by Philip Dwyer
In the depths of the night, the torch. The scene has been described so many times that it has become an obligatory anecdote in any account of the battle. There is obviously some truth in the claim that Napoleon had condescended to come down to the level of the common soldier to partake of his bread (or potato as the case may be), since it is mentioned by a number of people.141 But it was also meant as a kind of living allegory in which Napoleon, wandering through the camp, became the light-filled centre who threw back the darkness of the night and unified the troops around his person.
The sun rose that morning over a scene covered in fog. It was to help, rather than hinder, Napoleon’s plans: the French right wing was to feign retreat and to hold the bulk of the allied army, which would descend from the Pratzen Heights in order to attack the retreating French. At the right moment, the French centre and left wing would attack the heights, thereby catching the allies in a pincer movement. By mid-afternoon, this is exactly what happened; the French had occupied the heights and were firing on the enemy below. An attempt by the Russian–Austrian army to extricate itself from the trap turned into a rout. Some of the Russian troops tried to escape across an icy lake. A French officer by the name of Jean-Baptiste Barrès took part in the manoeuvre, throwing the Russians on to the frozen lake.142 According to him, 12,000–15,000 men ran across so that they all broke through the ice at the same time.
Napoleon’s account of this retreat across the ice was grossly exaggerated in the 30th Bulletin, giving the impression that 20,000 Russians drowned after he gave the order for his artillery to fire shells to break up the ice.143 In fact, the marshes were far too shallow for that many to have drowned; possibly only a hundred men died that way.144 Fewer than 2,000 out of 10,000 troops in the 1st Column were listed missing in action by the Russians, many of whom would have been lost before reaching the marshes. As in some of the battles in Italy, Napoleon greatly inflated the number of enemy dead and wounded (at least 15,000 dead in the bulletin when in reality it was closer to 4,000), while minimizing the number of French dead and wounded.145 More interesting is the question why he would want to highlight the drownings on the Satschen marshes, an episode that must have appeared harsh, even to contemporaries used to the brutalities of war. It is possible that the episode was meant to remind people of two similar events in history: one of biblical proportions, the drowning of the Pharaoh’s army in the Red Sea; the other more recent, the defeat of the Russians by the Teutonic Knights on the frozen surface of Lake Peipus in 1242. Probably no other event in the battle struck imaginations so deeply, so that it was accepted, repeated and exaggerated in the telling by veterans for years afterwards.
Alexander was isolated from the army on the Pratzen Heights quite early in the day, the rest of which he spent in the rear with his surgeon, two Cossacks and a couple of servants, with no contact and ignorant of how the battle was unfolding. After the battle was over, he was seen riding away with his small entourage, overcome by despair. At one stage, he got off his horse, sat on the wet ground at the foot of a tree, covered his face with a handkerchief and burst into tears. Major Carl Friedrich von Toll, a witness to the scene, attempted to offer a few words of consolation.146 Alexander was not weeping about the carnage, but about the personal humiliation he had just suffered. His English doctor, James Wylie, did what any respectable nineteenth-century doctor would do under the circumstances – he gave the Tsar a few drops of opium in some wine to calm his nerves.147 We have no idea how Francis reacted to the defeat, although he must have been discouraged. When he met Alexander some time during the morning of the next day,148 he informed him that he wished to open negotiations with Napoleon. This kind of surrender was typical on the part of the Austrians. The allies could have continued to fight – a sizeable portion of the army remained intact and reinforcements were on their way – but there was a general lack of will to carry on. The collapse of the Third Coalition was as much about lack of trust and indecision on the part of the Eastern powers (certainly on the part of Prussia’s Frederick William and then, once defeated at Austerlitz, on the part of Alexander), exacerbated by a lack of communication, as it was about Napoleon’s mastery on the field and bullying off. Alexander lacked the determination that he would later gain after seeing the Grande Armée ravage his country in 1812. After Austerlitz, he was hesitant about war, probably overwhelmed by the enormity of the decisions before him.149
Francis was more than ready to agree to an armistice. He met with Napoleon two days after the battle, on 4 December, at a mill between Zaroschitz and Nasedlowitz, but since the mill had been completely ransacked the meeting took place in the open.150 He was, like his Prussian counterpart, not really made to be king. He had the ‘the most pale complexion possible’, always wore the same uniform of white coat, red trousers and black boots, appeared shy and embarrassed when he spoke, and resembled more a member of the bourgeoisie than a king.151 He nevertheless plucked up enough gumption to put all the blame on the English for what had just transpired, those ‘merchants of human flesh’ as he called them. Napoleon was conciliatory. His initial offer to Francis was reasonably moderate; he did not threaten to take any territories away from Austria at this stage. In the immediate aftermath of the battle, he was still unsure where he stood – that is, whether the war would continue. The Prussians could have yet joined the fray, Archduke Charles had reached the Danube, and the Russian army was still largely intact. That is why Napoleon agreed to an armistice so readily. He did not know that Alexander had given up the fight and had decided to return home. He was, moreover, in a rather precarious position that a more ruthless wartime opponent would have exploited: his troops were overextended, exhausted and without any further reserves. If the allies had done their sums, they would have seen that they could still outnumber Napoleon.
Austerlitz helped obliterate the defeat at Trafalgar, which is why news of that battle, which had taken place six weeks previously on 21 October, was not released until after Ulm and Austerlitz.152 Of more significance, Austerlitz was the first imperial victory of any note (more so than Ulm) and the regime made much of it. Over time, it became more than a military victory, part of the Napoleonic legend, even in the Emperor’s lifetime, galvanizing future soldiers, even placating French public opinion anxious about the war and the directions it was taking. Contemporaries, especially those who had fought at Austerlitz, immediately recognized that they had lived through something extraordinary. ‘What a battle,’ exclaimed Commandant Salmon to his wife. ‘Since the world was made nothing like it has happened.’153 As news trickled through to the rest of Europe, Napoleon’s propaganda hit home so that the defeat appeared much worse than it was. The conservative political commentator Joseph de Maistre, writing to King Victor Emmanuel I of Sardinia, described Austerlitz as the ‘bloodiest [battle] ever recorded in modern history’.154 The expressions he used were ‘rivers of blood’ and ‘piles of bodies’, and he spoke of ‘Horror and indignation’. Worse was to occur in later years, but it is significant that the reaction among Europe’s political elite was laden with foreboding. ‘Roll up the map of Europe,’ Pitt is reputed to have said, ‘it will not be wanted these ten years.’155
And yet, paradoxically, news of the battle, which trickled into Paris on 10 December, does not appear to have produced as great a reaction as the French entry into Vienna.156 There was an attempt to involve the people in victory celebrations – in Paris, for example, the theatres were opened to the public, while in the province some prefects decided to distribute bread and wood to the poor157 – but Paris crowds were notoriously unpredictable. One should not read too much into the simple presence of a crowd, especially if it involved obtaining something for free; a crowd did not necessarily mean overwhelming support for either Napoleon or the regime.158 The Paris prefect of police was obliged to ‘invite’ the inhabitants of that imperial city to illuminate their dwellings.159 When a festival was organized to transfer the numerous enemy flags Napoleon had captured and sent to Paris – this took p
lace on 1 January 1806 – the reaction of the onlookers seems to have been muted. It was obvious to one witness at least that some in the crowd had been paid to attend and to cheer.160
If the sentiments of the war-weary were not as enthusiastic as supporters of the regime might have expected, the fawning of the elite was very much in evidence, especially among Church prelates. In a Te Deum to celebrate the victory, the vicar of the Church of Saint-Merri in Paris declared that the French people, ‘whom God cherishes, is saved, the Lord himself has fought amid the ranks of our valiant warriors’.161 And he went on to describe Napoleon in the most flattering light: ‘He seems, this Hero, similar to the morning star, all the more brilliant because it succeeds the long nights and announces serene days.’ Cardinal Belloy, the Archbishop of Paris, wrote privately to Napoleon to say that he was great in the eyes of the world because his aptitude for the art of war had determined the destiny of Europe, but he was even greater in the eyes of religion because of the homage he had paid God.162 A number of poems, some published in pamphlet form (sometimes in Latin), and even plays, were sent to Napoleon celebrating the victory of Austerlitz.163
‘Peace is an Empty Word’
One year after the foundation of the Empire, Charles de Rémusat, a former noble who had rallied to Bonaparte, believed that its success was not yet assured.164 The news of the battle of Austerlitz did not change that, but it undoubtedly lent a certain splendour or éclat to Napoleon’s reign. The brilliant military campaign consolidated his position and reinforced the aura of invincibility that he had been cultivating since the first Italian campaign.
In many respects, Austerlitz completed the transformation of Bonaparte into Napoleon. Before that, contemporaries could be forgiven for thinking that he was just another competent French general, if somewhat better than most. There was nothing particularly novel about his campaigns in either Italy or Egypt that could have led contemporary military observers to think that they were dealing with a genius on the field. The Italian campaign of 1796–7 was marked by the rapidity of his successes, as well as their political exploitation, but there was no one battle as decisive as the knockout blow that was Austerlitz. The Egyptian campaign had very mixed results, but was easily exploited by Bonaparte in an aura-building exercise. The battle of Marengo, as we know, he almost lost. Moreover, the campaign was only won six months later with the victory of Moreau at Hohenlinden. Austerlitz was different; it was the first decisive battle – the war was effectively over in three months – a feat that was to be successfully repeated at Jena-Auerstädt and Friedland.165 But it also changed the way in which Napoleon approached campaigning. He believed he had developed a new approach and that he could repeat the performance each time he went to war.166 Part of the reason for this was that the characteristics of Napoleonic warfare – the speed with which marches were carried out, the mutual support derived from corps formations, and the maintenance of large reserves in the rear ready for the decisive blow – were not yet so readily documented or discussed as to have become generally recognized.167
Austerlitz is often seen too as a watershed in the development of Napoleon’s character. We do not know what he thought about his victory or what may have gone through his mind when he defeated Francis and Alexander, but it must have had an impact on him. From that time he is supposed to have assumed an increasingly imperious tone. This, however, is based on the mistaken assumption that he was something other than imperious from the start. There is enough evidence to suggest that since the first campaign in Italy he had been growing in arrogance and conceit. Take, for example, his aside to Cambacérès in August 1805, months before Austerlitz. After dictating a letter to Talleyrand ordering him to inform French envoys throughout Europe that he was being forced to go to war with Austria, Napoleon turned to his arch-chancellor and remarked, ‘Anyone would have to be totally mad to make war against me.’168
In October, in a memorandum written from Strasbourg, Talleyrand had argued that France would be much better off with Austria as its ally rather than its inveterate enemy. He recommended a ‘lenient peace’ with Austria, one that would even lead to an Austro-French defensive alliance.169 This could be done, he argued, by setting up what today would be called buffer states between Austria and France in Germany. It was an intelligent enough approach, although scholars have pointed to its flaws, namely, that it excluded Austria from any direct control in Italy and Germany and thus set the foundations for future conflict.170 Napoleon appears to have been persuaded by his foreign minister’s arguments – until after Austerlitz, when his attitude hardened overnight. In victory, he became less generous. He imposed a demanding treaty on Austria not so much as a result of the victory, but because Austria quickly became isolated on the diplomatic scene, after being abandoned by both Prussia and Russia. What he was now looking for was not peace – a word he thought empty171 – but rather a ‘glorious peace’; any negotiation had to be conducted from a position of strength.
It was. On 26 December, Austria signed the Treaty of Pressburg, incurring a considerable number of territorial losses: Venice, Dalmatia and Istria were ceded to the Kingdom of Italy; Brixen, Trent, Vorarlberg and the Tyrol were ceded to Bavaria.172 In addition, Vienna was saddled with a war indemnity of forty million francs. It was in part a result of Napoleon’s belief that Austria was his main Continental enemy – a belief engendered by his experiences in Italy during the first and second Italian campaigns: he was therefore trying to hobble the country so that it could no longer do any harm.173 Although it makes no sense from either a foreign-political or even a personal perspective, Napoleon felt he had been duped by Austria. If it had appeared willing to negotiate with him before the outbreak of war, that was (in his mind) a ruse allowing it time to mobilize for battle.174
This is possible, but another explanation can be offered. The defeat of Austria and Russia presented Napoleon with an opportunity that had not existed before the battle. He was now in a position to reshape all of southern, northern and central Europe, to transform the Grand Nation into the Grand Empire.175 Over the next few months, he installed Joseph as King of Naples, and Louis as King of Holland (Eugène, it will be recalled, had already been installed as viceroy of Italy). In Germany, the Holy Roman Empire was abolished and replaced by a Confederation of the Rhine under French influence. The Electors of Bavaria and Württemberg were made kings, while Charles, Duke of Baden had his duchy transformed into a Grand Duchy. As with previous treaties hammered out by Napoleon, such as Leoben, Lunéville and Amiens, the seeds of further unrest were very much present. Francis always hated the peace that had been imposed on him at Pressburg, and he began to look around for allies to undo it almost immediately the guns had fallen silent. And as with other treaties signed by Napoleon, he reneged on them within months.
11
The Grand Empire
Napoleon the Great, Napoleon the Saint
Napoleon returned to Paris in the first flush of victory on the evening of 26 January 1806. In the weeks and months following the battle of Austerlitz, one can discern an attempt not only to exploit the victory to the fullest, but also to establish a cult centred on Napoleon. In an issue of the Moniteur in 1806, the minister of the interior Chaptal published an ‘Ode sur les victoires de Napoléon le Grand’ (Ode to the victories of Napoleon the Great), in which a Frenchman wakes up Homer to ask him to come back to sing the glory of a hero who by his actions had effaced the names of the great heroes of antiquity.1 References to Napoleon as ‘Great’ were in evidence even before the coronation in December 1804, but they were uttered in private.2 Now there was public acknowledgement of the epithet as the Senate passed a vote to construct a monument to ‘Napoleon the Great’.
Propaganda was not a word employed by contemporaries. Instead, people spoke of the ‘management of opinion’ (direction de l’opinion).3 That is why Napoleon insisted on having men who were ‘attached’ to him at the head of the newspapers, and who had the ‘good sense’ not to publish material that was damagi
ng to the nation.4 There was a punitive as well as a constructive tradition involved in cultivating his image. The punitive tradition was common to eighteenth-century absolutist states and involved removing those who tarnished Napoleon’s image. Journalists and newspapers were censored or closed down, and in extreme circumstances journalists were executed.
The constructive tradition involved grafting Napoleon’s image on to existing popular culture.5 To this end the Emperor tolerated and even encouraged traditions, such as religious festivals and other public celebrations, that dated back to the pre-revolutionary era, and that he could use to promote his image. Thus the Festival of the Federation on the anniversary of 14 July was first relegated to a public holiday in 1803 and 1804, and was no longer celebrated at all after 1805. Instead, Napoleon created his own festivals with a military aura. The translation of the remains of Marshal Henri de La Tour d’Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne, to the Invalides in 1801, the construction of triumphal arches, the Distribution of the Eagles, the celebration of victories, and the translation of Frederick the Great’s sword to the Invalides in 1807 fall into that pattern. The army often took centre stage in Napoleonic festivities to create a ‘culture of war’ that united citizens and conscripts around the flag.6 The most Napoleonic of festivals was the creation of the anniversary of St Napoleon. But the regime went even further by attempting to instil a degree of sacrality that had not been seen since before the Revolution: an imperial catechism was introduced that made a direct link between God and Napoleon; and 15 August, which happened to coincide with both the Assumption and Napoleon’s birthday, was declared a national holiday to celebrate the founding of a new saint – St Napoleon.