Lefebvre Georges. Napoleon

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imperial conquest to the treaty of tilsit (1802–1807)

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Stein protested against the annexation of two of his villages by the duke of

Nassau. Austria, acting perhaps on some knowledge of the conspiracy of

Year XII, annulled these mediatisations as violations of the Imperial Recess

and threatened Bavaria, which turned to France for help. On 3 March 1804,

one week before ordering the arrest of the duc d’Enghien, Bonaparte

presented Vienna with an ultimatum; the Austrians disarmed immediately.

The result of this crisis was that the Swedish and Russian protests against the

violation of German territory were received with silence by the South

German princes. In the autumn of 1804 Napoleon visited the Rhineland,

and some of the princes came to curry his favour at Mainz. There was an

exchange of views on a confederation of the Rhine; Napoleon conceived the

idea of marrying Eugène de Beauharnais to Princess Augusta of Bavaria, who

was however already afﬁ anced to the hereditary prince Charles of Baden;

Dalberg came with a proposal for an Imperial Concordat with the papacy,

but the German states refused, preferring to strengthen their independence

by treating separately with the pope. In any case, the South German states

now aligned themselves with France.

Things might have been different had Prussia clearly supported the South

German states against Austria, but Frederick William III was pursuing a

policy of pure self-interest. Moreover, a pro-French faction, whose leading

light was the Cabinet secretary Lombard, continued to exert considerable

inﬂ uence in the king’s immediate entourage; this group would gladly have

accepted Bonaparte’s offer of an alliance. The foreign minister Haugwitz was

less decided and at times counselled ﬁ rmness towards France, but he valued

his position too much to press his views. Hardenberg, who replaced him at

the beginning of April 1804, boasted a more energetic policy; in reality he

was no more ﬁ rm than his predecessor. The war between France and England

placed Frederick William in a terrible predicament: in his capacity as elector

of Hanover, George III had declared his neutrality and, if worst came to

worst, would have preferred a Prussian occupation to French conquest. This

was indeed a magniﬁ cent opportunity for Prussia to revive the League of

Neutrality of 1795, which had gained her supremacy in North Germany,

and also to reoccupy Hanover, as in 1801. The Prussian government

cautiously decided to sound out the Russian tsar before taking any steps in

that direction. Alexander, suspecting a secret agreement with France,

protested. Haugwitz advised mobilisation, coupled with a demand that

France limit herself to a pecuniary levy in Hanover; this the king refused to

do. The minister returned to the charge on 28 June 1803, pointing to the

damage caused to Prussian commerce by the French occupation of Hanover

and Cuxhaven. Frederick William chose instead to send Lombard to

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interview Bonaparte, then in Belgium, with a renewed proposal to enter

into a three-cornered alliance with Russia on condition that French forces

in Hanover be limited to their present level and that commerce be restored.

The attempt failed. Haugwitz then proposed a Prussian guarantee of the

neutrality of all Germany providing the French evacuate Hanover. Bonaparte

consented only to reopen the ports, and even that only if Prussia became his

ally. The king had no sooner resigned himself to this when Bonaparte

asserted that the Prussian guarantee should cover the status quo in Italy and

Turkey as well, which in effect would have enlisted Prussia against Austria

and Russia, leaving her with only the hope of acquiring Hanover. In

April 1804 the negotiations with France were abandoned: Prussia coveted

Hanover passionately, but was willing to offer only her own neutrality in

return.

At this point, the abduction of the duc d’Enghien rekindled Frederick

William’s fears about the closeness of the French troops in Hanover, and he

at last gave up trying to walk a tightrope between France and Russia. A

defensive alliance, which Alexander had proffered as early as 1803, was

ﬁ nally signed on 24 May 1804, Russia promising to supply ﬁ fty thousand

men in the event that Napoleon should strengthen his forces in Hanover or

engage in any fresh aggressions east of the Weser. Such a casus belli did in fact

occur in October when Sir George Rumbold, the English envoy in Cuxhaven,

was arrested on Fouché’s orders who had hoped to ﬁ nd in his papers

evidence linking him to the conspiracy of Year XII. Hardenberg wished to

proﬁ t from this occasion by mobilising and demanding the evacuation of

Hanover, but Frederick William was content to insist upon the release of the

prisoner, and when Napoleon did so, the whole affair blew over.

For a long time Austria offered no more hope than Prussia. After Lunéville,

she had great difﬁ culty in recovering. Archduke Charles attempted to

persuade his brother to reform the government machinery by allowing his

ministers to make decisions on their own responsibility, and to deliberate in

council. On 12 September 1801 a Staatsministerium , consisting of three depart-

ments, was created. It was to no purpose, for Francis still wished to exercise

personal control over everything. At least he permitted the archduke, who

was appointed president of the Hofkriegsrath on 9 January 1801, to reform the

army with the help of his chief of staff Duka, and his adviser Fassbender. But

funds were wanting: between 1801 and 1804 the public debt rose from

613 to 645 million guldens, and the paper Bancozettel (treasury notes) in

circulation increased from 201 million to 337 million. An injurious inﬂ a-

tion resulted; paper money, discounted at sixteen per cent of its face value in

1801, was now discounted at thirty-ﬁ ve per cent. Prices rose, and it became

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176

necessary to increase wages and salaries. Speculation enriched a few and

ruined the ﬁ xed-income classes. In 1804 a famine affecting all of Germany

contributed to the general misery. Meanwhile, the privileged classes

continued to enjoy tax exemptions which, had they been abolished, would

have easily permitted the restoration of sound ﬁ nances. Under such condi-

tions, Austria, as Charles observed, needed peace above all else. The foreign

minister Cobenzl and the inﬂ uential Count Colloredo were of the same

opinion; the former, who held great hopes of an alliance with France,

worked hand in glove with the French ambassador Champagny and gave

way every time Bonaparte raised his voice.

Nevertheless, there existed in Vienna a war party. Some Austrians like

Count Starhemberg and Graf von Stadion belonged to it, but the chief role

was played by the ambassadors of the powers already in coalition – the

Russian Razumovski, the Englishman Paget and the Swede Armfelt – and it

was in the salons of a few Russian grandes dames that the intrigue took its

course. Through the ofﬁ ces of Johann von Müller, then court librarian, they

kept in touch with the comte d’Antraigues, the tsar’s agent in Dresden, who

was not above taking Austrian money as well. Through Stadion and

Metternich, then ambassador to Saxony, they had won Friedrich von Gentz

over to their cause. Ruined by his debts at Berlin, Gentz accepted the post of

counsellor to the chancellery in September 1802, without, however, ceasing

to receive British subsidies. Although these men were compensated for their

services, they truly hated the Revolution – particularly Armfelt, a ﬁ ery aris-

tocrat whom Gentz would call ‘the last of the Romans’. Gentz himself,

having failed to enlist Frederick William in this crusade, still hoped to

convert Francis. The Austrian ministers mistrusted him, and used him only

as a publicist; thus treated as an inferior, he zealously attacked Cobenzl and

Colloredo and exaggerated their feebleness.

In fact, Cobenzl was anything but inactive. He was uneasy about the

Anglo-French conﬂ ict since he feared that Bonaparte, unable to win at sea,

would seek revenge on the Continent at Austria’s expense. At the same time

he realised that this conﬂ ict placed him in a bargaining position, and in

1803 he began demanding subsidies in London, which were eventually

received. The Franco-Russian break provided him with new opportunities.

On 1 September 1803 Dolgoruki arrived in Vienna; he was given a warm

reception and was invited to make proposals. In January 1804 Russia offered

to supply one hundred thousand men to force France to return to the terms

of the Treaty of Lunéville. Cobenzl rejected the offer as insufﬁ cient; besides,

he had no desire to undertake the offensive, and the emperor even less so:

‘France has done nothing to me,’ declared Francis.

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france and england: the struggle renewed (1802–1805)

The proclamation of the French Empire changed everything. The counter-

revolutionaries screamed out their protests: ‘The Revolution has been sanc-

tioned, and very nearly solemnised by the incredible outcome of the bitter

tragedy of our times,’ wrote Gentz. The court in Vienna was also aroused by

this event, but primarily because of the implied signiﬁ cance to the Holy

Roman Empire and to Habsburg interests. When Napoleon assumed the title

of emperor and not that of king, he was not just placing himself at the fore-

front of the revolutionary tradition; his choice of title implied something of

European dimension, for until now there had been only one emperor, the

lawful heir of the Roman Empire and the theoretical head of Christendom.

In the eyes of legal scholars, the Empire was not necessarily German, and

coronation by the pope (which the Habsburgs had allowed to fall into

desuetude) appeared as valid in Paris as in Rome. It did not make any differ-

ence that Napoleon had nationalised the dignity, calling himself emperor of

the French and denying all pretensions to universal dominion; everyone

understood that the German Holy Roman Empire would not survive the

birth of a new one. Therefore Francis II, although he consented to recognise

Napoleon, demanded that he be accorded the same recognition in return

when, on 11 August 1804, he took the title of emperor of Austria. For the

time being, he was still Holy Roman Emperor as well, but he evidently

expected to be driven from Germany. Moreover, since tradition linked the

kingdom of Italy to the Holy Roman Empire, he also feared a fresh exten-

sion of French power in that quarter, and in this he was not mistaken. This

being so, the creation of the French Empire hastened the formation of the

Third Coalition.

Cobenzl’s ﬁ rst move was to sound out Prussia, but since he offered her

nothing, the attempt proved fruitless. When, in October, he learned that

Novosiltsev was on his way to London, he reasoned that Russia, allied to

England, would perhaps abandon Austria to her fate, and so he resolved

on an agreement with Alexander. Although the convention, signed on

6 November 1804, was in the nature of a defensive pact, it nevertheless

provided for joint action in the event that ‘circumstances should be such as

to require the use of mutual force in other ways’. Then in January 1805

news came that the Italian Republic was to become a hereditary kingdom.

To free his own hands, Cobenzl determined to oust from power Archduke

Charles, who disapproved of the Russian alliance. Charles’s independent

ways had long ago earned him the emperor Francis’s displeasure, and the

latter increased his chicaneries to such a point that the archduke resigned

his ofﬁ ces. Duka and Fassbender were pushed aside, and General Mack, of

whom the English had a high opinion, was recalled to head the general staff.

imperial conquest to the treaty of tilsit (1802–1807)

178

Even so, Francis still refused to start an offensive, and Cobenzl himself hesi-

tated, with the result that Russia impatiently threatened to renounce the

agreement. It took new encroachments on the part of Napoleon to drive

Austria into the arms of the Coalition.

None of the vassal and allied states behaved in accordance with Napoleon’s

expectations. Holland permitted smuggling to go on freely, and the Dutch

deputies refused to vote either taxes or loans for armaments. In September

1804 Napoleon had indicated the necessity for a constitutional change. On

22 March 1805 Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck received the title of grand

pensionary along with complete executive power; legislative authority was

bestowed upon an assembly of ‘Their Eminent Powers’ ( Leurs Hautes Puissances ),

whose members were to be elected by the citizens from a slate proposed by

the government; initially, Schimmelpenninck chose the candidates. This

done, the minister of ﬁ nance, Gogel, was able to undertake ﬁ scal reforms.

Of much greater consequence was the death of the Italian Republic. As

the Republic’s vice-president, Melzi had organised the administration and

judicial system on the French model, negotiated a concordat, founded an

Institute and reopened the universities. In order to suppress brigandage, he

abolished the jury system, created a prefect of police and a gendarmerie , and

set up special tribunals. Public works were increased, and the Simplon road

completed. Prina, the energetic and able minister of ﬁ nance, introduced

indirect taxes, liquidated the debt, purged the personnel of his department

and improved the supervision of accounts. Finally, a native army was formed,

conscription having at last been introduced in 1803 with success. But these

reforms irritated much more than they pleased, and the population remained

very hostile to the French. Although Melzi favoured the nobility, he received

very little support; the Corps Législatif proved recalcitrant, and rejected

measures which would have introduced registry ofﬁ ces and a tax on inherit-

ances. Melzi himself hoped for independence and for the evacuation of the

French troops. In May 1803 he submitted to the Austrian government a

strange proposal which would have placed all of northern Italy, including

Venice, under the rule of the former grand duke of Tuscany. Knowledge of

this aroused Bonaparte’s suspicions and brought him to the conclusion that

the affairs of the Italian Republic had to be taken into his own hands.

The proclamation of the French Empire imparted a most dangerous cast

to Napoleon’s designs on Italy. Ever since Charlemagne, all of the Roman

emperors had been either kings of Lombardy or kings of Italy: so Napoleon

must needs be, too. As early as May 1804 he notiﬁ ed Melzi of his intentions.

A constitution was worked out by an Italian council, but the emperor

was irritated to ﬁ nd that some limits had been placed on his authority; he

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therefore summoned the council to Paris and dictated his own terms. He

seems to have been aware of the risk he was taking in assuming the crown

himself, for he offered it ﬁ rst to his brother Joseph, and on 1 January 1805

he wrote to the Austrian emperor to assure him that the new kingdom

would for ever be kept distinct from the French Empire. But Joseph, who

was counting on eventually becoming ruler of France, refused the crown of

Italy, and so did Louis, on behalf of his son. Consequently, Napoleon

arranged for a senatus consultum which was issued on 18 March and which

summoned him to the throne of Italy. On 18 May he crowned himself at

Milan, and nominated his stepson Eugène de Beauharnais as viceroy. With

regard to Austria he simply promised that he would step down in favour of

a relative when, with the coming of peace, Malta and Corfu would be evac-

uated. Thus the coronation in Milan constituted a breach of the Treaty of

Lunéville. The treaty was again violated when, on 6 June, Napoleon annexed

the Ligurian Republic and created from it three new French départements

after Saliceti, his representative in Genoa, prompted a vote for its incorpora-

tion with the French Empire. In addition, Napoleon bestowed the princi-

pality of Piombino upon his sister Elisa on 18 March, and made his

brother-in-law Bacciochi prince of Lucca on 23 June. These two domains

were imperial ﬁ efs, and by making such gifts, Napoleon made it evident

that he regarded himself as the heir to the Roman emperors.

Austria hesitated no longer. On 17 June the Aulic Council decided to join

the Anglo-Russian alliance. At this very moment Novosiltsev was in Berlin en

route to Paris with the authority to offer France the Rhineland and Belgium

(except for Antwerp); on 25 June Alexander cancelled his mission. On

16 July General Winzingerode, then in Vienna, conferred with Mack and

decided on a plan of operations. The Anglo-Russian treaty, which had been

signed in St Petersburg on 11 April, was ﬁ nally ratiﬁ ed on 28 July without

Pitt and Alexander coming to any agreement on the fate of Malta. Austria

added her signature on 9 August. Still, she made some ﬁ nal attempts in Paris

to gain concessions which might have kept her out of the conﬂ ict. There

being nothing forthcoming, Austria invaded Bavaria on 11 September.

In the meantime, both sides exerted great efforts to persuade the German

states. Frederick William remained obstinately deaf to the objurgations of

the tsar, and on 15 July he refused passage to the troops massed in Pomerania,

thus rendering an invaluable service to Napoleon. Alexander demanded in

vain to see the king, and threatened to cut his way through Silesia.

Czartoryski’s hopes soared: on 23 September the tsar arrived at Pulawy, the

Czartoryski family château; there he spoke of seizing Prussia’s share of the

Polish partitions and of restoring Poland. But Alexander was in reality

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deceiving his friend, for he only meant to frighten the king of Prussia and

counted on winning him over.

Napoleon, after displaying some anxiety during the course of the winter

over a concentration of troops in Venetia, suspected nothing more until the

end of July and did not recognise the danger until 23 August. Nevertheless,

he tried once again to win Prussia to his side by offering Hanover on

8 August and by sending Duroc to Berlin on 22 August. The king replied that

he would only conclude an alliance to sustain the terms of the Treaty of

Lunéville. In the Prussian court and in the army, a war party began to take

shape; Queen Louise never ﬂ agged in her sympathy for Alexander nor in her

hatred for Napoleon. The majority of Prussians, however, including the

military, continued to favour a policy of neutrality. The emperor, needing

Bernadotte’s corps elsewhere, decided to evacuate Hanover and to permit its

occupation by the troops of Frederick William should the king wish to

proﬁ t from the opportunity, which did not fail to arise. Napoleon foresaw

that the king would be so satisﬁ ed, at least for a time, that he would abandon

all warlike intentions: it was a sound calculation. Napoleon was even more

successful in his dealings with the South German states, which were being

menaced by Austria. On 25 August Bavaria allied herself with France, and on

5 September Württemberg adhered in principle. The disunion of Germany,

which could have been foreseen since 1803, was thus accomplished.

Napoleon manoeuvred with similar dexterity in Italy. On 10 September

Maria Carolina, queen of Naples, concluded an alliance with Russia; eleven

days later, the emperor signed a treaty of neutrality with the Neapolitan

ambassador, the marquis de Gallo, providing for the evacuation of French

troops which were needed on the Adige. He also occupied the kingdom of

Etruria, and even the port of Ancona over the protests of the pope. Fearing

an attack by Villeneuve, Ferdinand IV of Naples ratiﬁ ed the treaty. After

Trafalgar, Maria Carolina threw off her mask and on 19 November an Anglo-

Russian ﬂ eet landed nineteen thousand men at Naples. It was too late;

Napoleon had won the game.

The Third Coalition has been called a deliberate attempt to deprive France

of her natural frontiers. It goes without saying that if the allies had won,

they would have taken back all or part of the French gains. But what remains

to be shown is that England in 1803, and Russia and Austria in 1805, took

up arms for that end alone – and this has never been demonstrated, not even

in the case of England. In the ﬁ rst place, the spirit of aggression, while unde-

niable, was fostered by passions and interests which have been entirely

ignored: England’s economic interests and policy of maritime imperialism;

Alexander’s megalomania and personal jealousy; and the hostility of the

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European aristocracy, so inﬂ uential in Vienna – a hostility whose roots lay in

the very social order. Secondly, it is even clearer that Napoleon, as if daring

the powers, had inﬂ amed this smouldering hostility, had alarmed them all,

and had driven even the feeble Austrian monarchy to desperation. Aside

from the interests of France, and speaking only of his personal policy, it was

not indispensable to his authority to kidnap the duc d’Enghien and to estab-

lish the Empire, to provoke England prematurely, to challenge Russia’s

Eastern ambitions, and above all, to create a hereditary kingdom out of the

Italian Republic and to annex Genoa. Although he did not share the revolu-

tionary ardour of the Girondins, he hurled deﬁ ance against kings and aris-

tocrats in the same fashion for which they are blamed, and he pursued the

turbulent policy of aggression which has earned the Directory so much

contemptuous criticism.

Be that as it may, the formation of the Third Coalition after the rupture of

the Treaty of Amiens pointed the way to Napoleon’s ﬁ nal destiny. Not that

his ultimate downfall was determined, as some have argued: it would yet

require many more errors and unforeseeable accidents to checkmate him.

But from now on, there was no choice other than the pursuit of world

conquest.

NAPOLEON’S ARMY

After the treaty of Lunéville, Bonaparte undertook to purge the army of

its war-weary and untrustworthy elements. He discharged many ofﬁ cers,

and released soldiers who had participated in at least four campaigns, a

total of one-eighth of the effective force. Then between 1801 and 1805

he devoted more than four years to re-organising his troops and to

perfecting a system of warfare which would startle the world in 1805 and

1806. Bonaparte’s inventive genius showed itself primarily in the elabora-

tion of his principles of strategy and in the formation of a uniﬁ ed body of

tactics essential to it. Otherwise, he remained substantially faithful to the

methods of the French Revolution: the amalgame and promotion through the

ranks were the most constant and important characteristics of his army.

Although he displayed great executive ability and a meticulous care for

detail in his preparations for war, Bonaparte still remained an incorrigible

improviser.

RECRUITMENT AND PROMOTION

Recruitment was based on the law of Year VI, complemented by a great

many administrative regulations, all of which were ﬁ nally codiﬁ ed in 1811.

This law subjected all Frenchmen between the ages of twenty and twenty-

ﬁ ve to military service, but numerous exemptions were granted in order to

save the government the expense of providing relief to wives and children.

The ﬁ rst to be exempted were men who had been married, and men who

had been widowed or divorced providing they had children, on or before

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12 January 1798. Public opinion ignored the limiting date and took it for

granted that the exemptions were permanent. But the text of the law was

explicit, and until 1808 the levies, even retroactive ones, did not spare

married men and widowed fathers. Nevertheless, recruiting ofﬁ cers were

inclined to invalidate these categories or to register them in the dépôt , that is

to say, among the conscripts who had drawn a lucky number and who

would be called only as replacements for regularly drafted men. Men in

these categories were ﬁ nally accorded dispensation by a senatus consultum of

10 September 1808. Thus the number of hasty marriages became ever more

frequent towards the close of the Empire. There was also a feeling of relative

tolerance for breadwinners, and even more for seminarists after the

Concordat. Lastly, the replacement of recruits by substitutes, which had

constituted a mere privilege in Year VIII, became an established right by the

law of 28 Floréal, Year X (18 May 1802).

For ﬁ nancial and economic reasons stemming from a desire to conserve

the labour force, the law of Year VI did not conscript all the men in each age

group except in case of danger to the patrie . Instead, a ﬁ xed number of

recruits was determined annually by the councils, and was called up begin-

ning with the lowest age group. Under the Consulate, recruiting operations

were conducted much the same as during the French Revolution, although

the quotas were much smaller. The annual contingent was voted by the

Corps Législatif, which then apportioned it among the départements. The

general and district councils were to distribute the quota among the munic-

ipalities; these in turn examined the recruits with a doctor of their choosing,

designated those who were to be discharged, admitted replacements into

the ranks, and left appeals to the prefect.

This system evolved in the same direction as other institutions. From the

very start the practice of ‘replacement’ favoured the wealthy middle class.

On 24 September 1805 Napoleon ﬁ xed the quota by decree of the Senate,

and henceforth the Corps Législatif was stripped of its powers in this area.

Moreover, there was much to complain about in the way of wilful negli-

gence, incompetence and scandalous abuses in many municipalities. And so

the municipalities were deprived of their functions in the recruiting system,

as they had already been deprived of their ﬁ nancial powers. Local recruit-

ment was conﬁ ded to a staff of professional civil servants, much to the

beneﬁ t of the common people. Municipalities were prohibited from

choosing recruits by vote, and were encouraged to resort to the drawing of

lots. Prefects and subprefects intervened with increasing frequency in the

operation of the system. On 18 Thermidor, Year X (6 August 1802), there

was established in every département an itinerant recruiting board,