by Philip Dwyer
The fate of the men captured at Bailén was horrendous.135 The terms of surrender stipulated that the French were to be escorted to the nearest port and transported to France. Apart from a few senior officers who were allowed to return home, the Spanish ignored the agreement. The men were robbed and indiscriminately murdered by the Spanish crowds along the way to Cadiz.136 Those who survived the ordeal starved on prison hulks in Cadiz harbour, although some British naval officers did intervene now and then on humanitarian grounds. The survivors were transferred to Cabrera in the Balearic Islands, where they were left to fend for themselves.137 In 1812, four years after they had been captured, Marshal Suchet offered to exchange 2,000 Spanish regulars for the worst cases, but Arthur Wellesley, later Duke of Wellington, disgracefully refused the offer. When the survivors finally returned home in 1814, out of the initial 18,000 men only about 1,800 remained alive.
The French public, however, learnt little or nothing of the defeat at Bailén. The newspapers of the day did not report it, and were not allowed to.138 Militarily this was not a particularly great setback, even if it obliged Napoleon to take the head of a concerted military campaign against Spain, something that he had not counted on when he first intervened. Just as important was the impact this defeat had on the peoples of Europe. It created a dent in the myth of French (but not yet Napoleon’s) invincibility. The Prussians took heart from the defeat and its military strategists began to think in terms of a national uprising (which never eventuated);139 in Russia, public opinion was sympathetic to the guerrilla cause and some saw in it a model that could be applied if France were ever to invade;140 the war party in Vienna gained the ascendancy and convinced the Austrian Emperor it was time to rearm. The court of Vienna, moreover, refused to recognize Joseph’s new title. Napoleon confronted Metternich during a diplomatic reception and asked him outright if Austria wanted war. One cannot be sure what kind of answer Napoleon was expecting, other than perhaps to put Metternich on the spot; the Austrian ambassador obfuscated by replying that their measures were purely defensive.141 And in Spain, ‘the whole nation’, wrote Joseph to his brother, ‘is exasperated and has decided to support, arms in hand, the party they have embraced’.142
On 31 July, after being there for only ten days, Joseph decided to abandon Madrid in a panic reaction brought about by Bailén. His flight left a vacuum in the capital that was immediately filled by the rebels. At the same time, Junot, who had managed to hold on to Portugal with his small force, was forced to withdraw in the face of an English army led by Arthur Wellesley, who proceeded to inflict a series of checks and defeats on the badly dispersed French. Junot was defeated near Vimeiro (21 August) and as a result signed the so-called Convention of Cintra, which virtually handed over Portugal to the English but allowed for his men to be repatriated.
Napoleon learnt of the somewhat precipitate withdrawal of his brother from Madrid some time in the second half of August 1808. He was furious, grabbed the hapless General Mathieu Dumas, who had brought him Joseph’s dispatch, by the lapels and shook him violently before replying, ‘I see that I must go there myself and wind up the machine.’143 Before that, however, Napoleon had to do two things. First, in September 1808, he transferred 200,000 veteran troops from Germany to Spain, where they joined the 100,000 men already there, to make up for the losses the French had incurred. The second thing was get diplomatic assurances from his ally, Alexander, so that he could be free to act in Spain without having to worry about Germany.
CRUCIBLE, 1808–1811
14
The Desolate Father
Erfurt, the German Princes and a Russian Bear
A meeting with the Tsar was proposed before Napoleon knew about Bailén, at the end of July 1808 (he had been in fact been thinking of suggesting this since early in the year). After Bailén, and with Austria now making threatening noises, it became more urgent. Ostensibly, the meeting was to reaffirm the Franco-Russian alliance, but it was really about making sure central Europe was calm, that Austria was ‘worried and contained’, so that Napoleon could have a free hand in Spain.1 In a letter to his brother Jérôme, Napoleon expressed a somewhat more ambitious goal, ‘to confer on the situation of European affairs, the means to end the troubles of the world and to restore general tranquillity’.2 To meet with Alexander to discuss the future of Europe was also to send a signal that the Emperor and the Tsar enjoyed a personal relationship. It was moreover a way of showing the world that, although nominally equal, in reality the Tsar was subordinated to the Emperor.
Talleyrand, rather than the foreign minister Champagny, was to accompany Napoleon to Erfurt, even though he was in disgrace.3 When he returned to Paris from Valençay, Napoleon gave Talleyrand the Russian diplomatic correspondence. Talleyrand was meant to beguile the other princes at Erfurt, but he was also possibly the only person in Napoleon’s entourage who could advise him on how to stand up to Alexander. No one knew the Emperor’s own thoughts better. Napoleon still believed Talleyrand to be a faithful, if recalcitrant, servant. However, even before he had arrived in Erfurt, Talleyrand had made up his mind to work against Napoleon. What followed was a complicated game of intrigue by Talleyrand, who enlisted the aid of an unsuspecting Caulaincourt, and Alexander, already used to playing a double game when it came to France (recall the Russian attitude during the lead-up to war with Prussia in 1806). If the memoirs of the Baron de Vitrolles are to be believed, Talleyrand went so far as to dictate to Alexander, through the intermediary of the Princess of Thurn and Taxis, what he should say to Napoleon.4 The image is attractive, but probably exaggerated, although there is no doubt that Talleyrand influenced Alexander’s attitude at Erfurt.5
Erfurt was also organized to remind the German princes that Napoleon was still very much in control.6 The Emperor’s displays of power, theatrical to say the least, were always designed to demonstrate his overwhelming military and political superiority. The very fact that every prince and king in central Europe felt obliged to attend the meeting speaks volumes about his power and their submission to him, as does the manner in which the German princes behaved – fawning, servile, ‘embarrassing’, according to one witness.7 Admittedly, they did not all go willingly. Many felt that it was a further sign of Napoleon’s despotic power, while some, including people in the Tsar’s entourage, were fearful, quite irrationally under the circumstances, that the same fate awaited them as had befallen Carlos IV and his son at Bayonne only a few months earlier.8 The only two central European sovereigns not to attend were Frederick William of Prussia and Francis of Austria, but then neither was invited, Francis in particular, so convinced was Napoleon that he was preparing for war.9
Erfurt, halfway between the Rhine and the Elbe, was Alexander’s suggested location.10 The town, once an important trading centre, now part of the Kingdom of Westphalia, was given a makeover for the occasion. Buildings were renovated, streets relaid, triumphal arches erected, the main streets and squares illuminated with lanterns. Every decent house in the town had been commandeered for a sovereign and his suite. The twenty or so inns were full, mostly with tourists and hangers-on to the various courts.11 The house in which Napoleon was to stay was furnished with carpets from the Gobelins, porcelain, bronze figures, candelabras, chandeliers, and furniture that had been manufactured especially in Gotha, so that the building was transformed into a fashionable house in the Empire style.
On 27 September 1808, on the road to Weimar, a few kilometres outside the city, at a village called Münchenholzen, Napoleon met Alexander, and from there they rode into Erfurt together.12 They spent the next two weeks in each other’s company. Napoleon did everything he could to seduce Alexander, entertaining him with numerous balls and concerts, the classics played by the best actors brought from Paris, some of whom were beautiful women he tried introducing into Alexander’s bed.13 Nothing was left to chance, including the selection of plays that were to be performed, always at the very heart of Napoleon’s political thinking.14 For the benefit of the French and Ge
rman public, Alexander made an effort to get on well with Napoleon. It was, however, a façade. Public opinion back home was against the meeting. Alexander’s mother, Mariia Federovna, staunchly conservative, narrow-minded and, despite her German background and poor Russian, the centre of a ‘patriot’ faction at court, implored him not to go, not ‘voluntarily to bow your forehead . . . before the idol of fortune, an idol accursed of present and future humanity; step back from the edge of the precipice!’15 The Tsar’s sister similarly wrote to say that ‘In my whole life, I will never get used to the idea of knowing you spent your days with Bonaparte; it has the air of a bad joke when one says it, but does not seem possible.’16
The festivities were gloss; the two emperors got to work almost immediately after the Tsar’s arrival. The first meeting, in Talleyrand’s presence, was cordial and Napoleon still appears to have been enamoured of Alexander – in a letter to Josephine he declared that if Alexander were a woman he would make him his mistress.17 They met almost every afternoon for a few hours after that, but the negotiations soon ran into difficulties, over Prussia, Austria, Spain and in particular over Russian ambitions in the Middle East.18 Prussia had turned to Alexander for help in an attempt to diminish the burden of the French occupation. In that respect, Alexander succeeded at least in having Prussia’s war indemnity slightly reduced. In return for his adhesion to the Continental System, he hoped to obtain French support for his plans to partition what was already perceived to be a degenerate, crumbling empire, but in this he was to be sadly disappointed. Napoleon had no consistent policy towards the Ottoman Empire; at times he wanted to be its ally, at other times he thought of grand plans for its partition. At the Treaty of Tilsit, there had indeed been a general consensus between Alexander and Napoleon along those lines. It was one of the fundamentals of their agreement, and was perhaps the factor that persuaded Alexander to hitch his star to Napoleon’s. We can spare the reader the vagaries of Napoleon’s history of broken promises, backflips and unlikely plans for expeditions to Constantinople, and from there on to the Euphrates and India (now with Russian, now with Austrian troops), except to say that nothing practical ever came of these military musings, and Alexander felt betrayed.19
Negotiations over the Ottoman Empire went on throughout 1808, but without getting anywhere. Napoleon was preoccupied with Spain. In September that year, however, at Erfurt, Napoleon agreed to the Russian demands for the Ottoman provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia (now incorporated into present-day Romania) in return for which Russia promised to support Napoleon if he were attacked by Austria (something Alexander had already promised at Tilsit, and which he failed to do when the time came). The partition of the Ottoman Empire was just another chapter in the book of possibilities, an opportunity Napoleon might take, one day, when circumstances were different, after Spain had been resolved. As we saw, part of the reason Spain and Naples were occupied in the first place was to seize control of their navies, and to use their ports for possible springboards into North Africa. But here too, as with most things Napoleonic, the attitude of France towards the Ottoman Empire has to be seen in a longer French foreign-political context: it had been a point of contention in the relationship between France and Russia for the preceding hundred years, and looked again like souring relations between Alexander and Napoleon (along with the question of Poland, which we will treat elsewhere).20
After that first meeting, as Talleyrand escorted the Tsar back to his carriage, Alexander repeated to him several times in a low voice: ‘Nous nous verrons’ (We will meet). On reaching his own apartments, Talleyrand found a note from the Princess of Thurn and Taxis, the Queen of Prussia’s sister, informing him of her arrival. Talleyrand went to her immediately, and was joined a short while later by the Tsar. ‘He was most amiable and communicative,’ Talleyrand later wrote, ‘and asked the princess for some tea, telling her that she should give us some every evening after the theatre.’21 It was on this occasion that Talleyrand said to Alexander: ‘Why are you here? . . . The French people are civilized, their sovereign is not. It is up to the sovereign of Russia then to be the ally of the French people.’ The lines, often cited, are probably apocryphal and are to be found only in later editions of Metternich’s memoirs.22 These few sentences nevertheless contain the germ of the allies’ political thinking. If not Talleyrand, then the European political elite was now starting to make a fundamental distinction between Napoleon on the one hand and the French people on the other, one that would not be forgotten by the Tsar. The implication was clear: Napoleon was not France, and he was acting like a despot. Those who served him, therefore, were not obliged to follow. In some respects, those few sentences were also the culmination of a long history of political thinking on the subject.23 It was the justification used by Talleyrand to work against Napoleon, and it gave someone like the Tsar a moral pretext to back out of the Treaty of Tilsit and to think about a rapprochement with Austria.
And so it was arranged that the Tsar and Talleyrand would meet in the Princess of Thurn and Taxis’s drawing room every day to discuss the meetings between Napoleon and Alexander. It was there that Talleyrand asked Alexander to save Europe by standing up to Napoleon. It was there that Talleyrand schooled Alexander in how to negotiate with Napoleon (Alexander would sometimes take notes while Talleyrand dictated). And it was there that he eventually convinced Alexander, and perhaps Metternich, that France was not Napoleon, and that Austria and Russia should form a bulwark against Napoleon’s insatiable ambition.24
Standing up to Napoleon had its consequences. At one stage Napoleon was so frustrated with Alexander’s obstinacy that, working himself into a melodramatic rage, he threw his hat on to the ground and stamped on it (that is possibly why he got through 160–170 hats in the course of his career).25 In the face of this outburst, Alexander is supposed to have kept his cool, and replied to Napoleon, ‘When you become violent I just become stubborn. With me anger is of no avail. Let us discuss, and be reasonable, or I will go.’ It belied his real intentions. Alexander was not terribly interested in an accommodation of any description with Napoleon. In fact, he was playing for time, hoping not to alienate his powerful ally, and trying to keep his own domestic opposition in check. Even before he had arrived in Erfurt, Alexander wrote to his sister Catherine that ‘Bonaparte thinks that I am nothing but an idiot. They laugh longest who laugh last! and I put all my hope in God.’26 In the same vein, Alexander wrote to his mother that it was necessary to ‘enter for some time into his [Napoleon’s] views and to prove to him that he could trust his [Alexander’s] intentions and plans’.27
On 7 October 1808, on the anniversary of Napoleon’s victory at Jena, a hunt was organized on the battlefield itself (about fifty kilometres from Erfurt). The hunt was a pretext. Really, Napoleon wanted to take Alexander on a personal tour, giving him a dramatic account of the battle of Jena from a knoll that overlooked the field. The Tsar played along. He knew how to hide his real sentiments when he had to. Only a few days before, at a performance of Voltaire’s play Oedipus, when the line ‘The friendship of a great man is a gift of the gods’ was pronounced, Alexander stood up and, in a flamboyant gesture, took Napoleon’s hand, while the whole audience applauded.28 What was Napoleon thinking then by showing Alexander the site of another victory? Was it a veiled warning, a reminder that any resistance would meet the same fate as the King of Prussia had met? Quite apart from the humiliation that Alexander must have felt at being given a lesson by the man who had so resoundingly trounced him at Austerlitz, it was a tactless thing to do, the action of a man who was profoundly insecure, at least in this relationship. The same night as Voltaire’s play and Alexander’s public profession of friendship, Napoleon’s valet Constant heard his master cry out and went to wake him. He found the Emperor ‘extended across his bed in a convulsive posture, his sheets and his blankets thrown some distance, and his whole person in a frightful state of nervous tension. His opened mouth let escape inarticulate sounds, his chest seemed greatly weighed down,
and he had one of his hands pressed, clenched, in the pit of his stomach.’29 Napoleon was obliged to change his nightshirt; it was soaked through with sweat. He had had a nightmare and had dreamt that a bear had opened his chest and was devouring his heart.
One cannot, with any degree of certainty, translate a dream of this nature, but a possible interpretation is that Napoleon must have realized, if only unconsciously, that Russia (and Alexander) represented danger. Something at the back of his mind must have been ringing alarm bells. When Erfurt was over, leaving Alexander on the road to Moscow and returning in his carriage to Erfurt, Napoleon was in a pensive mood.30 Erfurt had been a failure, and he realized it even though he was unaware of Talleyrand working against him behind the scenes. He ended up with a treaty that was different from Tilsit, but was not what he had in mind. Alexander had been considerably less accessible than at Tilsit and had assiduously avoided committing himself to a war with Austria. Napoleon believed that things had gone wrong because the Tsar wanted to treat him as an equal,31 something he would not tolerate. He expected Alexander to behave as a subordinate and that was that. Alexander had no choice but to behave defiantly.