As might be expected from such a polyglot and hastily organized army, the standard of discipline off the battlefield left a great deal to be desired. Although in the past Napoleon had often tended to turn an unseeing eye on many of the irregularities committed by his troops, the number of complaints reached such proportions in 1809 that he was compelled to adopt fierce measures. At his order, the provost marshal of the army created five traveling courtmartial teams which followed the corps and dispensed summary justice for misdemeanors. Fierce orders of the day were promulgated: “Every straggler who, under the pretext of fatigue, leaves his corps for the purpose of marauding, will be arrested, tried by courtmartial, and executed on the spot”43 ran one of these.
In conclusion, it is necessary to pay tribute to the staunch military qualities displayed by the Austrian soldiery and the undoubted ability of their commander in chief. Archduke Charles represented the most troublesome adversary that Napoleon had yet come across in the field. His reconstructed Austrian army was far superior to the one whose remnants he received in December 1805, and there can be no questioning the fighting spirit displayed by all ranks. To defeat Napoleon at Aspern-Essling was tribute enough to Charles’ abilities, but even at Wagram he denied the Emperor the complete victory he wanted, and the French were fortunate to secure so favorable a peace.
This is not to say, however, that the Austrian forces were consistently well employed. The slow rate of advance at the very outset of the campaign robbed Charles of most of the advantage he could hope to derive from the scattered locations of his opponents, providing the French with just enough time to reorder their dispositions before the major blow fell. Similarly, the showing of the Austrian army during the days of fighting that followed was not particularly distinguished, and the fact that Charles was able to withdraw the greater part of his men into Bohemia was largely due to the fact that his army was considerably more mobile in retreat than in the attack. There was a marked lack of aggressive zeal in the days leading up to the battle of Aspern-Essling, and in the period after this partial Austrian victory little attempt was made to wring any advantage out of the situation. A policy of inertia and uncertainty seemed to have Charles and his generals in its grip, and while it can be argued that he was right to suspend major operations pending the arrival (or at least the approach) of his brother John, there can be little doubt that the divided councils of the Austrian high command contributed greatly to facilitate Napoleon’s resumption of the offensive in early July and his subsequent victory at Wagram.
What, then, had Napoleon achieved by his Campaign of 1809 against Austria? In the end he had defeated his Hapsburg opponents and forced them to sue for peace. To some extent he had moved sufficiently fast to nip the threatening revolt of Germany as a whole in the bud. “I can declare,” wrote Bourienne, “that in 1809 it required all the promptitude of the Emperor’s march on Vienna to defeat the plots which were brewing against his government; for in the event of his arms being unsuccessful, the blow was ready to be struck.”44 The setback at Aspern-Essling was, therefore, even more critical than appeared at the time.
However, even the recovery represented by the victory at Wagram and the British evacuation of Walcheren (late September) failed to crush the spirit of German nationalism, the force which Napoleon marched to Vienna to destroy. This unpalatable fact was brought very clearly home to the Emperor by an incident which occurred on October 23, a mere ten days after the conclusion of peace. During a review of part of the army a young eighteen-year-old German named Stapps approached the Emperor as if to present a petition. At the very last moment, when only a yard separated him from Napoleon, Stapps tried to draw a knife, but was intercepted in the very nick of time by the watchful General Rapp, Napoleon’s chief aide. Napoleon interrogated the young man at length, trying to find out the reason underlying his assassination attempt. Eager to impress the youth with his magnanimity, the Emperor offered him his life in return for an apology. This, however, Stapps refused to give: “I want no pardon. I only regret having failed in my attempt.” All threats and entreaties proved vain, Stapps remained adamant in his hostility, and in the end Napoleon had to send him to his death. “I never saw Napoleon look so confounded,” continued Rapp in his memoirs. “The replies of Stapps and his unshakable resolution perfectly astonished him. He ordered the prisoner to be removed, and when he had gone Napoleon said, ‘This is the result of the secret societies which infest Germany. This is the effect of fine principles and the light of reason. They make young men assassins. But what can be done against illuminism? A sect cannot be destroyed by cannonballs.’”45 This last sentence holds the truth; the power of German nationalism was too strongly rooted by this time to be overcome by a single unsuccessful battle. In its larger aim, therefore, Napoleon’s Campaign of 1809 was undoubtedly a failure; the desire for liberty from the French yoke was still uncrushed, and in due time it would re-emerge stronger than ever.
PART THIRTEEN
The Road to Moscow
THE FIRST PART OF NAPOLEON’S RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN, JUNE 22 TO SEPTEMBER 15, 1812
67
THE BREAKDOWN OF THE FRANCO-RUSSIAN ENTENTE
S
OLDATS!” opened the Imperial proclamation of June 22, 1812. “The second Polish war has opened; the first ended at Friedland and Tilsit. At Tilsit, Russia swore eternal friendship with France and also war against England. Today she has broken her undertakings! She will give no further explanation of her strange behavior until the French eagles have again withdrawn behind the Rhine, leaving our distant allies at her mercy. She will learn to her cost that her destiny must be fulfilled. Does she think us degenerate? Are we no longer the soldiers of Austerlitz? She places us between dishonor and war; there can be no doubt which course we shall choose. Forward then, let us cross the Niemen, so that we can carry the war into her own territory. The second Polish war will bring as much glory to French arms as did the first. But the peace treaty which we shall conclude this time will carry its own guarantee; it will put an end to the fatal influence which Russia has exercised over Europe for the past fifty years.”1
If the seeds of Napoleon’s downfall were sown as early as the winter of 1806, the speed of his decline was indubitably hastened by the catastrophic Campaign of 1812. Time was to show that the decision to invade Russia constituted the irrevocable step which effectively compromised any remaining chance of survival for Napoleon and his Empire. From the moment the first troops crossed the Niemen, the Emperor was committed to the path leading inexorably to St. Helena, and although the next few years would hold several transient military successes for his arms, there could be no retracing his steps. The die was cast from June 22, 1812, though few men guessed it at the time.
The breakdown of the “spirit of Tilsit” was not the work of a moment, and it took several years for the tensions between France and Russia to rise to a pitch which made full-scale war inevitable. The causes of this fateful alienation were both many and complex, but it is possible to distinguish the main strands of motivation. Perhaps the French historian Bainville demonstrated the crux of the matter when he wrote, “Napoleon went to Moscow in pursuit of the ghost of Tilsit.”2 Basically it was insatiable ambition, lust for power and a desire to regain the international position he had enjoyed in July 1807 that led Napoleon to make his fatal decision. At Tilsit, Napoleon had drunk the heady wine of apparently consummated success; one monarch of ancient lineage—the unfortunate King of Prussia—had attended the conference in the role of helpless suppliant; another—the powerful Tsar of all the Russias—had been eager to reach a friendly accommodation with the adventurer of Corsican extraction, even at the price of an alliance ostensibly in the French favor. This had represented Napoleon’s greatest hour, at least superficially. To all appearances he was then the veritable master of continental Europe.
In the years following this climax, however, the balance of power slowly shifted in Russia’s favor. From the very first, the French alliance was received with grave res
ervations if not blatant hostility by the great majority of the Tsar’s servants, and away from direct contact with the magnetic fascination of the French Emperor, the altruistic and impressionable Alexander imperceptibly began to alter his opinions. At first there were few open signs of the developing rift. Napoleon spared no pains to cultivate Russian friendship, carefully avoiding further intrusions into those areas of Eastern Europe which represented the most sensitive points of Romanov interest. The French army, or its greater part, was either transferred to Spain in late 1808, or else pulled back behind the Elbe, and Napoleon openly encouraged Alexander to seek new conquests at the expense of Finland and his Asiatic neighbors. As we have noted, he even put forward fantastic suggestions for a cooperative joint attack on Turkey and Persia. For his part, Alexander ordered the implementation of the Continental System, which soon led to a formal war with England, and busied himself with plans for a vast series of legal and administrative reforms analogous to those being carried through in Western Europe.
However, beneath the surface, fundamental points of conflicting interest remained, destined in the course of time to cause Franco-Russian friendship to founder. Alexander desired nothing so much as possession of Constantinople and the Balkan states known as “the Principalities,”* but these particular ambitions Napoleon was equally determined to thwart, having no desire to allow Russian influence into the Mediterranean sphere. Next, there was the touchy issue of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. Napoleon was careful not to reconstitute the ancient kingdom of Poland, at least not in name, but there was no disguising the fact that St. Petersburg regarded French influence in the area as a distinct intrusion into Russia’s “front yard.” Thirdly, the economic inconvenience caused by Russian adherence to the Continental System which brought to a standstill the lucrative trade with Great Britain in timber and other naval stores led to grave unrest among the nobility and merchants who found their wealth threatened as the rouble rapidly devalued.
Tsar Alexander I of Russia, the “Little Father,” an unpredictable character
Step by step, Alexander paid more heed to the critics of the French entente and fearing the possibility of a palace revolution he placed his efforts at internal reform in abeyance and began to adopt a more independent attitude toward “his cousin” of France. In regard to this change of atmosphere, events elsewhere in Europe played into the Tsar’s hands. Napoleon, unexpectedly finding himself facing a serious war in Spain and the possibility at the same time of a large-scale offensive by Austria into South Germany, had no recourse but to turn to his powerful eastern ally for help. The Congress of Erfurt was the result, a meeting very different from that of Tilsit despite its outward facade of Napoleonic splendor, attendant princes and flattering sycophants drawn from every strata of society and all corners of Europe. Alexander, secretly encouraged by Talleyrand and other influential French advisors who wished to see Napoleon brought to his senses before it was too late, refused to be cajoled, and emerged from the talks with the status of an equal partner. The days of subservient alliance were clearly past, and Napoleon had to be satisfied with some very general Russian guarantees in return for an undertaking that Russia might, in due course, occupy coveted Moldavia and Wallachia. The boot was now on the other foot, and from this time dates Napoleon’s growing conviction that Alexander was becoming his personal rival. A challenge to his European power was the one eventuality the egotistical pride of Napoleon was not prepared to tolerate.
From 1809 onward, tension steadily rose. Napoleon soon had some slight cause to accuse Alexander of “treachery” when the Tsar took virtually no steps to hinder Austrian mobilization as vaguely promised at Erfurt, but contented himself with occupying various pieces of choice Austrian territory at the cost of precisely three Russian lives. However, Russia soon considered that she had equal grounds for indignation when Napoleon awarded the Galician provinces (torn from Austria after Wagram) to the distrusted Grand Duchy of Warsaw, and doubts of France’s ultimate intentions lingered on in spite of the drafting of a convention in January 1810 whereby Napoleon formally offered to disclaim all notions of re-creating the Polish kingdom.
A little later, there was the matter of the Emperor’s second marriage. Aware of the impermanence of his regime and of the growing volume of intrigue over the question of succession inspired by Fouché and Talleyrand in Paris, Napoleon had long appreciated the vital need of providing an heir for his Empire. This matter had become of paramount importance after the unexpected death of Louis Bonaparte’s son in 1807, the only child Napoleon was prepared to consider as his adoptive successor. Furthermore, the birth of two undoubted Imperial bastards (one to the charming Marie Walewska, the second to a lady-in-waiting of his sister, Pauline) amply demonstrated that the Empress Josephine’s infertility was hardly to be blamed on her husband. Although he came to no firm decision about a separation until December 1809, yet as early as Erfurt Napoleon was confidentially sounding out the Tsar about the possibility of a Russian bride. Once the divorce had been promulgated, however, Napoleon reopened direct negotiations for a union with another Russian princess, the Grand Duchess Anna, but the Tsar continued to be evasive. Then, early in 1810, Napoleon suddenly announced his betrothal to the Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria. Although for family reasons the Tsar was personally relieved to learn that the prospect of having Napoleon as a brother-in-law had faded, he publicly represented the brusque French decision as an affront to Russian honor, on the grounds that negotiations were still in progress; his government also considered the possibility of an Austro-French entente decidedly disturbing, especially as regards the Balkans. This marriage treaty represented a considerable triumph for Austrian diplomacy, Metternich and the aged Thugut having persuaded Francis that it was better to join the French cause temporarily in an attempt to sunder the ties between St. Petersburg and Paris than to court the risk of a complete collapse of the Austrian empire. Some historians state that Napoleon intended all along to take an Austrian bride, using the negotiations with the Tsar as a blind and a lever, but French propagandists lost little time in representing Alexander’s vacillations as an insult to their master, and Napoleon promptly refused to ratify the Convention on Poland. The gulf was clearly widening; the spirit of Tilsit had practically disappeared.
The Emperor Napoleon I, as painted in 1812
From mid-1810 the situation deteriorated even faster. Each side ceaselessly remonstrated with the other about the Polish situation; charges of warlike intentions were frequently exchanged. Friction grew over the Balkans; French agents were at work among the Serbs, and there were unmistakeable signs, as in 1806, of French diplomatic activity against Russian interests in both Turkey and Persia. When Napoleon, determined to close some of the loopholes riddling the Continental System, formally annexed Holland (following the abdication of his “difficult” brother Louis) and then the Hanse towns, the Tsar took great offense from the fact that the lands of his brother-in-law, the Duke of Oldenburg, were included in the seizure (February 18, 1811); the fact that the Duke had married one of the Russian princesses on whom Napoleon’s gaze had lingered is an interesting, if not very significant fact.
Then, in May 1811, a new center of friction appeared. The dominant Francophile party in Swedish politics suddenly offered the reversion of their country’s throne to Marshal Bernadotte, hoping thereby to earn a partial relaxation of the trade restrictions which were ruining their economy, as well as a measure of insurance against Russian territorial appetites. At first Napoleon was not particularly enamored at the prospect, for Bernadotte was far from his favorite protégé, but in the end he agreed, although he suspected that in the long run the selection would prove to Russia’s and not France’s ultimate advantage. Unaware of the fact that Napoleon heartily distrusted the new Crown Prince, Alexander chose to regard this incident as further proof of Napoleon’s determination to surround Russia with enemies; French intrigues with Austria in the Balkans, with Turkey and Persia in the Orient, with the Poles in Eastern Europe,
and now with the countries of the Baltic, seemed to reveal a vast conspiracy aimed against “the Little Father” and his expansionist ambitions.
From Napoleon’s point of view, the omens appeared hardly more propitious. The revelation of Russian intrigues with the powerful Czartoryski family in Poland placed the French Government on its guard, but it was the growing evidence that Alexander was conniving at widespread evasions of the Continental System that caused the greatest alarm and annoyance. Russia was undoubtedly facing a crisis in the value of the rouble, and the St. Petersburg experts were blaming all economic ills very conveniently on the Berlin and Milan decrees. It was widely known that Napoleon had authorized the sale of surplus French and Dutch wheat to Great Britain after her bad harvests of 1808 and 1809 (he hoped thereby to drain England of her gold reserves), and consequently it seemed illogical to many of the Tsar’s advisers that Russia should maintain a barrier which the Emperor himself flouted on occasion. Consequently, more and more “neutral” ships were allowed into Russian ports, and on December 31, 1810, the Tsar went a step further when he issued an ukase, placing heavy duties on all luxury imports from foreign lands, including France. This all constituted a challenge which Napoleon refused to ignore. If England was ever to be brought to heel, the Continental System had to be maintained, and if as important a nation as Russia was permitted to break away and ignore the regulations with impunity, her example was likely to be followed. It can to some extent be argued, therefore, that Napoleon marched on Moscow in the prosecution of his economic struggle with England. Neither a backslider nor a rival could be tolerated, and by 1811 Alexander represented both to Napoleon.
The Campaigns of Napoleon Page 91