cut him off from the Russians, even now distant. The net was
quickly drawn round the ill-fated Mack. ... By the third week
of October, the Grand Army had encompassed the Austrians on
every side, and Napoleon held his quarry in his grasp. Mack
... had not the heart to strike a desperate stroke, and to
risk a battle; and he capitulated at Ulm on the 19th of
October. Two divisions of his army had contrived to break out;
but one was pursued and nearly destroyed by Murat, and the
other was compelled by Augereau to lay down its arms, as it
was on its way to the hills of the Tyrol. An army of 85,000
men had thus, so to speak, been well-nigh effaced; and not
20,000 had effected their escape. France meanwhile had met a
crushing disaster on the element which England had made her
own.
{1344}
We have seen how Villeneuve had put into Cadiz, afraid to face
the hostile fleets off Brest; and how this had baffled the
project of the descent. Napoleon was indignant with his
ill-fated admiral. ... At a hint of disgrace the susceptible
Frenchman made up his mind, at any risk, to fight. By this
time Nelson had left England, and was off Cadiz with a
powerful fleet; and he actually weakened his force by four
sail-of-the-line, in order to lure his adversary out. On the
20th of October, 1805, the allied fleet was in the open sea;
it had been declared at a council of war, that a lost battle
was almost certain, so bad was the condition of many of the
crews; but Villeneuve was bent on challenging Fate; and almost
courted defeat, in his despair. ... On the morning of the
21st, the allied fleet, 33 war ships, and a number of
frigates, was off Cape Trafalgar [25 miles west of Gibraltar
on the coast of Spain], making for the Straits. ... Nelson
advanced slowly against his doomed enemy, with 27 ships and
their attendant frigates; the famous signal floated from his
mast, 'England expects every man to do his duty'; and, at
about noon, Collingwood pierced Villeneuve's centre; nearly
destroying the Santa Anna with a single broadside. Ere long
Nelson had, broken Villeneuve's line, with the Victory,
causing frightful destruction; and as other British ships came
up by degrees they relieved the leading ships from the
pressure of their foes, and completed the ruin already begun.
At about one, Nelson met his death wound, struck by a shot
from the tops of the Redoutable. ... Pierced through and
through, the shattered allied centre was soon a collection of
captured wrecks. ... Only 11 ships out of 33 escaped; and the
burning Achille, like the Orient at the Nile, added to the
grandeur and horrors of an appalling scene. Villeneuve, who
had fought most honourably in the Bucentaure, was compelled to
strike his flag before the death of Nelson. The van of the
allies that had fled at Trafalgar, was soon afterwards
captured by a British squadron. Though dearly bought by the
death of Nelson, the victory may be compared to Lepanto; and
it blotted France out as a great Power on the ocean; Napoleon
... never tried afterwards to meet England at sea. ... His
success, at this moment, had been so wonderful, that what he
called 'the loss of a few ships at sea,' seemed a trifling and
passing rebuff of fortune. ... He had discomfitted the whole
plan of the Allies; and the failure of the attack on the main
scene of the theatre had caused all the secondary attacks to
fail. ... Napoleon, throwing out detachments to protect his
flanks, had entered Vienna on the 14th of November. ... The
House of Hapsburg and its chief had fled. ... Extraordinary as
his success had been, the position of the Emperor had, in a
few days, become grave. ... Napoleon had not one hundred
thousand men in hand--apart from the bodies that covered his
flanks--to make head against his converging enemies. Always
daring, however, he resolved to attack the Allies before they
could receive aid from Prussia; and he marched from Vienna
towards the close of November; having taken careful
precautions to guard his rear. ... By this time the Allies
were around Olmütz, the Archdukes were not many marches away,
and a Prussian army was nearly ready to move. Had the Russians
and Austrians fallen back from Olmütz and effected their
junction with the Archdukes, they could, therefore, have.
opposed the French with a force more than two-fold in numbers.
... But the folly and presumption which reigned among the young
nobles surrounding the Czar--Alexander was now at the head of
his army--brought on the Coalition deserved punishment, and
pedantry had its part in an immense disaster. The force of
Napoleon appeared small, his natural line of retreat was
exposed, and a theorist in the Austrian camp persuaded the
Czar and the Austrian Emperor, who was at the head of his
troops at Olmütz, to consent to a magnificent plan of
assailing Napoleon by the well-known method of Frederick the
Great, in the Seven Years' War, of turning his right wing, by
an attack made, in the oblique order, in great force, and of
cutting him off from his base at Vienna, and driving him,
routed, into, Bohemia. This grand project on paper, which
involved a march across the front of the hostile army within
reach of the greatest of masters of war, was hailed with
exultation. ... The Allies were soon in full march from
Olmütz, and preparations were made for the decisive movement
in the night of the 1st December, 1805. Napoleon had watched
the reckless false step being made by his foes with unfeigned
delight; 'that army is mine,' he proudly exclaimed. ... The
sun of Austerlitz rose on the 2nd, the light of victory often
invoked by Napoleon. ... The dawn of the winter's day revealed
three large columns, succeeded by a fourth at no great
distance, toiling through a tract of marshes and frozen lakes,
to outflank Napoleon's right on the Goldbach, the allied
centre, on the tableland of Prätzen, immediately before the
French front, having been dangerously weakened by this great
turning movement. The assailants were opposed by a small force
only, under Davoust, one of the best of the marshals. ... Ere
long Napoleon, who, like a beast of prey, had reserved his
strength until it was time to spring, launched Soult in force
against the Russian and Austrian centre, enfeebled by the
detachment against the French right and exposed to the whole
weight of Napoleon's attacks; and Prätzen was stormed after a
fierce struggle, in which Bernadotte gave the required aid to
Soult. The allied centre was thus rent asunder. Lannes
meanwhile had defeated the allied right. ... Napoleon now
turned with terrible energy and in overwhelming strength
against the four columns, that had assailed his right, but had
begun to retreat. His victorious centre was aided by his
right, now set free; the Russians and Austrians were struck
with panic, a horrible scene of destruction followed, the
flying troops were slain or captured in thousands; and
multitudes perished, engulfed in the lakes, the French
artillery shattering their icy surface. The rout was decisive,
complete, and appalling; about 80,000 of the Allies were
engaged; they lost all their guns and nearly half their
numbers, and the remains of their army were a worthless wreck.
Napoleon had only 60,000 men in the fight. ... The memorable
campaign of 1805 is, perhaps, the grandest of Napoleon's
exploits in war."
W. O'C. Morris,
Napoleon,
chapter 7.
ALSO IN:
A. Thiers,
History of the Consulate and Empire,
book 22 (volume 2).
R. Southey,
Life of Nelson,
chapters 8-9 (volume 2).
W. C. Russell,
Nelson and the Naval Supremacy of England,
chapters 17-20.
Lord Nelson,
Dispatches and Letters,
volumes 6-7.
Capt. E. J. de la Gravière,
Sketches of the last Naval War,
part 6 (volume 2).
C. Adams,
Great Campaigns in Europe, from 1796 to 1870,
chapter 3.
Baron de Marbot,
Memoirs,
volume 1, chapters 20-23.
A. T. Mahan,
Influences of Sea Power upon the French Revolution,
chapters 15-16 (volume 2).
{1345}
FRANCE: A. D. 1805-1806 (December-August).
The Peace of Presburg.
Humiliation of Austria.
Formation of the Confederation of the Rhine.
Extinction of the Holy Roman Empire.
The goading of Prussia to war.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1805-1806;
and 1806 (JANUARY-AUGUST).
FRANCE: A. D. 1805-1806 (December-September).
Dethronement of the dynasty of Naples.
Bestowal of the crown upon Joseph Bonaparte.
The treaty of Presburg was "immediately followed by a measure
hitherto unprecedented in European history--the pronouncing a
sentence of dethronement against an independent, sovereign,
for no other cause than his having contemplated hostilities
against the French Emperor; On the 26th December [1805] a
menacing proclamation proceeded from Presburg ... which
evidently bore marks of Napoleon's composition, against the
house of Naples. The conqueror announced that Marshal St. Cyr
would advance by rapid strides to Naples, 'to punish the
treason of a criminal queen, and precipitate her from the
throne. We have pardoned that infatuated king, who thrice has
done everything to ruin himself. Shall we pardon him a fourth
time? ... No! The dynasty of Naples has ceased to reign--its
existence is incompatible with the repose of Europe and the
honour of my crown.' ... The ominous announcement, made from
the depths of Moravia, that the dynasty of Naples had ceased
to reign, was not long allowed to remain a dead letter.
Massena was busily employed, in January, in collecting his
forces in the centre of Italy, and before the end of that
month 50,000 men, under the command of Joseph Buonaparte, had
crossed the Pontifical States and entered the Neapolitan
territory in three columns, which marched on Gaeta, Capua, and
Itri. Resistance was impossible; the feeble Russian and
English forces which had disembarked to support the Italian
levies, finding the whole weight of the war likely to be
directed against them, withdrew to Sicily; the court,
thunderstruck by the menacing proclamation of 27th December,
speedily followed their example. ... In vain the intrepid
Queen Caroline, who still remained at Naples, armed the
lazzaroni, and sought to infuse into the troops a portion of
her own indomitable courage; she was seconded by none; Capua
opened its gates; Gaeta was invested; the Campagna filled with
the invaders; she, vanquished but not subdued, compelled to
yield to necessity, followed her timid consort to Sicily; and,
on the 15th February, Naples beheld its future sovereign,
Joseph Buonaparte, enter its walls. ... During the first
tumult of invasion, the peasantry of Calabria ... submitted to
the enemy. ... But the protraction of the siege of Gaeta,
which occupied Massena with the principal army of the French,
gave them time to recover from their consternation. ... A
general insurrection took place in the beginning of March, and
the peasants stood firm in more than one position; but they
were unable to withstand the shock of the veterans of France,
and in a decisive action in the plain of Campo-Tenese their
tumultuary levies, though 15,000 strong, were entirely
dispersed. The victorious Reynier penetrated even to Reggio,
and the standards of Napoleon waved on its towers, in sight of
the English videtts on the shores of Sicily. When hostilities
had subsided, Joseph repaired in person to the theatre of war.
... He received at Savigliano, the principal town of the
province, the decree, by which Napoleon created him king of
the two Sicilies. By so doing, however, he was declared not to
lose his contingent right of succession to the throne of
France; but the two crowns were never to be united."
Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe, 1789-1815,
chapter 40, section 150,
and chapter 42, sections 21-23,(volume 9).
"Joseph's tenure of his new dominion was yet incomplete. The
fortress of Gaeta still held out, ... and the British in
Sicily (who had already taken the Isle of Capri, close to the
capital) sent 5,000 men to their aid under Sir John Stuart,
who encountered at Maida (July 6) a French corps of 7.500,
under Reynier. The battle presented one of the rare instances
in which French and British troops have actually crossed
bayonets; but French enthusiasm sank before British
intrepidity, and the enemy were driven from the field with the
loss of half their number. The victory of Maida had a
prodigious moral effect in raising the spirits and
self-confidence of the British soldiery; but its immediate
results were less considerable. The French were indeed driven
from Calabria, but the fall of Gaeta (July 18th), after the
loss of its brave governor, the Prince of Hesse-Philipsthal,
released the main army under Massena: the British exposed to
be attacked by overwhelming numbers, re-embarked (September 5)
for Palermo, and the Calabrian insurrection was suppressed with
great bloodshed. But an amnesty was at length ... published by
Joseph, who devoted himself with great zeal and admirable
judgment to heal the wounds of his distracted kingdom."
Epitome of Alison's History of Europe,
section 398.
ALSO IN:
P. Colletta,
History of the Kingdom of Naples,
book 5, chapter 4, and book 6, chapters 1-3.
C. Botta,
Italy during the Consulate and Empire of Napoleon,
chapter 4.
FRANCE: A. D. 1806 (January-October).
Napoleon's triumphant return to Paris.
Death of Pitt.
Peace negotiations with England.
King making and prince making by the Corsican Cæsar.
ON the 27th of December, the day after the signing of the
Treaty of Presburg, Napoleon left Vienna for Paris. "En route
for Paris he remained a week at Munich to be present at the
marriage of Eugene Beauharnais to the Princess Augusta,
daughter of the King of Bavaria. Josephine joined him, and the
whole time was passed in fêtes and rejoicings. On this
occasion he proclaimed Eugene his adopted son, and, in default
of issue of his own, his successor in the kingdom of Italy.
Accompanied by Josephine, Napoleon re-entered Paris on the
26th of January, 1806, amidst the most enthusiastic
acclamations. The national vanity was raised to the highest
pitch by the glory and extent of territory he had acquired.
The Senate at a solemn audience besought him to accept the
title of 'the Great'; and public rejoicings lasting many days
attested his popularity. An important political event in
England opened new views of security and peace to the empire,
William Pitt, the implacable enemy of the Revolution, had died
on the 23rd of January, at the early age of 47; and the
Government was entrusted to the hands of his great opponent,
Charles James Fox.
{1346}
The disastrous results of the war of which Pitt had been the
mainstay probably hastened his death. After the capitulation
of Ulm he never rallied. The well-known friendship of Fox for
Napoleon, added to his avowed principles, afforded the
strongest hopes that England and France were at length
destined to cement the peace of the world by entering into
friendly relations. Aided by Talleyrand, who earnestly
counselled peace, Napoleon made overtures to the English
Government through Lord Yarmouth, who was among the détenus.
He offered to yield the long-contested point of
Malta--consenting to the continued possession of that island,
the Cape of Good Hope, and other conquests in the East and
West Indies by Great Britain, and proposing generally that the
treaty should be conducted on the uti possidetis principle:
that is, allowing each party to retain whatever it had
acquired in the course of the war. Turkey acknowledged
Napoleon as Emperor and entered into amicable relations with
the French nation; and what was still more important, Russia
signed a treaty of peace in July, influenced by the pacific
inclinations of the English Minister. Napoleon resolved to
surround his throne with an order of nobles, and to place
members of his family on the thrones of the conquered
countries adjoining France in order that they might become
parts of his system and co-operate in his plans. Two decrees
of the 31st of March declared Joseph Bonaparte King of Naples,
and Murat Grand Duke of Berg and Cleves. Louis Bonaparte was
made King of Holland a few months afterwards, and Jerome King
of Westphalia in the following year. The Princess Pauline
received the principality of Guastalla, and Talleyrand,
Bernadotte, and Berthier those of Benevento, Ponte-Corvo, and
Neufchâtel. Fifteen dukedoms were created and bestowed on the
most distinguished statesmen and generals of the empire, each
with an income amounting to a fifteenth part of the revenue of
the province attached to it. These became grand fiefs of the
empire. Cambacérès and Lebrun were made Dukes of Parma and
Placenza; Savary, Duke of Rovigo; Junot, of Abrantes; Lannes,
of Montebello, &c. The manners of some of these Republican
soldiers were ill adapted to courtly forms, and afforded
amusement to the members of the ancient and legitimate order.
... Napoleon's desire to conciliate and form alliances with
the established dynasties and aristocracies of Europe kept
pace with his daring encroachments on their hitherto exclusive
dignity. Besides the marriage of Eugene Beauharnais to a
Princess of Bavaria, an alliance was concluded between the
hereditary Prince of Baden and Mademoiselle Stephanie
Beauharnais, a niece of the Empress. The old French noblesse
were also encouraged to appear at the Tuileries. During the
Emperor's visit at Munich the Republican calendar was
abolished and the usual mode of computing time restored in
France. ... The negotiations with England went on tardily, and
the news of Fox's alarming state of health excited the gravest
fears in the French Government. Lord Lauderdale arrived in
Paris, on the part of England, in the month of August; but
difficulties were continually started, and before anything was
decided the death of Fox gave the finishing blow to all hope
of peace. Lord Lauderdale demanded his passports and left
Paris in October. Napoleon wished to add Sicily to his
brother's new kingdom of Naples; but British ships were able
to protect the King and Queen of Naples in that insular
position, and the English Government refused to desert their
allies on this occasion or to consent to any compensation or
adjustment offered. On this point principally turned the
failure of the attempt at peace as far as can be discovered
from the account of the negotiations."
R. H. Horne,
History of Napoleon,
chapter 26.
ALSO IN:
Madame de Rémusat,
Memoirs,
chapters 16-21 (volume 2).
Duke of Rovigo,
Memoirs,
volume 1, part 2, chapters 18-21.
P. Lanfrey,
History of Napoleon,
volume 2, chapter 15.
FRANCE: A. D. 1806 (October).
The subjugation of Prussia at Jena.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1806 (OCTOBER).
FRANCE: A. D. 1806-1807.
Napoleon's campaign against the Russians.
Eylau and Friedland.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1806-1807;
and 1807 (FEBRUARY-JUNE).
FRANCE: A.D. 1806-1810.
Commercial warfare with England.
British Orders in Council and Napoleon's Berlin and Milan
Decrees.
The "Continental System."
"As the war advanced, after the Peace of Amiens, the neutrals
became bolder and more aggressive. "American ships were
constantly arriving at Dutch and French ports with sugar,
coffee, and other productions of the French and Spanish West
Indies. And East India goods were imported by them into Spain,
Holland, and France. ... By the rivers and canals of Germany
and Flanders goods were floated into the warehouses of the
enemy, or circulated far the supply of his customers in
neutral countries. ... It was a general complaint, therefore,
that the enemy carried on colonial commerce under the neutral
flag, cheaply as well as safely; that he was enabled not only
to elude British hostilities, but to rival British merchants
and planters in the European markets; that by the same means
the hostile treasuries were filled with a copious stream of
revenue; and that by this licentious use of the neutral flag,
the enemy was enabled to employ his whole military marine for
purposes of offensive war, without being obliged to maintain a
squadron or a ship for the defence of his colonial ports. ...
Such complaints made against neutral states found a powerful
exposition in a work entitled 'War in Disguise and the Frauds
of the Neutral Flag,' supposed to have been written by Mr.
James Stephen, the real author of the orders in Council. The
British Government did not see its way at once to proceed in
the direction of prohibiting to neutral ships the colonial
trade, which they had enjoyed for a considerable time; but the
first step was taken to paralyse the resources of the enemy,
and to restrict the trade of neutrals, by the issue of an
order in Council in May 1806, declaring that all the coasts,
ports, and rivers from the Elbe to Brest should be considered
blockaded, though the only portion of those coasts rigorously
blockaded was that included between the Ostend and the mouth
of the Seine, in the ports of which preparations were made for
the invasion of England. The northern ports of Germany and
Holland were left partly open, and the navigation of the
Baltic altogether free. Napoleon, then in the zenith of his
power, saw, in this order in Council, a fresh act of
wantonness, and he met it by the issue of the Berlin decree of
November 21, 1806. In that document, remarkable for its
boldness and vigour, Napoleon charged England with having set
at nought the dictates of international law, with having made
prisoners of war of private individuals, and with having taken
the crews out of merchant ships.
{1347}
He charged this country with having captured private property
at sea extended to commercial parts the restrictions of
blockade applicable only to fortified places, declared as
blockaded places which were not invested by naval forces, and
abused the right of blockade in order to benefit her own trade
at the expense of the commerce of Continental states. He
asserted the right of combating the enemy with the same arms
used against himself, especially when such enemy ignored all
ideas of justice and every liberal sentiment which
civilisation imposes. He announced his resolution to apply to
England the same usages which she had established in her
maritime legislation. He laid dawn the principles which France
was resolved to act upon until England should recognise that
the rights of war are the same on land as on sea. ... And upon
these premises the decree ordered,
1st, That the British islands should be declared in a state
of blockade.
2nd, That all commerce and correspondence with the British
islands should be prohibited; and that letters addressed to
England or Englishmen, written in the English language,
should be detained and taken.
3rd, That every British subject found in a country occupied
by French troops, or by those of their allies, should be
made a prisoner of war.
4th, That all merchandise and property belonging to British
subjects should be deemed a good prize.
5th, That all commerce in English merchandise should be
prohibited, and that all merchandise belonging to England
or her colonies, and of British manufacture, should be
deemed a good prize. And
6th, That no vessel coming direct from England or her
colonies be allowed to enter any French port, or any port
subject to French authority; and that every vessel which,
by means of a false declaration, should evade such
regulations, should at once be captured.
The British Government lost no time in retaliating against
France far so bald a course; and, on January 7, 1807, an order
in Council was issued, which, after reference to the orders
issued by France, enjoined that no vessel should be allowed to
trade from one enemy's port to another, or from one port to
another of a French ally's coast shut against English vessels;
and ordered the commanders of the ships of war and privateers
to warn every neutral vessel coming from any such port, and
destined to another such port, to discontinue her voyage, and
that any vessel, after being so warned, which should be found
proceeding to another such port should be captured and
considered as lawful prize. This order in Council having
reached Napoleon at Warsaw, he immediately ordered the
confiscation of all English merchandise and colonial produce
found in the Hanseatic Towns. ... But Britain, in return, went
a step further, and, by order in Council of November 11, 1807,
declared all the ports and places of France, and those of her
allies, and of all countries where the English flag was
excluded, even though they were not at war with Britain,
should be placed under the same restrictions for commerce and
navigation as if they were blockaded, and consequently that
ships destined to those ports should be liable to the visit of
British cruisers at a British station, and there subjected to
a tax to be imposed by the British Parliament. Napoleon was at
Milan when this order in Council was issued, and forthwith, on
December 17, the famous decree appeared, by which he imposed
on neutrals just the contrary of what was prescribed to them
by England, and further declared that every vessel, of
whatever nation, that submitted to the order in Council of
November 11, should by that very act become denationalised,
considered as British property, and condemned as a good prize.
The decree placed the British islands in a state of blockade,
and ordered that every ship, of whatever nation, and with
whatever cargo, proceeding from English ports or English
colonies to countries occupied by English troops, or going to
England, should be a good prize. This England answered by the
order in Council of April 26, 1809, which revoked the order of
1807 as regards America, but confirmed the blockade of all the
parts of France and Holland, their colonies and dependencies.
And then France, still further incensed against England,
issued the tariff of Trianon, dated August 5, 1810, completed
by the decree of St. Cloud of September 12, and of
Fontainebleau of October 19, which went the length of ordering
the seizure and burning of all British goods found in France,
Germany, Holland, Italy, Spain, and in every place occupied by
French troops. ... The princes of the Rhenish Confederation
hastened to execute it, same for the purpose of enriching
themselves by the wicked deed, same out of hatred towards the
English, and some to show their devotion towards their master.
From Carlsruhe to Munich, from Cassel to Dresden and Hamburg,
everywhere, bonfires were made of English goods. And so
exacting were the French that when Frankfort exhibited the
least hesitation in carrying out the decree, French troops
were sent to execute the order. By means such as these [known
as the Continental System of Napoleon] the commerce of the
world was greatly deranged, if not destroyed altogether, and
none suffered more from them than England herself."
L. Levi,
History of British Commerce,
part 2, chapter 4
(with appended text of Orders and Decrees).
"The object of the Orders in Council was ... twofold: to
embarrass France and Napoleon by the prohibition of direct
import and export trade, of all external commerce, which for
them could only be carried on by neutrals; and at the same
time to force into the Continent all the British products or
manufactures that it could take. ... The whole system was
then, and has since been, roundly abused as being in no sense
a military measure, but merely a gigantic exhibition of
commercial greed; but this simply begs the question. To win
her fight Great Britain was obliged not only to weaken
Napoleon, but to increase her own strength. The battle between
the sea and the land was to be fought out on Commerce. England
had no army wherewith to meet Napo lean; Napoleon had no navy
to cope with that of his enemy. As in the case of an
impregnable fortress, the only alternative for either of these
contestants was to reduce the other by starvation. On the
common frontier, the coast line, they met in a deadly strife
in which no weapon was drawn. The imperial soldiers were
turned into coast-guards-men to shut out Great Britain from
her markets; the British ships became revenue cutters to
prohibit the trade of France. The neutral carrier, pocketing
his pride, offered his service to either for pay, and the
other then regarded him as taking part in hostilities.
{1348}
The ministry, in the exigencies of debate, betrayed some lack
of definite conviction as to their precise aim. Sometimes the
Orders were justified as a military measure of retaliation;
sometimes the need of supporting British commerce as essential
to her life and to her naval strength was alleged; and, their,
opponents in either case taunted them with inconsistency.
Napoleon, with despotic simplicity, announced clearly his
purpose of ruining England through her trade, and the ministry
really needed no other arguments than his avowals. 'Salus
civitatis suprema lex.' To call the measures of either not
military, is as inaccurate as it would be to call the ancient
practice of circumvallation, unmilitary, because the only
weapon used for it was the spade. ... The Orders in Council
received various modifications, due largely to the importance
to Great Britain of the American market, which absorbed a
great part of her manufactures; but these modifications,
though sensibly lightening the burden upon neutrals and
introducing some changes of form, in no sense departed from
the spirit of the originals. The entire series was finally
withdrawn in June, 1812, but too late to avert the war with
the United States, which was declared in the same month.
Napoleon never revoked his Berlin and Milan decrees, although
by a trick he induced an over-eager President of the United
States to believe that he had done so. ... The true function
of Great Britain in this long struggle can scarcely be
recognized unless there be a clear appreciation of the fact
that a really great national movement, like the French
Revolution, or a really great military power under an
incomparable general, like the French Empire under Napoleon,
is not to be brought to terms by ordinary military successes,
which simply destroy the organized force opposed. ... If the
course of aggression which Bonaparte had inherited from the
Revolution was to continue, there were needed, not the
resources of the Continent only, but of the world. There was
needed also a diminution of ultimate resistance below the
stored-up aggressive strength of France; otherwise, however
procrastinated, the time must come when the latter should
fail. On both these points Great Britain withstood Napoleon.
She shut him off from the world, and by the same act prolonged
her own powers of endurance beyond his power of aggression.
This in the retrospect of history was the function of Great
Britain, in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic period; and that
the successive ministries of Pitt and his followers pursued
the course best fitted, upon the whole, to discharge that
function, is their justification to posterity."
Capt. A. T. Mahan,
The Influence of Sea Power upon the
French Revolution and Empire,
chapters 18-19 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
H. Adams,
History of the United States,
volume 3, chapters 4 and 16,
and volume 4, chapter 4.
Lord Brougham,
Life and Times, by himself,
chapter 10 (volume 2).
See also:
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1804-1809.
FRANCE: A. D. 1807 (February-September).
The Turkish alliance.
Ineffective attempts of England against Constantinople
and in Egypt.
See TURKS: A. D. 1806-1807.
FRANCE: A. D. 1807 (June-July).
The Treaties of Tilsit with Russia and Prussia.
The latter shorn of half her territory.
Formation of the kingdom of Westphalia.
Secret understandings between Napoleon and the Czar.
See GERMANY. A. D. 1807 (JUNE-JULY).
FRANCE: A. D. 1807 (July-December).
The seeming power and real weakness of Napoleon's empire.
"The dangers ... that lay hid under the new arrangement of the
map of Europe [by, the Treaty of Tilsit], and in the results
of French conquests, were as yet withdrawn from almost every
eye; and the power of Napoleon was now at its height, though
his empire was afterwards somewhat enlarged. ... If England
still stood in arms against it, she was without an avowed ally
on the Continent; and, drawing to itself the great Power of
the North, it appeared to threaten the civilized world with
that universal and settled domination which had not been seen
since the fall of Rome. The Sovereign of France from the
Scheldt to the Pyrenees, and of Italy from the Alps to the
Tiber, Napoleon held under his immediate sway the fairest and
most favored part of the Continent; and yet this was only the
seat and centre of that far-spreading and immense authority.
One of his brothers, Louis, governed the Batavian Republic,
converted into the kingdom of Holland; another, Joseph wore
the old Crown of Naples; and a third, Jerome, sat on the new
throne of Westphalia; and he had reduced Spain to a simple
dependency, while, with Austria humbled and Prussia crushed,
he was supreme in Germany from the Rhine to the Vistula,
through his confederate, subject, or allied States. This
enormous Empire, with its vassal appendages, rested on great
and victorious armies in possession of every point of vantage
from the Niemen to the Adige and the Garonne, and proved as
yet to be irresistible; and as Germany, Holland, Poland, and
Italy swelled the forces of France with large contingents, the
whole fabric of conquest seemed firmly cemented. Nor was the
Empire the mere creation of brute force and the spoil of the
sword; its author endeavoured, in some measure, to consolidate
it through better and more lasting influences. Napoleon,
indeed, suppressed the ideas of 1789 everywhere, but he
introduced his Code and large social reforms into most of the
vassal or allied States; he completed the work of destroying
Feudalism which the Revolution had daringly begun and he left
a permanent mark on the face of Europe, far beyond the limit
of Republican France, in innumerable monuments of material
splendour. ... Nor did the Empire at this time appear more
firmly established abroad than within the limits of the
dominant State which had become mistress of Continental
Europe. The prosperity of the greater part of France was
immense; the finances, fed by the contributions of war, seemed
overflowing and on the increase; and if sounds of discontent
were occasionally heard, they were lost in the universal
acclaim which greeted the author of the national greatness,
and the restorer of social order and welfare. ... In the
splendour and success of the Imperial era, the animosities and
divisions of the past disappeared, and France seemed to form a
united people. If, too, the cost of conquest was great, and
exacted a tribute of French blood, the military power of the
Empire shone with the brightest radiance of martial renown;
Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, and Friedland could in part console
even thinned households. ...
{1349}
The magnificent public works with which Napoleon adorned this
part of his reign increased this sentiment of national
grandeur; it was now that the Madeleine raised its front, and
the Column, moulded from captured cannon; ... and Paris,
decked out with triumphal arches, with temples of glory, and
with stately streets, put on the aspect of ancient Rome,
gathering into her lap the gorgeous spoils of subjugated and
dependent races. ... Yet, notwithstanding its apparent
strength, this structure of conquest and domination was
essentially weak, and liable to decay. The work of the sword,
and of new-made power, it was in opposition to the nature of
things. ... The material and even social benefits conferred by
the Code, and reform of abuses, could not compensate
vanquished but martial races for the misery and disgrace of
subjection; and, apart from the commercial oppression [of the
Continental System, which destroyed commerce in order to do
injury to England], ... the exasperating pressure of French
officials, the exactions of the victorious French armies, and
the severities of the conscription introduced among them,
provoked discontent in the vassal States on which the yoke of
the Empire weighed. ... The prostration, too, of Austria and
Prussia ... had a direct tendency to make these powers forget
their old discords in common suffering, and to bring to an end
the internal divisions through which France had become supreme
in Germany. ... The triumphant policy of Tilsit contained the
germs of a Coalition against France more formidable than she
had yet experienced. At the same time, the real strength of
the instrument by which Napoleon maintained his power was
being gradually but surely impaired; the imperial armies were
more and more filled with raw conscripts and ill-affected
allies, as their size increased with the extension of his
rule; and the French element in them, on which alone reliance
could be placed in possible defeat, was being dissipated,
exhausted, and wasted. ... Nor was the Empire, within France
itself, free from elements of instability and decline. The
finances, well administered as they were, were so burdened by
the charges of war that they were only sustained by conquest;
and flourishing as their condition seemed, they had been often
cruelly strained of late, and were unable to bear the shock of
disaster. The seaports were beginning to suffer from the
policy adopted to subdue England. ... Meanwhile, the continual
demands on the youth of the nation for never-ceasing wars were
gradually telling on its military power; Napoleon, after
Eylau, had had recourse to the ruinous expedient of taking
beforehand the levies which the conscription raised; and
though complaints were as yet rare, the anticipation of the
resources of France, which filled the armies with feeble boys,
unequal to the hardships of a rude campaign, had been noticed
at home as well as abroad. Nor were the moral ills of this
splendid despotism less certain than its bad material results.
... The inevitable tendency of the Empire, even at the time of
its highest glory, was to lessen manliness and self-reliance,
to fetter and demoralize the human mind, and to weaken
whatever public virtue and mental independence France
possessed; and its authority had already begun to disclose
some of the harsher features of Cæsarian despotism."
W. O'C. Morris,
The French Revolution and First Empire,
chapter 12.
"Notwithstanding so many brilliant and specious appearances,
France did not possess either true prosperity or true
greatness. She was not really prosperous; for not only was
there no feeling of security, a necessary condition for the
welfare of nations, but all the evils produced by so many
years of war still weighed heavily on her. ... She was not
really great, for all her great men had either been banished
or put to silence. She could still point with pride to her
generals and soldiers, although the army, which, if brave as
ever, had gradually sunk from the worship of the country and
liberty to that of glory, and from the worship of glory to
that of riches, was corrupt and degenerate; but where were her
great citizens? Where were her great orators, her great
politicians, her great philosophers, her great writers of
every kind? Where, at least, were their descendants? All who
had shown a spark of genius or pride had been sacrificed for
the benefit of a single man. They had disappeared; some
crushed under the wheels of his chariot, others forced to live
obscurely in some unknown retreat, and, what was graver still,
their race seemed extinct. ... France was imprisoned, as it
were, in an iron net, and the issues were closed to all the
generous and ardent youth that had either intellectual or
moral activity."
P. Lanfrey,
History of Napoleon,
volume 3, chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
H. A. Taine;
The Modern Regime,
book 1, chapter 2,
and book 3, chapter 3 (volume 1).
FRANCE: A. D. 1807 (September-November).
Forcible seizure of the Danish fleet by the English.
Frustration of Napoleon's plans.
Alliance with Denmark.
War with Sweden.
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES: A. D. 1807-1810.
FRANCE: A. D. 1807 (October-November).
French invasion and occupation of Portugal.
Flight of the royal family to Brazil.
Delusive treaty of partition with Spain.
See PORTUGAL: A. D. 1807.
FRANCE: A. D. 1807-1808.
Napoleon's alienation of Talleyrand and others.
Charles Maurice Talleyrand de Perigord, made Bishop of Autun
by King Louis XVI:, in 1789, and Prince of Benevento by
Napoleon, in 1806, had made his first appearance in public
life as one of the clerical deputies in the States-General of
1789, and had taken the popular side. He was the only bishop
having a benefice in France who took the new oath required of
the clergy, and he proposed the appropriation of church
property to the wants of the public treasury. He subsequently
consecrated the first French bishops appointed under the new
constitution, and was excommunicated therefor by the Pope. On
the approach of the Terror he escaped from France and took
refuge first in England, afterwards in the United States. In
1795 he was permitted to return to Paris, and he took an
important part in the revolution of the 18th Brumaire which
overthrew the Directory and made Napoleon First Consul. In the
new government he received the post of Minister of Foreign
Affairs, which he retained under the Empire, until 1807, when
he obtained permission to retire, with the title of
"vice-grand electeur." "M. de Talleyrand, the Empire once
established and fortunate, had attached himself to it with a
sort of enthusiasm. The poesy of victory, and the eloquence of
an exalted imagination, subdued for a time the usual
nonchalance and moderation of his character. He entered into
all Napoleon's plans for reconstituting an empire of the
Francs, and reviving the system of fiefs and feudal
dignitaries. ...
{1350}
'Any other system,' he said, 'but a military one, is in our
circumstances at present impossible. I am, then, for making
that system splendid, and compensating France for her liberty
by her grandeur.' The principality he enjoyed, though it by no
means satisfied him, was a link between him and the policy
under which he held it. ... But he had a strong instinct for
the practical; all governments, according to his theory, might
be made good, except an impossible one. A government depending
on constant success in difficult undertakings, at home and
abroad, was, according to his notions, impossible. This idea,
after the Peace of Tilsit, more or less haunted him. It made
him, in spite of himself, bitter against his chief--bitter at
first, more because he liked him than because he disliked him.
He would still have aided to save the Empire, but he was
irritated because he thought he saw the Empire drifting into a
system which would not admit of its being saved. A sentiment of
this kind, however, is as little likely to be pardoned by one
who is accustomed to consider that his will must be law, as a
sentiment of a more hostile nature. Napoleon began little by
little to hate the man for whom he had felt at one time a
predilection, and if he disliked anyone, he did that which it
is most dangerous to do, and most useless; that is, he wounded
his pride without diminishing his importance. It is true that
M. de Talleyrand never gave any visible sign of being
irritated. But few, whatever the philosophy with which they
forgive an injury, pardon an humiliation; and thus, stronger
and stronger grew by degrees that mutual dissatisfaction which
the one vented at times in furious reproaches, and the other
disguised under a studiously respectful indifference. This
carelessness as to the feelings of those whom it would have
been wiser not to offend, was one of the most fatal errors of
the conqueror. ... He had become at this time equally
indifferent to the hatred and affection of his adherents; and
... fancied that everything depended on his own merits, and
nothing on the merits of his agents. The victory of Wagram,
and the marriage with Marie-Louise, commenced, indeed, a new
era in his history. Fouché was dismissed, though not without
meriting a reprimand for his intrigues; and Talleyrand fell
into unequivocal disgrace, in some degree provoked by his
witticisms; whilst round these two men gathered a quiet and
observant opposition, descending with the clever adventurer to
the lowest classes, and ascending with the dissatisfied noble
to the highest. ... M. de Talleyrand's house then (the only
place, perhaps, open to all persons, where the government of
the day was treated without reserve) became a sort of
'rendezvous' for a circle which replied to a victory by a bon
mot, and confronted the borrowed ceremonies of a new court by
the natural graces and acknowledged fashions of an old one."
Sir H. L. Bulwer,
Historical Characters,
volume 1: Talleyrand, part 4, sections 9-10.
ALSO IN:
C. K. McHarg,
Life of Prince Talleyrand,
chapters 1-13.
Memoirs of Talleyrand,
volume 1.
FRANCE: A. D. 1807-1808.
Napoleon's over-ingenious plottings in Spain
for the theft of the crown.
The popular rising.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1807-1808.
FRANCE: A. D. 1807-1808 (November-February).
Napoleon in Italy.
His arbitrary changes in the Italian constitution.
His annexation of Tuscany to France.
His quarrel with the Pope and seizure of the Papal States.
"Napoleon ... set out for Italy, where great political changes
were in progress. Destined, like all the subordinate thrones
which surrounded the great nation, to share in the rapid
mutations which its government underwent, the kingdom of Italy
was soon called upon to accept a change in its constitution.
Napoleon, in consequence, suppressed the legislative body, and
substituted in its room a Senate, which was exclusively
intrusted with the power of submitting observations to
government on the public wants, and of superintending the
budget and public expenditure. As the members of this Senate
were nominated and paid by government; this last shadow of
representative institutions became a perfect mockery.
Nevertheless Napoleon was received with unbounded adulation by
all the towns of Italy; their deputies, who waited upon him at
Milan, vied with each other in elegant flattery. He was the
Redeemer of France, but the Creator of Italy: they had
supplicated heaven for his safety, for his victories; they
offered him the tribute of their eternal love and fidelity.
Napoleon received their adulation in the most gracious manner;
but he was careful not to lose sight of the main object of his
policy, the consolidation of his dominions, the rendering them
all dependent on his imperial crown, and the fostering of a
military spirit among his subjects. ... From Milan the Emperor
travelled by Verona and Padua to Venice; he there admired the
marble palaces, varied scenery, and gorgeous architecture of
the Queen of the Adriatic, which appeared to extraordinary
advantage amidst illuminations, fireworks, and rejoicings; and
returning to Milan, arranged, with an authoritative hand, all
the affairs of the peninsula. The discontent of Melzi, who
still retained a lingering partiality for the democratic
institutions which he had vainly hoped to see established in
his country, was stifled by the title of Duke of Lodi. Tuscany
was taken from the King of Etruria, on whom Napoleon had
settled it, and united to France by the title of the
department of Taro; while magnificent public works were set on
foot at Milan to dazzle the ardent imagination of the
Italians, and console them for the entire loss of their
national independence and civil liberty. The cathedral was
daily adorned with fresh works of sculpture; its exterior
decorated and restored to its original purity, while thousands
of pinnacles and statues rose on all sides, glittering in
spotless brilliancy in the blue vault of heaven. The Forum of
Buonaparte was rapidly advancing; the beautiful basso-relievos
of the arch of the Simplon already entranced the admiring gaze
of thousands; the roads of the Simplon and Mount Cenis were
kept in the finest order, and daily attracted fresh crowds of
strangers to the Italian plains. But in the midst of all this
external splendour, the remains of which still throw a halo
round the recollection of the French domination in Italy, the
finances of all the states were involved in hopeless
embarrassment, and suffering of the most grinding kind
pervaded all classes of the people. ... The encroachments thus
made on the Italian peninsula were not the only ones which
Napoleon effected, in consequence of the liberty to dispose of
western Europe acquired by him at the treaty of Tilsit. The
territory of the great nation was rounded also on the side of
Germany and Holland.
{1351}
On the 11th of November, the important town and territory of
Flushing were ceded to France by the King of Holland, who
obtained, in return, merely an elusory equivalent in East
Friesland. On the 21st of January following, a decree of the
senate united to the French empire, besides these places, the
important towns of Kehl Cassel, and Wesel, on the right bank
of the Rhine. Shortly after, the French troops, who had
already taken possession of the whole of Tuscany, in virtue of
the resignation forced upon the Queen of Etruria, invaded the
Roman territories, and made themselves masters of the ancient
capital of the world. They immediately occupied the castle of
St. Angelo, and the gates of the city, and entirely
dispossessed the papal troops [see PAPACY: A. D. 1808-1814].
... France now, without disguise, assumed the right of
annexing neutral and independent states to its already
extensive dominions, by no other authority than the decree of
its own legislature."
Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe, 1789-1815,
chapter 51, sections 51-53 (volume 11).
ALSO IN:
C. Botta,
Italy during the Consulate and Empire of Napoleon,
chapter 5.
FRANCE: A. D. 1807-1809.
The American embargo and non-intercourse laws.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1804-1809, and 1808.
FRANCE: A.D. 1808 (May-September).
Bestowal of the Spanish crown on Joseph Bonaparte.
The national revolt.
French reverses.
Flight of Joseph Bonaparte from Madrid.
Landing of British forces in the Peninsula.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1808 (MAY-SEPTEMBER).
FRANCE: A. D. 1808 (September-October).
Imperial conference and Treaty of Erfurt.
The assemblage of kings.
"Napoleon's relations with the Court of Russia, at one time
very formal, became far more amicable, according as Spanish
affairs grew complicated. After the capitulation of Baylen
they became positively affectionate. The Czar was too
clear-sighted not to understand the meaning of this gradation.
He quickly understood that the more difficulties Napoleon
might create for himself in Spain, the more would he be forced
to make concessions to Russia. ... The Russian alliance, which
at Tilsit had only been an arrangement to flatter Napoleon's
ambition, had now become a necessity to him. Each side felt
this; hence the two sovereigns were equally impatient to meet
again; the one to strengthen an alliance so indispensable to
the success of his plans, the other to derive from it all the
promised advantages. It was settled, therefore, that the
desired interview should take place at Erfurt towards the end
of September, 1808. ... The two Emperors met on the 27th of
September, on the road between Weimar and Erfurt. They
embraced each other with that air of perfect cordiality of
which kings alone possess the secret, especially when their
intention is rather to stifle than to embrace. They made their
entry into the town on horseback together, amidst an immense
concourse of people. Napoleon had wished by its magnificence
to render the reception worthy of the illustrious guests who
had agreed to meet at Erfurt. He had sent thither from the
storehouses of the crown, bronzes, porcelain, the richest
hangings, and the most sumptuous furniture. He desired that
the Comédie-Française should heighten the brilliant effects of
these fêtes by performing the chief masterpieces of our stage,
from 'Cinna' down to 'La Mort de César,' before this royal
audience. ... All the natural adherents of Napoleon hastened
to answer his appeal by flocking to Erfurt, for he did not
lose sight of his principal object, and his desire was to
appear before Europe surrounded by a court composed of kings.
In this cortege were to be seen those of Bavaria, of
Wurtemburg, of Saxony, of Westphalia, and Prince William of
Prussia; and beside these stars of first magnitude twinkled
the obscure Pleiades of the Rhenish Confederation. The
reunion, almost exclusively German, was meant to prove to
German idealists the vanity of their dreams. Were not all
present who had any weight in Germany from their power, rank,
or riches? Was it not even hinted that the Emperor of Austria
had implored the favour, without being able to obtain it, of
admission to the conferences of Erfurt? This report was most
improbable. ... The kings of intellect came in their turn to
bow down before Cæsar. Goethe and Wieland were presented to
Napoleon; they appeared at his court, and by their glory
adorned his triumph. German patriotism was severely tried at
Erfurt; but it may be said that of all its humiliations the
one which the Germans most deeply resented was that of
beholding their greatest literary genius decking himself out
with Napoleon's favours [the decoration of the Legion of
Honour, which Goethe accepted]. ... The theatrical effect
which Napoleon had in view in this solemn show at Erfurt
having once been produced, his principal object was attained,
for the political questions which remained for settlement with
Alexander could not raise any serious difficulty. In view of