Lefebvre Georges. Napoleon

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proposed the previous year relating to Poland; but the tsar replied with

various complaints, though without advancing his claims. Caulaincourt,

who had returned to Paris on 5 June, was at once received by Napoleon and

vouched for Alexander’s loyalty. He asked for reasonable proposals to be put

before the tsar. Lauriston, who succeeded him, assured the emperor that the

Russian sovereign was still peaceful in his intentions. Caulaincourt, however,

made it clear that in case of attack Alexander would decide to retreat and

lure the Grande Armée on into the unending plains, where winter would

bring destruction. ‘One good battle will get the better of your friend

Alexander,’ was Napoleon’s reply. The two protagonists seemed at one in

playing for time, the emperor in order to complete his preparations, the tsar

to contrive the alliances which at present seemed to elude him; but each

was equally determined to force his rival to give in. Napoleon did not

exclude the possibility of a bloodless surrender, but he was growing impa-

tient. On 15 August there was a scene with Kurakin; and shortly afterwards,

he decided to go to war in June 1812.

Alexander was better informed. Nesselrode and Chernyshev had long ago

corrupted various employees in the Ministry of War, and Talleyrand – who

was constantly asking Alexander for payment – was lavish in advice. He it

was who had suggested the offer of the principalities to Austria; and he

continually insisted on the necessity of peace with Turkey and an accom-

modation with Bernadotte. Caulaincourt himself was disposed to listen to

him, and Nesselrode wrote that his behaviour was ‘in keeping with the

conﬁ dence that Louise (that is, Alexander) has in him’. Talleyrand also

advised the Russians to remain on the defensive and to refrain from carrying

the war into Germany, so that he could pose as the defender of an oppressed

Europe. Alexander’s duplicity was perfectly suited to such a part; and

Napoleon – whether out of infatuation or negligence – let him win several

hands in the diplomatic game.

THE DIPLOMATIC CAMPAIGN AND THE MARCH

OF THE GRANDE ARMÉE

To start with, Russia had considerable hopes of Prussia. Since Napoleon had

not responded to his offer, the king decided on 16 July to seek the support

of the tsar, and sent him Scharnhorst, who signed a military convention

with him on 17 October. The army, meanwhile, was being organised as best

it could, and the war party began to look up. Gneisenau, who was tempo-

rarily head of the general staff, was writing a memorandum to advocate a

new national rising. In Prague, Stein and Grüner, a former Berlin prefect of

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police, were in touch with representatives of the Tugendbund, which had

nevertheless been dissolved by the king. In Berlin, they also worked through

the agency of Ompteda and other representatives of Count Münster and

Baron Hardenberg, a relation of the Prussian minister in English service at

Vienna as the representative of Hanover.

Once again, however, the king disappointed them. The agreement brought

back by Scharnhorst stipulated that the Prussians would retreat before the

French if they invaded their kingdom, and would link up with the Russians

on the Vistula or shut themselves up in their strongholds. But Alexander

would not even allow his generals to enter East Prussia if plainly requested

by Berlin to do so. Frederick William decided that the risk involved would be

too great; but by way of consolation he allowed Scharnhorst to go and try his

hand in Vienna. As was to be expected, Metternich roundly rejected his

approaches on 26 December. From this moment onwards, there was no

other course open but to submit to Napoleon. He, too, was kept very badly

informed in this quarter by the ambassador, Saint-Marsan, who was

Piedmontese by birth. In Prussia, at any rate, his police gave him due warning,

and on 4 September he ordered Hardenberg to disarm. As he was just then

awaiting a reply from the tsar, the minister made promises that he failed to

keep, and in October he had to submit to French inspection. At last, on

29 December, he was forced to obey orders and resign himself to declaring

that he was prepared for an alliance. The emperor was in no hurry; but ﬁ nally,

on 23 February, the Prussian ambassador Krusemark was suddenly called

upon to sign, and complied immediately. It was just as well he did, for all

preparations had been made to occupy his country; and on 2 March Gudin

crossed the frontier while the king was still unaware that a treaty had been

signed. On the ﬁ fth he ratiﬁ ed it. Prussia thereby agreed to let the Grande

Armée take up quarters in Prussia, promised to supply it with provisions of

every sort, to be set against the war indemnity, which was still far from being

paid off, and to send to Russia a contingent of twenty thousand men. In the

end, Victor, commander of the Ninth Corps, assumed complete control of

Berlin and compelled the Prussian forces to evacuate it. This was a terrible

blow for Stein’s friends, and it seemed likely that the prestige of the dynasty

would not survive it. Scharnhorst was sent on leave; Gneisenau went on a

mission to London; Boyen, Clausewitz and many others emigrated to Russia;

and in May Stein accepted an invitation from Alexander and left Prague.

Meanwhile, Austria was also siding with France, and without much hesi-

tation, though Metternich was prodigal of advice to the tsar to avoid a war

which he feared would lead to disaster, whichever way it went, for it would

put him at the mercy of the victor. On 17 December Schwarzenberg was

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summoned to decide, and the two parties promptly came to an agreement.

Napoleon would exchange the Illyrian provinces for Galicia, and would

guarantee the integrity of Turkey; Austria on her side promised to contribute

an army of thirty thousand men. The treaty was signed on 14 March 1812.

Nevertheless the war party was taking shape again in Vienna, and Gentz,

Metternich’s friend and secretary, distrusted by England since he had come

down on the side of peace in September 1809, was trying his best to reopen

negotiations with the British treasury by drawing up memoranda against

the continental blockade, one of them intended for the tsar in person. But

the chancellor did not intend to have his hand forced. He even took advan-

tage of the circumstances to complete the rout of the Prussian National

Party, whom he looked upon as the harbinger of revolution. Although

Hardenberg was being lenient towards his enemies, he gave him support

when he saw him in Dresden at the end of May; in August Grüner was

arrested at Prague.

Alexander, then, could not congratulate himself upon his efforts with the

Germans. But as he had himself at times bowed to necessity not long before,

he did not bear them any grudge. He knew, moreover, that they would desert

Napoleon at the ﬁ rst opportunity. Besides, Metternich, who was the most

suspect in Alexander’s eyes, was certain that the principalities would not

remain Russian, and lost no time in recovering his self-assurance; for in the

army of the Danube, Chichagov was talking of an alliance with the Turks and

the possibility of taking Austria in the rear by engineering a rising of the Slavs

and Hungarians. The Count Saint-Julien came to warn the tsar that they would

only ﬁ ght him as a matter of form and that their contingent would not be

reinforced; and a secret agreement was signed on 2 June. Behind the screen of

a dynastic alliance, Metternich was playing a double game that would at any

rate guarantee the safety of Austria, while waiting for better days.

With the Swedes and the Ottomans, Alexander was more successful

through Napoleon’s own fault. The emperor seems to have believed that

both of them could not fail to come to him of their own accord. Perhaps he

was also unwilling to treat with them until the last possible moment, as he

had with Prussia and Austria, in order not to drive the Russians into taking

the offensive; but his opponents outpaced him. In 1811 his relations with

Bernadotte had become strained, and the ambassador, Alquier, had some-

thing to do with this. Knowing that the blockade was being openly violated

in spite of his protests, he decided to break off diplomatic relations, and

there was a violent scene between him and the regent on 25 August. The

emperor recalled him, but made no effort to win over Bernadotte, who

from now onwards swung decidedly towards Russia. In January 1812

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Davout was ordered to occupy Swedish Pomerania in order to seal it off

from English trade, and this was the ﬁ nishing touch. On 18 February Count

Loewenhielm came to St Petersburg to propose an alliance. Bernadotte

offered to disembark troops in Germany in the rear of Napoleon, on

condition that Russian troops should ﬁ rst help him to conquer Norway.

Alexander accepted, but stipulated that he must ﬁ rst make an agreement

with Frederick VI, king of Denmark, who might be indemniﬁ ed – say by the

duchy of Oldenburg. He sent Suchtelen to Stockholm, and the details were

discussed in both capitals, each of the plenipotentiaries making it a point of

honour to steal a march on his opposite number. They signed at almost the

same time, on 5 and 9 April respectively.

With the sultan, Alexander had been negotiating since 1811. After

Bagration’s successes in 1809 the war had dragged on. The Turks evacuated

Serbia, which had for a moment shown French leanings, but returned to the

Russian alliance after Karageorge’s coup d’état eliminating the inﬂ uence of

Austria, as well as that of his rival Miloš Obrenovi´c. In 1810 Kamenski

conducted a successful campaign to bring about the surrender of the

Danubian strongholds, and advanced in the direction of Chumla. In the

Caucasus, Imeretia and Mingrelia both fell, and Sukhum-Kale and Akkalkalaki

were conquered. Finally, in 1811 Kutuzov won a decisive victory. When the

Turkish army had crossed the Danube in the direction of Ruschuk, he cut it

in two, surrounded thirty-six thousand of the enemy, and only allowed an

armistice on condition that peace should be negotiated on the basis

of annexing Bessarabia as far as Sereth. The talks opened at Giurgiu on

25 October, but produced no agreement, the Turks being unwilling to

concede more than the line of the Pruth, and refusing to give Serbia her

independence. Another attempt was made on 12 January 1812, at Bucharest,

Stratford Canning doing his best to persuade Mahmud to treat, but in vain.

Finally, just as the French invasion was about to begin, Alexander ordered

his representative to give in, and peace was signed on 28 May. Chichagov,

Kutuzov’s successor, could set out for the north, while the troops in Asia

could turn their attention to Persia. Since the summer of 1811 Napoleon’s

forces had taken possession of Germany, and by the beginning of 1812 it

only remained to concentrate them and move on the Niemen. Danzig was

transformed into a base stocked with an abundance of supplies and guarded

by Rapp with twenty-ﬁ ve thousand men. Poniatowski covered the Vistula

with sixty thousand more; and Davout was in command of one hundred

thousand on the Oder and had pushed forward beyond it with vanguards;

while Oudinot was crossing Westphalia and entering Berlin on 28 March.

Ney was just reaching Mainz with troops from the camp at Boulogne; the

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Germans were working their way towards the Elbe; and the Guards, who

had been in cantonments in the east of France, were getting ready to follow.

There was still the difﬁ culty of managing to get the army in Italy back across

the Alps. Napoleon gave ﬁ nal orders at the beginning of February, and on the

twenty-third Eugène got under way and the whole army began to move at

the same time. In order to foil the Russian espionage, Savary managed to

harass Chernyshev so thoroughly that he secured his departure on 26

February; and the police discovered in his apartment a note that enabled

them to shoot a certain traitor in the Ministry of War and to compromise the

Russians in the eyes of the French public.

The army could not be assembled on the Niemen before the end of May.

Now, on 8 April, Alexander, who knew that he could safely count on

Bernadotte, ﬁ nally decided to put forward his demands. In the ﬁ rst place

Napoleon would have to evacuate Prussia and Swedish Pomerania and bring

his troops back behind the Elbe. Then a commercial treaty would be negoti-

ated, along with the indemnity promised to the duke of Oldenburg; but

in any case neutral trade was to remain free. Meanwhile, Napoleon kept

Kurakin on a string until 7 May, trying meanwhile to wind up affairs in

Spain, and proposing to Canning on 18 April that peace should be signed on

a basis of uti possidetis ; except for Portugal, which would go back to its ruling

house. Sicily would remain Ferdinand’s, and Spain continue to belong to

Joseph. All three countries would be evacuated by France and England. But

England refused to leave Joseph in Madrid. When Kurakin ﬁ nally demanded

an answer, the emperor left Saint-Cloud on 9 May without a word and the

next day Maret followed, also without giving any answer. Narbonne had

already left in order to negotiate with Alexander. He found him at Vilna, and

was dismissed without a chance to enter into discussion. On 25 May the

emperor reached Dresden where he received the emperor of Austria, the

king of Prussia and a number of vassal princes. On the twenty-eighth he set

out for the Niemen.

The great adventure had begun. Napoleon could only return from it

master of the whole of Europe, or fallen from glory. Once again he was

playing double or quits.

I I

The World in 1812

IMPERIAL FRANCE

In 1812 the French Empire covered about 750,000 square kilometres. It

had, in all probability, forty-four million inhabitants, and was divided into

130 départements. Gradually Napoleon had added to his legacy of 102

départements bounded by natural frontiers, lands which constituted two

antennae pointing towards the north-east and southeast. One of these was

made up of Holland with its nine départements together with the German

territories bordering the North Sea, which constituted four others – here, in

fact, the Empire, with the Bouches-de-la-Trave, whose capital was Lübeck,

reached as far as the Baltic. The other was made up of the Valais, Piedmont,

Liguria, Parma, Tuscany and the western part of the Papal States, ﬁ fteen

départements in all. The majority of these recent annexations were by no

means completely assimilated. They were more in the nature of vassal states.

So it was that Holland had a governor-general, as had Tuscany. The German

départements, forming the twenty-second military division, remained

subject to the orders of a special commission, while Illyria, although

annexed to the Empire, had always had a separate administration and its

territorial divisions were not counted among the 130 départements. In

short, the Napoleonic system of government functioned normally only

within the framework of the natural frontiers – if we except Piedmont and

Liguria, incorporated quite early on.

This system was never absolutely rigid. From 1804 to 1811 Napoleon

was constantly remoulding his institutions. From the experiments he

continued to make in the vassal states, we may conclude that the era of

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perfecting was not yet ended; and in particular the social order in France

had not yet assumed the form he desired. Nonetheless, though his work

remained unﬁ nished, it was sufﬁ ciently advanced in 1812 for its spirit to be

discernible.

AUTHORITARIAN GOVERNMENT

Success had, little by little, transformed the person and way of life of the

emperor. After Tilsit, it is hardly possible to recognise the man of Brumaire,

angular, sombre, the absolutely Roman cast of the countenance. The

complexion had become softer, serenity had made the features less rigid.

His activity was no less intense, but was more subject to order. At eight

o’clock at the latest he started to work at his desk, and only broke off for

lunch which he normally took alone and, once or twice a week, he would

go for a walk or go hunting. At six, he dined with his family and, after a few

minutes’ conversation, returned to his work and went to bed between nine

and ten. Sunday was a day of ceremony. After Mass and the parade, he

reviewed his court which waited in silence in the salons, drawn up in precise

order of rank and elaborately attired in accordance with the strictest

etiquette. In the evening there was a great family dinner, after which the

sovereigns provided a concert or play and held a reception.

Round about 1810, slight signs of ageing began to show. His face grew

fat, his complexion dulled, his body slumped and thickened; there were

indications that the Empire, with its vast extent, overtaxed his energies. ‘Did

I not give such and such an order?’ he would write. This, however, was not

so important; to the end his mind remained astonishingly vigorous and

lucid. What is more evident is the effect of omnipotence on his moral atti-

tude: ‘My people of Italy know me well enough to stop them ever forgetting

that I know more in my little ﬁ nger than they do in all their heads put

together.’ Pessimism made him brutal: ‘I have always observed that the

respectable are good for nothing.’ The worship of force and success became

cynical: ‘There is only one secret of managing the world and that is to be

strong, because in strength there is no error or illusion; that’s the naked

truth.’ ‘You have to succeed; I only judge men by the results of their actions.’

As a natural consequence, he felt himself more and more solitary; he showed

himself increasingly disillusioned about the permanence of his work. ‘Both

within and without’, he said to Chaptal, ‘I only reign by the fear I inspire’;

and, later, to Mollien, ‘They joined up with me to enjoy security; they would

abandon me tomorrow if disorder returned.’ How would men feel when his

end came? – ‘All they would say is “ Ouf! ” ’

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The fewer obstacles he met, the more jealous and irritable he became.

Like Frederick II, he continually emphasised the personal character of his

government. Judging by the constitutions he gave to the realms of Naples

and Westphalia, his intention was to eliminate ﬁ nally the elective principle.

However, neither the electorate nor the assembly did anything to hinder

him. The district assemblies, embodying universal suffrage, were not

consulted until 1813 and then only in certain départements. The choices of

the colleges were settled in advance by personal relationships and few

members took part. In 1810 in the Côte-d’Or the list of candidates for the

general council could not be completed and the sous-préfet of Châtillon-sur-

Seine himself proceeded to designate the council of the arrondissement . For

legislative functions all proposals favoured ofﬁ cials and soldiers, except one

position which fell to Berlier’s father-in-law. Little by little the assemblies

became dominated by these people. The Tribunate disappeared in 1807 and

the sessions of the Corps Législatif became gradually shorter, Napoleon

legislating either by senatus consulta , for such things as conscription levies and

annexations, or by decree, as for the re-establishment of the tobacco

monopoly. As long as the Codes were still unﬁ nished, the Conseil d’État was

still to some extent active; after their completion, it was hardly left with

anything but legal points, whereas the administrative councils, dealing only

with the technique of execution, preserved their importance.

The part played by ministers became more and more reduced, and their

powers continued to be whittled down. The Grande Armée and the foreign

territories had their supervisors; conscription and the commissariat had

their two directors. One after the other the regime’s great administrators

saw themselves thrust aside – ﬁ rst Chaptal, then Talleyrand and ﬁ nally

Fouché. The emperor preferred to have in their stead second-rate men

whom he treated as clerks, like Crétet, Champagny, Bigot de Préameneu,

Savary and Maret. A growing share of the places fell to survivors from the

ancien régime . Napoleon believed that they had a prior loyalty to the new

legitimate line, and thought they would be easy to manipulate: ‘It is only

people like that who know how to be servants.’ Many of them were lacking

in ability or experience, and so those he noticed received rapid promotion.

Molé, for example, maître des requêtes in 1806, became préfet in 1807, coun-

cillor of state and director of roads and highways in 1809, and a minister in

1813; and this accounts for the holding together of a number of posts. In

1806, in order to set up a reserve of ofﬁ cials distinguished by birth and

fortune (and so very poorly paid), but shaped by himself, Napoleon reintro-

duced the maîtres des requêtes in the Conseil d’État, appointing in all seventy-

two, and multiplied the assistants in the councils and in the administration,