadly mistaken. For him, it may have been a question of being able to take tea with other European monarchs on an equal footing, but other European sovereigns, monarchs by divine right, would never accept him as an equal. Napoleon himself seems to have doubted the importance of the coronation as a legitimizing ritual; the lack of public enthusiasm for the event as well as the tepid manner in which the elites responded seems to have made an impact on him.119 The Moniteur did not even give an official account of the coronation ceremony; the festivities that followed were reported on much more.120 Indeed, the imperial regime was reluctant to use it as a setpiece in its political propaganda. The Abbé de Pradt, Napoleon’s chaplain, declared that ‘in various parts of France where his travels and his functions had enabled him to observe, he had found no favourable trace left by this act’.121 The anniversary of the coronation was celebrated every year on the first Sunday of December – a perfectly normal thing for a monarch to do – but more often than not public opinion confused the date with the battle of Austerlitz.
CONQUEST, 1805–1807
10
‘The Rage of Conquest and Ambition’
King of All Italy
Napoleon seemed to possess an extraordinary ability to antagonize his European neighbours although mostly he did so inadvertently. His assumption of the title ‘King of Italy’, however, was considered one of the most provocative steps, and gave the impression that he was bent on the domination of the whole Italian peninsula.
Bonaparte had effectively ruled over northern Italy for the previous two years. After drawing up a constitution for the Italian Republic, which gave its president quasi-absolute powers, he summoned a congress – a consulta – of 500 Italian notables to Lyons, halfway between Milan and Paris, at the end of 1801.1 The congress was meant to discuss, but really simply to approve, the Constitution and choose a president (it was the first time the title had been used in monarchical Europe). Its members elected, after a somewhat circuitous route, and not surprisingly, Bonaparte. However, as soon as there was talk of transforming the French Republic into a monarchy, it was inevitable that the Italian Republic would follow suit. The only question was who was going to govern the Italian kingdom. As early as 3 March 1804, among the many letters published in the Moniteur urging Bonaparte to adopt the imperial crown, an Italian general by the name of Pino wrote to suggest that he should also become King of Italy.2 On 7 May, only days before the Empire was proclaimed, Bonaparte had a conversation with the foreign minister of the Italian Republic, Ferdinando Marescalchi, about the future of Italy. The country was, suggested Bonaparte, too weak to be independent and too strong to be annexed.3 It would be better, he went on, if it were transformed into a monarchy. Marescalchi got the message. He reported back to the vice-president of the Italian Republic, Melzi d’Eril, who immediately called a consulta, and voted for the transformation of the Republic into a hereditary monarchy under Napoleon and his descendants (28 May). In that way, it appeared as though the request came from the Italian Republic and not from Napoleon. There is no room here to go into the complex negotiations that took place between Napoleon and Melzi but, as ever determined to have his way, the Emperor rejected any attempt to negotiate conditions, and even threatened to annex Italy outright (a complete contradiction of his earlier statement).
This was probably an empty threat. The annexation of the Italian Republic would have aroused Austria to action, and Napoleon knew it. His priority at this time was the invasion of England. In an attempt to placate Austria, Talleyrand suggested he offer the crown to his brother, Joseph. Joseph at first agreed and the affair seemed to have been concluded by 31 December 1804. There is no reason to doubt Napoleon’s sincerity in offering the throne to his brother, despite what some historians have said.4 In doing so, he appeared less threatening to Austria. He even sent a letter to Francis II announcing that his brother would be adopting the Italian mantle.5 However, when Joseph was informed that he would have to renounce his rights to the French throne, he baulked. Several meetings between the two brothers and their representatives were unable to overcome this stand-off.6 It is possible that Joseph declined not so much out of a desire to remain next in line as over the impossibility of reigning in Italy given the likelihood of Napoleon’s regular interference. Napoleon then asked his brother Louis (again) whether he could adopt his newborn son – Napoleon Louis Bonaparte – with the intention of making him King of Italy. Louis, however, refused and was so aggressively against the plan that Napoleon physically threw him out of his office.7 The Emperor even wrote to Lucien asking him to renounce Mme Jouberthon in favour of a throne.8 He received no reply. Napoleon then turned to his adopted son, Eugène de Beauharnais, and named him viceroy of Italy, but this only happened on 7 June. As far as one can tell, Eugène was simply informed about this, not consulted. The appointment left him cold; he was only twenty-three, more interested in having a good time, but in Paris, not Milan, which he did not much like. Suddenly jerked out of a life of pleasure and thrown into the political deep end where he was expected to govern in Napoleon’s name, he had to deal with finances, the administration, justice, religion, the Civil Code and everything involved with governing a country as diverse and heterogeneous as the Kingdom of Italy.9 Eugène, as it turned out, proved a very competent ruler, but his stepfather was very hands-on, controlling the smallest details even while he was away on campaign, virtually running the kingdom by proxy.10
The behaviour of Joseph and Louis under these circumstances, as we saw in the lead-up to the proclamation of the Empire, was not only impolitic but downright disastrous for French foreign policy. Neither of them was capable of thinking beyond his own personal interests. Napoleon’s adoption of the title of ‘King of Italy’, not particularly welcomed by Italian public opinion,11 con
siderably worsened relations between France and other European powers, particularly Russia and Austria, even though Napoleon attempted to placate Francis with a letter explaining that his intention was to ‘take from myself the crown of Italy and to separate it from the crown of France’.12 Considering that almost in the same breath Napoleon annexed Genoa and Liguria in June 1805 – thus creating three new departments that were added to the six already carved out of the former Kingdom of Piedmont – and that at the same time he created the Principality of Lucca and Piombino, which he then gave to his sister Elisa, his actions were hardly likely to appease Austria.13
Napoleon left Paris at the end of March 1805 and travelled to Milan across the Mont Cénis pass. He stopped at Marengo along the way to commemorate the battle and to inaugurate a monument to the dead. He arrived in Milan on 8 May for a ceremony that was to see him crowned King of Italy two weeks later. He was, according to some contemporary accounts, greeted with an enthusiasm that bordered on the hysterical.14 Women and children cried with joy, and some even threw themselves on their stomachs on the street over which his carriage was to pass, an act which was interpreted by the French as a desire to be crushed by its wheels after having had the pleasure of seeing the Emperor.
Just as Charlemagne was crowned King of Lombardy in 774, Napoleon was crowned King of Italy in the Duomo of Milan on 26 May 1805. It followed the same ceremony as in Notre Dame but was officiated instead by Cardinal Caprara, who though still papal legate to France had become Archbishop of Milan. The pope refused to attend, having since understood that Napoleon was using the Church for his own ends. Italian nobles, unimpressed by the creation of the kingdom, expressed their disapproval by staying away, often pleading poverty as an excuse.15 Again Napoleon crowned himself, using the Iron Crown of Lombardy (it was made of gold but supposedly contained a thin band of iron from the Cross). On this occasion he proclaimed, ‘Iddio me l’ha data, guai a chi la toccherà’ (God gave it to me, woe to anyone who touches it), the words traditionally spoken by all those who received the Lombard crown (and which have since become a common saying in Italy). The legend on his insignia read Rex totius Italiae (King of all Italy). This, as it turned out, was to have important repercussions, to the extent that one has to wonder whether Napoleon was entirely aware of what he was doing. Northern Italy was one of the regions where Austria and France had conflicting interests. Indeed, the area had been a bone of contention dating back to Francis I in the sixteenth century, and would remain so until the Austrian army’s ultimate defeat in Italy by the forces of Napoleon III in 1859.
Austria grudgingly accepted an Italian republic, and would even have accepted an Italian monarchy. It might have accepted Napoleon as King of Italy too. What it could not accept, however, was seeing him claim the Iron Crown of Lombardy.16 Napoleon’s incorporation of northern Italy into the French Empire was a violation of the Treaty of Lunéville, which clearly stated that Italy would remain independent of France.17 It was plain, therefore, that Napoleon had no regard for treaties and broke them whenever it suited him (yet he always complained when other powers did not uphold their treaty obligations). When Austria remonstrated with a diplomatically worded note pointing out its concerns – namely, that it would accept the transformation of the Italian Republic into a monarchy as long as it remained independent – it was criticized for sticking its nose in Italian affairs.
The foundation of the Empire, the merger of the French and Italian thrones and the increasing influence of the French in Germany all made the court of Vienna exceedingly apprehensive about its own future. Austria had been directly challenged in what were traditionally considered its geopolitical spheres of influence.18 Not only was Italian independence compromised, but there were rumours of an offensive–defensive alliance between France and Bavaria directed against Austria.19 As early as January 1805, Vienna began to mobilize troops on the Bavarian border on the pretext of setting up a cordon sanitaire against an outbreak of yellow fever. At the same time, a second army started taking up positions on the frontier with Italy, in the Tyrol. This activity was bound to be noticed in Paris, where Talleyrand made it known to his Austrian counterpart that the situation could hardly be tolerated. Although Napoleon did not believe that Austria wanted to go to war, he did the only thing he knew how – he opposed force with force.20
Andrea Appiani the Elder, Napoleon I, roi d’Italie (Napoleon I, King of Italy), 1805.
The Rebirth of the Coalition
It was Russia, and not Austria or Britain, at the centre of the new coalition against France, the third since the beginning of the revolutionary wars in 1792.21
The Tsar of Russia, Alexander I, had come to power in 1801 after the assassination of his father Paul. An idealist who was not always in touch with the harsh reality of Russian or European politics, Alexander spent the first few years of his reign consolidating his hold on power and attempting to reform the Russian state. It is traditionally argued that he turned his attention to foreign affairs only once his domestic policies had faltered and then collapsed, but it now seems clear that he was involved in forming a coalition against France well before those reforms were implemented.22
At first, Alexander, like a number of other European statesmen, admired the First Consul for putting an end to the Revolution, but, ironically considering that the Tsar was an absolutist monarch, doubts began to trouble him when Bonaparte declared himself Consul for life in 1802.23 The Tsar’s adviser Adam Czartoryski believed that ‘reason’ would eventually prevail and that Europe or Russia would be able to persuade Bonaparte to adopt more moderate and just principles.24 Czartoryski may very well have been one of the few in Europe to believe that Bonaparte would eventually moderate his ambition. Other Russian politicians, like Count Alexander Vorontsov, chancellor between 1802 and 1804, wrote of the need to stop ‘the perpetual encroachments of the French government whose views tend towards nothing less than destroying all other governments or of making them into allies and vassals’.25 Russia was, however, in much the same manner as Prussia and to a lesser extent Austria, prepared to accept Bonaparte, despite any reservations it may have had, and deal with France as practically as possible. That is why Alexander worked behind the scenes, for a while, to find some sort of solution between France and the other European powers for a general peace settlement.26 He was already thinking of a kind of European federation that would help construct a new European order. Secret negotiations took place between Russia and Britain that would enable Alexander to make a peace offer to Bonaparte that included the British giving up Malta. This would place the allies on the moral high ground. Britain, however, had no intention of giving up Malta and Alexander’s plans fell through. He was left with a poor opinion of Britain’s motives for continuing the war against France.27 But his opinion of Napoleon also deteriorated to the point where the Tsar began to consider him ‘one of the most famous tyrants that history has produced’.28 In June 1804, a few months after the execution of the Duc d’Enghien, Alexander sent an ultimatum to Napoleon demanding that he withdraw from northern Germany and Naples. Napoleon naturally rejected the ultimatum,29 which led to Alexander breaking off relations with France in September. As with much foreign policy during the period, it was a question of Napoleon acting and the other powers reacting.
Alexander was nevertheless hesitant about going to war. ‘The idea of a war weighs on him and torments him,’ wrote Czartoryski.30 The court of Petersburg around this time was divided into (at least) two factions: one, backed by the British and including a number of prominent men who may even have been on their payroll,31 was pushing hard for war; and a non-interventionist group wanted nothing to do with the West. By the end of 1803, the pro-war faction appears to have prevailed. Alexander sent diplomats to Vienna, Berlin and London to sound them out about the possibility of a renewed coalition. London eventually agreed to subsidize Russia to the tune of £1.2 million or the equivalent of fielding an army of about 100,000 men. Other alliance treaties were signed with Austria (Novem
ber 1804), Sweden (January 1805), Naples (September 1805), the Ottoman Empire (September 1805) and Prussia (November 1805), although the latter was purely defensive.32 Russia was, therefore, the principal agent in a new European concert against France.
Napoleon too was looking for support on the Continent, and he was helped by the fact that Britain was not exactly popular in many European courts.33 He had already secured French influence in southern Germany by concluding treaties with Bavaria, Baden and Württemberg (although the latter two only after the war had begun).34 His objective was to make sure that his rear was safe while he attacked Britain, but he also had thereby a passage through to Austria if the occasion arose. The southern German powers, combined with Holland, Spain and northern Italy, meant that Napoleon proved better at forming an effective coalition than the allies, not because their combined power was stronger but because the southern German states gave him an easy and secure route into the heart of Austria.35 Or so goes the argument. As we shall see, southern Germany, as it had so many times before, became the battleground over which the war was fought. For the moment, Napoleon’s diplomatic efforts were combined with a public relations exercise. As in 1800, he wrote to the various kings of Europe in an apparent attempt to find a peaceful solution to the problem, but, as in 1800, these initiatives cannot be taken too seriously.36 The journey on the road to Austerlitz had begun.