UC-NRLF llllllliiii ^B 7MD 531 / A LIBRARY University of California A HISTORY OF MoDEEisr Europe BY C. A. FYFFE, MA. BARRISTEB-AT-LAW; FELLOW OP UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, OXFORD VOL. I FROM THE OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR IN 1792 TO THE ACCESSION OF LOUIS XVIIL IN 1814 WITH TWO MAPS SECOND EDITION, REVISED NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1891 V ^■^*l ^j> 7/7 ^V i^ 1. or r\ PEEFACE TO THE FIEST EDITION. The object of this work is to show how the States of Europe have gained the form and character which they possess at the present moment. The outbreak of the Revolutionary War in 1792, terminating a period which now appears far removed from us, and setting in motion forces which have in our own day produced a united Grermany and a united Italy, forms the natural starting-point of a history of the present century. I have endeavoured to tell a simple story, believing that a narrative in which facts are chosen for their significance, and exhibited in their real connection, may be made to convey as true an impres- sion as a fuller history in which the writer is not forced by the necessity of concentration to exercise the same rigour towards himself and his materials. The second volume of the work will bring the reader down to the year 1848 : the thiixl, down to the present time. London, 1880. 7l7zt- PKEFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. In revising this volume for the second edition I have occupied myself mainly with two sources of information — the unpublished Records of the English Foreign Office, and the published works which have during recent years resulted from the investigation of the Archives of Vienna. The English Records from 1792 to 1814, for access to which I have to express my thanks to Lord Granville, form a body of first-hand authority of extraordinary richness, compass, and interest. They include the whole cor- respondence between the representatives of Great Britain at Foreign Courts and the English Foreign Office; a certain number of private communications between Ministers and these representatives ; a quantity of reports from consuls, agents, and *' informants " of every description ; and in addition to these the military reports, often admirably vivid and full of matter, sent by the British officers attached to the head-quarters of our Allies in most of the campaigns from 1792 to 1814. It is impossible that any one person should go through the whole of this material, which it took the Diplomatic Service a quarter of a century to write. I have endeavoured to master the cor- respondence from each quarter of Europe which, for the time being, had a preponderance in political or military interest, leaving it when its importance became obviously subordinate to that of others ; and although I have no doubt left untouched much that would repay investigation, I trust that the narrative has gained in accuracy from a labour which was not a light one, and that the few short extracts which space has permitted me to throw into the notes may serve to bring the reader nearer to events. At some future time I hope to publish a selection from the most important documents of this period. It is strange that PBEFAOE, Tii our learned Societies, so appreciative of every distant and trivial chronicle of the Middle Ages, should ignore the records of a time of such surpassing interest, and one in which England played so great a part. No just conception can be formed of the difference between English statesmanship and that of the Continental Courts in integrity, truthfulness, and public spirit, until the mass of diplomatic correspondence preserved at London has been studied ; nor, until this has been done, can anything like an adequate biography of Pitt be written. The second and less important group of authorities with which I have busied myself during the work of revision com- prises the works of Hiiffer, Vivenot, Beer, Helfert, and others, based on Austrian documents, along with the Austrian docu- ments and letters that have been published by Vivenot. The last-named writer is himself a partizan, but the material which he has given to the world is most valuable. The mystery in which the Austrian Government until lately enveloped all its actions caused some of these to be described as worse than they really were; and I believe that in the First Edition I under- estimated the bias of Prussian and North- German writers. Where I have seen reasons to alter any statements, I have done so without reserve, as it appears to me childish for any one who attempts to write history to cling to an opinion after the balance of evidence seems to be against it. The publication of the second volume of this work has been delayed by the revision of the first; but I hope that it will appear before many months more. I must express my obligations to Mr. Oscar Browning, a fellow-labourer in the same field, who not only furnished me with various corrections, but placed his own lectures at my disposal ; and to Mr. Alfred Kingston, whose unfailing kindness and courtesy make so great a difference to those whose work lies in the department of the Record Office which is under his care. Xofukm,188a. CONTENTS, CHAPTER L PRANCE AND GERMANY AT THE OUTBREAK OP THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. FJIOB Outbreak of the Eevolutionary War in 1792 — ^Its immediate causes — Declaration of Pillnitz made and withdrawn — ^Agitation of the Priests and Emigrants — War Policy of the Gironde — Provocations offered to France by the Powers — State of Central Europe in 1792 — The Holy Roman Empire — Austria — Bule of the Hapsburgs — The Reforms of Maria Theresa and Joseph II. — Policy of Leopold II. — Government and Foreign Policy of Francis 11. — Prussia — Government of Frederick "William II. — Spckl Condition of Prussia— Secondary States of Ger- many — Ecclesiastical States -r-.Free Cities — ^Bjiights — Weakness of Germany 1 CHAPTER n. THE WAR, DOWN TO THE TREATIES OP BASLE AND THE ESTABLISH- MENT OP THE DIRECTORY. French and Austrian Armies on the Fl%mish Frontier — Prussia enters the War — Brunswick invades France — His Proclamation — Insurrection of Aug. 10 at Paris^— Massacres of September — Character of the War — Brunswick, checked at Valmy, retreats — The War becomes a Crusade of France — ^Neighbours of France — Custine enters Mainz — Dumouriez conquers the Austrian Netherlands — Nice and Savoy annexed — Decree of the Convention against aU Governments — Execution of Louis XVI. — War with EJpgland, followed by war with the Mediterranean States — Condition of England — English Parties, how affected by the Revolution — The Gironde and the Mountain— ^Austria recovers the Netherlands — The Allies invade France — La Vendee — Revolutionary System of 1793 — Errors of the Allies — New French Commanders and Democratic Army — ^Victories of Jourdan, Hoche, and Pichegrtc — Prussia withdrawing from the War — Polish Affairs — Austria abandons the Netherlands — Treaties^of Basle— France in 1795 — Insurrection of 13 Vendemiaire— Constitution of 1795 — The Directory — Effect of the Revolution on the Spirit of Europe up to 1795 41 CONTENTS. H "" CHAPTER m. ITALIAir CAMPAIGNS : TREATY OP OAMPO FOBMIO, PAoa Triple attack on Austria — Moreau, Jourdan — Bonaparte in Italy — Condition of the Italian States — Professions and real intentions of Bonaparte and the Directory — Battle of Montenotte — Armistice with Sardinia — Cam- paign in Lombardy — Treatment of the Pope, Naples, Tuscany — Siege of Mantua — Castiglione — Moreau and Jouidan in Germany — Their retreat — Secret Treaty with Prussia — Negotiations with England — Cispadane Republic — Bise of the idea of Italian Independence — Battles of Areola and Rivoli — Peace with the Pope at Tolentino — Venice — Pre- liminaries of Leoben — The French in Venice — The French take the Ionian Islands and give Venice to Austria — Gtenoa — Coup d*6tat of 17 Fructidor in Paris — Treaty of Campo Formio — Victories of England at Sea — Bonaparte's project against Egypt 110 CHAPTER IV. FROM THJE CONGRESS OF RASTADT TO THE ESTABLI8HMBNT OF THB CONSULATE. Congress of Eastadt — ^The Rhenish Provinces ceded — Ecclesiastical States of Germany suppressed — French Intervention in Switzerland — Helvetic Republic — The French invade the Papal States — Roman Republic — Expedition to Egypt — Battle of the Nile— Coalition of 1798 — Ferdinand of Naples enters Rome — Mack's defeats— French enter Naples — Par- thenopean Republic — ^War with Austria and Russia — Battle of Stockach — Murder of the French Envoys at Eastadt — Campaign in Lombardy — Reign of Terror at Naples — Austrian designs upon Italy — Suvaroff and the Austrians — Campaign in Switzerland — Campaign in Holland — Bonaparte returns from Egypt — Coup-d'etat of 18 Brumaire — Constitu- tion of 1799 — System of Bonaparte in France — ^Its effect on the influence of France abroad 164 CHAPTER V. FROM MARENGO TO THE RUPTURE OP THB PEACE OF AMIENS. Overtures of Bonaparte to Austria and England — The War continues— Massena besieged in Genoa — Moreau invades Southern Germany- Bonaparte crosses the St. Bernard, and descends in the rear of the Austrians — Battle of Marengo — Austrians retire behind the Mindo— Treaty between England and Austria — Austria continues the War — Battle of Hohenlinden — Peace of Lun6ville— War between England and the Northern Maritime League — Battle of Copenhagen — Murder of Paul— End of the Maritime War— English Army enters Eg^pt— French defeated at Alexandria— They capitulate at Cairo and Alexandria — Preliminaries of Peace between England and France signed at London, followed by Peace of Amiens — Pitt's Irish Policy and his retirement— X CONTENTS, VAOB Debates on the Peace— Aggressions of Bonaparte during the Conti- nental Peace — Holland, Italy, Switzerland — Settlement of Germany under French and Russian influence — Suppression of Ecclesiastical States and Free Cities— Its effects — gtein— France under the Consulate —The Civil Code— The Concordat 216 CHAPTER YI THE EMPIRE, TO THE PEACE OP PEESBT7E . , .266 ^^ CHAPTER yn. ^ DEATH OP PITT, TO THE PEACE OP TILSIT. Death of Pitt— Minit?try of Fox and Grenville — Napoleon forces Prussia into war with England, and then offers^Hanover to England — Prussia resolves on war with Napoleon — State.oFTrussta— Decline of the Army — Southern Germany with Napoleon — Austria neutral — England and Russia about to help Prussia, but not immediately — Campaign of 1806— Battles o ^Jena and Auerstadt— Ruin of the Prussian Army — Capitulation of Fortresses — Demands of Napoleon — The "War con- tinues — Berlin Decree — Exclusion of English goods from the Continent — Russia enters the war — Campaign in Poland and East Prussia — Eylau — Treaty of Bartenstein — Friedland — Interview at Tilsit — / Alliance of Napoleon and Alexander — Secret Articles — English expedi- y tion to Denmark — The French enter Portugal — Prussia after the Peace of Tilsit — Stein's Edict oUEnoancipation — The Prussian Peasant — Reform of the Prussian Army, and creation of Municipalities — Stein's othOT^^ojects of Reform, which are not carried out .... 309 CHAPTER Yni. SPAIN, TO THE PALL OP SARAGOSSA. Spain in 1806 — Napoleon uses the quarrel between Ferdinand and Godoy — He affects to be Ferdinand's Protector — Dupont's Army enters Spain — Murat in Spain— Charles abdicates— Ferdinand King — Savary brings CONTENTS. li PAAB Ferdinand to Bayonno — Napoleon makes both Charles and Ferdinand regign— Spirit of the Spanish Nation — Contrast with Germany — Rising? of all Spain— Tho Notables at Bay onne— Campaign of 1808— Capitula- tion of Baylen— Wellesley lands in Portugal— Vimieiro— Convention of Cintra— Effect of the Spanish Rising on Europe— War Party in Prussia— Napoleon and Alexander at Erfurt— Stein resigns, and is proscribed— Napoleon in Spain — Spanish Misgovemment— Campaign on tho Ebro — Campaign of Sir John Moore— Corunna— Napoleon leaves Spain — Siege of Saragossa— Successes of the French .... 367 CHAPTER IX. WAB OF 1809 : THE NAPOLEONIC EMPIRE— SPAIN, TO THE BATTLE OF SALAMANCA. Austrian preparing for war — The war to be one on behalf of the German Nation — Patriotic movement in Prussia — Expected Insurrection in North Germany — Plans of Campaign — Austrian IVLinifesto to the Germans — Rising of the Tyrolese— Defeats of the Archduke Charles in Bavaria— French in Vienna — Attempts of Dornberg and Schill — Battle of Aspem — Second passage of the Danube — Battle of Wagram — Armistice of Znaim — Austria waiting for Events — Wellesley in SpsJn — He gains the Battle of Talavera, but retreats— Expedition against Antwerp fails— Austria makes Peace — Treaty of Vienna — Real Effects of the War of 1809- Austria after 1809— Metternich— Marriage of Napoleon with Marie Louise — Severance of Napoleon and Alexander — Napoleon annexes the Papal States, Holland, Le Valais, and the North German Coast— The Napoleonic Empire : its benctits and wrongs — The Czar withdraws from Napoleon's Commercial System— War with Russia imminent — Wellington in Portugal ; Lines of Torres Vedr.is ; Mas- Sena's Campaign of 1810, and retreat— Soult in Andalusia — Wellington's Campaign of 1811 — Capture of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz — Salamanca 402 CHAPTER X. BUSSIAN CAMPAIGN, TO THE TREATY OF KALISCH. War approaching between France and Russia — Policy of Prussia — Harden> berg's Ministry — Prussia forced into Alliance with Napoleon — y Austrian Alliance — Napoleon's Preparations — He enters Russia — *' Alexander and Bemadotte — Plan of Russiana to fight a battle at Drissa frustrated — They retreat on Witepsk — Sufferings of the French — French enter Smolensko — Battle of Borodino — Evacuation of Moscow — Moscow fired — The Retreat from Moscow — French at Smolensko— Advance of Russian Armies from North and South— Battle of Krusnoi — Passage of the Beresina — The French reach the Niemen — York's Convention with the Russians — Tho Czar and Stoin — Russian Army enters Prussia — Stein raises East Prussia — Treaty of Kalisch — Prussia declares War— Enthosiaam of the Nation— Idea of German Unity— The Landwehr ' . 4M xa CONTENTS. OHAMER XL WAB OF LIBERATION, TO THE PEACE OP PARIS. The War of liboratiqp-^Bliicher crosses the Elbe — Battle of Ltitzen — The Allies retreat to Silesia — Battle of Bautzen — Armistice — ^Napoleon intends to intimidate Austria — Mistaken as to the Forces of Austria — • Mettemich*s Policy — Treaty of Eeichenhach — Austria offers its Mediation-^Congress of Prague — Austria enters the War — Armies and Hans of Napoleon and the Allies — Campaign of August — Battles of Dresden, Grosbeeren, the Katzbach, and Kulm— Effect of these Actions — Battle of Dennewitz — German Policy of Austria favourable to the Princes of the "Rhenish Confederacy — Frustrated hopes of German Unity — ^Battle ot Leipzig — ^The Allies reach the Jihine — Offers of Peace at Frankfort — Plan of Invasion of France — Backwardness of Austria — The Allies enter France — Campaign of 1814 — Congress of Chatnion — ^Napoleon moves to the rear of the Allies — The Allies advance on Paris — Capitulation of Paris— Entry of the Allies— De- thronement of Napoleon — Restoration of the Bourbons — The Charta— Treaty of Paris— Territorial effects of the War, 1792-1814— Every Power except France had gained — France relatively weaker in Europe — Summary of the permanent effects of this period on Europe • • 490 Modern Europe. CHAPTEE I. Oufbreak of the "Revolutionary Wai in 1792— Its immediate cansea — ^Declaration of Pillnitz made and withdrawn — Agitation of the Priests and Emigrants — ^War Policy of the Gironde — Provocations offered to France by the Powerg— State of Central Europe in 1792— The Holy Roman Empire — Austria — Rule of the Hapsburgs — ^The Reforms of Maria Theresa and Joseph II.— Policy of Leopold II. — Government and Foreign Policy of Francis II. — ^Prussia — Government of Frederick William II. — Social con- dition of Prussia— Secondary States of Germany — Ecclesiastical Statee — Free Cities — Knights — Weakness of Germany. On the morning of the 19th of April, 1792, after weeks of stormy agitation in Pari^, the Ministers of Louis XVI. brought down a letter from the King to the Legislative Assembly of France. The letter was brief but significant. It announced that the King intended to appear in the Hall of Assembly at noon on the following day. Though the letter did not disclose the object of the King's visit, ^t was known that Louis had given way to the pressure of his Ministry and the national cry for war,yand that a declaration of war against Austria was the measure which the King was about to propose in person to the Assembly. On the morrow the public thronged the hall ; the Assembly broke off its debate at midday in order to be in readiness for the King. Louis entered the hall in the midst of B 2 MOBEBN EUROPE. 1792. deep silence, and seated himself beside the President in the chair which was now substituted for the throne of France. At the King's bidding Greneral Dumouriez, Minister of Foreign Affairs, read a report to the Assembly, upon the relations of France to foreign Powers. _The_rfiport contained a long series of charges against Austria, and concluded with the recommenda- tion of war. When Dumouriez ceased reading Louis rose, and in a low voice declared that he himself and the whole of the Ministry accepted the report read to the Assembly; that he had used every effort to maintain peace, and in vain ; and that he was now come, in accordance with the terms of the Constitution, to propose that the Assembly declare war against the Austrian Sovereign. It was not three months since Louis himself had supplicated the Courts of Europe for armed aid against his own subjects. The words which he now uttered were put in his mouth by men whom he hated, but could not resist : the very out- burst of applause that followed them only proved the fatal antagonism that existed between the nation and the King. After the President of the Assembly had made a short answer, Louis retired from the hall. The Assembly itself broke up, to commence its debate on the King's proposal after an interval of some hours. "When the House re-assembled in the evenino*, those few courageous men who argued on grounds of national interest and justice against the passion of the moment could scarcely obtain a hearing. An appeal for a setjond day's discussion was rejected ; the debate abruptly closed; 1792. THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. 3 and the declaration of war was carried against seven dis- sentient votes. It was a decision big with consequences for France and for the world. From that day began the struggle between Eevolutionary France and the estab- lished order of Europe. A period opened in which almost every State on the Continent gained some new character from the aggressions of France, from the laws and political changes introduced by the conqueror, or from the awakening of new forces of national life in the crisis of successful resistance or of humiliation. It is my intention to trace the great lines of European history from that time to the present, briefly sketching the condition of some of the principal States at the outbreak of the Eevolutionary War, and endeavouring to distinguish, amid scenes of ever-shifting incident, the steps by which the Europe of 1792 has become the Europe of to-day. The first two years of the Eevolution had ended without brinij^ino: France into collision with ° ° Piret threats of foreign Powers. This was not due to any J^ j£^ 1791 goodwill that the Courts of Europe bore to the French people, or to want of effort on the part of the French aristocracy to raise the armies of Europe against their own country. The National Assembly, which met in 1789, had cut at the roots of the power of the Crown; it had deprived the nobility of their privileges, and laid its hand upon the revenues of the Church. The brothers of King Louis XVI., with a host of nobles too impatient to pursue a course of steady political opposition at home, quitted France, and wearied B 2 4 MODERN EUROPE. mi. foreign Courts with their appeals for armed assistance. The absolute monarclis of the Continent gave them a warm and even ostentatious welcome ; but they confined their support to words and tokens of distinction, and until the summer of 1791 the Ee volution was not seriously threatened with the interference of the stranger. The flight of King Louis from Paris in June, 1791, followed by his capture and his strict coDfinement within the Tuileries, gave rise to the first definite project of foreign intervention.* Louis had fled from his capital and from- the National Assembly; he returned, the hostage of a populace already familiar with outrage and bloodshed. For a moment the exasperation of Paris brought the Eoyal Family into real jeopardy. The Emperor Leopold, brother of Marie Antoinette, trembled for the safety of his unhappy sister, and addressed a letter to the European Courts from Padua, on the 6th of July, proposing that the Powers should unite to preserve the Eoyal Family of France from popular violence. Six weeks later the Emperor and King Frederick William II. of Prussia met at Pillnitz, in Saxony. A declaration was published by the two Sovereigns, stating that they considered the position of the King of France to be matter of European concern, and that, in the event of all the other great Powers consenting to a joint action, they were prepared to sup- ply an armed force to operate on the French frontier. Had the National Assembly instantly declared war on * flanke, Ursprung und Beginn der Revolutionskriege, p. 90 Vivenot, Quelleu zur Geschiclite der Kaiserpolitik Oosterreichs, 1, 185, 208. 179L BEGLAIUTION OF PILLNITZ. ft Leopold and Frederick William, its action would have been justified by every rule of international law. The Assembly did not, however, declare war, and for a good reason. It was known at Paris that the manifesto was no more than a device of the Emperor's to intimidate the enemies of the Royal Family. Leopold, when he pledged himself to join a coalition of all the Powers, was in fact aware that England would be no party to any such coalition. He was determined to do nothing that would force him into war; and it did not occur to him that French politicians would understand the emptiness of his threats as well as he did himself. Yet this turned out to be the case; and whatever indignation the manifesto of Pillnitz excited in th^ mass of the French people, it was received with more derision than alarm by the men who were cog- nisant of the afiairs of Europe. All the politicians of the National Assembly knew that Prussia and Austria had lately been on the verge of war with one another upon the Eastern question ; they even underrated the effect of the French revolution in appeasing the existing enmities of the great Powers. No important party in France regarded the Declaration of Pillnitz as a possible reason for hostilities; and the ^i"itz with- challenge given to France was soon publicly . withdrawn. It was withdrawn when Louis XVI., by accepting the Constitution made by the National Assembly, placed himself, in the sight of Europe, in the position of a free agent. On the 14th September, 1791, the King, by a solemn public oath, idei^tified his 6 MODERN BVEOFE. i-^sl will with that of the nation. It was known in Paris that he had been urged by the emigrants to refuse his assent, and to plunge the nation into civil war by- an open breach with the Assembly. The frankness with which Louis pledged himself to the Constitution, the seeming sincerity of his patriotism, again turned the tide of public opinion in his favour. His flight was forgiven; the restrictions placed upon his personal liberty were relaxed. Louis seemed to be once more reconciled with France, and France was relieved from the ban of Europe. The Emperor announced that the circumstances which had provoked the Declaration of Pillnitz no longer existed, and that the Powers, though prepared to revive the League if future occasion should arise, suspended all joint action in reference to the in- ternal affairs of France. The National Assembly, which, in two years, had carried France so far towards the eroal of Priests and emi- " ^^ina^S political and social freedom, now declared its work ended. In the mass of the nation there was little desire for further change. The griev- ances which pressed most heavily upon the common , course of men's lives — unfair taxation, exclusion from public employment, monopolies among the townspeople, and the feudal dues which consumed the produce of the peasant, — ^had been swept away. It was less by any general demand for further reform than by the an- tagonisms already kindled in the Eevolution that France was forced into a new series of violent changes. The King himself was not sincerely at one with the 17UL THE PRIESTS AND THE EMIGRANTS. 7 nation; in everything that most keenly touched his con- science he had unwillingly accepted the work of the As- semhly. The Church and the noblesse were bent on undoing what had already been done. Without inter- fering with doctrine or ritual, the National Assembly had re-organised the ecclesiastical system of France, and had enforced that supremacy of the State over the priesthood to which, throughout the eighteenth century, the Governments of Catholic Europe had been steadily tending. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which was created by the National Assembly in 1790, transformed the priesthood from a society of landowners into a body of salaried oflficers of the State, and gave to the laity the election of their bishops and ministers. The change, carried out in this extreme form, threw th« whole body of bishops and a great part of the lower clergy into revolt. Their interests were hurt by the sale of the Church lands; their consciences were wounded by the system of popular election, which was condemned by the Pope. In half the pulpits of France the principles of the Eevolution were anathematised, and the vengeance of heaven denounced against the purchasers of the secularised Church lands. Beyond the frontier the emigrant nobles, who might have tempered the Eevolution by combining with the many liberal men of their order who remained at home, gathered in arms, and sought the help of foreigners against a nation in which they "could see nothing but rebellious dependents of their own. The head-quarters of the emigrants were at Coblentz in the dominions of the Elector of Treves. 8 MODERN EUBOPK mh They formed themselves into regiments, nnmbering in all some few thousands, and occupied themselves with extravagant schemes of vengeance against all French- men who had taken part in the destruction of the privileges of their caste. Had the elections which followed the dissolution of the National Assembly sent to the Legis- Legislative As- , , , , « T_ x l sembiy, Oct. laturc 3, Dodj 01 mcu bent only on maintaining the advantages already won, it would have been no easy task to preserve the peace of France in the presence of the secret or open hostility of the Court, the Church, and the emigrants. But the trial was .not made. The leading spirits among the new representatives were not men of compromise. In the Legislative Body which met in 1791 there were all the passions of the Assembly of 1789, without any of the experience which that Assembly had gained. A decree, memorable among the achievements of political folly, had prohibited members of the late Chamber from seeking re-election. The new Legis- lature was composed of men whose political creed had been drawn almost wholly from literary sources; the most dangerous theorists of the former Assembly were released from Parliamentary restraints, and installed, like Eobespierre, as the orators of the clubs. Within the Chamber itself the defenders of the Monarchy and of the Constitution which had just been given to France were far outmatched by the party of advance. The most conspicuous of the new deputies formed the group named after the district of the Gironde, where l^L WAB-rOLICY OF THE QIRONBE. 9 several of their leaders had been elected. The orator Yergniaud, pre-eminent among companions of singular eloquence, the philosopher Condorcet, the veteran journalist Brissot, gave to this party an ascendancy in the Chamber and an influence in the country the more dangerous because it appeared to belong to men elevated above the ordinary regions of political strife. Without the fixed design of turning the monarchy into a republic, the orators of the Grironde sought to carry the revolutionary movement over the barrier erected against it in the Constitution of 1791. From the moment of the opening of the Assembly it was clear that the Girondins intended to precipitate the conflict between the Court and the nation by devoting all the wealth of their eloquence to the subjects which divided France the most. To Brissot and the men who furnished the ideas of the party, it would have seemed a calamity that the Constitution of 1791, with its re- spect for the prerogative of the Crown and its tolerance of mediaeval superstition, should fairly get under way. In spite of Eobespierre's prediction ^^ ^ that war would give France a strong ti^eoironde. sovereign in the place of a weak one, the Girondins persuaded themselves that the best means of dimiJaish- ing or overthrowing monarchical power in France was a war with the sovereigns of Europe; and henceforward they laboured for war with scarcely any disguise.* Nor were occasions wanting, if war was needful for France. The protection which the Elector of * Yon Sybel, Geschichte der Eeyolatiouszeit, i 289. 10 MODERN EUROPE, I7d2. Treves gave to tlie emigrant army at Coblentz was so flagrant a violation of international law that tlie Gironde had the support of the whole nation when they called upon the King to demand the dispersal of the emigrants in the most peremptory form. ^N'ational feeling was keenly excited by debates in which the military preparations of the emigrants and the encouragement given to them by foreign princes were denounced with all the energy of southern elo- quence. On the 13th of December Louis declared to the Electors of Treves and Mainz that he would treat them as enemies unless the armaments within their territories were dispersed by January 15th; and at the same time he called upon the Emperor Leopold, as head of the Germanic body, to use his influence in bring- ing the Electors to reason. The demands of France were not resisted. On the 16th January, 1792, Louis informed the Assembly that the emigrants had been expelled from the electorates, and acknowledged the good offices of Leopold in effecting this result. The substantial cause of war seemed to have disappeared; Notes of ^^^ another had arisen in its place. In v^2\\ a note of December 21st the Austrian minister Kaunitz used expressions which implied that a league of the Powers was still in existence against France. Nothing' could have come more opportunely for the war-party in the Assembly. Brissot cried for an immediate declaration of war, and appealed to the French nation to vindicate its honour by an attack both upon the emigrants and 1792. LBOTOLB'S DESPATCH, 11 upon their imperial protector. The issue depended upon the relative power of the Crown and the Opposi- tion. Leopold saw that war was inevitable unless the Constitutional party, which was still in office, rallied for one last effort, and gained a decisive victory over its antagonists. In the hope of turning public opinion against the Grironde, he permitted Kaunitz to send a despatch to Paris which loaded the leaders of the war- party with abuse, and exhorted the French nation to deliver itself from men who would bring upon it the hostility of Europe. (Feb. 17.)* The despatch gave singular proof of the inability of the cleverest sovereign and the most experienced minister of the age to dis- tinguish between the fears of a timid cabinet and the impulses of an excited nation. Leopold's vituperations might have had the intended effect if they had been addressed to the Margrave of Baden or the Doge of Venice; addressed to the French nation and its popular Assembly in the height of civil conflict, they were as oil poured upon the flames. Leopold ruined the party which he meant to reinforce ; he threw the nation into the arms of those whom he attacked. His despatch was received in the Assembly with alternate murmurs and bursts of laughter; in the clubs it excited a wild outburst of rage. The exchange of diplomatic notes continued for a few weeks more ; but the real answer of France to Austria was tlie " Marseillaise," composed at Strasburg almost simultaneously with Kaunitz' attack upon the Jacobins. The sudden death of the Emperor on * Yivenot, QucUen, i. 372. Baches et Boui, ziii. 340, xIy. 24 12 MODERN EUBOPK 1792. March 1st produced no pause in the controversy. Delessart, the Foreign Minister of Louis, was thrust from office, and replaced by Dumouriez, the representative of the war-party. Expostulation took a sharper tone ; old subjects of complaint were War dedared Tcvivcd ; and the armies on each side April 20. 1792. ^^^^ already pressing towards the frontier when the unhappy Louis was brought down to the Assembly by his Ministers, and compelled to propose the declaration of war. It is seldom that the professed grounds correspond with the real motives of a war; nor was grotmds of this tho casc in 1792. The ultimatum of war. the Austrian Grovemment demanded that compensation should be made to certain German nobles whose feudal rights over their peasantry had been abolished in Alsace ; that the Pope should be indemnified for Avignon and the Yenaissin, which had been taken from him by France; and that a Government should be established at Paris capable of ajffording the Powers of Europe security against the spread of democratic agitation. No one supposed the first two grievances to be a serious ground for hostilities. The rights of the German nobles in Alsace over their villagers were no doubt protected by the treaties which ceded those districts to France; but every politician in Europe would have laughed at a Government which allowed the feudal system to survive in a comer of its dominions out of respect for a settlement a century and a half old: nor had the Assembly refused to these foreign 17«2. PRETENDED CAUSES OF WAB. 18 seigneurs a compensation claimed in vain by King Louis for the nobles of France. As to the annexa- tion of Avignon and the Venaissin, a power which, like Austria, had joined in dismembering Poland, and had just made an unsuccessful attempt to dismember Turkey, could not gravely reproach France for incor- porating a district which lay actually within it, and whose inhabitants, or a great portion of them, were anxious to become citizens of France. The third de- mand, the establishment of such a government as Austria should deem satisfactory, was one which no high-spirited people could be expected to entertain. Nor was this in fact expected by Austria. Leopold had no desire to attack France, but he had used threats, and would not submit to the humiliation of renouncing them. He would not hav6 begun a war for the pur- pose of delivering the French Crown ; but, when he found that he was himself certain to be attacked, he accepted a war with the Eevolution without regret. On the other side, when the Gironde denounced the league of the Kings, they exaggerated a far-off danger for the ends of their domestic policy. The Sovereigns of the Continent had indeed made no secret of their hatred to the Eevolution. Catherine of Kussia had exhorted every Court in Europe to make war ; Gustavus of Sweden was surprised by a violent Expectation ot death in the midst of preparations against Sla^oiJ^tbi France; Spain, Naples, and Sardinia were ^y* ^g ready to follow leaders stronger than them- "''^ selves. But fche statesmen of the French ARKAmKlv 14 MODERN EUROPE. 179a well understood tlie interval that separates hostile feeling from actual attack ; and the unsubstantial nature of the danger to France, whether from the northern or the southern Powers, was proved by the very fact that Austria, the hereditary enemy of France, and the country of the hated Marie Antoinette, was treated as the main enemy. Nevertheless, the Courts had done enough to excite the anger of millions of French people who knew of their menaces, and not of their hesitations and reserves. The man who composed the " Marseillaise " was no maker of cunningly-devised fables ; the crowds who first sang it never doubted the reality of the dangers which the orators of the Assembly denounced. The Courts of Europe had heaped up the fuel; the Grirondins applied the torch. The mass of the French nation had httle means of appreciating what passed in Europe ; they took their facts from their leaders, who considered it no very serious thing to plunge a nation into war for the furtherance of internal liberty. Events were soon to pass their own stem and mocking sentence upon the wisdom of the Grirondin statesmanship. After voting the Declaration of War the French Assembly accepted a manifesto, drawn up Germany follows ^ r^ i i • • n p Austria into the by Uoudorcet, renouncing m the name or the French people all intention of conquest. The manifesto expressed what was sincerely felt by men like Condorcet, to whom the Eevolution was still too sacred a cause to be stained with the vulgar lust of ag- grandisement. But the actual course of the war was determined less by the intentions with which the French 19M. QEEMANY INVOLVED IN TEE WAR. IS began it than by the political condition of the States which bordered upon the French frontier. The war was primarily a war with Austria, but the Sovereign of Austria was also the head of Germany. The German Ecclesiastical Princes who ruled in the Khenish provinces had been the most zealous protectors of the emigrants ; it was impossible that they should now j&nd shelter in neutrality. Prussia had made an alliance with the Emperor against France; other German States followed in the wake of one or other of the great Powers. If France proved stronger than its enemy, there were governments besides that of Austria which would have to take their account with the Ee volution. Nor indeed was Austria the power most exposed to violent change. The mass of its territory lay far from France; at the most, it risked the loss of Lombardy and the Netherlands. Ger- many at large was the real area threatened g^^ ^^ o^ by the war, and never was a political com- "'^^* munity less fitted to resist attack than Germany at the end of the eighteenth century. It was in the divisions of the German people, and in the rivalries of the two leading German governments, that France found its surest support throughout the Ee volution ary war, and its keenest stimulus to conquest. It will throw light upon the sudden changes that now began to break over Europe if we pause to make a brief survey of the state of Germany at the outbreak of the war, to note the character and policy of its reigning sovereigns, and to cast a glance over the circumstances which had brought the central district of Europe into its actual condition. 16 MODERN EUBOPK im. Germany at large still preserved the mediaeval name and forms of the Holy Eoman Empire. The members „ , ^ of this so-called Empire were, however, a Holy icoman -l ^^^^'"- multitude of independent States; and the chief of these States, Austria, combined with its Grerman provinces a large territory which did not even in name form part of the Grermanic body. The motley of the Empire was made up by governments of every degree of strength and weakness. Austria and Prussia possessed both political traditions and resources raising them to the rank of great European Powers ; but the sovereign- ties of the second order, such as Saxony and Bavaria, had neither the security of strength nor the free energy often seen in small political communities ; whilst in the remaining petty States of Grermany, some hundreds in number, all public life had long passed out of mind in a drowsy routine of official benevolence or oppression. In theory there still existed a united Germanic body ; in reality Germany was composed of two great monarchies in embittered rivalry with one another, and of a multi- tude of independent principalities and cities whose mem- bership in the Empire involved little beyond a liabiKty to be dragged into the quarrels of their more powerful neighbours. A German national feeling did not exist, because no combination existed uniting the interests of all Germany. The names and forms of political union had come down from a remote past, and formed a grotesque anachronism amid the realities of the eighteenth century. The head of the Germanic body held office not by hereditary right, but as the elected 1«0-I74a STATE OF GERMANY. 17 successor of Charlemagne and the Eoman Caesars. Since the fifteenth century the imperial dignity had rested with the Austrian House of Hapsburg ; but, with the exception of Charles V., no sovereign of that House had commanded forces adequate to the creation of a united German state, and the opportunity which then ofiered itself was allowed to pass away. The Keformation severed Northern Grermany from the Catholic monarchy of the south. The Thirty Years' War, terminating in the middle of the seventeenth century, secured the existence of Protestantism on the Continent of Europe, but it secured it at the cost of Germany, which was left exhausted and disintegrated. By the Treaty of Westphalia, a.d. 1648, the independence of every member of the Empire was recognised, gince i648, au and the central authority was henceforth a states indepen- •^ dent of the Em- mere shadow. The Diet of the Empire, p^'- where the representatives of the Electors, of the Princes, and of the Free Cities, met in the order of the Middle Ages, sank into a Heralds' College, oc- cupied with questions of title and precedence ; affairs of real importance were transacted by envoys from Court to Court. For purposes of war the Empire was divided into Circles, each Circle supplying in theory a contingent of troops; but this military organisation existed only in letter. The greater and the intermediate States regulated their armaments, as they did their policy, without regard to the Diet of Ratisbon ; the contingents of the smaller sovereignties and free cities were in every degree of inefficiency, 18 MODERN EUBOPK ia»-i740. corruption, and disorder ; and in spite of tlie courage of the Grerman soldier, it could make little difference in a European war whether a regiment which had its captain appointed hy the city of Grmiind, its lieutenant by the Abbess of Eotenmiinster, and its ensign by the Abbot of Gregenbach, did or did not take the field with numbers fifty per cent, below its statutory contingent.* How loose was the connection subsisting between the members of the Empire, how slow and cumbrous its constitutional machinery, was strikingly proved after the first inroads of the French into Germany in 1792, when the Diet deliberated for four weeks before calling out the forces of the Empire, and for five months before declaring war. The defence of Germany rested in fact with the armies of Austria and Prussia. The Austrian House of Austria. Hapsburg held the imperial title, and gathered around it the sovereigns of the less progressive German States. While the Protestant communities of Northern Germany identified their interests with those of the rising Prussian Monarchy, religious sympathy and the tradition of ages attached the minor Catholic Courts to the political system of Vienna. Austria gained something by its patronage ; it was, how- ever, no real member of the German family. Its interests were not the interests of Germany ; its power, great and enduring as it proved, was not based mainly upon German elements, nor used mainly for German * Hausser, Deutsche Geschichte, L 88. Vivenot, Herzog Albrecht, i.78. MO^.1740. THE AUSTRIAN MONABOHY. 19 ends. The title of the Austrian monarch gave the hest idea of the singular variety of races and nationalities which owed their political union only to their submis- sion to a common head. In the shorter form of state the reigning Hapsburg was described as King of Hungary, -y^' Bohemia, Croatia, Slavonia, and Gralicia ; Archduke of Austria ; Grand Duke of Transylvania ; Duke of Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola; and Princely Count of Hapsburg and Tyrol. At the outbreak of the war of 1792 the dominions of the House of Austria included the Southern Netherlands and the Duchy of Milan, in addition to the great bulk of the terri- tory which it still governs. Eleven distinct languages were spoken in the Austrian monarchy with countless varieties of dialects. Of the elements of the popula- tion the Slavic was far the largest, numbering about ten millions, against five million Germans and three million Magyars ; but neither numerical strength nor national objects of desire coloured the policy of a family which looked indifferently upon all its subject races as instru- ments for its own aggrandisement. Milan and the Netherlands had come into the possession of Austria since the beginning of the eighteenth century, but the destiny of the old dominions of the Hapsburg House had been fixed for many generations in the course of the Thirty Years' War. In that struggle, as it affected Austria, the con- ^^^i^ flict of the ancient and the reformed faith had become a conflict between the Monarchy, allied with the Church, and every element of national hfe and inde- 2 20 MODERN EUBOPK 1600-1740. pendence, allied with tlie Eeformation. Protestantism, then dominant in almost all the Hapsburg territories, was not put down without extinguishing the political liberties of Austrian Grermany, the national life of Bohemia, the spirit and ambition of the Hungarian nobles. The detestable desire of the Emperor Ferdi- nand, " Bather a desert than a country full of here- tics," was only too well fulfilled in the subsequent history of his dominions. In the German provinces, except the Tyrol, the old Parliaments, and with them all trace of liberty, disappeared ; in Bohemia the national Protestant nobility lost their estates, or retained them only at the price of abandoning the religion, the language, and the feelings of their race, until the country of Huss passed out of the sight of civilised Europe, and Bohemia represented no more than a blank, unnoticed mass of tillers of the soil. In Hungary, where the nation was not so completely crushed in the Thirty Years' War, and Protestantism survived, the wholesale executions in 1686, ordered by the Tribunal known as the '' Slaughter-house of Eperies," illustrated the traditional policy of the Monarchy towards the spirit of national independence. Two powers alone were allowed to subsist in the Austrian dominions, the power of the Crown and the power of the Priesthood ; and, inasmuch as no real national unity could exist among the subject races, the unity of a blind devotion to the Catholic Church was enforced over the greater part of the Monarchy by all the authority of the State. Under the pressure of this soulless despotism the I60o-i74a TOBPOB UNDER THE HAPSBZTROS. 21 mind of man seemed to lose all its finer powers. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in which no de- cade parsed in England and France without the pro- duction of some literary masterpiece, some scientific discovery, or some advance in political reasoning, are marked by no single illustrious Austrian name, except that of Haydn the musician. When, after three genera- tions of torpor succeeding the Thirty Years' War, the mind of North Grermany awoke again in Winckelmann and Lessing, and a widely-diffused education gave to the middle class some compensation for the absence of all political freedom, no trace of this revival appeared in Austria. The noble hunted and slept ; the serf toiled heavily on ; where a school existed, the Jesuit taught his schoolboys ecclesiastical Latin,and sent them away unable to read their mother-tongue. To this dull and impene- trable society the beginnings of improvement could only be brought by military disaster. The loss of Silesia in the first years of Maria Theresa nLii'SiJrei. •^ 1740-1780. disturbed the slumbers of the Grovernment, and reform began. Although the old provincial Assemblies, except in Hungary and the Netherlands, had long lost all real power, the Crown had never attempted to create a uniform system of adminis- tration : the collection of taxes, the enlistment of recruits, was still the business of the feudal land- owners of each district. How such an antiquated order was likely to fare in the presence of an energetic enemy was clearly enough shown in the first attack made upon Austria by Frederick the Great. As the basis 22 MODERN EUROPE, 1740-1780. of a better military organisation, and in the hope of arousing a stronger national interest among her subjects, Theresa introduced some of the offices of a centralised monarchy, at the same time that she improved the condition of the serf, and substituted a Grerman education and Grerman schoolmasters for those of the Jesuits. The peasant, hitherto in many parts of the monarchy attached to the soil, was now made free to quit his lord's land, and was secured from eject- ment so long as he fulfilled his duty of labouring for the lord on a fixed number of days in the year. Beyond this Theresa's reform did not extend. She had no desire to abolish the feudal character of country life ; she neither wished to temper the sway of Catholicism, nor to extinguish those provincial forms which gave to the nobles within their own districts a shadow of political independence. Herself conservative in feeling, attached to aristocracy, and personally devout, Theresa consented only to such change as was recommended by her trusted counsellors, and asked no more than she was able to obtain by the charm of her own queenly character. With the accession of her son Joseph II. in 1780 a new era began for Austria. The work deferred by joeephn 1780 Thcrcsa was then taken up by a monarch ~^^^' whose conceptions of social and religious re- form left little for the boldest innovators of France ten years later to add. There is no doubt that the creation of a great military force for enterprises of foreign con- quest was an end always present in Joseph's mind, and that the thirst for uncontrolled despotic power never left 1780-1790. REFORMS OF JOSEPH U. 28 him ; but by the side of these coarser elements there was in Joseph's nature something of the true fire of the man who lives for ideas. Passionately desirous of elevating every class of his subjects at the same time that he ignored all their habits and wishes, Joseph attempted to transform the motley and priest-ridden collection of nations over whom he ruled into a single homogeneous body, organised after the model of France and Prussia, worshipping in the spirit of a tolerant and enlightened Christianity, animated in its relations of class to class by the humane philosophy of the eighteenth century. In the first year of his reign Joseph abolished every juris- diction that did not directly emanate from the Crown, and scattered an army of officials from Ostend to the Dniester to conduct the entire public business of his dominions under the immediate direction of the central authority at Vienna. In succeeding years edict fol- lowed edict, dissolving monasteries, forbidding Church festivals and pilgrimages, securing the protection of the State to every form of Christian worship, abolishing the exemption from land-tax and the monopoly of public offices enjoyed by the nobility, transforming the Universities from dens of monkish ignorance into schools of secular learning, converting the peasant's personal service into a rent-charge, and giving him in the officer of the Crown a protector and an arbiter in all his dealings with his lord. Noble and enlightened in his aims, Joseph, like every other reformer of the eighteenth century, underrated the force which the past exerts over the present; he could see nothing but prejudice and 84 MODERN EUROPE. 1780-1790 unreason in the attacliment to provincial custom or time-honoured opinion; he knew nothing of that moral law which limits the success of revolutions by the conditions which precede them. What was worst united with what was best in resistance to his reforms. The bigots of the University of Louvain, who still held out against the discoveries of Newton, excited the mob to insurrection against Joseph, as the enemy of religion ; the Magyar landowners in Hungary resisted a system which extinguished the last vestiges of their national independence at the same time that it destroyed the harsh dominion which they themselves exercised over their peasantry. Joseph alternated between conces- sion and the extreme of autocratic violence. At one moment he resolved to sweep away every local right that fettered the exercise of his power; then, after throwing the Netherlands into successful revolt, and forcing Hungary to the verge of armed resistance, he revoked his unconstitutional ordinances (January 28, 1790), and restored all the institutions of the Hungarian monarchy which existed at the date of his accession. A month later, death removed Joseph from his Leo old n struggle and his sorrows. His successor, 1790-1792. Leopold II., found the monarchy involved as Eussia's ally in an attack upon Turkey ; threatened by the Northern League of Prussia, England, and Holland ; exhausted in finance ; weakened by the revolt of the Netherlands ; and distracted in every province by the conflict of the ancient and the modern system of government, and the assertion of new social 1790-1792. FOLIOY OF LEOPOLD IL 26 rights that seemed to have been created only in order to be extinguished. The recovery of Belgium and the con- clusion of peace with Turkey were effected under cir- cumstances that brought the adroit and guarded states- manship of Leopold into just credit. His settlement of the conflict between the Crown and the Provinces, between the Church and education, between the noble and the serf, marked thr line in which, for better or for worse, Austrian policy was to run for sixty years. Provincial rights, the privileges of orders and corporate bodies, Leopold restored; the personal sovereignty of his house he maintained unimpaired. In the more liberal part of Joseph's legislation, the emancipation of learn- ing from clerical control, the suppression of unjust privilege in taxation, the abolition of the feudal services of the peasant, Leopold was willing to make conces- sions to the Church and the aristocracy ; to the spirit of national independence which his predecessor's aggression had excited in Bohemia as well as in Hungary, he made no concession beyond the restoration of certain cherished forms. An attempt of the Magyar nobles to affix conditions to their acknowledgment of Leopold as King of Hungary was defeated ; and, by creating new offices at Vienaa for the affairs of Illyria and Tran- sylvania, and making them independent of the Hun- garian Diet, Leopold showed that the Crown possessed an instrument against the dominant Magyar race in the Slavic and Eomanic elements of the Hungarian King- dom.* On the other hand, Leopold consented to restore • Springer, Greschichte Oesterreichs, L, 46L 26 MODERN EUROPE. 1790-1792. to the Church its control over the higher education, and to throw back the burden of taxation upon land not occupied by noble owners. He gave new rigour to the censorship of the press ; but the gain was not to the Church, to which the censorship had formerly belonged, but to the Government, which now employed it as an instrument of State. In the great question of the emancipation of the serf Leopold was confronted by a more resolute and powerful body of nobility in Hungary than existed in any other province. The right of the lord to fetter the peasant to the soil and to control his marriage Leopold refused to restore in any part of his dominions ; but, while in parts of Bohemia he succeeded in maintaining the right given by Joseph to the peasant to commute his personal service for a money payment, in Hungary he was compelled to fall back upon the system of Theresa, and to leave the final settlement of the question to the Diet. Twenty years later the states- man who emancipated the peasants of Prussia observed that Hungary was the only part of the Austrian dominions in which the peasant was not in a better condition than his fellows in North Germany ;* and so torpid was the humanity of the Diet that until the year 1835 the prison and the flogging-board continued to form a part of every Hungarian manor. Of the self-sacrificing ardour of Joseph there was no trace in Leopold's character ; yet his political aims were not low. During twenty-four years' government of Tuscany he had proved himseK almost an ideal ruler • Pertz, Leben Stein, ii., 402. Paget, Travels in Hungary, 1. 131. oi» rnit ^V VERSITYl 1792. AUSTRIA UNDER ^^^^^^^ fj^^^^y^^^ 27 in the pursuit of peace, of religious enlightenment, and of the material improvement of his little sovereignty. Eaised to the Austrian poid, March i, throne, the compromise which he effected with the Church and the aristocracy resulted more from a supposed political necessity than from his own incHnation. So long as Leopold lived Austria would not have wanted an intelligence capable of surveying the entire field of public business, nor a will capable of imposing unity of action upon the servants of State. To the misfortune of Europe no less than of his own dominions, Leopold was carried off by sickness at the moment when the Eevolutionary War broke out. An uneasy reaction against Joseph's reforms and a well-grounded dread of the national movements in Hungary and the Nether- lands were already the principal forces in the official world at Vienna; in addition to these came the new terror of the armed proselytism of the Eevolution. The successor of Leopold, Francis II., was a . 1 ., . . 1 I 1 1 . Francis n., 179S. Sickly prince, m whose homely and unim- aginative mind the great enterprises of Joseph, amidst which he had been brought up, excited only aversion. Amongst the men who surrounded him, routine and the dread of change made an end of the higher forms of public life. The Government openly declared that all change should cease so long as the war lasted ; even the pressing question of the peasant's relation to his lord was allowed to remain unsettled by the Hungarian Diet, lest the spirit of national independence should find* expression in its debates. Over the whole internal 28 MODERN EUROPE. 1792-a administration of Austria the torpor of tlie days before Theresa seemed to be returning. Its foreign policy, how- ever, bore no trace of this timorous, conservative spirit. Joseph, as restless abroad as at home, had shared the ambition of the Eussian Empress Catherine, and troubled Europe with his designs upon Turkey, Venice, and Bavaria. These and similar schemes of territorial extension continued to fill the minds of Austrian courtiers and ambassadors. Shortly after the outbreak of war with France the aged minister Kaunitz, who had been at the head of the Foreign Office during three reigns, retired from power. In spite of the first partition of Poland, made in combination with Russia and Prussia in 1772, and in spite of subsequent attempts of Joseph against Turkey and Bavaria, the policy of Kaunitz had not been one of mere adventure and shifting attack. He had on the whole remained true to the principle of alliance with France and antagonism to Prussia ; and when the revolution brought war within sight, he desired to limit the object of the war to the restoration of monarchical government in France. The conditions under which the young Emperor and the King of Prussia agreed to turn the war to purposes of territorial aggrandisement caused Kaunitz, with a true sense of the fatal import of this policy, to surrender the power which he had held for forty years. It was secretly agreed between the two courts that Prussia should recoup itself for its expenses against France by seizing part of Poland. On behalf of Austria it was demanded that the Emperor should annex Bavaria, giving Belgium to the elector as com- 17W. AUSTRIAN QBEEB FOB TERRITORY, 29 pensation. Both these schemes violated what Kaunitz held to be sound policy. He believed that the interests of Austria required the consolidation rather than the destruction of Poland ; and he declared the exchange of the Netherlands for Bavaria to be, in the actual state of affairs, impracticable.* Had the coalition of 1792 been framed on the principles advocated by Kaunitz, though Austria might not have effected the restoration of monarchical power in France, the alliance would not have disgracefully shattered on the crimes and infamies attending the second partition of Poland. From the moment when Kaunitz retired from office, territorial extension became the great object of the Austrian Court. To prudent statesmen the scattered provinces and varied population of the Austrian State would . have suggested that Austria had more to lose than any European Power; to the men of 1792 it appeared that she had more to gain. The Netherlands might be increased with a strip of French Flanders ; Bavaria, Poland, and Italy were all weak neigh- bours, who might be made to enrich Austria in their turn. A sort of magical virtue was attached to the acquisition of territory. If so many square miles and so many head of population were gained, whether of alien or kindred race, mutinous or friendly, the end of all statesmanship was realised, and the heaviest sacrifice of life and industry repaid. Austria affected • Ranke. Ursprung and Beginn, p. 256. Vivenot, Qaellen, i., 133, 165. The acqtusition of Bavaria was declared by the Austrian Cabinet to be the summum bonum of the monarchy. 30 MODERN EUBOPK 1740-I78a to act as tlie centre of a defensive alliance, and io fight for the common purpose of giving a Government to Trance which would respect the rights of its neighbours. In reality, its own military operations were too often controlled, and an efiective common warfare frustrated, at one moment by a design upon French Flanders, at another by the course of Polish or Bavarian intrigue, at another by the hope of conquests in Italy. Of all the interests which centred in the head of the House of Hapsburg, the least befriended at Vienna was the interest of the Empire and of Germany. Nor, if Austria was found wanting, had Germany any permanent safeguard in the rival Protes- tant State. Prussia, the second great German Power and the ancient enemy of Austria, had been raised to an influence in Europe quite out of proportion to its scanty resources by the genius of Frederick the Great and the earlier Princes of the House of HohenzoUern. Its population was not one- third of that of France or Austria; its wealth was perhaps not superior to that of the Republic of Venice. That a State so poor in men and money should play the part of one of the great Powers of Europe was possible only so long as an energetic ruler watched every move- ment of that complicated machinery which formed both army and nation after the prince's own type. Frederick gave his subjects a just administration of the law; he taught them productive industries; he sought to bring education to their doors* ; but he required that ♦Biedennaim, Deutschland im Achtzehnten Jahrhimdert, iv. 1144. 1786. PBUSaiA UNDER FBEDEEIOK H 31 the citizen should account himself before all the servant of the State. Every Prussian either worked in the great official hierarchy or looked up to it as the providence which was to direct all his actions and supply all his judgments. The burden of taxation imposed by the support of an army relatively three times as great as that of any other Power was wonderfully lightened by Frederick's economy: far more serious than the tobacco-monopoly and the forage-requisitions, at which Frederick's subjects grumbled during his life- time, was the danger that a nation which had only attained political greatness by its obedience to a rigorous administration should fall into political helplessness, when the clear purpose and all-controlling care of its ruler no longer animated a system which, without him, was only a pedantic routine. What in England we are accustomed to consider as the very substance of national life, — the mass of political interest and opinion, diffused in some degree amongst all classes, at once the support and the judge of the servants of the State, — had in Prussia no existence. Frederick's subjects obeyed and trusted their Monarch ; there were probably not five hundred persons outside the public service who had any political opinions of their own. Prussia did not possess even the form of a national representa- tion; and, although certain provincial assemblies con- tinued to meet, they met only to receive the instructions* of the Crown-officers of their district. In the absence of all public criticism, the old age of Frederick must in itself have endangered the efficiency of the military 32 MODERN EUROPE. 1786-1792. system which had raised Prussia to its sudden eminence.* The impulse of Frederick's successor was sufficient to reverse the whole system of Prus- sian foreign policy, and to plunge the country in alliance with Austria into a speculative and unneces- sary war. On the death of Frederick in 1786, the crown Frederick passcd to Frederick William II., his nephew. William n., ^ ' r 1786. Frederick William was a man of common type, showy and pleasure-loving, interested in puhlic affairs, but incapable of acting on any fixed principle. His mistresses gave the tone to political society. A knot of courtiers intrigued against one another for the management of the King; and the policy of Prussia veered from point to point as one unsteady impulse gave place to another. In countries less dependent than Prussia upon the personal activity of the monarch, Frederick William's faults might have been neutralised by able Ministers; in Prussia the weakness of the King was the decline of the State. The whole fabric of national greatness had been built up by the royal power; the quality of the public service, apart from which the nation was politically non-existent, was the quality of its head. When in the palace profusion and intrigue took the place of Frederick the Grreat's unflagging labour, the old uprightness, industry, and precision which had been the pride of Prussian administration fell out of fashion everywhere. Yet the frivolity of the Court was a less active cause of military decline than the • Oarlyle, Friedrich, vi 667. 1798. THE AUSTRIAN ALLIANOE. 38 abandonment of the first principles of Prussian policy * If any political sentiment existed in the nation, it was the sentiment of antagonism to Austria. The patriotism of the army, with all the traditions of the great King, turned wholly in this direction. When, out ^^jjj^,^ ^^ of sympathy with the Bourbon family and ^^ ^^, . 1792. the emigrant French nobles, Frederick William allied himself with Austria (Feb. 1792), and threw himself into the arms of his ancient enemy in order to attack a nation which had not wronged him, he made an end of all zealous obedience amongst his servants. Brunswick, the Prussian Commander-in- Chief, hated the French emigrants as much as he did the Eevolution ; and even the generals who did not origin, ally share Brunswick's dislike to the war recovered their old jealousy of Austria after the first defeat, and exerted themselves only to get quit of the war at the first moment that Prussia could retire from it without disgrace. The very enterprise in which Austria had consented that the Court of Berlin should seek its reward — the seizure of a part of Poland — proved fatal to the coalition. The Empress Catherine was already laying her hand for the second time upon this unfortunate country. It was easy for the opponents of the Austrian alliance who surrounded King Frederick William to con- trast the barren effort of a war against France with the cheap and certain advantages to be won by annexation, in concert with Russia, of Polish territory. To pursue one of these objects with vigour it was necessary to relinquish • Hausser, i 197. Hardenberg (fi&nke), i. 139. Von Sybel, i 272. D 34 MODERN EUMOPK 1792. the other. Prussia was not rich enough to maintain armies both on the Vistula and the Ehine. Nor, in the opinion of its rulers, was it rich enough to be very tender of its honour or very loyal towards its allies * In the institutions of Prussia two opposite systems sodai system of ^xistcd sidc by sidc, exhibiting in the strong- ^''^'^- est form a contrast which in a less degree was present in most Continental States. The political independence of the nobility had long been crushed; the King's Grovernment busied itself with every detail of town and village administration; yet along with this rigorous development of the modern doctrine of the unity and the authority of the State there existed a social , order more truly archaic than that of the Middle Ages at their better epochs. The inhabitants of Prussia were divided into the three classes of nobles, burghers, and peasants, each confined to its own stated occupations, and not marrying outside its own order. The soil of the country bore the same •"The connection with the House of Austria and the present under- taking continue to be very unpopular. It is openly said that one half of the treasure was uselessly spent at Reichenbach, and that the other half will be spent on the present occasion, and that the sovereign will be re- duced to his former level of Margrave of Brandenburg." Eden, from Berlin ; June 19, 1792. Records : Prussia, vol. 151. " He (MoUendorf ) reprobated the alliance with Austria, condemning the present inter- ference in the affairs of France as ruinous, and censuring as un- dignified and contrary to the most important interests of this country the leaving Russia sole arbitress of the fate of Poland. He, however, said, what every Prussian without any exception of party will say, that this country can never acquiesce in the establishment of a good government in Poland, since in a short time it would rise to a very decided superi- ority." Id., July 17. Mr. Cobden's theory that the partition of Poland was effected in the interest of good government must have caused some surprise at Berlin. I ' iwa 800IAL SYSTEM OF PRUSSIA. 35 distinction; peasant's land could not be owned by a burgher ; burgher's land could not be owned by a noble. No occupation was lawful for the noble, who was usually no more than a poor gentleman, but the service of the Crown ; the peasant, even where free, might not practise the handicraft of a burgher. But the mass of the peasantry in the country east of the Elbe were serfs attached to the soil ; and the noble, who was not permitted to exercise the slightest influence upon the government of his country, inherited along with his manor a jurisdiction and police-control over all who were settled within it. Frederick had allowed ^ serfage to continue because it gave him in each manorial lord a task-master whom he could employ in his own service. System and obedience were the sources of his power; and if there existed among his subjects one class trained to command and another trained to obey, it was so much the easier for him to force the country into the habits of industry which he required of it. In the same spirit, Frederick officered his army only with men of the noble caste. 4They brought with them the habit of com- mand ready-formed; the peasants who ploughed and threshed at their orders were not likely to disobey them in the presence of the enemy. It was possible that such a system should produce great results so long as Frederick was there to guard against its abuses ; Frederick gone, the degradation of servitude, the insolence of caste, was what remained. When the army of France, led by men who had worked with their fathers in the fields, hunted a Eang of Prussia amidst his capitulating grandees from B 3 36 MODERN EUBOPB. 1750-90. the centre to tlie verge of his dominions, it was seen what was the permanent value of a system which recognised in the nature of the poor no capacity but one for hereditary subjection. The French peasant, plundered as he was by the State, and vexed as he was with feudal services, knew no such bondage as that of the Prussian serf, who might not leave the spot where he was born ; only in scattered districts in the border- provinces had serfage survived in France. It is signifi- cant of the difference in self-respect existing in the peasantry of the two countries that the custom of striking the common soldier, universal in Grermany, was in France no more than an abuse, practised by the admirers of Frederick, and condemned by the better officers themselves. In all the secondary States of Grermany the govem- Minor states of ^^^^'^ ^as au absolutc monarchy ; though, Germany. -^^^^ ^^^ thcrc, as iu Wurtembcrg, the shadow of the old Assembly of the Estates survived; and in Hanover the absence of the Elector, King Greorge III., placed power in the hands of a group of nobles who ruled in his name. Society every- where rested on a sharp division of classes similar in kind to that of Prussia; the condition of the peasant ranging from one of serfage, as it existed in Mecklenburg,* to one of comparative freedom and * The condition of Mecklenburg is thus described in a letter written by Stein during a journey in 1802 : — " I found the aspect of the country as cheerless as its misty northern sky ; great estates, much of them in pasture or fallow ; an extremely thin population ; the entire labouring class under the yoke of serfage ; stretches of land attached to solitary ill-built farm. vn. EOOLESIASTIOAL STATES. 87 comfort in parts of tlie southern and western States. The sovereigns differed widely in the enlightenment or selfishness of their rule; but, on the whole, the character of government had changed for the better of late years; and, especially in the Protestant States, efforts to improve the condition of the people were not wanting. Frederick the Great had in fact created a new standard of monarchy in Germany. Forty years earlier, Versailles, with its unfeeling splendours, its glorification of the personal indulgence of the monarch had been the ideal which wi4-v inferiority, the ( to imitate. To .^ cover acres of ground with state apartments, to lavish the revenues of the country upon a troop of mistresses and adventurers, to patronise the arts, to collect with the same com- placency the masterpieces of ancient painting that adorn the Dresden Gallery, or an array of valuables scarcely more interesting than the chests of treasure that were paid for them. In the ecclesiastical States, headed by the Electorates of Mainz, Treves, and Cologne, the affectation of a distinctively Christian or spiritual character had long been aban- doned. The prince-bishop and canons, who were nobles appointed from some other province, lived after the honses; in short, li monotony, a dead stillness, spreading over the whole country, au absence of life and activity that quite overcame my spirita. The home of the Mecklenburg noble, who weighs like a load on his peasants instead of improving their condition, gives me the idea of the den of some wild beast, who devastates everything about him, and surrounds himself with the silence of the grave." Pertz, Leben Stein, l^ 192. For a more cheerful description of Miinsier, see id., L, 24L states. 38 MODERN EUBOPK 1792. gay fashion of the time, at the expense of a land in which they had no interest extending beyond their own lifetime. The only feature distinguishing the ecclesiastical residence from that of one of the minor secular princes was that the parade of state was per- formed by monks in the cathedral instead of by soldiers on the drill-ground, and that even the pretence of married life was wanting among the flaunting harpies who frequented a celibate Court. Yet even on the Ehine and on the Moselle the influence of the great King of Prussia had begun to make itself felt. The intense and peneii^tins: industry of Frederick was not within the re ich of every petty sovereign who might envy its results ; but the better spirit of the time was seen under some of the ecclesiastical princes in the en- couragement of schools, the improvement of the roads, and a retrenchment in courtly expenditure. That deeply- seated moral disease which resulted frohi centuries of priestly rule was not to be so Hghtly shaken off. In a district where IN'ature most bountifully rewards the in- dustry of man, twenty-four out of every hundred of the population were monks, nuns, or beggars.* Two hundred petty principalities, amongst which Weimar, the home of Groethe, stood out Free Cities.' in the brisfhtcst relief from the level Knights, O of princely routine and self-indulgence ; fifty imperial cities, in most of which the once vigorous organism of civic life had shrivelled to the type of the English rotten borough, did not exhaust the * Perthes, Staatsleben, p. 116. Rigby, Letters from France, p. 215. 15W. WEAKNESS OF OERMANY. 89 divisions of Germany. Several hundred Knights of the Empire, owing no allegiance except to the Emperor, exercised, each over a domain averaging from three to four hundred inhabitants, all the rights of sovereignty, with the exception of the right to make war and treaties. The districts in which this order survived were scattered over the Catholic States of the south-west of Q-ermany, where the knights maintained their prerogatives by federations among themselves and by the support of the Emperor, to whom they granted sums of money. There were instances in which this union of the rights of the sovereign and the landlord was turned to good account ; but the knight's land was usually the scene of such poverty and degradation that the traveller needed no guide to inform him when he entered it. Its wretched tracks interrupted the great lines of communi- cation between the Rhine and farther Grermany ; its hovels were the refuge of all the criminals and vagabonds of the surrounding country ; for no police existed but the bailiffs of the knight, and the only jurisdiction was that of the lawyer whom the knight brought over from the nearest town. Nor was the disadvantage only on the side of those who were thus governed. The knight himself, even if he cherished some traditional reverence for the shadow of the Empire, was in the position of a man who belongs to no real country. If his sons desired any more active career than that of annuitants upon the family domains, they could obtain it only by seeking employment at one or other of the greater Courts, and by identifying them- 40 MODERN EUROPE, 1792. selves with the interests of a land which they entered as strangers. Such was in outline the condition of Grermany at the moment when it was brought into collision with the new and unknown forces of the Trench Eevolution. A system of small States, which in the past of Grreece and Italy had produced the finest types of energy and genius, had in Grermany resulted in the extinction of all vigorous life, and in the ascendancy of all that was stagnant, little, and corrupt. If political disorganisation, the decay pf public spirit, and the absence of a national idea, are the signs of impending downfall, ^ermany was ripe for foreign conquest. The obsolete and dilapidated fabric of the Empire had for a century past been sustained only by the European tradition of the Balance of Power, or by the absence of serious attack from without. Austria once overpowered, the Empire was ready to fall to pieces by itself: and where, among the princes or the people of Grermany, were the elements that gave hope of its renovation in any better form of national life ? CHAPTEE n. French and Austrian armies on the Flemish frontier — Pmssia enters the war — Brunswick invades France — His Proclamation — Insurrection of Aug. 10 at Paris — Massacres of September — Character of the war — Brunswick, checked at Valmy, retreats — The War becomes a Crusade of France — Neighbours of France — Custine enters Mainz — Dumouriez conquers the Austrian Netherlands — Nice and Savoy annexed — Decree of the Convention against all Governments — Execution of Louia XVL — War with England, followed by war with the Mediterranean States — Condition of England — English Parties, how affected by the Revolution — The Gironde and the Mountain — Austria recovers the Netherlands — The Allies invade France — La Vendee — Revolutionary System of 1793 — Errors of the Allies — New French Commanders and Democratic Army — ^Victories of Jourdan, Hoche, and Pichegru — Prussia withdrawing from the war — Polish Affairs — Austria abandons the Netherlands — Treaties of Basle— France in 1796 — Insurrec' tion of 13 Vendemiaire — Constitution of 1795 — The Directory— Effect of the Revolution on the spirit of Europe up to 1796. The war between France and Austria opened in April, 1792, on the Flemish frontier. The first encounters were discreditable to the French Flemish frontier. Apnl, 1792. soldiery, who took to flight and murdered one of their generals. The discouragement with which the nation heard of these reverses deepened into sullen indignation against the Court, as weeks and months passed by, and the forces lay idle on the frontier or met the enemy only in trifling skirmishes which left both sides where they were before. If at this crisis of the Ee volution, with all the patriotism, all the bravery, all the military genius of France burning for service, the Grovernment conducted the war with results 42 MODERN EUBOPJS. 1788. scarcely distinguishable from those of a parade, the suggestion of treason on the part of the Court was only too likely to be entertained. The internal diffi- culties of the country were increasing. The Assembly had determined to banish from France the priests who rejected the new ecclesiastical system, and the King L^l placed his veto upon their decree. He had refused to permit the formation of a camp of volunteers in the neighbourhood of Paris. He had dismissed the popular Ministry forced upon him by the Grironde. A tumult on the 20th of June, in which the mob forced their way into the Tuileries, showed the nature of the attack impending upon the monarchy if Louis continued to oppose himself to the demands of the nation ; but the lesson was lost upon the King. Louis was as little able to nerve himself for an armed conflict with the populace as to reconcile his conscience to the Eccle- siastical Decrees, and he surrendered himself to a pious inertia at a moment when the alarm of foreign invasion doubled revolutionary passion all over France. Prussia, in pursuance of a treaty made iu February, united its forces to those of Austria. Forty thousand Prussian troops, under the Duke of Brunswick, the best of _^ . Frederick's surviving erenerals, advanced Prussian army o o •» fXf7i'^^ along the Moselle. From Belgium and the clamation. -r-»i • j a i • upper lihme two Austrian armies converged upon the line of invasion ; and the emigrant nobles were given their place among the forces of the Allies. On the 25th of July the Duke of Brunswick, in the name of the Emperor and the King of Prussia, BBUNQWIOK'a MANIFESTO, 48 issued a proclamation to the French people, which, but for the difference between violent words and violent deeds, would have left little to be com- plained of in the cruelties that henceforward stained the popular cause. In this manifesto, after declar- ing that the Allies entered France in order to deliver Louis from captivity, and that members of the National Guard fighting against the invaders would be punished as rebels against their king, the Sovereigns addressed themselves to the city of Paris and to the representatives of the French nation : — " The city of Paris and its inhabitants are warned to submit without delay to their King ; to set that Prince at entire liberty, and to show to him and to all the Eoyal Family the inviolability and respect which the law of nature and of nations imposes on subjects towards their Sovereigns. Their Imperial and Royal Majesties will hold all the members of the National Assembly, of the Municipality, and of the National Gruard of Paris responsible for all events with their heads, before mili- tary tribunals, without hope of pardon. They further declare that, if the Tuileries be forced or insulted, or the least violence offered to the King, the Queen, or the Royal Family, and if pro^dsion be not at once made for their safety and liberty, they will inflict a memorable vengeance, by delivering up the city of Paris to military execution and total overthrow, and the rebels guilty of such crimes to the punishment they have merited." * ♦ Buchez et Roux, xvi., 279. One of the originals of this declaration, handed to the British ambassador, is in the London Records : Pmssia. vol. 161. 4A MODERN EUROPE. 1792. This challenge was not necessary to determine the fate of Louis. Since the capture of the Bastille in the first days of the Eevolution the National Government had with difficulty supported itself against the populace of the capital ; and, even before the foreigner threatened Paris with fire and sword, Paris had learnt to look for the will of France within itself. As the columns of Brunswick advanced across the north-eastern frontier, Danton and the leaders of the city- democracy marshalled their army of the poor and the desperate to overthrow that monarchy whose cause the invader had made his own. The Eepublic which had floated so long in the thoughts of the Girondins was won in a single day by the populace of Paris, amid the roar of cannons and the flash of bayonets. On the 10th of August Danton let loose the armed mob upon the Tuileries. Insttrrection, -i August 10, 1792. Louis quitted the Palace without giving orders to the guard either to fight or to retire ; but the guard were ignorant that their master desired them to ofier no resistance, and one hundred and sixty of the mob were shot down before an order reached the troops to abandon the Palace. The cruelties which followed the victory of the people indicated the fate in store for those whom the invader came to protect. It is doubtful whether the foreign Courts would have made any serious attempt to undo the social changes efiected by the Revolution in France ; but no one supposed that those thousands of self- exiled nobles who now returned behind the guns of Brunswick had returned in order to take their places peacefully in the new social order. In 17» mSUBBEOTION OF AUGUST la 46 their own imagination, as much as in that of the people, they returned with fire and sword to repossess them- selves of rights of which they had been despoiled, and to take vengeance upon the men who were responsible for the changes made in France since 1789.* In the midst of a panic little justified by the real military situation, Danton inflamed the nation with his own passionate courage and resolution; he unhappily also thought it necessary to a successful national defence chat the reactionary party at Paris should be paralysed by a terrible example. The prisons were filled ^ ^ Kaasacrea in with persons suspected of hostility to the ^^^^s^vl*^ national cause, and in the first days of September many • The accounts of the emigrants sent to Engknd by Lord Elgin, envoy at Brussels, and Sir J. Murray, our military attach^ with Bruns- wick's army (in Records: Flanders, voL 221) are instructive : " The conduct of the army under the Princes of France is universally reprobated. Their appearance in dress, in attendants, in preparations, is ridiculous. As an instance, however trivial, it may be mentioned that on one of the waggons was written Toilette de Monsi&wr. The spirit of vengeance, however, which they discover on every occasion is far more serious. Wherever they have passed, they have exercised acts of cruelty, in banishing and severely punishing those persons who, though probably culpable, had yet been left untouched by the Prussian commanders. To such an extent has this been carried that the commander at Verdun would not suffer any Frenchman (emigrant) to pass a night in the town without a special permission.** Sept. 21. After the failure of the campaign, Elgin writes of the emigrants : " They everywhere added to the cruelties for some of which several hussars had been executed : carried to its extent the vengeance threatened in the Duke of Brunswick's Declaration, in burning whole villages where a shot was fired on them: and on the other hand by their self-sufficiency, want of subordination and personal disrespect, have drawn upon them- selves the contempt of the combined armies." Oct. 6. So Ute as 1796, the exile Louis XYlll. declared his intention to restore the "property and rights" {i.e., tithes, feudal dues, Ac.) of the nobles and clergy, and to punish the men who had " committed offences." See Letter to Pichegru, May 4, 1796, in Manuscrit In^t de Louis X YHl., p. 464. 46 MODERN EUBOPK im. hundreds of these imforttmate persons were massacred by gangs of assassins paid by a committee of the Municipality. Danton did not disguise his approval of the act. He had made up his mind that the work of the Revolution could only be saved by striking terror into its enemies, and by preventing the Royalists from co-operating with the invader. But the multitudes who flocked to the standards of 1792 carried with them the patriotism of Danton unstained by his guilt: Right or wrong in its origin, the war was now unquestionably a just one on the part of Prance, a war against a privileged class attempting to recover by force the unjust advan- tasres that they had not been able to maintain, The war now a war of defence, g^ ^g^j, agaiust thc forcigucr in defence of the right of the nation to deal with its own government. Since the great religious wars there had been no cause so rooted in the hearts, so close to the lives of those who fought for it. Every soldier who joined the armies of France in 1792 joined of his own free will. No conscription dragged the peasant to the frontier. Men left their homes in order that the fruit of the poor man's labour should be his own, in order that the children of France should inherit some better birthright than exaction and want, in order that the late-won sense of human right should not be swept from the earth by the arms of privilege and caste. It was a time of high- wrought hope, of generous and pathetic self-sacrifice ; a time that left a deep and in- delible impression upon those who judged it as eye-wit- nesses. Years afterwards the poet Wordsworth, then I UNIVERSITY I alienated from France and cold in the cause of liberty, could not recall without tears the memories of 1792.* The defence of France rested on General Dumouriez. The fortresses of Longwy and Verdun, covering the passage of the Meuse, had v22^sepu fallen after the briefest resistance ; the troops that could be collected before Brunswick's ap- proach were too few to meet the enemy in the open field. Happily for France the slow advance of the Prussian general permitted Dumouriez to occupy the difficult country of the Argonne, where, while waiting for his reinforcements, he was able for some time to hold the invaders in check. At length Brunswick made his way past the defile which Dumouriez had chosen for his first line of defence ; but it was only to find the French posted in such strength on his flank that any further advance would imperil his own army. If the advance was to be continued, Dumouriez must be dislodged. Accordingly, on the 20th of September, Brunswick directed his artillery against the hills of Valmy, where the French left was encamped. The cannonade continued for some hours, but it was followed by no general attack. The firmness of the French under Brunswick's fire made it clear that they would not be displaced without an obstinate battle ; and, disappointed of victory, the King of Prussia began to listen to proposals of peace sent to him by Dumouriez. t A week spent in negotiation served • Wordsworth, Prelude, Book IX. t The correspondence is in Ranke, Urspruug nnd Boginn, p. 871. Saoh was the famine in the Prussian camp that Dumouriez sent the King Retreat of Brunswick. 48 MODERN EUROPE, 1792. only to strengthen the French and to aggravate the scarcity and sickness within the Grerman camp. Dissen- sions broke out between the Prussian and Austrian com- manders ; a retreat was ordered ; and to the astonishment o£ Europe the veteran forces of Brunswick fell back before the mutinous soldiery and unknown generals of the Eevolution, powerless to delay for a single month the evacuation of France and the restoration of the fortresses which they had captured. In the meantime the Legislative Assembly had decreed its own dissolution in consequence of the over- throw of the monarchy on August 10th, and had ordered the election of representatives to frame a constitution for ^ ^ ^ France. The elections were held in the The Conventioii ^L^ EepubiS; crisis of invasion, in the height of national indignation against the alliance of the aristocracy with the foreigner, and, in some districts, under the influence of men who had not shrunk from ordering the massacres in the prisons. At such a moment a Constitutional Eoyalist had scarcely more chance of election than a detected spy from the enemy's camp. The Grirondins, who had been the party of extremes in the Legislative Assembly, were the party of moderation and order in the Convention. By their side there were returned men whose whole being seemed to be compounded out of the forces of conflict, men who, sometimes without conscious depravity, carried into of Prussia twelve loaves, twelve pounds of coffee, and twelve pounds of sugar. The official account of the campaign is in the Berlmiache 2!eUv/ng of Oct 11, 1792. 1788. EXPANSION OF THE REVOLUTION 40 political and social struggles that direct, unquestioning employment of force which has ordinarily been reserved for war or for the diffusion of religious doctrines. The moral differences that separated this party from the Q-ironde were at once conspicuous : the political creed of the two parties appeared at first to be much the same. Monarchy was abolished, and France declared a Republic. (Sept. 21.) Office continued in the hands of the Gironde ; but the vehement, uncompromising spirit of their rivals, the so-called party of the Mountain, quickly made itself felt in all the relations of France to foreign Powers. The intention of conquest might still be disavowed as it had been five comes a cnuad* of democracy. months before; but were the converts to liberty to be denied the right of uniting themselves to the French people by their own free will ? When the armies of the Republic had swept its assailants from the border-provinces that gave them entrance into France, were those provinces to be handed back to a government of priests and nobles? The scruples which had condemned all annexation of territory vanished in that orgy of patriotism which followed the expulsion of the invader and the discovery that the Revolution was already a power in other lands than France. The nation that had to fight the battle of European freedom must appeal to the spirit of freedom wherever it would answer the call; the conflict with sovereigns must be maintained by arming their subjects against them in every land. In this conception of the universal alliance of the nations,, the Governments with 1 50 MODERN EUROPE, 1792. whicli France was not yet at war were scarcely distinguished from those which had pronounced against her. The frontier-lines traced by an obsolete diplo- macy, the artificial guarantees of treaties, were of little account against the living and inalienable sove- reignty of the people. To men inflamed with the passions of 1792 an argument of international law scarcely conveyed more meaning than to Peter the Hermit. Among the statesmen of other lands, who had no intention of abandoning all the principles recog- nised as the public right of Europe, the lauguage now used by France could only be understood as the avowal of indiscriminate aggression. The Revolution had displayed itself in France as a The neighbours forcc of uulou as wcU as of division. It had driven the nobles across the frontier; it had torn the clergy from their altars; but it had reconciled sullen Corsica ; and by abolishing feudal rights it had made France the real fatherland of the Teutonic peasant in Alsace and Lorraine. It was now about to prove its attractive power in foreign lands. At the close of the last century the nationalities of Europe were far less consolidated than they are at present; only on the Spanish and the Swiss frontier had France a neighbour that could be called a nation. On the north, what is now the kingdom of Belgium was in 1792 a collection of provinces subject to the House of Austria. The German population both of the districts west of the Rhine and of those opposite to Alsace war parcelled out among a number of petty principalities. Savoy, 17W. OUSTINE TAKES MAINZ. 61 though west of the chain of the Alps and French in speech, formed part, of the kingdom of Piedmont, which was itself severed by history and by national character from the other States of Northern Italy. Along the entire frontier, from Dunkirk to the Maritime Alps, France nowhere touched a strong, united, and inde- pendent people; and along this entire frontier, except in the country opposite Alsace, the armed proselytism of the French Eevolution proved a greater force than the influences on which the existing order of things depended. In the Low Countries, in the Principalities of the Rhine, in Switzerland, in Savoy, in Piedmont itself, the doctrines of the Eevolution were welcomed by a more or less numerous class, and the armies of France appeared, though but for a moment, as the missionaries of liberty and right rather than as an invading enemy. No sooner had Brunswick been brought to a stand by Dumouriez at Valmy than a French division under Custine crossed the Alsatian frontier and custine enten advanced upon Spires, where Brunswick ^^^^' ^^*^' had left large stores of war. The garrison was defeated in an encounter outside the town; Spires and Worms surrendered to Custine. In the neighbouring fortress of Mainz, the key to western Germany, Custine's advance was watched by a republican party among the inhabitants, from whom the French general learnt that he had only to appear before the city to become its master. Brunswick had mdeea apprehended the failure of his invasion of France, but he had never given a thought to the defence of Germany ; and, although the E 2 52 MODERN EUROPE. 1790-1792. Eng of Prussia had been warned of the defenceless state of Mainz, no steps had been taken beyond the payment of a sum of money for the repair of the fortifications, which money the Archbishop expended in the purchase of a wood belonging to himself and the erection of a timber patchwork. On news arriving of the capture of Spires, the Archbishop fled, leaving the ad- ministration to the Dean, the Chancellor, and the Com- mandant. The Chancellor made a speech, calling upon his "beloved brethren" the citizens to defend themselves to the last extremity, and daily announced the overthrow of Dumouriez and the approaching entry of the Allies into Paris, until Custine's soldiers actually came into sight.* Then a council of war declared the city to be untenable ; and before Custine had brought up a single siege- gun the garrison capitulated, and the French were welcomed into Mainz by the partisans of the Eepublic (Oct. 20). With the French arms came the French organisation of liberty. A club was formed on the model of the Jacobin Club of Paris ; existing officers and dis- tinctions of rank were abolished ; and although the mass of the inhabitants held aloof, a Eepublic was finally pro- claimed, and incorporated with the Eepublic of France. The success of Custine's raid into Grermany did not divert the Convention from the de- vades the Ne- sifiTU of attacking: Austria in the JSTether- therlands. ^ ^ lands, which Dumouriez had from the first pressed upon the Government. It was not three years since the Netherlands had been in revolt against •Forster, Werke, vi., 386b 17» 00NQUE8T OF THE NETHEBLAND8. 6S the Emperor Joseph. In its origin the revolt was a reactionary movement of the clerical party against Joseph's reforms; but there soon sprang up am- bitions and hopes at variance with the first impulses of the insurrection ; and by the side of monks and monopolists a national party came into existence, pro- claiming the sovereignty of the people, and imitating all the movements of the French Revolution. During the brief suspension of Austrian rule the popular and the reactionary parties attacked one another; and on the restoration of Leopold's authority in 1791 the democratic leaders, with a large body of their followers, took refuge beyond the frontier, looking forward to the outbreak of war between Austria and France. Their partisans formed a French connection in the interior of the country; and, by some strange illusion, the priests themselves and the close corporations which had been attacked by Joseph supposed that their in- terests would be respected by Revolutionary France.* Thus the ground was everywhere pre- pared for a French invasion. Dumouriez Jema^ ^ ^ Nov. «. crossed the frontier. The border fortresses no longer existed ; and after a single battle won by • " The very night the news of the late Emperor's (Leopold's) death arrived here (Brussels), inflammatory advertisements and invitations to arm were distributed." One culpnt " belonged to the Choir of St. Gadule : he chose the middle of the day, and in the presence of many people posted up a paper in the church, exhorting to a general insnrrection. The remainder of this strange production was the description of a vision he pretended to have seen, representing the soul of the lat-e emperor on its way to join that of Joseph, already suffering in the other world.* CoL Gardiner, March 20, 1792. Records : Flanders, vol 220. 54 MODERN EUBOPJS. 1792. the French at Jemappes on the 6th of Novemher,* the Austrians, finding the population universally hostile, abandoned the Netherlands without a struggle. The victory of Jemappes, the first pitched battle won by the Republic, excited an outburst of revolu- tionary fervour in the Convention which deeply affected the relations of France to Great Britain, hitherto a neutral spectator of the war. A manifesto was published declaring that the French nation offered its alliance to all peoples who wished to recover their freedom, and charging the generals of the Eepublic to give their pro- tection to all persons who might suffer in the cause of liberty. (Nov. 19.) A week later Savoy and Nice Nice and savo ^^^^ anncxcd to Fraucc, the population of annexed. Savoy haviug dcclarcd in favour of France on the outbreak of war between France and Sardinia. On the 15th of December the Convention proclaimed that social and political revolution was henceforth to accompany every movement of its armies on foreign soil. " In every country that shall be occupied by the armies of the French Republic " — such was the sub- * Elg^, from Brussels, Nov. 6. ** A brisk cannonade lias been heard this whole forenoon in the direction of Mons. It is at this moment some- what diminished, though not at an end." Nov. 7. " Several messengers have arrived from camp in the course of the night, but all the Ministers (I have seen them all) deny having received one word of detail. . . . Couriers have been sent this night in every direction to call in aU the de- tachments on the frontiers. . . . The Government is making every arrangement for quitting Brussels : their papers are already prepared, their carriages ready." . . . Then a PS. " A cannonade is distinctly heard again. . . . AU the emigrants now here are removing with the utmost haste." Nov. 9. ** The confusion throughout the country is ex- treme. The roads are covered with emigrants, and persons of these provinces flying from the French armies." Records : Flanders, vol. 222. vm, FRANCE AND ENGLAND, 56 stance of the Decree of December 15tli — "the generals shall announce the abolition of all exist- j^^^^^ ^ j^ ing authorities ; of nobility, of serfage, of every feudal right and every monopoly ; they shall pro- claim the sovereignty of the people, and convoke the inhabitants in assemblies to form a provisional Govern- ment, to which no officer of a former Grovernment, no noble, nor any member of the former privileged corpor- ations shall be eligible. They shall place under the charge of the French Eepublic all property belonging to the Sovereign or his adherents, and the property of every civil or religious corporation. The French nation will treat as enemies any people which, refusing liberty and equality, desires to preserve its prince and privileged castes, or to make any accommodation with them." This singular announcement of a new crusade caused the Q-overnment of Great Britain to arm. Although the decree of the Convention related only to States with which France was at war, the Convention had in fact formed connections with the English revolutionary societies; and the French Minister of Marine informed his sailors that they were about to carry fifty thousand caps of liberty to their English brethren. No prudent statesman would treat a mere series of threats against all existing authorities as ground for war ; but the acts of the French Government showed that it intended to carry into effect the violent interference in the affairs of other nations announced in its manifestos. Its agents were stirring up dissatisfaction in every State ; 56 MODERN EUBOPJS. im and although the annexation of Savoy and the occupa- tion of the Netherlands might be tre?.ted as incidental to the conflict with Austria and Sardinia, in which G-reat Britain had pledged itself to neutrality, other acts of the Convention were certainly ^ infringements of the rights of allies of England. A series of European treaties, oppressive according to our own ideas, but in keeping with the ideas of that age, prohibited the navigation of the River Scbelde, on which Antwerp is situated, in order tbafc the commerce of the North Sea might flow exclusively into Dutch ports. On the conquest of Belgium the French Grovernment gave orders to Dumouriez to send a flotilla down the river, and to declare Antwerp an open port in right of the law of nature, which treaties cannot abrogate. Whatever the folly of commercial restraints, the navigation of the Scbelde was a question between the Antwerpers and the Dutch, and one in which France had no direct concern. The incident, though trivial, was viewed in England as one among many proofs of the intention of the French to in- terfere vdth the affairs of neighbouring States at their pleasure. In ordinary times it would not have been easy to excite much interest in England on behaK of a Dutch monopoly; but the feeling of this country towards the French Revolution had been con- verted into a passionate hatred by the massacres of September, and by the open alliance between the Con- vention and the Revolutionary societies in England itself. Pitt indeed, whom the Parisians imagined to tm, WAB WITH ENGLAND, 57 be their most malignant enemy, laboured against tbe swelling national passion, and hoped against all hope for peace. Not only was Pitt guiltless of the desire to add this country to the enemies of France, but he earnestly desired to reconcile France with Austria, in order that the Western States, whose embroilment left Eastern Europe at the mercy of Catherine of Eussia, might unite to save both Poland and Turkey from falling into the hands of a Power whose steady aggres- sion threatened Europe more seriously than all the noisy and outspoken excitement of the French Conven- tion. Pitt, moreover, viewed with deep disapproval the secret designs of Austria and Prussia.* If the French * In Nov. 1792, Gren^dlle ordered the English envoys at Vienna and Berlin to discover, if possible, the real designs of aggrandisement held by those Courts. Mr. Straton, at Vienna, got wind of the agree- ment against Poland. " I requested Count Philip Cobenzl " (the Austrian Minister) " that he would have the goodness to open himself confidentially to me on the precise object which the two allied Courts might have in contemplation. This, however, the Count was by no means disposed to do; on the contrary, he went round the compass of evasion in order to avoid a direct answer. But determined as I was to push the Austrian Minister, I heaped question on question, until I forced him to say, blushing, and with evident signs of embarrassment, * Count Stadion ' (Ambassador at London) ' will be able to satisfy the curiosity of. the British Minister, to whatever point it may be directed.* " Jan. 20, 1793. Records : Austria, vol. 32. Stadion accordingly informed Lord Grenville of the Polish and Bavarian plans. Grenville expressed his concern and regret at the aggression on Poland, and gave reasons against the Bavarian exchange. To our- envoy with the King of Prussia Greu>'ille wrote : " It may possibly be the intention of the Courts to adopt a plan of indemnifying themselves for the expense of the war by ^-esh acquisitions in Poland, and carrying into execution a new partition of that country. You will not fail to explain in the most distinct and pointed manner his Majesty's entire disapprobation of such a plan, and his determination on no account to concur in any measures which may tend to the oompletiion of a design so unjust in itself." Jan. 4, 1793. Records : Army in Germany, Tol 437. At Vienna Cobenzl declared, Feb. 9, that Austria could not now 68 MODERN EUBOFE. vm. executive would have given any assurance that the Netherlands should not be annexed, or if the French ambassador, Chauvelin, who was connected with English plotters, had been superseded by a trustworthy nego- tiator, it is probable that peace might L?Sl°\vf. have been preserved. But when, on the execution of King Louis (Jan, 21, 1798), Chauvelin was expelled from England as a suspected alien, war became a question of days.* Points of technical right figured in the complaints of both sides; but the real ground of war was perfectly understood. France considered itself en- titled to advance the Eevolution and the Eights of Man wherever its own arms or popular insurrection gave it the command. England denied the right of any Power to annul the political system of Europe at its pleasure, No more serious, no more sufficient, ground of war ever existed between two nations ; yet the event proved that, with the highest justi- fication for war, the highest wisdom would yet have chosen peace. England's entry into the war con- verted it from an affair of two or three campaigns into a struggle of twenty years, resulting in more violent convulsions, more widespread misery, and more atrocious crimes, than in all probability would ** even manifest a wish to oppose the projects of Prussia in Poland, as in that case his Prussian Majesty would probably withdraw his assistance from the French war; nay, perhaps even enter into an alliance with that nation and invade Bohemia." Records : Austria, vol. 32. * Auckland, ii. 464. Papers presented to Parliament, 1793. Mr. Oscar Browning, in Fortnightly Review, Feb. 1888w J ' 1798. CONDITION OF SNQLAND. 59 have resulted even from the temporary triumph of the revolutionary cause in 1793. But in both nations political passion welcomed impending calamity ; and the declaration of war by the Convention on February 1st only anticipated the w. Feb.i«t. desire of the English people. Great Britain once committed to the struggle, Pitt spared neither money nor intimidation in his efforts to unite all Europe against France. Holland was in- cluded with England in the French declara- tion of war : the Mediterranean States felt Seiiu™^ that the navy of England was nearer to war. them than the armies of Austria and Prussia; and before the end of the summer of 1793, Spain, Portugal, Naples, Tuscany, and the Papal States had joined the Coalition. The Jacobins of Paris had formed a wrong estimate of the political condition of Ensfland. At ^ ^ ^ ••■ *-• French wrongly the outbreak of the war they believed that SJ^ed to!^ England itself was on the verge of revolu- tion. They mistook the undoubted discontent of a portion of the middle and lower classes, which showed itself in the cry for parliamentary reform, for a general sentiment of hatred towards existing institutions, like that which in France had swept away the old order at a single blow. The Convention re- ceived the addressee of English Radical societies, and imagined that the abuses of the parliamentary system under George III. had alienated the whole nation. "What they had found in Belgium and in Savoy — 60 MODERN EUBOPK 1783-1793 a people tliankM to receive tlie Eights of Man from tlie soldiers of the Eevolution — they expected to find among the dissenting congregations of London and the factory -hands of Sheffield. The singular attraction exer- cised hy each class in England upon the one helow it, as well as the indifference of the nation generally to all ideals, was little understood in France, although the Eevolutions of the two countries bore this contrast on their face. A month after the fall of the Bastille the whole system of class-privilege and monopoly had vanished from French law ; fifteen years- of the English Commonwealth had left the structure of English society what it had been at the beginning. But poHtical observation vanished in the delirium of 1793 ; and the French only discovered when it was too late that in Grreat Britain the Eevolution had fallen upon an enemy of unparalleled stubbornness and inex- haustible strength. In the first Assembly of the Eevolution it was Pouticai condi- ^sual to spcak of the Enghsh as free men tiono Eng d. ^j^^^^^ j^^^ Frcuch ought to imitate; in the Convention it was usual to speak of them as slaves whom the French ought to deliver. The institutions of England bore in fact a very different aspect when compared with the absolute monarchy of the Bourbons and when compared with the demo- cracy of 1793. Frenchmen who had lived under the government of a Court which made laws by edict and possessed the right to imprison by letters- patent looked with respect upon the Parliament of 178&-1793. ENGLISH POLITICAL PARTIES. 61 England, its trial by jury, and its freedom of the press. The men who had sent a king to prison and con- fiscated the estates of a great part of the aristocracy could only feel compassion for a land where three- fourths of the national representatives were nominees of the Crown or of wealthy peers. Nor, in spite of the personal sympathy of Fox with the French revolutionary movement, was there any real affinity between the English Whig party and that which now ruled in the Convention. The event which fixed the character of English liberty during the ^he whigs not eighteenth century, the Ee volution of 1688, ^«™«~**°- had nothing democratic in its nature. That revolution was directed against a system of Eoman Catholic despotism ; it gave political power not to the mass of the nation, which had no desire and no capacity to exercise it, but to a group of noble families and their retainers, who, during the reigns of the first two Georges, added all the patronage and influence of the Crown to their social and constitutional weight in the country. The domestic history of England since the accession of George III. had turned chiefly upon the obstinate struggle of this monarch to deliver him- self from all dependence upon party. The divi- sions of the Whigs, their jealousies, but, above all, their real alienation from the mass of the people whose rights they professed to defend, ultimately gave the King the victory, when, after twenty years of errors, he found in the younger Pitt a Minister capable of uniting the interests of the Crown with 62 MODERN EUROPE. 1789-1793. the ablest and most patriotic liberal statesmanship. Bribes, threats, and every species of base influence had been employed by King Greorge to break up the great Coalition of 1783, which united all sections of the Whigs against him under the Ministry of Fox and North; but the real support of Pitt, whom the King placed in office with a minority in the House of Commons, was the temper of the nation itself, wearied with the exclusiveness, the corruption, and the party- spirit of the Whigs, and willing to believe that a popular Minister, even if he had entered upon power unconstitu- tionally, might do more for the country than the consti- tutional proprietors of the rotten boroughs. From 1783 down to the outbreak of the French Ktt Minister, Revolutlou, Pitt, as a Tory Minister con- fronted by a Whig Opposition, governed England on more liberal principles than any statesman who had held power during the eighteenth century. These years were the last of the party-system of England in its original form. The French Ee volution made an end of that old distinction in which the Tory was known as the upholder of Crown -prerogative and the Whig as the supporter of a constitutional oligarchy of great families. It created that new political antagonism in which, whether under the names of Whig and Tory, or of Liberal and Conservative, two great parties have contended, one for a series of beneficial changes, the other for the preservation of the existing order. The convulsions of France and the dread of revolutionary agitation in England trans- 1792. THE BEAOTION IN ENGLAND. 63 formed both Pitt and the Whigs by whom he was opposed. Pitt sacrificed his schemes of , n ' J Effect of Prcmch peaceiul progress to loreign war and Eevoiution «»-^>««.26- to be utterly ruined ; and Brunswick, who had abstained from rendering his ally any real assistance, found him- self a second time back upon the Rhine.* * The despatches of Lord Yarmouth from the Prossian and Aostrian 88 MODERN EUROPE. 1794. The virtual retirement of Prussia from the Coalition was no secret to the French Grovernment : with^ p?S! amonsfst the Allies it was viewed in various April, 1794. O lights. The Empress Catherine, who had counted on seeing her troublesome Prussian friend engaged with her detested French enemy, taunted the King of Prussia with the loss of his personal honour. Austria, conscious of. the antagonism between Prussian and Austrian interests and of the hollow character of the Coalition, would concede nothing to keep Prussia in arms. Pitt alone was willing to make a sacrifice, in order to prevent the rupture of the alliance. The King of Prussia was ready to continue the struggle with France if his expenses were paid, but not other- wise. Accordingly, after Austria had refused to con- tribute the small sum which Pitt asked, a bargain was struck between Lord Malmesbury and the Prussian Minister Haugwitz, by which Great Britain undertook to furnish a subsidy, provided that 60,000 Prussian troops, under General MoUendorf, were placed at the disposal of the Maritime Powers* It was Pitt's intention that the troops which he subsidised should be massed with Austrian and English forces for head-quarters, from July 17 to Nov. 22, 1793, give a lively picture both of the military operations and of the political intrigues of this period. They are accompanied by the MS. journal of the Austrian army from Sept. 15 to Dec. 14, each copy apparently with Wurmser's autograph, and by the original letter of the Prussian Minister, Lucchesini, to Lord Yarmouth, announcing the withdrawal of Prussia from the war. " M. de Lucchesini read it to me very hastily, and seemed almost ashamed of a part of its contents." Records : Army in Germany, vols. 437, 438, 439. * Hardenberg (Rauke), i., 181. Yivenot, Herzog Albrecht, i., 10. im. PBU88IA AND POLAND, 80 the defence of Belgium : the Prussian Ministry, avail- ing themselves of an ambiguous expression in the treaty, insisted on keeping them inactive upon the Upper Ehine. Mollendorf wished to guard Mainz : other men of influence longed to abandon the alliance with Austria, and to employ the whole of Prussia's force in Poland. At the moment when Haugwitz was contracting to place Mollendorf's army at Pitt's disposal, Poland had risen in revolt under Kosciusko, and the Russian garrison which occupied Kosciusko. Warsaw had been overpowered and cut to pieces. Catherine called upon the King of Prussia for assistance ; but it was not so much a desire to rescue the Empress from a momentary danger that excited the Prussian Cabinet as the belief that her vengeance would now make an absolute end of what remained of the PoUsh kingdom. The prey was doomed; the wisdom of Prussia was to be the first to seize and drag it to the ground. So large a prospect offered itself to the Power that should crush Poland during the brief paralysis of the Russian arms, that, on the first news of the outbreak, the King's advisers urged him instantly to make peace with France and to throw his whole strength into the Polish struggle. Frederick William could not reconcile himself to making peace with the Jacobins ; but he ordered an army to march upon War- saw, and shortly afterwards placed himself at its head. (May, 1794.) When the King, who was the only politician in Prussia who took an interest in the French war, thus publicly acknowledged the higher importance of the Polish 90 MODERN EVEOTE. 1794. campaign, "his generals upon the Eliine made it their only object to do nothing which it was possible to leave undone without actually forfeiting the British subsidy. Instead of fighting, Mollendorf spent his time in urging other people to make peace. It was in vain that .Malmesbury argued that the very object of Pitt's bar- gain was to keep the French out of the Netherlands : Mollendorf had made up his mind that the fuses to help in armv should not be committed to the orders Flanders. ^ of Pitt and the Austrians. He continued in the Palatinate, alleging that any movement of the Prussian army towards the north would give the French admittance to southern Germany. Pitt's hope of de- fending the Netherlands now rested on the energy and on the sincerity of the Austrian Cabinet, and on this alone. After breaking up from winter quarters in the spring of 1794, the Austrian and English allied forces had successfully laid siege to Landrecies, and sarabre. May- defeated thc enemy in its neighbourhood.* Their advance, however, was checked by a movement of the French Army of the North, now com- * Elgin reports after this engagement, May Ist, 1794 — " The French army appears to continue mnch what it has hitherto been, vigorous and persevering where (as in villages and woods) the local advantages are of a nature to supply the defects of military science ; weak and helpless beyond belief where cavalry can act, and manoeuvres are possible. . . . The magazines of the army are stored, and the provisions regularly given out to the troops, and good in quality. Indeed, it is singular to observe in all the villages where we have been forward forage, &c., in plenty, and all the country cultivated as usual. The inhabitants, however, have retired with the French army ; and to that degree that the tract, we have lately taken possession of is absolutely deserted. . . . The execution of Danton 17M. AUSTRIA EVACUATES THE NETHERLANDS. 91 manded by Pichegru, towards the Flemish coast. York and the English troops were exposed to the attack, and suffered a defeat at Turcoing. The decision of the cam- paign lay, however, not in the west of Flanders, bnt at the other end of the Allies' position, at Charleroi on the Sambre, where a French victory would either force the Austrians to fall back eastwards, leaving York to his fate, or sever their communications with Germany. This became evident to the French Government ; and in May the Commissioners of the Convention forced the generals on the Sambre to fight a series of battles, in which the French repeatedly succeeded in crossing the Sambre, and were repeatedly driven back again. The fate of the Netherlands depended, however, on some- thing beside victory or defeat on the Sambre. The Emperor had come with Baron Thugut to Belgium in the hope of imparting greater unity and energy to the allied forces, but his presence proved useless. Among the Austrian generals and diplomatists there were several who desired to withdraw from the contest in the Nether- lands, and to follow the example of Prussia in Poland. The action of the army was paralysed by intrigues. *' Every one," wrote Thugut, " does exactly as he pleases : has produced no greater effect in the army than other execations, and we have found many papers on those who fell in the late actions treating it with ridicule, and as a source of joy.'* Records : Flanders, 226. " I am in hopes to hear from you on the subject of the French prisoners, as to where I am to apply for tho money I advance for their subsistence. They are a great number of them almost naked, some entirely so. It is absolutely shocking to humanity to see them. I would purchase some coarse dothiug for those that are in the worst state, bnt know not how far I should be authorised. They are mostly old men and boys." Consul Harward, at Ostend, March 4ith« id. 92 MODERN EUBOPK V9L there is absolute anarchy and disorder."* At the begin- ning of June the Emperor quitted the army; the com- bats on the Sambre were taken up by Jour dan and 60,000 fresh troops brought from the army of the Moselle ; and on the 26th of June the French defeated Coburg at Fleurus, as he advanced to the relief of Charleroi, unconscious that Charleroi had surrendered on the day before. Even now the defence of Belgium was not hopeless ; but after one council of war had declared in favour of fighting, a second determined on a retreat. It was in vain that the representatives of England appealed to the good faith and military honour of Austria. doT^ the Nether- NamuT aud Louvaiu were abandoned ; the lands, July,1794. French pressed onwards ; and before the end of July the Austrian army had fallen back behind the Meuse. York, forsaken by his allies, retired northwards before the superior forces of Pichegru, who entered * These events are the subject of controversy. See Hiiffer, Oestreich und Preussen, p. 62. Yon Sybel, iii., 138. Vivenot, Clerfayt, p. 38. The old belief, defended by Yon Sybel, was that Thugut himseK had deter- mined upon the evacuation of Belgium, and treacherously deprived Ooburg of forces for its defence. But, apart from other evidence, the tone of ex- asperation that runs through Thugut's private letters is irreconcilable with this theory. Lord Elgin, whose reports are used by Yon Sybel, no doubt believed that Thugut was playing false ; but he was a bad judge, being in the hands of Thugut's opponents, especially General Mack, whom he glorifies in the most absurd way. The other English envoy in Belgium, Lord Yarmouth, reported in favour of Thugut's good faith in this matter, and against military intriguers. Records: Army in Grermany, vol. 440. A letter of Prince Waldeck's in Thugut, i., 387, and a con- versation between Mack and Sir Morton Eden, on Feb. 3rd. 1797, reported by the latter in Records: Austria, vol. 48, appear to fix the responsibility for the evacuation of Belgium on these two generals, Waldeck and Mack, and on the Emperor's confidential military adviser, RolliiL 1991 ENOLANJ) AND ITS ALLIES. W Antwerp and made himself master of the whole of the Netherlands up to the Dutch frontier.* Such was the result of Great Britain's well-meant effort to assist the two great military P'owers to defend Europe against the Ke volution. To the aim of the English Minister, the defence of existing rights against democratic aggression, most pointed by tK of the public men alike of Austria and Prussia were now absolutely indifferent. They were willing to let the French seize and revolutionise any territory they pleased, provided that they themselves obtained their equivalent in Poland. England was in fact in the position of a man who sets out to attack a highway robber, and offers each of his arras to a pick- pocket. The motives and conduct of these politicians were justly enough described by the English statesmen and generals who were brought into closest contact with them. In the councils of Prussia, Malmesbury declared * " Should the French come they will find this town perfectly empty Except my own, I do not think there are three honses in Ost«nd with a bed in them. So general a panic I never witnessed.'* June 30th. — " To remain here alone would be a wanton sacrifice. God knows 'tis an awful stroke to me to leave a place just as I began to be comfortably settled." Consul Harward ; Records : Army in Germany, vol. 440. " All the English are arrested in Ostend : the men are confined in the Capuchin convent, and the women in the Convent des Soeurs Blancs. All the Flamands from the age of 17 to 32 are forced to go for soldiers. At Bruges the French issued an order for 800 men to present themselves. Thirty only came, in consequence of which they rang a bell on the Grand Place, and the inhabitants thinking that it was some ordinance, quitted their houses to hear it, when they were surrounded by the French soldiers, and upwards of 1,000 men secured, gentle and simple, who were all imme- diately set to work on the canab.'* Mr. W. Poppleton, Flushing, Sept 4. Records : Flanders, voL 227. 94 MODERN EUROPE. 1794. that lie could find no quality but " great ani shabby art and cunning ; ill will, jealousy, and every sort of dirty passion/' From the head-quarters of Mollendorf he wrote to a member of Pitt's Cabinet : " Here I have to do with knavery and dotage. . . . If we listened only to our feelings, it would be difficult to keep any measure with Prussia. We must consider it an alliance with the Algerians, whom it is no disgrace to pay, or any impeachment of good sense to be cheated by.'' To the Austrian commander the Duke of York addressed himself with royal plainness : " Your Serene Highness, the British nation, whose public opinion is not to be despised, will consider that it has been bought and sold."* The sorry concert lasted for a few months longer. French reach the ^^burg, the Austriau commaudcr, was dis- Rhine,oct.,i794. j^|ggg^ g^|j jTj^Q pcrcmptory demand of Great Britain; his successor, Clerf ay t, after losing a battle on the Ourthe, offered no further resistance to the advance of the Kepublican army, and the campaign ended in the capture of Cologne by the French, and the disappearance of the Austrians behind the Ehine. The Prussian subsidies granted by England resulted in some useless engage- ments between Mollendorf s corps in the Palatinate and a French army double its size, followed by the retreat of the Prussians into Mainz. It only remained for Grreat Britain to attempt to keep the French out of Hol- * Malmesbury, ii., 126. Yon Sybel, iil, 168. Grenville made Coburg'e dismissal a sine qua non of the continuance of English co-operation. Instructions to Lord Spencer, July 19, 1794. Records : Austria, 36. But for the Austrian complaints against the English, see Yivenot, Clerfayt, p. 60. 1794. PICHEOEU CONQUERS HOLLAND. 95 land. The defence of the Dutch, after everything sonth of the river Waal had been lost, Pitt determined to en- trust to abler hands than those of the Duke of York ; but the presence of one high-born blunderer more or less made little difference in a series of operations con- ceived in indifference and perversity. Clerfayt would not, or could not, obey the Emperor's orders and succour his ally. City after city in Holland welcomed the French. The very elements seemed to declare for the Eepublic. Pichegru's army marched in safety over the frozen rivers ; and, when the conquest of the land was completed, his cavalry crowned the campaign by the capture of the Dutch fleet in the quo* Holland" midst of the ice-bound waters of the Texel. The British regiments, cut off from home, made their way eastward through the snow towards the Hanoverian frontier, in a state of prostrate misery which is compared by an eye-witness of both events to that of the French on their retreat in 1813 after the battle of Leipzig * The first act of the struggle between France and the Monarchies of Europe was concluded. The result of three years of war was that Belgium, Nice, and Savoy had been added to the territory of the Eepublic, and that French armies were in possession of Holland, and the whole of Germany west of the Ehine. In Spain and in Piedmont the mountain-passes and some extent of country had been won. Even on the seas, in spite of the destruction of the fleet at Toulon, and of a heavy • Schlosser, xv., 203 : borne out by the NarratiTe of an Officer, printed in Annual Register, 1795, p. 14a M MOBBBN EUROPE, HM. defeat by Lord Howe off Usiiant on the 1st of June, 1794, the strength of France was still formidable ; and the losses which she inflicted on the commercial marine of her enemies exceeded those which she herself sustained. England, which had captured most of the French West Indian Islands, was the only Power that had wrested anything from the Eepublic. The dream of suppressing the Revolution by force of arms had vanished away; and the States which had entered upon the contest in levity, in fanaticism, or at the bidding of more powerful allies, found it necessary to make peace upon such terms as they could obtain. Holland, in which a strong Republican party had always maintained connection with France, abolished the rule of its Stadtholder, and placed its resources at the disposal of its conquerors. Sardinia entered upon abortive negotiations. Spain, in return for peace, ceded to the Republic the Spanish half of St. Domingo (July 22, 1795). Prussia concluded a Treaty at Basle (April 5), which marked and perpetuated the division of Germany by providing that, although the Empire as a body was still at war with France, the benefit of Prussia's neutrality should extend to all Ger- man States north of a certain line. A secret article Treaties of Basle stipulated that, upou thc conclusiou of a s^a^ Jul ^^ general peace, if the Empire should cede to ^^^^' France the principalities west of the Rhine, Prussia should cede its own territory lying in that dis- trict, and receive compensation elsewhere.* Yivenot, Herzog Albrecht, iii., 69, 512. Martens, Recueil des Traits, ▼L, 4&, 52. Hardenberg, i., 287. Yiyenot, Olerfayt, p. 32. " Le Boi de 1795. THE TREATIES OF BASLE. 97 Humiliating such a peace certainly was ; yet it would probably have been the happiest issue for Europe hacj every Power been landamtinuetE forced to accept its conditions. The terri- tory gained by France was not much more than the very principle of the Balance of Power would have entitled it to demand, at a moment when Eussia, vic- torious over the Polish rebellion, was proceeding to make the final partition of Poland among the three Eastern Monarchies ; and, with all its faults, the France of 1795 would have offered to Europe the example of a great free State, such as the growth of the military spirit made impossible after the first of Napoleon's campaigns. But the dark future was withdrawn from the view of those British statesmen who most keenly felt the evils of the present ; and England, resolutely set against the course of French aggression, still found in Austria an ally willing to continue the struggle. The financial help of Great Britain, the Eussian offer of a large share in the spoils of Poland, stimulated the flagging energy of the Emperor's government. Orders were sent to Clerfayt to advance from the Ehine at whatever risk, in order to withdraw the troops of the Eepublic from the west of France, where England was about to land a body of Eoyalists. Clerfayt, however, disobeyed his instructions, and remained inactive till the autumn. He then defeated a French army pushing beyond the Pruss©,*' wrote the Empress Catherine, " est une m^hante bdte et un grand coclion.'* Prussia made no attempt to deliver the unhappy son of Loois XVI. from his captivity. France in 1795. 98 MODERN EUBOPK 1795. Ehine, and drove back tlie besiegers of Mainz ; but the British expedition had abeady failed, and the time was passed when Clerfayt's successes .might have produced a decisive result.''^ A new Government was now entering upon power in France. The Eeign of Terror had ended in July, 1794, with the life of Eobespierre. The men by whom Eobespierre was overthrown were Terrorists more cruel and less earnest than himself, who attacked him only in order to save their own lives, and without the least intention of restoring a constitutional Government to France. An overwhelming national reaction forced them, however, to represent themselves as the party of clemency. The reaction was indeed a simple outburst of human feeling rather than a change in political opinion. Among the victims of the Terror ♦ The British Government had formed the most sangnine estimate of the strength of the Royalist movement in France. " I cannot let your servant return without troubling you with these few lines to conjure you to use every possible effort to give life and vigour to the Austrian Govern- ment at this critical moment. Strongly as I have spoken in my despatch of the present state of France, I have said much less than my information, drawn from various quarters, and applying to almost every part of France, would fairly warrant. We can never hope that the circumstances, as far as they regard the state of France, can be more favourable than they now are. For God's sake enforce these points with all the earnestness which I am sure you will feel upon them." Grenville to Eden, April 17, 1795 ; Records : Austria, vol. 41. After the failure of the expedition, the British Government made the grave charge against Thugut that while he was oJficiaUy sending Clerfayt pressing orders to advance, he secretly told him to do nothing. " It is in vain to reason with the Austrian Ministers on the folly and ill faith of a system which they have been under the necessity of concealing from you, and which they will probably en- deavour to disguise." Grenville to Eden, Oct., 1795 ; id., vol. 43. This charge, repeated by historians, is disproved by Thugut's private letters. Brief e, i., 221, seq. No one more bitterly resented Clerfayt's inaction. 1795. FRANCE AFTER THE TERROR, 99 the great majority had been men of the lower or middle class, who, except in La Vendue and Brittany, were as little friendly to the old regime as their executioners. Every class in France, with the exception of the starving city mobs, longed for security, and the quiet routine of life. After the disorders of the Eepublic a monarchical government naturally seemed to many the best guarantee of peace ; but the monarchy so contemplated was the liberal monarchy of 1791, not the ancient Court, with its accessories of a landed Church and privileged noblesse. Eeligion was still a power in France ; but the peasant, with all his superstition and all his desire for order, was perfectly free from any delusions about the good old times. He liked to see his children baptised ; but he had no desire to see the priest's tithe-collector back in his barn : he shuddered at the summary marketing of Conventional Commissioners ; but he had no wish to resume his labours on the fields of his late seigneur. To be a Monarchist in 1795, among the shopkeepers of Paris or the farmers of Normandy, meant no more than to wish for a political system capable of subsisting for twelve months together, and resting on some other basis than forced loans and compulsory sales of property. But among the men of the Convention, who had abolished monarchy and passed sentence of death upon the King, the restoration of the Crown seemed the bitterest condemnation of all that the Convention had done for France, and a sentence of outlawry against themselves. If the will of the nation was for the moment in favour of a restored monarchy, the Conven- H 2 100 MODERN EUROPE, 1795 tion determined that its will must be overpowered by force or thwarted by constitutional forms. Threatened alternately by the Jacobin mob of Paris and by the Eoyalist middle class, the Grovernment played off one enemy against the other, until an ill-timed effort of the emigrant noblesse gave to the Convention the prestige of a decisive victory over E-oyalists and foreigners com- bined. On the 27th of June, 1795, an English fleet landed the flower of the old nobility of beron, j^e 2?" Fraucc at the Bay of Quiberon in southern Brittany. It was only to give one last fatal proof of their incapacity that these unhappy men appeared once more on French soil. Within three weeks after their landing, in a region where for years together the peasantry, led by their landlords, baffled the best generals of the Eepublic, this invading army of the nobles, supported by the fleet, the arms, and the money of England, was brought to utter ruin by the discord of its own leaders. Before the nobles had settled who was to command and who was to obey. General Hoche sur- prised their fort, beat them back to the edge of the peninsula where they had landed, and captured all who were not killed fighting or rescued by English boats. (July 20.) The Commissioner Tallien, in order to purge himself from the just suspicion of Eoyalist intrigues, caused six hundred prisoners to be shot in cold blood. ^ At the moment when the emigrant army reached * The documents relating to the expedition to Quiberon, with several letters of D'Artois, Charette, and the Yendean leaders, are in Records : France, vol. 600. 1798. THE CONSTITUTION OF 1796. Ktt France, tlie Convention was engaged in discussing the political system which was to succeed its own rule. A week earlier, the Committee appointed to p^^^^ ^ o,^ draw up a new constitution for France had **'*^^=^'^^^- presented its report. The main object of the new constitution in its original form was to secure France against a recurrence of those evils which it had suffered since 1792. The calamities of the last three years were ascribed to the sovereignty of a single Assembly. A vote of the Convention had established the Eevolutionary Tribunal, proscribed the Grirondins, and placed France at the mercy of eighty individuals selected by the Con- vention from itself. The legislators of 1795 desired a guarantee that no party, however determined, should thus destroy its enemies by a single law, and unite supreme legislative and executive power in its own hands. With the object of dividing authority, the executive was, in the new draft-constitution, made independent of the legislature, and the legis- lature itself was broken up into two chambers. A Directory of five members, chosen by the Assemblies, but not responsible except under actual impeachment, was to conduct the administration, without the right of proposing laws ; a Chamber of five hundred was to sub- mit laws to the approval of a CouncQ of two hundred and fifty Ancients, or men of middle life ; but neither of these bodies was to exercise any influence upon the actual government. One director and a third part of each of the legislative bodies were to retire every year.* ♦ Von Sybel, iii 537. Bnchei et Roux, xxxvi, 486. 102 MODERN EUROPE. 1795. The project thus outlined met with general approval, and gained even that of the Royalists, who believed that a popular election would place them in a majority in the two new Assemblies. Such an event was, how- ever, in the eyes of the Convention, the one fatal possibility that must be averted at every cost. In the midst of the debates upon the draft- constitution there arrived the news of Hoche's victory at Quiberon. The Convention rained couras:e to add a clause Constitution of o o tionofvS: providing that tj£Q^hJrds„._Q£-~the....new deputies should be appointed from among its own members, thus rendering a Royalist majority in the Chambers impossible. With this condition attached to it, the Constitution was laid before the country. The provinces accepted it; the Royalist middle class of Paris rose in insurrection, and marched against the Convention in the Tuileries. Their revolt was foreseen ; the defence of the Convention was entrusted to Greneral Bonaparte, who met the attack of the Parisians in a style unknown in the warfare of the capital. Bonaparte's command of trained artillery secured him victory; but the struggle of the 4th of October (13 Vendemiaire) was the severest that took place in Paris during the Revolution, and the loss of life in fighting greater than on the day that overthrew the Monarchy. The new Grovernment of France now entered into The Directory, powcr. Mcmbcrs of the Convention formed Oct., 1795. two-thirds of the new legislative bodies ; the one-third which the country was permitted to elect consisted chiefly of men of moderate or Royalist opinions. 1795, THE DIBEOTOBY, 103 The five persons who were chosen Directors were all Conventionalists who had voted for the death of the King ; Carnot, however, who had won the victories without sharing in the cruelties of the Keign of Terror, was the only member of the late Committee of Public Safety who was placed in power. In spite of the striking homage paid to the great act of regicide in the election of the five Directors, the establishment of the Directory was accepted by Europe as the close of revolutionary disorder. The retu rn of con stitutional rule-ia-&ance was marke d by a declaration on the par t of the King o f England of his willingness to treat for peace. A gentler spirit seemed to have arisen in the Ee- public. Although the laws against the emigrants and non-juring priests were still unrepealed, the exiles began to return unmolested to their homes. Life resumed something of its old aspect in the capital. The rich and the gay consoled themselves with costlier luxury for all the austerities of the Reign of Terror. The labour- ing classes, now harmless and disarmed, were sharply taught that they must be content with such improve- ment in their lot as the progress of society might bring. At the close of this first period of the Revolutionary War we may pause to make an estimate of the new influences which the French to Europe in th« Berolntion. Revolution had brought into Europe, and of the effects which had thus far resulted from them. The opinion cun'ent among the French people themselves, that the Revolution gave birth to the modem life not of France only but of the Western Continent generally, is 104 MODEBN EUROPE. true of one great set of facts ; it is untrue of another. There were conceptions in France in 1789 which made France a real contrast to most of the Continental mon- archies ; there were others which it shared in common with them. The ideas of social, legal, and ecclesiastical reform which were realised in 1789 were not peculiar to France ; what was peculiar to France was the idea that these reforms were to be effected by the nation itself. ^ In other countries reforms had been initiated by Govern- ments, and forced upon an unwilling people. Innovation sprang from the Crown ; its agents were the servants of the State. A distinct class of improvements, many of them identical with the changes made by the Eevolu- tion in France, attracted the attention in Absolute govem- S^ntSyeig^ed ^ greater or less degree of almost all the inreorms. Westem Courts of the eighteenth century. The creation of a simple and regular administrative system ; the reform of the clergy ; the emancipation of the Church from the jurisdiction of the Pope, and of all ordei's in the State from the jurisdiction of the Church ; the amelioration of the lot of the peasant ; the introduc- tion of codes of law abolishing both the cruelties and the confusion of ancient practice, — all these were pur- poses more or less familiar to the absolute sovereigns of the eighteenth century, whom the French so summarily described as benighted tyrants. It was in Austria, Prussia, and Tuscany that the civilising 3nergy of the Crown had been seen in its strongest form, but even the Governments of Naples and Spain had caught the spirit of change. The religious tolerance which Joseph gave BEFOBMa BEFORE THE REVOLUTION. 105 to Austria, the rejection of Papal authority and the abolition of the punishment of death which Leopold effected in Tuscany, were bolder efforts of the same political rationalism which in Spain minimised the powers of the Inquisition and in Naples attempted to found a system of public education. In all this, however, there was no trace of the action of the people, or of any sense that a nation ought to raise itself above a state of tutelage. Men of ideas called upon Governments to impose better institutions upon the people, not upon the people to wrest them from the Governments. In France alone a view of public affairs had grown up which impelled the nation to create its reforms for itself . If the substance of many nation itaei? •^ acted. of the French revolutionary changes coin- cided with the objects of Austrian or of Tuscan reform, there was nothing similar in their method. In other countries reform sprang from the command of an en- lightened ruler ; in France it started with the Declara- tion of the Rights of Man, and aimed at the creation of local authority to be exercised by the citizens them- selves. The source of this difference lay partly in the influence of England and America upon French opinion, but much more in the existence within France of a numerous and energetic middle class, enriched by com- merce, and keenly interested in all the speculation and literary activity of the age. This was a class that both understood the wrongs which the other classes inflicted or suffered, and felt itself capable of redressing them. For the flogged and over-driven peasant in Naples or 106 MOJJEBN EUROPE. Hungary no ally existed but the Crown. In most of those poor and backward States which made up monarch- ical Europe, the fraction of the inhabitants which neither enjoyed privilege nor stood in bondage to it was too small to think of forcing itself into power. The nobles sought to preserve their feudal rights : the Crown sought to reduce them ; the nation, elsewhere than in France, did not intervene and lay hands upon power for itself, because the nation was nothing but the four mutually exclusive classes of the landlords who com- manded, the peasants who served, the priests who idled, and the soldiers who fought. Trance differed from all the other monarchies of the Continent in possessing a public which blended all classes and was dominated by none ; a public comprehending thousands of men who were familiar with the great interests of society, and who, whether noble or not noble, possessed the wealth and the intelhgence that made them rightly desire a share in power. Liberty, the right of the nation to govern itseK, seemed at the outset to be the s^reat princi- Movements C3 i Site* rS pie of the Eevolution. The French people themselves believed the question at issue to be mainly between authority and popular right; the rest of Europe saw the Revolution under the same as- pect. Hence, in those countries where the example of France produced political movements, the effect was in the first instance to excite agitation against the Grovern- ment, whatever might be the form of the latter. In England the agitation was one of the middle class w ■ • '-. rr y, OF TTTR UMAOTION. ^^ ^CAUFQgH^b^ /^ 107 against the aristocratic parliamentary system ; in Hun- gary, it was an agitation of the nobles against the Crown ; on the Ehine it was an agitation of the commercial classes against ecclesiastical rule. But in every case in which the reforming movement was not supported by the presence of French armies, the terrors which succeeded the first sanguine hopes of the Eevolution struck the leaders of these movements with revulsion and despair, and converted even the better Q-ovemments into engines of reaction. In France itself it was seen that the desire for liberty among an enlightened class could not suddenly transform the habits of a nation accustomed to accept everything from authority. Privilege was de- stroyed, equality was advanced; but instead of self- government the Revolution brought France the most ab- solute rule it had ever known. It was not that the Revolu- tion had swept by, leaving things where they were before : it had in fact accomplished most of those great changes which lay the foundation of a sound social life : but the faculty of self-government, the first condition of any lasting political Kberty, remained to be slowly won. Outside France reaction set in without the benefit of previous change. At London, Vienna, Naples, and Madrid, Governments gave up all other objects in order to devote themselves to the suppression of Jacobinism. Pitt, whose noble aims had been the extinction of the slave-tmde, the reform of Parliament, and the advance of national intercourse by free trade, surrendered himself to men whose thoughts centred upon informers. Gagging Acts, and constructive 108 MODEBN ETJEOFE, treasons, and who opposed all legislation upon the slave- trade because slaves had been freed by the Jacobins of the Convention. State trials and imprisonments became the order of the day ; but the reaction in England at least stopped short of the scaffold. At Vienna and Naples fear was more cruel. The men who either were, or affected to be, in such fear of revolution that they discovered a Jacobinical allegory in Mozart's last opera,* did not spare life when the threads of anything like a real conspiracy were placed in their hands. At Vienna terror was employed to crush the constitutional opposi- tion of Hungary to the Austrian Court. In Naples a long reign of cruelty and oppression began with the creation of a secret tribunal to investigate charges of conspiracy made by informers. In Mainz, the Arch- bishop occupied the last years of his government, after his restoration in 1793, with a series of brutal punish- ments and tyrannical precautions. These were but instances of the effect which the first epoch of the Eevolution produced upon the old European States. After a momentary stimulus to free- dom it threw the nations themselves into reaction and apathy; it totally changed the spirit of the better governments, attaching to all liberal ideas the stigma of Eevolution, and identifying the work of authority with resistance to every kind of reform. There were States in which this change, the first effect of the Eevolution, was also its only one ; States whose history, as in the • For the police interpretation of the Zauherflote, see Springer, Qeschichte Oest«rreichs, yqL i» p. 49. REACTION, IM case of England, is for a whole generation the history of political progress unnaturally checked and thrown out of its course. There were others, and these the more numerous, where the first stimulus and the first reaction were soon forgotten in new and penetrating changes produced hy the successive victories of France. The nature of these changes, even more than the war- fare which introduced them, gives its interest to the period on which we are about to enter. CHAPTEE m. Triple attack on Austria — Moreau, Jourdan — Bonaparte in Italy — Condition of the Italian States — Professions and real intentions of Bonaparte and the Directory — Battle of Montenotte — Armistice with Sardinia— Campaign in Lomhardy — Treatment of the Pope, Naples, Tuscany — Siege of Mantua — Castiglione — Moreau and Jourdan in Germany — Their retreat — Secret Treaty with Prussia — Negotiations with England — Cispadane Eepublic — Eise of the idea of Italian Independence — Battles of Areola and Eivoli — Peace with the Pope at Tolentino — Venice — Preliminaries of Leoben — The French in Venice — The French take the Ionian Islands and give Venice to Austria — Genoa — Coup d'etat of 17 Fructidor in Paris — Treaty of Campo Formio — ^Vic- tories of England at sea — Bonaparte's project against Egypt. With the opening of the year 1796 the leading interest of European history passes to a new scene. Hitherto the progress of French victory had been in the direction of the Ehine : the advance of the army of the Pyrenees had been cut short by the conclusion of peace with Spain ; the army of Italy had achieved little Armies of Italy, , , , • n the Danube, and bevoud somc obscurc successes m the moun- the Mam, 1796. "^ tains. It was the appointment of Napoleon Bonaparte to the command of the latter force, in the spring of 1796, that first centred the fortunes of the Republic in the land beyond the Alps. Freed from Prussia by the Treaty of Basle, the Directory was now able to withdraw its attention from Holland and from the Lower Rhine, and to throw its whole force into the struggle with Austria. By the advice of Bonaparte a threefold movement was undertaken against Vienna, by 17ML BONAPARTE IN ITALY. Ill way of Lombardy, by the valley of the Danube, and by the valley of the Main. General Jourdan, in command of the army that had conquered the Netherlands, was ordered to enter Grermany by Frankfort ; Moreau crossed the Rhine at Strasburg : Bonaparte himself, drawing his scanty supplies along the coast-road from Nice, faced the allied forces of Austria and Sardinia upon the slopes of the Maritime Apennines, forty miles to the west of Genoa. The country in which he was about to operate was familiar to Bonaparte from service there in 1794 ; his own descent and language gave him singular ad- vantages in any enterprise undertaken in Italy. Bona- parte was no Italian at heart ; but he knew at least enough of the Italian nature to work upon its better im- pulses, and to attach its hopes, so long as he needed the support of Italian opinion, to his own career of victory, hree centuries separated the Italy of that day from the bright and vigorous Italy which, in the glow of its Republican freedom, had given so much to Northern Europe in art., in letters, and in the charm condition o* of life. A long epoch of subjection to des- ^^^' potic or foreign rule, of commercial inaction, of decline in mind and character, had made the Italians of no ac- count among the political forces of Europe. Down to the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 their provinces were bartered between the Bourbons and the Hapsburgs ; and although the settlement of that date left no part of Italy, except the Duchy of Milan, incorporated in a foreign empire, yet the crown of Naples was vested in a younger branch of the Spanish Bourbons, and the mar- 112 MODERN EUEOPK 1796. riage of Maria Theresa with the Archduke Francis made Tuscany an appanage of the House of Austria. Venice and Grenoa retained their independence and their repub- lican government, but little of their ancient spirit. At the outbreak of the Eevolutionary War, Austrian in- fluence was dominant throughout the peninsula, Marie Caroline, the Queen and the ruler of Ferdinand of Naples, being the sister of the Emperor Leopold and Marie Antoinette. With the exception of Piedmont, which preserved a strong military sentiment and the tradition of an active and patriotic policy, the Italian States were either, like Venice and Grenoa, anxious to keep themselves out of danger by seeming to hear and see nothing that passed around them, or governed by families in the closest connection with the great reign- ing Houses of the Continent. Neither in Italy itself, nor in the general course of European affairs during the Napoleonic period, was anything determined by the sentiment of the Italian people. The peasantry at times fought against the French with energy ; but no strong impulse, like that of the Spaniards, enlisted the upper class of Italians either on the side of Napoleon or on that of his enemies. Acquiescence and submission had become the habit of the race ; the sense of national unity and worth, the personal pride which makes the absence of liberty an intolerable wrong, only entered the Italian character at a later date. Yet in spite of its political nullity, Italy was not in a state of decline. Its worst days had ended before the middle of the eighteenth century. The fifty years preced- 1740-1790. ITALY IN THE EIQHTEENTH OENTTJEY, 118 ing the French Revolution, if they had brought nothing of the spirit of liberty, had in all other respects been years of progress and revival. In Lombardy the government of Maria Theresa and Joseph awoke life and motion after ages of Spanish torpor and misrule. Traditions of local activity revived ; the communes were encouraged in their works of irrigation and rural im- B«vivai after provement; a singular liberality towards ^^^' opinion and the press made the Austrian possessions the centre of the intellectual movement of Italy. In the south, progress began on the day when the last foreign Viceroy disappeared from Naples (1735), and Eang Charles III., though a member of the Spanish House, entered upon the government of the two Sicilies as an independent kingdom. Venice and the Papal States alone seemed to be untouched by the spirit of material and social improvement, so active in the rest of Italy before the interest in political life had come into being. Nor was the age without its intellectual distinction. If the literature of Italy in the second half of the eighteenth century had little that recalled the inspira- tion of its splendid youth, it showed at least a return to seriousness and an interest in important things. The political economists of Lombardy were scarcely behind those of England ; the work of the Milanese Beccaria on " Crimes and Punishments ** stimulated the reform of criminal law in every country in Europe ; an intelli- gent and increasing attention to problems of agriculture, commerce, and education took the place of the fatuous gallantries and insipid criticism which had hitherto I 114 MOBBBN EUBOPE, 1796l made up the life of Italians of birth and culture. One man of genius, Yittorio Alfieri, the creator of Italian tragedy, idealised both in prose and verse a type of rugged independence and resistance to tyrannical power. Alfieri was neither a man of political judgment himself nor the representative of any real political current in Italy ; but the lesson which he taught to the Italians, the lesson of respect for themselves and their country, was the one which Italy most of all required to learn ; and the appearance of this manly and energetic spirit in its literature gave hope that the Italian nation would not long be content to remain without political being. Italy, to the outside world, meant little more than the ruins of the Eoman Forum, the galleries of Florence, the paradise of Capri and the Neapolitan coast ; the singular variety in its local con- ditions of life gained little attention from the foreigner. There were districts in Italy where the social order was almost of a Polish type of barbarism ; there were others where the rich and the . poor lived perhaps under a happier relation than in any other country in Europe. The difference depended chiefly upon the extent to which municipal life had in past time superseded the feudal order under which the territorial lord was the judge and the ruler of his own domain. In Tuscany the city had done the most in absorbing the landed nobility ; in Naples and Sicily it had done the least. When, during the middle ages, the Eepublic of Florence forced the feudal lords who surrounded it to enter its walls as citizens, in some cases it deprived 1740-1790. TVBOANY, 116 them of all authority, in others it permitted them to retain a jurisdiction over their peasants ; but even in these instances the sovereignty of the city deprived the feudal relation of most of its harshness and force. After the loss of Florentine liberty, the Medici, aping the custom of older monarchies, conferred the title of marquis and count upon men who preferred servitude to freedom, and accompanied the grant of rank with one of hereditary local authority; but the new institutions took no deep hold on country life, and the legislation of the first Archduke of the House of Lorraine (1749) left the landed aristocracy in the position of mere country gentlemen.* Estates were not very large: the prevalent agricultural system was, as it still is, that of the mezzeria, a partnership between the landlord and tenant; the tenant holding by custom in perpetuity, and sharing the produce with the landlord, who supplied a part of the stock and materials for farming. In Tus- cany the conditions of the mezzeria were extremely favourable to the tenant ; and if a cheerful country life under a mild and enlightened government were all that a State need desire, Tuscany enjoyed rare happiness. Far different was the condition of Sicily and Naples. Here the growth of city life had never Yi^^x^^xA affected the rough sovereignty which the ^ '' barons exercised over great tracts of country withdrawn from the civilised world. When Charles III. ascended the throne in 1735, he found whole provinces in which there was absolutely no administration of justice on the * Zobi, Storia Civile della Toscaua, L, 284. I 2 116 MODERN EUROPE. i740-i»a part of the State. The feudal rights of the nohility were in the last degree oppressive, the barbarism of the people was in many districts extreme. Out of two thousand six hundred towns and villages in the king- dom, there were only fifty that were not subject to feudal authority. In the manor of San Grennaro di Palma, fifteen miles from IS'aples, even down to the year 1786 the officers of the baron were the only persons who lived in houses ; the peasants, two thousand in number, slept among the corn-ricks.* Charles, during his tenure of the Neapolitan crown, from 1735 to 1759, and the Ministers Tanucci and Caraccioli under his feeble suc- cessor Ferdinand IV., enforced the authority of the State in justice and administration, and abolished some of the most oppressive feudal rights of the nobility ; but their legislation, though bold and even revolutionary according to an English standard, could not in the course of two generations transform a social sysjbem based upon centuries of misgovernment and disorder. At the outbreak of the French Revolution the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was, as it still in a less degree is, a land of extreme inequalities of wealth and poverty, a land where great estates wasted in the hands of oppressive or * Galanti, Descrizione delle Sicilie, 1786, i., 279. He adds, "The Samnites and the Lucanians could not have shown so horrible a spectacle, because they had no feudal laws." Galanti's book gives perhaps the best idea of the immense task faced by monarchy in the eighteenth century in its struggle against what he justly calls ** gli orrori del.governo f eudale." Nothing but a study of these details of actual life described by eye- witnesses can convey an adequate impression of the completeness and the misery of the feudal order in the more backward countries of Europe till far down in the eighteenth century. There is a good anonymous account of Sicily in 1810 in Castlereagh, 8. 217. 1740-1790. NAPLES AND 8I0ILT. 117 indolent owners, and the peasantry, untrained either by remunerative industry or by a just and regular enforce- ment of the law, found no better guide than a savage and fanatical priesthood. Over the rest of Italy the conditions of life varied through all degrees between the Tuscan and the Neapolitan type. Piedmont, piedmont. in military spirit and patriotism far superior to the other Italian States, was socially one of the most backward of all. It was a land of priests, nobles, and soldiers, where a gloomy routine and the repression of all originality of thought and character drove the most gifted of its children, like the poet Alfieri, to seek a home on some more liberal soil. During the first years of the Ee volution, an attempt had been made by French enthusiasts to professions and extend the Revolution into Italy by means of the Directory •^ "^ and Bonaparte, of associations in the principal towns ; but ^^^• it met with no great success. A certain liberal move- ment arose among the young men of the upper classes at Naples, where, under the influence of Queen Marie Caroline, the Government had now become reactionary ; and in Turin and several of the Lombard cities the French were not without partisans; but no general disaffection like that of Savoy existed east of the Alps. The agitation of 1789 and 1792 Kad passed by without bringing either liberty or national independence to the Italians. When Bonaparte received his command, that fervour of Eepublican passion which, in the midst of violence and wrong, had seldom been wanting in the first leaders of the Revolutionary War, had died out in 118 MODERN EUROPE, ' 179CI France. The politicians wlio survived the Eeign of Terror and gained office in the Directory repeated the old phrases ahout the Eights of Man and the Liberation of the Peoples only as a mode of cajolery. Bonaparte entered Italy proclaiming himself the restorer of Italian freedom, but with the deliberate purpose of using Italy as a means of recruiting the exhausted treasury of France. His correspondence with the Directory exposes with brazen frankness this well-considered system of pillage and deceit, in which the general and the Grovernment were cordially at one. On the further question, how France should dispose of any territory that might be conquered in Northern Italy, Bonaparte and the Direc- tory had formed no understanding, and their purposes were in fact at variance. The Directory wished to conquer Lombardy in order to hand it back to Austria in return for the Netherlands ; Bonaparte had at least formed the conception that an Italian State was possible, and he intended to convert either Austrian Lombardy itself, or some other portion of Northern Italy, into a Eepublic, serving as a military outwork for France. The campaign of 1796 commenced in April, in the Bonaparte se- mouutaius abovc the coast-road connecting parates the Aus- -^-r. i /^ -i-k i > trian and sardi- Nicc auQ (xcnoa. Bouapartc s own army nian Armies, •*■ •' April 1796. numbered 40,000 men; the force opposed to it consisted of 38,000 Austrians, under Beaulieu, and a smaller Sardinian army, so placed upon the Piedmontese Apennines as to block the passes from the coast-road into Piedmont, and to threaten the rear of the French if they advanced eastward against Grenoa. 1796. CAMPAIGN OF 1796. U9 The Piedmontese army drew its supplies from Turin, the Austrian from Mantua ; to sever the two armies was to force them on to lines of retreat conducting them farther and farther apart from one another. Bonaparte foresaw the effect which such a separation of the two armies would produce upon the Sardinian Government. For four days he reiterated his attacks at Montenotte and Millesimo, until he had forced his own army into a position in the centre of the Allies; then, leaving a small force to watch the Austrians, he threw the mass of his troops upon the Piedmontese, and drove them back to within thirty miles of Turin. The terror-stricken Government, anticipating an outbreak in the capital itself, accepted an armistice from Bonaparte atCherasco (April 28), and handed over to the French the fortresses of Coni, Ceva, and Tortona, which command the entrances of Italy. It was an unworthy capitulation, for Turin could not have been taken before the Austrians re- turned in force; but Bonaparte had justly E^J?? ^***^ calculated the effect of his victory ; and the annistice, which was soon followed by a treaty of peace between France and Sardinia, ceding Savoy to the Eepublic, left him free to follow the Austrians, un- troubled by the existence of some of the strongest fortresses of Europe behind him. In the negotiations with Sardinia Bonaparte de- manded the surrender of the town of Valenza, as necessary to secure his passage over the river Po. Having thus led the Austrian Beaulieu to concentrate his forces at this point, he suddenly moved eastward 120 MODERN EUROPE, 179«, along the southern bank of the river, and crossed at Piacenza, fifty miles below the spot where Beaulieu was awaiting him. It was an admirable movement. The Austrian general, with the enemy threatening his communications, had to abandon Milan and all the country west of it, and to fall back upon the line of the Bridge of Lodi, ^^^'^- Bonaparte followed, and on the 10th ^^ ^^' of May attacked the Austrians at Lodi. He himself stormed the bridge of Lodi at the head of his Grrenadiers. The battle was so disastrous to the Aus- trians that they could risk no second engagement, and retired upon Mantua and the line of the Mincio.* Bonaparte now made his triumphal entry into Milan (May 15). The splendour of his victories Bonaparte in t i • . i» p • i i • (> Muan. Extor- and his Warm expressions oi iriendship tor tions. ^ , ^ Italy excited the enthusiasm of a population not hitherto hostile to Austrian rule. A new political movement began. With the French army there came all the partisans of the French Eepublic who had been ex- pelled from other parts of Italy. Uniting with the small * Correspondance de Napoleon,!., 260. Botta, Kb. vi. Despatches of Ool. Graham, British attache with the Austrian army, in Records : Italian States, vol. 57. These most interesting letters, which begin on May 19, show the discord and suspicion prevalent from the first in the Austrian army. " Beau- lieu has not met with cordial co-operation from his own generals, stUl less from the Piedmontese. He accuses them of having chosen to be beat in order to bring about a peace promised in January last." " Beaulieu was more violent than ever against his generals who have occasioned the failure of his plans. He said nine of them were cowards. I believe some of them are ill-affected to the cause." June 15.—" Many of the officers comfort them- selves with thinking that defeat must force peace, and others express them- selves in terms of despair." July 25.— Beaulieu told Graham that if Bona- parte had pushed on after the battle of Lodi, he might have gone straight into Mantua. The preparations for defence were made later. 1796. BONAPARTE IN MILAN. 121 revolutionary element already existing in Milan, they began to form a new public opinion by means of journals and patriotic meetings. It was of the utmost import- ance to Bonaparte that a Republican party should be organised among the better classes in the towns of Lom- bardy; for the depredations of the French army exasperated the peasants, and Bonaparte's own measures were by no means of a character to win him unmixed goodwill. The instructions which he received from the Directory were extremely simple. " Leave nothing in Italy," they wrote to him on the day of his entry into Milan, " which will be useful to us, and which the political situation will allow you to remove." If Bonaparte had felt any doubt as to the meaning of such an order, the pillage of works of art in Belgium and Holland in preceding years would have shown him that it was meant to be literally interpreted. Accordingly, in return for the gift of liberty, the Milanese were invited to offer to their deliverers twenty million francs, and a selection from the paintings in their churches and galleries. The Dukes of Parma and Modena, in return for an armistice, were required to hand over forty of their best pictures, and a sum of money proportioned to their revenues. The Dukes and the townspeople paid their contributions with good grace : the peasantry of Lombardy, whose cattle were seized in order to supply an army that marched without any stores of its own, rose in arms, and threw them- selves into Pavia, killing all the French soldiers who fell in their way. The revolt was instantly suppressed, 122 MODERN EUROPE. 1796. and tlie town of Pavia given up to pillage. In deference to the Liberal party of Italy, the movement was described as a conspiracy of priests and nobles. The way into Central Italy now lay open before Bonaparte. Eome and Naples were in no condition to offer resistance ; but with true military judgment the French general declined to move against this feeble prey until the army of Austria, already crippled, was completely driven out of the field. Instead of crossing Battle on the ^^® Apcunines, Bonaparte advanced against Mmcio,May29. ^^^ Austrlau posltlous upou the Mincio. It suited him to violate the neutrality of the adjacent Venetian territory by seizing the town of Brescia. His example was followed by Beaulieu, who occupied Pes- chiera, at the foot of the Lake of Garda, and thus held the Mincio along its whole course from the lake to Mantua. A battle was fought and lost by the Austrians half-way between the lake and the fortress. Beaulieu's strength was exhausted ; he could meet the enemy no more in the field, and led his army out of Italy into the Tyrol, leaving Mantua to be invested by the French. The first care of the conqueror was to make Venice pay for the crime of possessing territory intervening between the eastern and western extremes of the Austrian dis- trict. Bonaparte affected to believe that the Venetians had permitted Beaulieu to occupy Peschiera before he- seized upon Brescia himself. He uttered terrifying threats to the envoys who came from Venice to excuse an. imaginary crime. He was determined to extort money from the Venetian Eepublic ; he also needed a pretext 1796 BONAPAliTE IN BOLOGNA. 123 for occupying Verona, and for any future wrongs. ** I have purposely devised this rupture," he wrote to the Directory (June 7th), " in case you should wish to obtain five or six millions of francs from Venice. If you have more decided intentions, I think it would be well to keep up the quarrel." The intention referred to was the disgraceful project of sacri- ficing Venice to Austria in return for the cession of the Netherlands, a measure based on plans familiar to Thugut as early as the year 1793.* The Austrians were fairly driven out of Lombardy, and Bonaparte was now free to deal with southern Italy. He advanced into the States of the Church, and expelled the Papal Legate from Bologna. Ferdinand of Naples, who had lately called heaven and earth to wit- ness the fury of his zeal against an accursed j^n^igtice with horde of regicides, thought it prudent to n*p^^"^"°««- stay Bonaparte's hand, at least until the Austrians were in a condition to renew the war in Lombardy. He asked for a suspension of hostilities against his own kingdom. The fleet and the sea-board of Naples gave it import- ance in the struggle between France and Armistice with England, and Bonaparte granted the king an 23. armistice on easy terms. The Pope, in order to gain a • Thugut, Briefe, i., 107. A correspondence on this subject was carried on in cyplier between Thugut and Ludwig Cobenzl, Austrian Ambassador at St. Petersburg in 1793-4. During Thugufs absence in Belgium, June, 1794, Cobenzl sent a duplicate despatch, not in cypher, to Vienna. Old Prince Kaunitz, the ex-minister, heard that a courier had arrived from St. Peters- burg, and demanded the despatch at the Foreign OflSce "like a dictator." It was given to him. " Ainsi," says Thugut, " adieu an secret qui depnis nn an a ^te conserve avec Unt de solus ! " 124 MODERN EUROPE. ' 1796. few montlis' truce, had to permit the occTipation of Ferrara, Eavenna, and Ancona, and to recognise the necessities, the learning, the taste, and the virtue of his conquerors by a gift of twenty million francs, ^ve hundred manuscripts, a hundred pictures, and the busts of Marcus and Lucius Brutus. The rule of the Pope was unpopular in Bologna, and a Senate which Bona- parte placed in power, pending the formation of a popular Grovernment, gladly took the oath of fidehty to the French Eepublic. Tuscany was the only State that remained to be dealt' with. Tuscany had indeed made peace with the Republic a year before, but the ships and cargoes of the English merchants at Leghorn were surely fair prey ; and, with the pretence of punishing insults offered by the English to the French flag, Bonaparte descended upon Leghorn, and seized upon everything that was not removed before his approach. Once established in Leghorn, the French declined to quit it. By way of adjusting the relations of the Grrand Duke, the English seized his harbour of Porto Ferraio, in the island of Elba. Mantua was meanwhile invested, and thither, after his brief incursion into Central Italy, Bonaparte returned. Towards the end of July an Austrian re- Battles of Lo- •^ ff^nT,*^ j^^l; lieving army, nearly double the strength of Bonaparte's, descended from the Tyrol. It was divided into three corps : one, under Quosdanovich, advanced by the road on the west of Lake Grarda ; the others, under Wurmser, the commander-in-chief, by the roads between the lake and the river Adige 1796. BATTLES ABOVE MANTUA. 125 The peril of the French was extreme ; their outlying divisions were defeated and driven in ; Bonaparte could only hope to save himself by collecting all his forces at the foot of the lake, and striking at one or other of the Austrian armies before they effected their junc- tion on the Mincio. He instantly broke up the siege of Mantua, and withdrew from every position east of the river. On the 30th of July, Quosdanovich was attacked and checked at Lonato, on the west of the Lake of Grarda. Wurmser, unaware of his colleague's repulse, entered Mantua in triumph, and then set out, expecting to envelop Bonaparte between two fires. But the French were ready for his approach. . Wurmser was stopped and defeated at Castiglione, while the western Austrian divisions were still held in check at Lonato. The junction of the Austrian armies had become impossible. In five days the skill, of Bonaparte and the unsparing exertions of his soldiery had more than retrieved all that appeared to have been lost.* The Austrians retired into * Wurmser's reports are in Vivenot, Clerfayt, p. 477. Gralwun's daily despatches from the Austrian head-quarters give a vivid picture of these operations, and of the sudden change from exultation to despair. Aug. 1. — " I have the honour to inform your lordship that the siege of Mantua is raised, the French having retreated last night with the utmost precipita- tion." Aug. 2. — " The Austrians are in possession of all the French mor- tars and cannon, amounting to about 140, with 190,000 shells and bombs ; the loss of the Imperial army is inconsiderable." Aug. 6. — ** The rout of this day has sadly changed the state of affairs. There are no accounts of General Quosdanovich." Aug. 9. — " Our loss in men and cannon was much greater than was imagined. I had no idea of the possibility of the extent of such misfortunes as have overwhelmed us." Aug. 17. — '* It is scarcely possible to describe the state of disorder and discouragement that prevails in the army. Were I free from apprehensions about the fate of my letter " (he liad lost his baggage and his cypher in it), " I should despair of finding language adequate to convey a just idea of the discontent of the 126 MODERN EUBOPK 1!W. the Tyrol, beaten and dispirited, and leaving 15,000 prisoners in the hands of the enemy. Bonaparte now prepared to force his way into Grer- many by the Adige, in fulfilment of the original plan of the campaign. In the first days of September he again routed the Austrians, and gained possession of Eoveredo and Trent. Wurmser hereupon attempted to shut the French up in the mountains by a movement southwards; but, while he operated with insufficient forces between the Brenta and the Adige, he was cut off from Germany, and only escaped capture by throwing himself into Mantua with the shattered remnant of his army. The road into Germany through the Tyrol now lay open ; but in the midst of his victories Bonaparte learnt that the northern armies of Moreau and Jourdan, with which he had intended to co-operate in an attack upon Vienna, were in full retreat. Moreau's advance into the valley of the Danube had, during: the months of July and Aus^ust, Invasion of Geiv ° J n ^d^^l^lfn, been attended with unbroken military and "^^ * * political success. The Archduke Charles, officers with General Wurmser. From generals to subalterns the uni- versal language is * qu'il faut faire la paix, car nous ne savons pas faire la guerre.' " Aug. 18. — " Not only the commander-in-chief, but the greatest number of the generals are objects of contempt and ridicule." Aug. 27. — ** I do not exaggerate when I say that I have met with instances of down- right dotage." " It was in general orders that wine should be distributed to the men previous to the attack of the 29th. There was some difficulty in getting it up to Monte Baldo. General Bayolitzy observed that * it did not signify, for the men might get the value in money afterwards.' The men marched at six in the evening without it, to attack at daybreak, and received four kreutzers afterwards. This is a fact I can attest. In action I saw officers sent on urgent messages going at a foot's pace : they say that their horses are haK starved, and that they cannot afford to kill them." 1796. CAMPAIGN OF THE ABOHDUKE 0HABLE8. 127 who was entrusted with the defence of the Empire, found himself unable to bring two armies into the field capable of resisting those of Moreau and Jourdan separately, and he therefore determined to fall back before Moreau towards Nuremberg, ordering Wartensleben, who com- manded the troops facing Jourdan on the Main, to retreat in the same direction, in order that the two armies might throw their collected force upon Jourdan while still at some distance north of Moreau.* The design of the Archduke succeeded in the end, but it opened Grermany to the French for six weeks, and showed how worthless was the military constitution of the Empire, and how little the Grermans had to expect from one another. After every skirmish won by Moreau some neighbouring State abandoned the common defence and hastened to make its terms with the invader. On the 17th of July the Duke of Wiirtemberg purchased an armistice at the price of four million francs ; a week later Baden gained the French general's protection in return for immense supplies of food and stores. The troops of the Swabian Circle of the Empire, who were ridiculed as " harlequins " by the more martial Austrians, dispersed to their homes ; and no sooner had Moreau entered Bavaria than the Bavarian contingent in its turn withdrew from the Archduke. Some consideration was shown by Moreau's soldiery to those districts which had paid tribute to their general ; but in the region of the Main, Jourdan's army plundered without distinction • Grundsatze (Archduke Oharles), ii, 202L Bnlletins in Wiener Zeitung, Juue— Oct 1796. 128 MODERN EUBOPE. 1796. and without inercy. They sacked the churches, they maltreated the children, they robbed the very beggars of their pence. Before the Archduke Charles was ready to strike, the peasantry of this country, whom their govern- ments were afraid to arm, had begun effective reprisals of their own. At length the retreating movement of the Austrians stopped. Leaving 30,000 men on the Lech to disguise his motions from Moreau, Charles Charles''*' over- tumed suddeulv northwards from ISTeubure^ powers Jourdan. *' " on the 17th August, met Wartensleben at Amberg, and attacked Jourdan at this place with greatly superior numbers. Jourdan was defeated and driven back in confusion towards the Ehine. The issue of the campaign was decided before Moreau heard of his col- league's danger. It only remained for him to save his own army by a skilful retreat. Jourdan's soldiers, re- turning through districts which they had devastated, suf- fered heavier losses from the vengeance of the peasantry than from the army that pursued them. By the autumn of 1796 no Frenchman remained beyond the Ehine. The campaign had restored the military spirit of Austria; it had given Germany a general in whom soldiers could trust; but it had also shown how willing were the Governments of the minor States to become the vassals of a foreigner, how little was wanting to convert the western half of the Empire into a dependency of France. With each change in the fortunes of vrtth Prussia, the Campaign of 1796 the diplomacy of the Continent had changed its tone. When Mo- reau won hifi first victories, the Court of Prussia, yielding 1791 PBU88IA AND AUSTRIA, 129 to the pressure of the Directory, substituted for the con- ditional clauses of the Treaty of Basle a definite agreement to the cession of the left bank of the Rhine, ^ and a stipulation that Prussia should be compensated for her own loss by the annexation of the Bishopric of . Miinster. Prussia could not itself cede provinces of the Empire : it could only agree to their cession. In this treaty, however, Prussia definitely renounced the in- tegrity of the Empire, and accepted the system known as the Secularisation of Ecclesiastical States, the first step towards an entire reconstruction of Germany.* The engagement was kept secret both from the Emperor and from the ecclesiastical princes. In their negotiations with Austria the Directory were less successful. Although the long series of Austrian disasters had raised a general outcry against Thugut's persistence in the war, the resolute spirit of the Minister never bent ; and the ultimate victory of the Archduke Charles more than restored his influence over the Emperor. Austria refused to enter into any negotiation not conducted in common with England, and the Directory were for the present foiled in their attempts to isolate England from the Continental Powers. It was not that Thugut either hoped or cared for that restoration of Austrian rule in the Netherlands which was the first object of England's Continental policy. The abandonment of the Netherlands by France was, however, in his opinion necessary for Austria, as a step towards the acquisition of Bavaria, which was still the * Martens, tL, 69. J 180 MOBMEN UUEOPR 17«L cherisliecl hope of the Viennese Government. It was in vain that the Directory suggested that Austria should annex Bavaria without offering Belgium or any other compensation to its ruler. Thugut could hardly be induced to listen to the French overtures. He had received the promise of immediate help from the Empress Catherine ; he was convinced that the Ee- public, already anxious for peace, might by one sustained effort be forced to abandon all its conquests ; and this was the object for which, in the winter of 1796, army after army was hurled against the positions where Bonaparte kept his guard on the north of the still unconquered Mantua.* In England itself the victory of the Archduke Charles raised expectations of peace. The war had- become unpopular through the loss of trade with France, Spain, and Holland, and petitions for peace daily reached Parliament. Pitt so far yielded to the prevalent feeling as to enter into negotiations with the Directory, and despatched Lord Malmesbury to Paris ; to Paris, Oct., but the couditiou upon which Pitt insisted, 1796. ^ J- ' the restoration of the Netherlands to Austria, rendered agreement hopeless; and as soon as * This seenls to me to be the probable trutli about Austria's policy in 1796, of wliich opposite views will be found in Hausser, vol ii., cli. 1 — 3 and in Hiiffer, Oestreich und Preussen, p. 142. Tbugut professed in 1793 to have given up the project of the Bavarian exchange in defer- ence to England. He admitted, however, soon afterwards, that he had again been pressing the King of Prussia to consent to it, but said that this was a ruse, intended to make Prussia consent to Austria's annexing a large piece of France instead. Eden, Sept., 1793; Records: Austria, vol. 34. The incident shows the difficulty of getting at the truth in diplomacy. 1998. MAJMEaBUBY AT PABI8. 131 Pitt's terms were known to the Directory, Malraesbury was ordered to leave Paris. Nevertheless, the negotiation was not a mere feint on Pitt's part. He was possessed by a fixed idea that the resources of France were exhausted, and that, in spite of the conquest of Lom- bardy and the Rhine, the Republic must feel itself too weak to continue the war. Amid the disorders of Revolutionary finance, and exaggerated reports of suffer- ing and distress, Pitt failed to recognise the enormous increase of production resulting from the changes which had given the peasant full property in his land and labour, and thrown vast quantities of half- waste domain into the busy hands of middling and small proprietors.* Whatever were the resources of France before the Revolution, they were now probably more than doubled Pitt's behef in the economic ruin of Fi-ance, the only ground on which he could imagine that the Directory * Tet the Govemment had had warning of this in a series of striking reports, sent by one of Lord Elgin's spies during the Beign of Terror. *' Jamais la France ne fut cultivee comme elle Test. 11 n'y a pas un arpent qui ne soit ensemence, sauf dans les lieux oil operent les armees belliger. antes. Cette culture universello a ^te forc^e par les Directrices la oil on ne la faisait pas volontairement." June 8, 1794; Records: Flanders, vol. 226. Elgin had established a line of spies from Paris to the Belgian frontier. Every one of these persons was arrested by the Revolu- tionary authorities. Elgin then fell in with the writer of the above, whose name is concealed, and placed him on tlie Swiss frontier. He was evidently a person thoroughly familiar with both civil and military administration. He appears to have talked to every Frenchman who entered Switzerland ; and his reports contain far tlie best information that roached^T^ngland during the Reign of Terror, contradicting the Royalists, who said that the war was only kept up by terrorism. He warned the Euglish Government that the French nation in a mass was on the side of the Revolution, and declared that the downfall of Robespierre and the terrorists would make no difference in the prosecution of the war. The Gt>verument seems to have paid no attention to his reports, if indeed they were ever read. J 2 132 MODERN EUBOPE. ' itml would give up Belgium without fighting for it, was wholly erroneous, and the French Q-overnment would have acted strangely if they had listened to his demand. Nevertheless, though the Directory would not hear of surrendering Belgium, they were anxious to conclude peace with Austria, and unwilling to enter into any engagements in the conquered provinces of Italy which might render peace with Austria more difficult. They had instructed Bonaparte to stir up the Italians against their Grovernments, but this was done with the object of para- lysing the Grovemments, not of emancipating the peoples. They looked with dislike upon any scheme of ItaHan reconstruction which should bind France to the support of newly-formed Italian States. Here, however, the scruples of the Directory and the ambition Bonaparte ere- *■ ** ^iS)nc?^S! of Bonaparte were in direct conflict. Bona- parte intended to create a political system in Italy which should bear the stamp of his own mind and require his own strong hand to support it. In one of his despatches to the Directory he suggested the formation of a client EepubHc out of the Duchy of Modena, where revolutionary movements had broken out. Before it was possible for the Grovemment to answer him, he published a decree, declaring the population of Modena and Eeggio under the protection of the French army, and deposing all the officers of the Duke (Oct. 4). When, some days later, the answer of the Directory arrived, it cautioned Bonaparte against disturbing . the existing order of the Italian States. Bonaparte repKed by uniting to Modena the Papal 17W. THE 0I8PADANE BBFUBLIO. 183 provinces of Bologna and Ferrara, and by giving to the State which he had thus created the title of the Cispadane Eepuhlic * The event was no insignificant one. It is from this time that the idea of Italian independence, j^^^ ^^ ^^ though foreign to the great mass of the ^* nation, may be said to have taken birth as one of those political hopes which wane and recede, but do not again leave the world. A class of men who had turned with dislike from the earlier agitation of French Eepublicans in Italy rightly judged the continued victories of Bonaparte over the Austrians to be the beginning of a series of great changes, and now joined the revolutionary movement in the hope of winning from the overthrow of the old Powers some real form of national indepen- dence. In its origin the French party may have been composed of hirelings and enthusiasts. This ceased to be the case when, after the passage of the Mincio, Bonaparte entered the Papal States. Among the citizens of Bologna in particular there were men of weight and intelligence who aimed at free constitutional government, and checked in some degree the more numerous popular party which merely repeated the phrases of French democracy. Bonaparte's own language and action excited the brightest hopes. At Modena he * Correspondance de Napoleon, ii 28. Thugut, about this time, formed the plau of annexing Bologna and Forrara to Austria, and said that if this result could be atrhieved, the French attack npon the Papal States would be no bad matter. See the instructions to Allvintzy, in Yivenot, Olerfayt, p. 511, which also contain the first Austrian orders to imprison Italian innovators, the beginning of Austria's later Italian policy. 134 MODERN IIVBOFE. 1797. harangued tlie citizens upon fhe miscMef of Italy's divisions, and exhorted them to unite with their brethren whom he had freed from the Pope. A Congress was held at Modena on the 16th of October. The representa- tives of Modena, Eeggio, Bologna, and Ferrara declared themselves united in a Eepublic under the protection of France. They abolished feudal nobility, decreed a national levy, and summoned a Greneral Assembly to meet at Reggio two months later, in order to create the Constitution of the new Cispadane Republic. It was in the Congress of Modena, and in the subsequent Assembly of Eeggio (Dec. 25), that the idea of Italian unity and independence first awoke the enthusiasm of any con- siderable body of men. With what degree of sincerity Bonaparte himself acted may be judged from the circumstance that, while he harangued the Cispadanes on the necessity of Italian union, he imprisoned the Milanese who attempted to excite a popular movement for the purpose of extending this union to themselves. Peace was not yet made with Austria, and it was uncertain to what account Milan might best be turned. Mantua still beld out, and in !N"ovember the reliev- ing operations of the Austrians were renewed. Two armies, commanded by AUvintzy and Davidovich, de- scended the valleys of the Adige and the Piave, offer- ing to Bonaparte, whose centre was at Yerona, a new Areola, Nov. 15 Opportunity of crushing his enemy in "~ * detail. Allvintzy, coming from the Piave, brought the French into extreme danger in a three days' battle at Areola, but was at last forced to retreat 1787. FALL OF MANTUA. 185 with heavy loss. Davidovich, who had been snccessful on the Adige, retired on learning the overthrow of his colleague. Two months more passed, and the Austrians for the third time appeared on the Adige. A feint made below Yerona nearly succeeded in drawing Bonaparte away from Eivoli, between the Adige and ^^^^^ j^^ ^^ Lake Grarda, where Allvintzy and his main ifi.1797. army were about to make the assault ; but the strength of AUvintzy's force was discovered before it was too late, and by throwing his divisions from point to point with extraordinary rapidity, Bonaparte at length overwhelmed the Austrians in every quarter of the battle-field. This was their last effort. The surrender of Mantua on the 2nd February, 1797, completed the French conquest of Austrian Lombardy.* The Pope now found himself left to settle his account with the invaders, against whom, even after the armistice, he had never tino, Feb. 19, 1797. ceased to intrigue. f His despatches to Vienna fell into the hands of Bonaparte, who declared * Wurmser had orders to break out southwards into the Papal States. " Tliese orders he (Thugut) knew had reached the Marshal, but they were also known to the enemy, as a cadet of Strasoldo's re<^ment, who was carrying the duplicate, had been taken prisoner, and having been seen to swallow a ball of wax, in which the order was wrapped up, he was immediately put to death and the paper taken out of his stomach." Eden, Jan., 1797; Records : Austria, vol. 48. Colonel Graham, who had been shut up in Mautua since Sept. 10, escaped on Dec. 17, and restored communication between Wurmser and Allvintzy. He was present at the battle of Rivoli, which is described in his despatches. t " We expect every hour to hear of the entry of tlie Neapolitan troops and the declaration of a religious war. Every preparation has been made for such an event.'' Graves to Lord Granville, Oct. 1, 1796 ; liecords : Rome, vol. 56. 136 MODERN EUBOPK 1797. the truce broken, and a second time invaded the Papal territory. A show of resistance was made by the Roman troops ; but the country was in fact at the mercy of Bonaparte, who advanced as far as Tolentino, thirty miles south of Ancona. Here the Pope tendered his submission. If the Eoman Court had never appeared to be in a more desperate condition, it had never found a more moderate or a more politic conqueror. Bona- parte was as free from any sentiment of Christian piety as Nero or Diocletian ; but he respected the power of the Papacy over men's minds, and he understood the immense advantage which any Government of France supported by the priesthood would possess over those who had to struggle with its hostility. In his negotia- tions with the Papal envoys he deplored the violence of the French Executive, and consoled the Church with the promise of his own protection and sympathy. The terms of peace which he granted, although they greatly diminished the ecclesiastical territory, were in fact more favourable than the Pope had any right to expect. Bologna, Ferrara, and the Eomagna, which had been occupied in virtue of the armistice, were now ceded by the Papacy. But conditions affecting the exercise of the spiritual power which had been proposed by the Directory were withdrawn ; and, beyond a provision for certain payments in money, nothing of importance was added to the stipulations of the armistice. The last days of the Venetian Republic were now at hand. It was in vain that Venice had maintained its neutrality when all the rest of Italy joined the enemies 1797. BONAFABTE AND VENICE. 137 of France ; its refusal of a French alliance was made an unpardonable crime. So long as the war with Austria lasted, Bonaparte exhausted the Venetian territory with requisitions : when peace came within view, it was necessary that he should have some pretext for seizing it or handing it over to the enemy. In fulfilment of his own design of keeping a quarrel open, he had sub- jected the Government to every insult and wrong likely to goad it into an act of war. When at length Venice armed for the purpose of protecting its neutralit}'-, the organs of the invader called upon the inhabitants of the Venetian mainland to rise against the oligarchy, and to throw in their lot with the liberated province of Milan. A French alliance was once more urged upon Venice by Bonaparte : it was refused, and the outbreak which the French had prepared instantly followed. Bergamo and Brescia, where French garrisons deprived the Venetian Government of all power of defence, rose in revolt, and renounced all connection with Venice. The Senate begged Bonaparte to withdraw the French garrisons ; its entreaties drew nothing from him but repeated demands for the acceptance of the French alliance, which was only another name for subjection. Little as the Venetians suspected it, the only doubt now present to Bonaparte was whether he should add the provinces of Venetia to his own Cispadane Eepublic or hand them over to Austria in exchange for other cessions which France required. Austria could defend itself iij Italy no longer. Before the end of March the mountain-passes into 138 MODERN EUROPE. 1797. Carintliia were carried by Bonaparte. His army drove tlie enemy before it along the road to Vienna, until both pursuers and pursued were within of Leoben, eighty miles of the capital. At Leoben, on the 7th of April, the Austrian commander asked for a suspension of arms. It was granted, and negotiations for peace commenced.* Bonaparte offered the Venetian provinces, but not the city of Venice, to the Emperor. On the 18th of April preliminaries of peace were signed at Leoben, by which, in return for the Netherlands and for Lombardy west of the river Oglio, Bonaparte secretly agreed to hand over to Austria the whole of the territory of Venice upon the mainland east of the Oglio, in addition to its Adriatic provinces of Istria and Dalmatia. To disguise the act • " The clamours for peace have become loud and importunate. His Imperial Majesty is constantly assailed by all his Ministers, M. de Thugut alone excepted, and by all who approach his person. Attempts are even made ^to alarm him with a dread of insurrection. In the midst of these calamities M. de Thugut retains his firmness of mind, and continues to struggle against the united voice of the nobility and the numerous and trying adversities that press upon him." Eden, April 1. " The confusion at the army exceeds the bounds of belief. Had Bonaparte continued his pro- gress hither (Yienua), no doubt is entertained that he might have entered the place without opposition. That, instead of risking this enterprise, he should have stopped and given the Austrians six days to recover from their alarm and to prepare for defence, is a circumstance which it is impossible to account for." April 12. "He "(Mack) "said that when this place was threatened by the enemy, Her Imperial Majesty broke in upon the Emperor while in conference with his Minister, and, throwing herself and her children at his feet, determined His Majesty to open the negotiation which terminated in the shameful desertion of his ally.'* Aug. 16 ; Records : Austria, vols. 49, 50. Thugut subsequently told Lord Minto that if he could have laid his hand upon £500,000 in cash to stop the run on the Bank of Vienna, the war would have been continued, in which case he believed he would have surrounded Bonapai-te's army. 1797. THE FRENCH IN VENICE. 139 of spoliation, it was pretended that Bologna and Ferrara should be offered to Venice in return.* But worse was yet to come. While Bonaparte was in conference at Leoben, an outbreak took place at Verona, and three hundred French soldiers, including the sick in the hospital, perished by popular ^^^ ^^^^ violence. The Venetian Senate despatched ^**' envoys to Bonaparte to express their grief and to offer satisfaction ; in the midst of the negotiations intelligence arrived that the commander of a Venetian fort had fired upon a French vessel and killed some of the crew. Bona- parte drove the envoys from his presence, declaring that he could not treat with men whose hands were dripping with French blood. A declaration of war was published, charging the Senate with the design of repeating the Sicilian Vespers, and the panic which it was Bonaparte's object to inspire instantly followed. The Government threw themselves upon his mercy. Bonaparte pre- tended that he desired no more than to establish a popular government in Venice in the place of the oligarchy. His terms were accepted. The Senate consented to abrogate the ancient Constitution of the Eepublic, and to introduce a French garrison into Venice. On the 12th of May the Grand Council voted its own dissolution. Peace was concluded. • The public articles of the treaty declared that there should be friendship between the French and the Venetian Republics ; that the sovereignty * The cession of the Rhenish Provinces was not, as nsnally stated, contained in the Preliminaries. Corr. de Napoleon, 2, 497; Hiiffer, p. 259, where the details of the snbsequent negotiations will bo found. 140 MOBEBN EUBOPK 1797. of Yenlce slioiild reside in the body of tlie citizens ; and that the French garrison should retire so soon as the new Government announced that it had no further need of its support. Secret articles stipulated for a money- payment, and for the usual surrender of works of art ; an indefinite expression relating to an exchange of territory was intended to cover the surrender of the Venetian mainland, and the union of Bologna and Ferrara with what remained of Venice. The friendship and alliance of France, which Bonaparte had been so anxious to bestow on Venice, were now to bear their fruit. " I shall do everything in my power," he wrote to the new Grovernment of Venice, '* to give you proof of the great desire I have to see your liberty take root, and to see this unhappy Italy, freed from the rule of the stranger, at length take its place with glory on the scene of the world, and resume, among the great nations, the rank to which nature, destiny, and its own position call it." This was for Venice ; for the French Directory Bonaparte had a very different tale. " I had several motives," he wrote (May 19), "in concluding the treaty : — ^to enter the city without difficulty ; to have the arsenal and all else in our possession, in order to take from it whatever we needed, under pretext of the secret articles ; ... to evade the odium attaching to the Preliminaries of Leoben ; to furnish pretexts for them, and to facilitate their execution." ,3^ , . As the firstfruits of the Venetian alii- French seize Ionian Islands. ^^^^^ Bouapartc seizcd upon Corfu and the other Ionian Islands. " You will start," he wrote to im. VENIOE. 141 General Qentili, " as quickly and as secretly as possible, and take possession of all the Venetian establishments in the Levant. . . If the inhabitants should be inclined for independence, you should flatter their tastes, and in all your proclamations you should not fail to allude to Greece, Athens, and Sparta." This was to be the French share in the spoil. Yet even now, though stripped of its islands, its coasts, and its ancient Italian territory, Venice might still have remained a prominent city in Italy. It was sacrificed in order to gain the Rhenish Provinces for France. Bonaparte had returned to the neighbourhood of Milan, and received the Austrian envoy, De GaUo, at the villa of Montebello. Wresting a forced meaning from the Pre- ^^^ ^ ^ liminaries of Leoben, Bonaparte claimed ^''^^^'°'^^- the frontier of the Rhine, ofiering to Austria not only the territory of Venice upon the mainland, but the city of Venice itself. De Gallo yielded. Whatever causes subsequently prolonged the negotiation, no trace of honour or pity in Bonaparte led him even to feign a reluctance to betray Venice. " We have to-day had our first conference on thie definitive treaty,*' he wrote to the Directory, on the night of the 26th of May, " and have agreed to present the following propositions : the line of the Rhine for France ; Salzburg, Passau for the Emperor ; . . . the maintenance of the Germanic Body; . . . Venice for the Emperor. Venice," he continued, " which has been in decadence since the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope and the rise of Trieste and Ancona, can scarcely survive the blows we 14-2 MODERN EUBOPK 1797. have just struck. With a cowardly and helpless popula- tion in no way fit for liberty, without territory and without rivers, it is but natural that she should go to those to whom we give the mainland." Thus was Italy to be freed from foreign intervention ; and thus was Venice to be regenerated by the friendship of France ! In comparison with the fate preparing for Venice, the sister-republic of Genoa met with generous treatment. A revolutionary movement, long prepared by the French envoy, over- threw the ancient oligarchical Grovernment ; but demo- cratic opinion and French sympathies did not extend below the middle classes of the population ; and, after the Government had abandoned its own cause, the charcoal-burners and dock-labourers rose in its defence, and attacked the French party with the cry of " Viva Maria," and with figures of the Virgin fastened to their hats, in the place where their opponents wore the French tricolour. Eeligious fanaticism won the day ; the old Government was restored, and a number of Frenchmen who had taken part in the conflict were thrown into prison. The imprisonment of the Frenchmen gave Bonaparte a pretext for intervention. He disclaimed all desire to alter the Government, and demanded only the liberation of his countrymen and the arrest of the enemies of France. But the overthrow of the oligarchy had been long arranged with Faypoult, the French envoy ; and Genoa received a democratic constitution which placed the friends of France in power (June 5). 1797. FBANOE IN 1797. 143 While Bonaparte, holding Court in the Villa of Montebello, continued to negotiate with . , Fhmoe in 1797. Austria upon the basis of the Preliminaries of Leoben, events took place in France which offered him an opportunity of interfering directly in the government of the Republic. The elections which were to replace one-third of the members of the Legislature took place in the spring of 1797. The feeling of the country was now much the same as it had been in 1795, when a large Eoyalist element was returned for those seats in the Councils which the Convention had not reserved for its own members . France desired a more equitable and a more tolerant rule. The Directory had indeed allowed the sanguinary laws against non-juring priests and re- turning emigrants to remain unenforced ; but the spirit and traditions of official Jacobinism were still active in the Q-overnment. The Directors themselves were all regicides ; the execution of the King was still celebrated by a national /e^^ ; offices, great and small, were held by men who had risen in the Revolution ; the whole of the old gentry of France was excluded from participation in public life. It was against this revolutionary class- rule, against a system which placed the country as much at the mercy of a few directors and generals as it had been at the mercy of the Conventional Com- mittee, that the elections of 1797 were a protest. Along with certain Bourbonist conspirators, a large majority of men were returned who, though described as Royalists, were in fact moderate Constitutionalists, and desired only to undo that part of the Revolution 144 MODERN EUROPE. 1797. wliich excluded whole classes of the nation from public life.* Such a party in the legislative body naturally took ... . the character of an Opposition to the more Opposition to -L r the Directory. ^{q[q^^ scctiou of the Dircctory. The Director retiring in 1797 was replaced by the Consti- tutionalist Barthelemy, negotiator of the treaty of Basle ; Carnot, who continued in office, took part with the Opposi- tion, justly fearing that the rule of the Directory would soon amount to nothing more than the rule of Bona- parte himself. The first debates in the new Chamber arose upon the laws relating to emigrants ; the next, upon Bonaparte's usurpation of sovereign power in Italy. On the 23rd of June a motion for information on the affairs of Venice and Genoa was brought forward in the Council of Five Hundred. Dumolard, the mover, com- plained of the secrecy of Bonaparte's action, of the con- tempt shown by him to the Assembly, of his tyrannical and un-republican interference with the institutions of friendly States. No resolution was adopted by the Assembly ; but the mere fact that the Assembly had listened to a hostile criticism of his own actions was sufficient ground in Bonaparte's eyes to charge it with Eoyalism and with treason. Three of the Directors, Barras, Eewbell, and Lareveill^re, had already formed the project of overpowering the Assembly by force. Bonaparte's own interests led him to offer them his sup- port. If the Constitutional party gained power, there • Gohier, M^moires i. Carnot, Reponse a BaUlenl. Oorrespondanoe de Napoleon, ii. 188. Miot de Melito, ch. yL 1797. 17 FBUOTIDOR 145 was an end to his own unshackled rule in Italy ; if the Bourbonists succeeded, a different class of men would hold all the honours of the State. However feeble the G-ovemment of the Directory, its continuance secured his own present ascendancy, and left him the hope of gaining supreme power when the public could tolerate the Directory no longer. The fate of the Assembly was sealed. On the anni- versary of the capture of the Bastille, Bonaparte issued a proclamation to his army declaring the Republic to be threatened by Royalist intrigues. A banquet was held, and the officers and soldiers of every FrSctidor (Sept. 3). division signed addresses to the Directory full of threats and fury against conspiring aristocrats. "Indignation is at its height in the army," wrote Bonaparte to the Grovernment ; " the soldiers are asking with loud cries whether they are to be rewarded by assas- sination on their return home, as it appears all patriots are to be so dealt with. The peril is increasing every day, and I think, citizen Directors, you must decide to act one way or other." The Directors had no difficulty in deciding after such an exhortation as this ; but, as soon as Bonaparte had worked up their courage, he with- drew into the background, and sent General Augereau, a blustering Jacobin, to Paris, to risk the failure or bear the odium of the crime. Augereau received the military command of the capital ; the air was filled with rumours of an impending blow ; but neither the majority in the Councils nor the two threatened Directors, Carnot and Barth^lemy, knew how to take measures of K 146 MODERN EUBOFE. 1797. defence. On tlie night of the 3rd September (17 Fructi- dor) the troops of Augereau surrounded the Tuileries. Barthelemy was seized at the Luxembourg ; Car'not fled for his life ; the members of the Councils, marching in procession to the Tuileries early the next morning, were arrested or dispersed by the soldiers. Later in the day a minority of the Councils was assembled to ratify the measures determined upon by Augereau and the three Directors. Fifty members of the Legislature, and the writers, proprietors, and editors of forty- two journals, were sentenced to exile ; the elections of forty-eight de- partments were annulled ; the laws against priests and emigrants were renewed; and the Directory was em- powered to suppress all journals at its pleasure. This coup d'etat was described as the suppression of a Eoyalist conspiracy. It was this, but it was something more. It was the suppression of all Constitutional government, and all but the last step to the despotism of the chief of the army. The effect of the movement was instantly felt in the negotiations with Austria and with Eng- with Austria, land. Lord Malmesbury was now again in France, treating for peace with fair hopes of success, since the Preliminaries of Leoben had removed England's opposition to the cession of the Netherlands. The discomfiture of the moderate party in the Councils brought his mission to an abrupt end. Austria, on the other hand, had prolonged its negotiations because Bona- parte claimed Mantua and the Ehenish Provinces in addition to the cessions agreed upon at Leoben. Count 1797. PEAOE OF OAMPO FOBMIO. 147 Ludwig Cobenzl, Austrian ambassador at Sfc. Peters- burg, wbo had protected his master's interests only too well in the last partition of Poland, was now at the head of the plenipotentiaries in Italy, endeavouring to bring Bonaparte back to the terms fixed in the Prelimi- naries, or to gain additional territory for Austria in Italy. The Jacobin victory at Paris depressed the Austrians as much as it elated the French leader. Bonaparte was resolved on concluding a peace that should be all his own, and this was only possible by anticipating an invasion of Germany, about to be undertaken by Auge- reau at the head of the Army of the Ehine. It was to this personal ambition of Bonaparte that Venice was sacrificed. The Directors were willing that Austria should receive part of the Venetian territory : they for- bade the proposed cession of Venice itself. Within a few weeks more, the advance of the Army of the Ehine would have enabled France to dictate its own terms ; but no consideration either for France or for Italy could induce Bonaparte to share the glory of the Peace with another. On the 17th of October he signed the final treaty of Campo Formio, which gave France the frontier of the Ehine, and made both the Venetian territory beyond the Adige and Venice itself the property of the Emperor. For a moment it seemed that the Treaty might be repudiated at Vienna as well as at Paris. Thugut pro- tested against it, because it surrendered Mantua and the Ehenish Provinces without gaining for Austria the Papal Legations ; and he drew up the ratification only at the absolute command of the Emperor. The Direc- K 2 148 MOBBUN EUBOPK 1797. tory, on tlie other hand, condemned the cession of Venice. But their fear of Bonaparte and their own had conscience left them impotent accessories of his treachery; and the French nation at large was too delighted with the peace to resent its haser con- ditions.* By the puhlic articles of the Treaty of Campo Treaty of campo ^^rmio, thc Empcror ceded to France the Forinio, Oct. 17. ^iig^nai^ possessions in Lomhardy and in the Netherlands, and agreed to the estahlishment of a Cis- alpine Eepuhlic, formed out of Austrian Lomhardy, the Venetian territory west of the Adige, and the districts hitherto composing the new Cispadane State. France took the Ionian Islands, Austria the City of Venice, with Istria and Dalmatia, and the Venetian mainland east of the Adige. For the conclusion of peace hetween France and the Holy Roman Empire, it was agreed that a Congress should meet at Eastadt ; but a secret article * Martens, Traites, vi., 420; Tliugul;, Brief e ii., 64. These letters breathe a fire and passion rare among German statesmen of that day, and show the fine side of Thugut's character. The well-known story of the destmction of Cobenzl's vase by Bonaparte at the last sitting, with the words, " Thus will I dash the Austrian Monarchy to pieces," is mythical. Cobenzl's own account of the scene is as follows : — " Bonaparte, excited by not haying slept for two nights, emptied glass after glass of punch. When I explained with the greatest composure, Bonaparte started up in a violent rage, and poured out a flood of abuse, at the same time scratching his name illegibly at the foot of the statement which he had handed in as protocol. Then without waiting for our signa- tures, he put on his hat in the conference-room itself, and left us. Until he was in the street he continued to vociferate in a manner that could only be ascribed to intoxication, though Clarke and the rest of his smte, who were waiting in the hall, did their best to restrain him." " He behaved as if he had escaped from a lunatic asylum. His own people are all agreed about this.** Hiiffer, Oestreich und Preussen, p. 453. 1797. OAMPO FOBMIO, 149 provided that the Emperor should use his efforts to gain for France the whole left bank of the Rhine, except a tract including the Prussian Duchies of Cleve and Gruelders. With humorous duplicity the French Government, which had promised Prussia the Bishopric of Miinster in return for this very district, now pledged itself to Austria that Prussia should receive no extension whatever, and affected to exclude the Prussian Duchies from the Rhenish territory which was to be made over to France. Austria was promised the independent Bishopric of Salzburg, and that portion of Bavaria which lies between the Inn and the Salza. The secular . princes dispossessed in the Rhenish Provinces were to be compensated in the interior of the Empire by a scheme framed in concert with France. The immense advantages which the Treaty of Campo Formio gave to France — its extension over A^,gtria gacriflce. •jthe Netherlands and the Rhenish Provinces,^ Germany. and the virtual annexation of Lombardy, Modena, and the Papal Legations under the form of a client-republic — were not out of proportion to its splendid military successes. Far otherwise was it with Austria. With the exception of the Archduke's campaign of 1796, the warfare of the last three years had brought Austria nothing but a series of disasters ; yet Austria gained by the Treaty of Campo Formio as much as it lost. In the place of the distant Netherlands and of Milan it gained, in Venice and Dalmatia, a territory touching its own, nearly equal to the Netherlands and Milan together in population, and so situated as to enable Austria to 160 MODERN EUROPE. 1797. become one of the naval Powers of the Mediterranean. The price which Austria paid was the abandonment of Germany, a matter which, in spite of Thugut's protests, ^ disturbed the Court of Vienna as little as the betrayal of Venice disturbed Bonaparte. The Ehenish Provinces were surrendered to the stranger ; German districts were to be handed over to compensate the ejected Sovereigns ^ of Holland and of Modena ; the internal condition and order of the Empire were to be superseded by one framed not for the purpose of benefiting Germany, but for the purpose of extending the influence of France. As defenders of Germany, both Prussia and Austria pouc of Bona- ^^^ bccu fouud Wanting. The latter Power ^^^' seemed to have reaped in Italy the reward of its firmness in prolonging the war. Bonaparte ridi- culed the men who, in the earlier spirit of the Revolu- tion, desired to found a freer political system in Europe upon the ruins of Austria's power. " I have not drawn my support in Italy," he wrote to Talleyrand (Oct. 7), " from the love of the peoples for liberty and equahty, or at least but a very feeble support. The real support of the army of Italy has been its own discipline, . . . above all, our promptitude in repressing malcontents and punishing those who declared against us. This is history ; what I say in my proclamations and speeches is a romance. ... If we return to the foreign policy of 1793, we shall do so knowing that a different policy has brought its success, and that we have no longer the great masses of 1793 to enrol in our armies, nor the support of an entl^jiasm which has its day and does 17W. ENGLISH NAVAL VICTORIES, 151 not return." Austria might well, for the present, be left in some strength, and France was fortunate to have so dangerous an enemy off her hands. England re- quired the whole forces of the Eepublic. " The present situation," wrote Bonaparte, after the Peace of Campo Formio, " offers us a good chance. We must set all our strength upon the sea ; we must destroy England ; and the Continent is at our feet." It had been the natural hope of the earlier Eepub- licans that the Spanish and the Dutch navies, ^^^ ^^ ^ if they could be brought to the side of SsT^fckm: France, would make France superior to Grreat Britain as a maritime Power. The conquest of Holland had been planned by Carnot as the first step towards an invasion of England. For a while these plans seemed to be approaching their fulfilment. Holland was won; Spain first made peace, and then entered into alliance with the Directory (Aug. 1796). But each increase in the naval forces of the Eepublic only gave the admirals of Great Britain new material to destroy. The Spanish fleet was beaten by Jarvis off St. Vincent; even the mutiny of the British squadrons at Spithead and the Nore, in the spring and summer of 1797, caused no change in the naval situation in the North Sea. Dun- can, who was blockading the Dutch fleet in the Texel when his own squadron joined the mutineers, continued the blockade with one ship beside his own, signalling all the while as if the whole fleet were at his back ; until the misused seamen, who had lately turned their guns upon the Thames, returned to the admiral, and earned 152 MODERN EUBOFK 1797. his forgiveness by destroying the Dutch at Camperdown as soon as they ventured out of shelter. It is doubtful whether at any time after his return from Italy Bonaparte seriously entertained the project Bonapaxi^about ^^ invadiug Engkud. The plan was at any to invade Egypt. ^^^^ ^^^^ abandoned, and the preparations, which caused great alarm in the English coast-towns, were continued only for the purpose of disguising Bonaparte's real design of an attack upon Egypt. Erom the beginning of his career Bonaparte's thoughts had turned towards the vast and undefended East. While still little known, he had asked the French Grovernment to send him to Constantinople to organise the Turkish army; as soon as Yenice fell into his hands, he had seized the Ionian Islands as the base for a future conquest of the Levant. Every engagement that confirmed the superiority of England upon the western seas gave ad- ditional reason for attacking her where her power was most 'precarious, in the East. Bonaparte knew that Alexander had conquered the country of the Indus by a land-march from the Mediterranean, and this was per- haps all the information which he possessed regarding the approaches to India ; but it was enough to fix his mind upon the conquest of Egypt and Syria, as the first step towards the destruction of the Asiatic Empire of England. Mingled with the design upon India was a dream of overthrowing the Mohammedan Grovernment of Turkey, and attacking Austria from the East with an armv drawn from the liberated Christian races of the Ottoman Empire. The very vagueness of a scheme of 17W. BONAFAETE\S EASTERN PLANS. 153 Eastern conquest made it the more attractive to Bona- parte's genius and ambition. Nor was there any incli- nation on the part of the Government to detain the general at home. The Directory, little concerned with the real merits or dangers of the enterprise, consented to Bonaparte's project of an attack upon Egypt, thank- ful for any opportunity of loosening the grasp which was now closing so firmly upon themselves. CHAPTEE lY. Congress of Rastadt — The Rhenish Provinces ceded — Ecclesiastical States of Germany suppressed — French intervention in Switzerland — Helvetic Re- public — The French invade the Papal States — Roman Republic — Expe- dition to Egypt— Battle of the Nile— Coalition of 1798— Ferdinand of Naples enters Rome — Mack's defeats — French enter Naples — Parthenopean Republic — ^War with Austria and Russia — Battle of Stockach — Murder of the French Envoys at Rastadt — Campaign in Lombardy — Reign of Terror at Naples — Austrian designs upon Italy — Suvaroff and the Austrians — Campaign in Switzerland — Campaign in Holland — Bonaparte returns from Egypt — Coup-d'etat of 18 Brumaire — Constitution of 1799 — System of Bonaparte in France— Its effect on the influence of France abroad. The public articles of the Treaty of Campo Formio Con essofEas- coiitained only the terms which had been tadt. Nov. 1797. ^gj-gg^j upon by France and Austria in rela- tion to Italy and the Netherlands : the conditions of peace between France and the Grermanic Body, which had been secretly arranged between France and the two leading Powers, were referred by a diplomatic fiction to a Congress that was to assemble at Eastadt. Accord- ingly, after Prussia and Austria had each signed an agree- - ment abandoning the Ehenish Provinces, the Congress was duly summoned. As if in mockery of his helpless countrymen, the Emperor informed the members of the Diet that " in unshaken fidelity to the great principle of the unity and indivisibility of the German Empire, they were to maintain the common interests of the Fatherland with noble conscientiousness and Grerman steadfastness ; and so, united with their imperial head, to promote a just and lasting peace, founded upon the basis of the 1797. OONOEESS AT BA8TADT. 166 integrity of tlie Empire and of its Constitution."* Thus the Congress was convoked upon the pretence of pre- serving what the two greater States had determined to sacrifice ; while its real object, the suppression of the ecclesiastical principalities and the curtailment of Bavaria, was studiously put out of sight. The Congress was composed of two French envoys, of the representatives of Prussia and j^^^j^ ^, ^^ Austria, and of a committee, numbering with their secretaries seventy-four persons, appointed by the Diet of Eatisbon. But the recognised negotiators formed only a small part of the diplomatists who flocked to Eastadt in thc^hope of picking up something from the wreck of the Hlmpire. Every petty German sovereign, even communities which possessed no political rights at all, thought it necessary to have an agent on the spot, in order to filch, if possible, some trifling advantage from a neighbour, or to catch the first riimour of a pro- posed annexation. It was the saturnalia of the whole tribe of busybodies and intriguers who passed in Grer- many for men of state. They spied upon one another ; they bribed the secretaries and doorkeepers, they bribed the very cooks and coachmen, of the two omnipotent French envoys. Of the national humiliation of Ger- many, of the dishonour attaching to the loss of entire provinces and the reorganisation of what remained at the I idding of the stranger, there seems to have been • Hausser, Deutsche (Jeschichte, 2, 147. Vivenot, Rastadter Congress, p. 17. Yon Lang, Memoiren, i. 33. It is alleged that the official who drew up this docnineut had not been made acquainted with the secret cIausos. 156 MODERN EUBOPB. 1798. no sense in the political circles of tlie day. The collapse of the Empire was viewed rather as a subject of merri- ment. A gaiety of life and language prevailed, impos- sible among men who did not consider themselves as the spectators of a comedy. Cobenzl, the chief Austrian plenipotentiary, took his travels in a fly, because his mistress, the citoyenne Hyacinthe, had decamped with all his carriages and horses. A witty but profane pamphlet was circulated, in which the impending sacri- fice of the Empire was described in language borrowed from the Grospel narrative, Prussia taking the part of Judas Iscariot, Austria that of Pontius Pilate, the Congress itself being the chief priests and Pharisees as- sembling that they may take the Holy Poman Empire by craft, while the army of the Empire figures as the " multitude who smote upon their breasts and departed." In the utter absence of any Grerman pride or patriotism the French envoys not only obtained the territory that they required, but successfully embroiled the two leading Powers with one another, and accustomed the minor States to look to France for their own promotion at the cost of their neighbours. The contradictory pledges which the French Grovernment had given to Austria and to Prussia caused it no embarrassment. To deceive one of 'the two powers was to win the gratitude of the other ; and the Directory determined to fulfil its engagement to Prussia at the expense of the bishoprics, and to ignore what it had promised to Austria at the expense of Bavaria. A momentary difl&culty arose upon the opening of the Congress, when it appeared that, misled by the 1798. GERMAN EOOLESIASTIOAL STATES. 157 Emperor's protestations, the Diet had only empowered its Committee to treat upon the basis of the integrity of the Empire (Dec. 9). The French declined to nego- tiate until the Committee had procured full powers: and the prospects of the integrity of the Rhenish pto- Empire were made clear enough a few days ^*^ later by the entry of the French into Mainz, and the formal organisation of the Ehenish Provinces as four French Departments. In due course a decree of the Diet arrived, empowering the Committee to negotiate at their discretion : and for some weeks after the inhabitants of the Rhenish Provinces had been subjected to the laws, the magistracy, and the taxation of France, the Committee deliberated upon the proposal for their cession with as much minuteness and as much im- partiality as if it had been a point of speculative philosophy. At length the French put an end to the tedious trifling, and proceeded to the question of com- pensation for the dispossessed lay Princes. This they proposed to effect by means of the disestablishment, or secularisation, of ecclesiastical States in the interior of Germany. Prussia eagerly supported the French proposal, both with a view to the states J^ A roppr o M o d. annexation of the great Bishopric of Miin- ster, and from ancient hostility to the ecclesiastical States as instruments and allies of Catholic Austria. The Emperor opposed the destruction of his faithful dependents ; the ecclesiastical princes themselves raised a bitter outcry, and demonstrated that the fall of their order would unloose the keystone of the political system 168 MODERN EUROPE. .1798. of Europe ; but they found few friends. If Prussia coveted the great spoils of Miinster, the minor sovereigns, as a rule, were just as eager for the convents and abbeys that broke the continuity of their own territories : only the feeblest of all the members of the Empire, the counts, the knights, and the cities, felt a respcctf.il sympathy for their ecclesiastical neighbours, and foresa*v that in a system of annexation their own turn would come next. The principle of secularisation was accepted by the Congress without much difficulty, all the energy of debate being reserved for the discussion of details : arrangements which were to transfer a few miles of ground and half a dozen custom-houses from some bankrupt ecclesiastic to some French-bought duke excited more interest in Grermany than the loss of the Rhenish provinces, and the subjection of a tenth part of the German nation to a foreign rule. One more question was unexpectedly presented to the Congress. After proclaiming for six years that the Ehine was the natural boundary of France, the French Grovernment discovered that a river cannot be a military frontier at all. Of what service, urged the French plenipotentiaries, were Strasburg and Mainz, so long aS they were commanded by the guns on the opposite bank ? If the Rhine was to be of any use to France, France must be put in possession of the fortresses of Kehl and Castel upon the German side. Outrageous as such a demand appears, it found sup- porters among the venal politicians of the smaller Courts, and furnished the Committee with material for 179a SWITZERLAND. 151) arguments that extended over four months. But the policy of Austria was now taking a direction that rendered the resolutions of the Congress of very little importance. It had hecome clear that France was inclining to an alliance with Prussia, and that the Bavarian annexations promised to Austria by the secret articles of Campo Formio were to be withheld. Once convinced, by the failure of a private negotiation in Alsace, that the French would neither be content with their gains of 179'7, nor permit Austria to extend its territory in Italy, Thugut determined upon a renewal of the war.* In spite of a power- minea on war, f ul opposition at Court, Thugut's stubborn will still controlled the fortune of Austria : and the aggressions of the French Eepublic in Switzerland and the Papal States, at the moment when it was dictating terms of peace to the Empire, gave only too much cause for the formation of a new European league. At the close of the last century there was no country where the spirit of Eepublican freedom was so strong, or where the conditions of life were so level, as in Switzerland ; its inhabitants, however, tion in Switzer- land. were far from enjoying complete political equality. There were districts which stood in the relation of subject dependencies to one or other of the ruling cantons : the Pays de Vaud was governed by an officer from Berne ; the valley of the Ticino belonged * " Tout annonce qnll sera de tonte impossibilite de finir sveo ces gaenx de Fran9ai8 autremeut que par moyens do fermet^." Thugut, ii, 105. For the negotiation at Seltz, see Historische Zeitschrift, dii., 27. 160 MODERN EUBOPK 1797-8. to TJri; and in most of the sovereign cantons themselves authority was vested in a close circle of patrician families. Thus, although Switzerland was free from the more oppressive distinctions of caste, and the Govern- ments, even where not democratic, were usually just and temperate, a sufficiently large class was excluded from political rights to give scope to an agitation which received its impulse from Paris. It was indeed among communities advanced in comfort and intelligence, and divided from those who governed them by no great barrier of wealth and prestige, that "the doctrines of the Eevolution found a circulation which they could never gain among the hereditary serfs of Prussia or the priest- ridden peasantrj^ of the Roman States. As early as the year 1792 a French army had entered the territory of Greneva, in order to co-operate with the democratic party in the city. The movement was, however, checked by the resolute action of the Bernese Senate ; and the relations of France to the Federal Grovernment had subsequently been kept upon a friendly footing by the good sense of Barthelemy, the French ambassador at Berne, and the discretion with which the Swiss Grovern- ment avoided every occasion of offence. On the conquest of Northern Italy, Bonaparte was brought into direct connection with Swiss affairs by a reference of certain points in dispute to his authority as arbitrator. Bonaparte solved the difficulty by annexing the district of the Yalteline to the Cisalpine Republic and from that time he continued in communication with the Swiss democratic leaders on the subject of a French inter- 1798. THE FBENOH IN SWITZEBLAND. 161 vention in Switzerland, the real purpose of which was to secure the treasure of Berne, and to organise a government, like that of Holland and the Cisalpine Eepublic, in immediate dependence upon France. At length the moment for armed interference ar- rived. On the 15th December, 1797, a _ War between French force entered the Bishopric of Basle, l^S^r^'Jfra'! and gave the signal for insurrection in the Pays de Yaud. The Senate of Berne summoned the Diet of the Confederacy to provide for the common defence : the oath of federation was renewed, and a decree was passed calling out the Federal army. It was now announced by the French that they would support the Yaudois revolutionary party, if attacked. The Bernese troops, however, advanced ; and the bearer of a flag of truce having been accidentally killed, war was declared between the French Eepublic and the Govern- ment of Berne. Democratic movements immediately followed in the northern and western cantons ; the Bernese Government attempted to negotiate with the French invaders, but discovered that no terms would be accepted short of the entire destruction of the existing Federal Constitution. Hostilities commenced ; and the Bernese troops, supported by contingents from most of the other cantons, offered a brave but inefiectual resist- ance to the advance of the French, who entered the Federal capital on the 6th of March, 1798. Tlie treasure of Berne, amounting to about £800,000, accu- mulated by ages of thrift and good management, was seized in order to provide for Bonaparte's next cam- L 162 MODERN EUROPE. 1798. paign, and for a host of voracious soldiers and contractors. A system of robbery and extortion, more shameless even than that practised in Italy, was put in force against the cantonal governments, against the monasteries, and against private individuals. In compensation for the Helvetic Bepub- Hiatcrial losses inflicted upon the country, the uc, April 12. ^^^ Helvetic Kepublic, one and indivisible, was proclaimed at Aarau. It conferred an equality of political rights upon all natives of Switzerland, and sub- stituted f or th e ^ancie nt varieties of cantonal sovereignty a singie_national government, composed, like that of France, of a Directory'andjjwo Councils of Legislature. The towns and districts which had been hitherto excluded from a share in government welcomed a change which seemed to place them on a level with their former superiors : the mountain-cantons fought with traditional heroism in defence of the liberties which they had in- herited from their fathers; but they were compelled, one after another, to submit to the overwhelming force of France, and to accept the new constitution. Tet, even now, when peace seemed to have been restored, and the whole purpose of France attained, the tyranny and violence of the invaders exhausted the endurance of a spirited people. The magistrates of the Eepublic were expelled from office at the word of a French Com- mission; hostages were seized; at length an oath of allegiance to the new order was required as a condition for the evacuation of Switzerland by the French army. Eevolt broke out in Unterwalden, and a handful of peasants met the French army at the village of Stanz, 1798. THE FRENCH ENTER ROME. 163 near the eastern shore of the Lake of Lucerne (Sept. 8). There for three days they fought with unyielding courage. Their resistance inflamed the French to a cruel vengeance : slaughtered families and burning villages renewed, in this so-called crusade of liberty, the savagery of ancient war. Intrigues at Eome paved the way for a French intervention in the affairs of the Papal French intrigue. States, coincident in time with the invasion ^ of Switzerland. The residence of the French ambas- sador at Eome, Joseph Bonaparte, was the centre of a democratic agitation. The men who moved about him were in great part strangers from the north of Italy, but they found adherents in the middle and professional classes in Eome itself, although the mass of the poor people, as well as the numerous body whose salaries or profits depended upon ecclesiastical expenditure, were devoted to the priests and the Papacy. In anticipation of disturbances, the Government ordered companies of soldiers to patrol the city. A collision occurred on the 28th December, 1797, between the patrols and a band of revolutionists, who, being roughly handled by the populace as well as by the soldiers, made their way for protection to the courtyard of the Palazzo Corsini, where Joseph Bonaparte resided. Here, in the midst of a confused struggle. General Duphot, a member of the Embassy, was shot by a Papal soldier.* The French had now the pretext against the Papal ^ Botta, lib. xiU. Letters of Mr. J. Denham and others in Beoords } Sicily, vol. 44i. T OP TKK TJKIVERSITY 164 MODERN EUBOFE. 179& Government whicli they desired. Joseph Bonaparte instantly left tlie city, and orders were sent to Berthier, chief of the staff in northern Italy, to march upon Eome. Berthier advanced amid the accla- Berthier enters ,. pjij tji p ^^ Rome, Feb. 10, mations 01 the towns and the curses oi tne 1798. peasantry, and entered Eome on the 10th of Fehruary, 1798. Events had produced in the capital a much stronger inclination towards change than existed on the approach of Bonaparte a year before. The treaty of Tolentino had shaken the prestige of Papal authority; the loss of so many well-known works of art, the imposition of new and unpopular taxes, had excited as much hatred against the defeated government as against the extortionate conquerors ; even among the clergy and their retainers the sale of a portion of the Church-lands and the curtailment of the old Papal splendours had produced alienation and discontent. There existed too within the Italian Church itself a reforming party, lately headed by Eicci, bishop of Pistoia, which claimed a higher degree of independence for the clergy, and condemned the assumption of uni- versal authority by the Eoman See. The ill-judged exercise of the Pope's temporal power during the last six years had gained many converts to the opinion that the head of the Church would best perform his office if emancipated from a worldly sovereignty, and restored to his original position of the first among the bishops. Thiis, on its approach to Eome, the Eepublican army found the city ripe for revolution. On the 15th of February an excited multitude assembled in the Forum, and, after 1798. BOMAN BEPVBLIO. 165 planting the tree of liberty in front of the Capitol, renounced the authority of the Pope, and declared that the Eoman people constituted itself a free ^^^^ ^^^^^ Eepublic. The resolution was conveyed to ^°' ^®^- ^'^' *^*- Berthier, who recognised the Eoman Commonwealth, and made a procession through the city with the solemnity of an ancient triumph. The Pope shut himself up in the Vatican. His Swiss guard was removed, and replaced by one composed of French soldiers, at whose hands the Pontiff, now in his eighty-first year, suffered unworthy insults. He was then required to renounce his temporal power, and, upon his refusal, was removed to Tuscany, and afterwards beyond the Alps to Valence, where in 1799 he died, attended by a solitary ecclesiastic. In the liberated capital a course of spoliation began, more thorough and systematic than any that the French had yet effected. The riches of Eome brought all the brokers and contractors of Paris to the spot. The museums, the Papal residence, and the palaces of many of the nobility were robbed of every article that could be moved ; the very fixtures were cut away, when worth the carriage. On the first meeting of the National Institute in the Vatican it was found that the doors had lost their locks ; and when, by order of the French, masses were celebrated in the churches in expiation of the death of Duphot, the patrols who were placed at the gates to preserve order rushed in and seized the sacred vessels. Yet the general robbery was far less the work of the army than of the agents and contractors sent by the Government. In the midst of endless peculation 166 MODERN JSUBOPK 1798 tlie soldiers were in want of their pay and their food. A sense of tlie dishonour done to France arose at length in the suhordinate ranks of the army ; and General Massena, who succeeded Berthier, was forced to quit his command in consequence of the protests of the soldiery against a system to which Massena had con- spicuously given his personal sanction. It remained to embody the recovered liberties of Eome in a Bepublican Constitution, which was, as a matter of course, a reproduction of the French Directory and Councils of Legislature, under the practical control of the French general in command. What Rome had given to the Revolution in the fashion of classical expressions was now more than repaid. The Directors were styled Consuls ; the divisions of the Legislature were known as the Senate and the Tribunate ; the Prgetorship and the Qusestorship were recalled to life in the Courts of Justice. That the new era might not want its classical memorial, a medal was struck, with the image and super- scription of Roman heroism, to " Berthier, the restorer of the city," and to " Graul, the salvation of the human race." It was in the midst of these enterprises in Switzer- land and Central Italy that the Directory E^t, May, assembled the forces which Bonaparte was to lead to the East. The port of embar- kation was Toulon; and there, on the 9th of May, 1798, Bonaparte took the command of the most for- midable armament that had ever left the French shores. G-reat Britain was still but feebly represented in the 1798. BATTLE OF THE NILE. 167 Mediterranean, a detachment from St. Vincent's fleet at Cadiz, placed under the command of Nelson, being the sole British force in these waters. Heavy reinforce- ments were at hand ; but in the meantime Nelson had been driven by stress of weather from his watch upon Toulon. On the 19th of May the French armament put out to sea, its destination being still kept secret from the soldiers themselves. It appeared before Malta on the 16th of June. By the treachery of the knights Bona- parte was put in possession of this stronghold, which he could not even have attempted to besiege. After a short delay the voyage was resumed, and the fleet reached Alexandria without having fallen in with the English, who had now received their reinforcements. The landing was safely effected, and Alexandria fell at the first assault. After five duys the army advanced upon Cairo. At the foot of the Pyramids the Mame- luke cavalry vainly threw themselves upon Bonaparte's soldiers. They were repulsed with enormous loss on their own side and scarcely any on that of the French. Their camp was stormed ; Cairo was occupied ; and there no longer existed a force in Egypt capable of offering any serious resistance to the invaders. But the fortune which had brought Bonaparte's army safe into tlie Egyptian capital was destined to be pur- chased by the utter destruction of his fleet. Nelson had passed the French in the night, when, after much per- plexity, he decided on sailing in the direction of Egypt. Arriving at Alexandria before his prey, he had hurried off in an imaginary pursuit to Khodes and Crete. At 168 MODERN EUROPE. 1798. length lie received information whicli led liim to visit Alexandria a second time. He found the Prench fleet, numbering thirteen ships of the line and four frigates, Battle of the ^^ auchor lu AbouMr Bay.* His own fleet Nile, Aug. 1. ^^g slightly inferior in men and guns, but he entered battle with a presentiment of the com- pleteness of his victory. Other naval battles have been fought with larger forces ; no destruction was ever so complete as that of the Battle of the Mle (August 1): Two ships of the line and two frigates, out of the seventeen ?ail that met IN'elson, alone escaped from his hands. Of eleven thousand officers and men, nine thou- sand were taken prisoners, or perished in the engage- ment. The army of Bonaparte was cut off" from all hope of support or return ; the Eepublic was deprived of communication with its best troops and its greatest general. A coalition was now gathering against France superior to that of 1793 in the support of Coalition of 1798. _, . -, -, r\ t^ • Vi Russia and the Ottoman Empire, although Spain was now on the side of the Republic, and Prussia, in spite of the warnings of the last two years, refused to stir from its neutrality. The death. of the Empress Catherine, and the accession of Paul, had caused a most serious change in the prospects of Europe. Hitherto the policy of the Russian Court had been to embroil the Western Powers with one another, and to confine its efforts against the French Republic to promises and as- surances ; with Paul, after an interval of total reaction, • Nelson Despatches, iii. 48. ma NELSON AT NAPLES, 109 the professions became realities.* No monarch entered so cordially into Pitt's schemes for a renewal of the European league; no ally had joined the English minister with a sincerity so like his own. On the part of the Ottoman Government, the pretences of friendship with which Bonaparte disguised the occupation of Egypt were taken at their real worth. War was de- clared by the Porte ; and a series of negotiations, carried on during the autumn of 1798, united Eussia, England, Turkey, and Naples in engagements of mutual support against the French Eepublic. A Eussian army set out on its long march towards the Adriatic : the levies of Austria prepared for a cam- paign in the spring of 1799 ; but to the English Grovern- ment every moment that elapsed before actual hostilities was so much time given to uncertainties ; and the man who had won the Battle of the Nile ridiculed the precaution which had hitherto suffered the French to spread their intrigues through Italy, and closed the ports of Sicily and Naples to his own most urgent needs. Towards the end of September, Nelson appeared in the Bay ^^^^^ ^ ^^ of Naples, and was received with a delirium ^^^ ^^*"' "** that recalled the most effusive scenes in the French Ee- volution.f In the city of Naples, as in the kingdom • Bernhardi, Geschichte Russlands, ii, 2, 382. t " Quel bonheur, quelle gloire, quelle consolation pour cette grande et illustre nation ! Que je voos sols obligee, reconnaissante ! tTai plenr^ ei embrasse mes enfaus, mon mari. Si jamais on fait un portrait da brave Nelson je le veux avoir dans ma chanibre. Hip, Hip, Hip, Ma cli^re Miladi je suis folle de joye." Queen of Naples to Lady Hamilton, Sept. 4, 1798 ; Records : Sicily, vol. 44. The news of the overwhelming victory of the Nile seems literally to have driven people out of their senses al 170 MODERN EUROPE. 1798. generally, the poorest classes were tlie fiercest enemies of reform, and the steady allies of the Queen and the priesthood against that section of the better-educated classes which had begun to hope for liberty. The system of espionage and persecution with which the sister of Marie Antoinette avenged upon her own subjects the sufferings of her kindred had grown more oppressive with every new victory of the Revolution. In the summer of 1798 there were men languishing for the fifth year in prison, whose offences had never been investigated, and whose relatives were not allowed to know whether they were dead or alive. A mode of expression, a fashion of dress, the word of an informer, consigned innocent persons to the dungeon, with the possibility of, torture. In the midst of this tyranny of suspicion, in the midst of a corruption which made the naval and military forces of the kingdom worse than useless. King Ferdinand and his satellites were unwearied in their theatrical invocations of the Virgin and St. Januarius against the assailants of divine right and the conquerors of Rome. A Court cowardly almost beyond the example of Courts, a police that had trained every Neapolitan to look upon his neighbour as a traitor, an Naples. " Lady Hamilton fell apparently dead, and is not yet (Sept. 25) perfectly recovered from her severe bruises." Nelson Despatches, 3, 130. On Nelson's arrival, " up flew her ladyship, and exclaiming, ' O God, is it possible ? ' she fell into my arms more dead than alive." It has been urged lA extenuation of Nelson's subsequent cruelties that the contagion of this frenzy, following the effects of a severe wound in the head, had deprived his mind of its balance. " My head is ready to split, and I am always so sick." Aug. 10. " It required aU the kindness of my friends to set me up." Sept. 25. 1798. MAOK IN ITALY. 171 administration that had turned one of the hardiest races in Europe into soldiers of notorious and disgrace- ful cowardice — such were the allies whom Nelson, ill- fitted for politics by his sailor-like inexperience and facile vanity, heroic in his tenderness and fidelity, in an evil hour encouraged to believe themselves invincible because they possessed his own support. On the 14th of November, 1798, King Ferdinand published a proclama- tion, which, without declaring war on the iVench, an- nounced that the King intended to occupy the Papal States and restore the Papal government. The manifesto disclaimed all intention of conquest, and offered a free pardon to all compromised persons. Ten days later the Neapolitan army crossed the frontier, led by the Austrian general, Mack, who passed among his admirers for the greatest soldier in Europe.^ The mass of the French troops, about twelve thousand in number, lay in the neighbourhood of Ancona ; Eome and the intermediate stations were held * Sir W. Hamilton's despatch, Nov. 28, in Records : Sicily, voL 44, where there are originals of most of the Neapolitan proclamations, &c., of this time. Mack had been a famous character since the campaign of 1793. Elgin's letters to Lord Grenville from the Netherlands, private as well as public, are full of extravagant praise of him. In July, 1796, Graham writes from the Italian army : " In the opinion of all here, the greatest general in Europe is the Quartermaster Mack, who was in England in 1793. Would to God he was marching, and here now." Mack, on the other hand, did not grudge flattery to the English : — '* Je perdrais partout espoir ot patience si je n'avais pas vu pour mon bonheur et ma consolation I'adorable Triumvirat ** (Pitt, Grenville, Dundas) "qui surveille a Londres nos affaires. Soyez, mon cher ami, I'organe de ma profonde v^n^ration envers ces Miuistros incomparables." Mack to Elgin, 23 Feb. 1794. The British Government was constantly pressing Thugut to make Mack commander-in-chief. Thugut, who had formed a shrewd notion of Mack's real quality, gained much obloquy by his steady refusal. 172 MODERN EUROPE, ms. by small detaclimeiits. Had Mack pushed forward towards the Upper Tiber, his inroad, even if it failed to crush the separated wings of the French army, must have forced them to retreat; but, instead of moving with all his strength through Central Italy, Mack led the bulk of his army upon Eome, where there was no French force capable of making a stand, and sent^ weak isolated columns towards the east of the peninsula, where the French were strong enough to make a good defence. On the approach of the Neapoli- tans to Eome, Championnet, the French commander, evacuated the city, leaving a garrison in the Castle of St. Angelo, and fell back on Civita Castellana, thirty miles north of the capital. The King of Naples entered Eerdinand enters ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^'^ NoVCmbcr. The rCS- Rome,Nov.29. ^^^.^^^^^ ^^ rcligiou was celebrated by the erection of an immense cross in the place of the tree of liberty, by the immersion of several Jews in the Tiber, by the execution of a number of compromised persons whose pardon the King had promised, and by a threat to shoot one of the sick French soldiers in the hospital for every shot fired by the guns of St. Angelo.* Intelligence was despatched to the exiled Pontiff of the discomfiture of his enemies. " By help of the divine grace," wrote King Ferdinand, " and of the most miraculous St. Januarius, we have to-day with our army entered the sacred city of Eome, so lately profaned by the impious, who now fly terror-stricken at the sight of the Cross • Signed by Mack. CoUetta, p. 176. Mack's own account of the campaign is in Yivenot, Rastadter Congress, p. 83. 1798. TEE FRENCH INVADE NAPLES. 173 and of my arms. Leave then, your Holiness, yonr too modest abode, and on tlie wings of cherubim, like the virgin of Loreto, come and descend upon the Vatican, to purify it by your sacred presence." A letter to the King of Piedmont, who had already been exhorted by Ferdinand to encourage his peasants to assassinate French soldiers, informed him that " the Neapolitans, guided by Greneral Mack, had sounded the hour of death to the French, and proclaimed to Europe, from the summit of the Capitol, that the time of the Kings had come." The despatches to Piedmont fell into the hands of the enemy, and the usual modes of locomotion would scarcely have brought Pope Pius to Rome in time to witness the exit of his deliverer. Ferdinand's rhapsodies were cut short by the news that his columns advancing into the centre and east of the Papal States had all been beaten or captured. Mack, at the head of the main army, now advanced to avenge the defeat upon the French at Civita Castellana and Terni. But 1 . -,. ... 1 'It* 1 Mack defeated his dispositions were as unskiliul as ever : bychampiounet, ^ ^ Dec. 6— 18. wherever his troops encountered the enemy they were put to the rout ; and, as he had neglected to fortify or secure a single position upon his line of march, his defeat by a handful of French soldiers on the north of Eome involved the loss of the country almost up to the gates of Naples. On the first rumour of Mack's reverses the Republican party at Rome declared for France. King Ferdinand fled ; Championnet re- entered Rome, and, after a few days' delay, advanced into Neapolitan territory. Here, however, he found 174 MODERN EUROPE. 1798. himself attacked by an enemy more formidable than the army which had been organised to expel the French from Italy. The Neapolitan peasantry, who, in soldiers' uniform and under the orders of Mack, could scarcely be brought within sight of the French, fought with courage when an appeal to their religious passions col- lected them in brigand-like bands under leaders of their own. Divisions of Championnet's army sustained severe losses ; they succeeded, however, in effecting their junc- tion upon the Volturno ; and the stronghold of Graeta, being defended by regular soldiers and not by brigands, surrendered to the French at the first summons. Mack was now concentrating his troops in an entrenched camp before Capua. The whole country was rising against the invaders ; and, in spite of lost battles and abandoned fortresses, the ^N'eapolitan Govern- ment, if it had possessed a spark of courage, might still have overthrown the French army, which numbered only 18,000 men. But the panic and suspicion which the Grovernment had fostered among its subjects were now avenged upon itself. The cry of treachery was raised on every side. The Court dreaded a Eepublican rising ; the priests and the populace accused the Court of conspiracy with the French ; Mack protested that the soldiers were resolved to be beaten ; the soldiers swore that they were betrayed by Mack. On the night of the 21st of December the Royal Family secretly went on board Nelson's ship the Vanguard, and after a short interval they set sail for Palermo, leaving the capital in charge of Prince Pignatelli, a courtier whom no one I7«a THE LAZZABOm DEFEND NAPLES. 175 was willing to obey * Order was, however, maintained by a civic guard enrolled by the Municipality, until it be- came known that Mack and Pignatelli had concluded an armistice with the French, and surrendered Capua and the neighbouring towns. Then the populace broke into wild uproar. The prisons were thrown open ; and with the arms taken from the arsenal the lazzaroni formed themselves into a tumultuous army, along with thousands of desperate men let loose from the gaols and the galleys. The priests, hearing that negotiations for peace were opened, raised the cry of treason anew ; and, with the watchword of the Queen, " All the gentlemen are Jacobins ; only the people are faithful," they hounded on the mob to riot and murder. On the morning of January 15th hordes of lazzaroni issued from the gates to throw themselves upon the French, who were now about nine miles from the city; others dragged the guns down from the forts to defend the streets. The Eepublican party, however, and that considerable body among the upper class which was made Eepublican by . •Nelson, iii., 210; Hamilton's despatch, Dec. 28,1798, in Records: Sicily, vol. 44. " It was impossible to prevent a suspicion getting abroad of the intention of tlie Royal Family to make their escape. However, the secret was so well kept that we contrived to get their Majesties' treasure in jewels and money, to a very considerable extent, on board of H.M. ship the Van" guard the 20th of December, and Lord Nelson went on the next night by a secret passage into the Palace, and brought off in his boats their Sicilian Majesties and all the Royal Family. It was not discovered at Naples, until very late at night, that the Royal Family had escaped. . . . On the morning of Christmas Day, some hours before we got into Palermo, Prince Albert, one of their Majesties' sons, six years of age, was, either from fright or fatigue, taken with violent convulsions, and died in the arms of Lady Hamilton, the Queen, the Princesses, and women attendants being in such confusion as to be incapable of affording any assistance." 176 MODERN EUROPE. im the cliaos into which the Court, with its allies, the priests, and the populace, had thrown Naples, kept up communication with Championnet, and looked forward to the entrance of the French as the only means of averting destruction and massacre. By a stratagem carried out on the night of the 20th they gained possession of the fort of St. Elmo, while the French were already engaged in a bloody assault upon the suburbs. On the 23rd Championnet ordered the attack to be renewed. The conspirators within St. Elmo hoisted the French flag and turned their guns upon the populace ; the fortress of the Carmine was stormed by the French ; and, before the last struggle for life and death commenced in the centr/i of the city, the leaders of the lazzaroni listened to words of friend- Naples, Jan. 23, ship which Championnet addressed to them 1799. ^ ^ in their own language, and, with the inco- herence of a half-savage race, escorted his soldiers with cries of joy to the Church of St. Januarius, which Championnet promised to respect and protect. Championnet used his victory with a discretion and forbearance rare amongst French conquerors. He humoured the superstition of the populace; he en- couraged the political hopes of the enlightened. A vehement revulsion of feeling against the fugitive Court and in favour of Eepublican government followed the creation of a National Council by the French general, parthenopean ^^^ ^^^ irouical homagc to thc patron saint. Repubuc. rpj^^ Kingdom of Naples was converted into the Parthenopean Eepublic. New laws, new 17». TEE SECOND COALITION. 17'/ institutions, discussed in a representative assembly, ex- cited hopes and interests unknown in Naples before. But the inevitable incidents of a French occupation, extortion and impoverishment, with all their bitter effects on the mind of the people, were not long de- layed. In every country district the priests were exciting insurrection. The agents of the new Grovem- ment, men with no experience in public affairs, carried confusion wherever they went. Civil war broke out in fifty different places ; and the barbarity of native leaders of insurrection, like Fra Diavolo, was only too well requited by the French columns which traversed the districts in revolt. The time was ill chosen by the French Government for an extension of the area of combat to southern Italy. Already the first division tna and rt^ •^ ^ March, 1799. of the Eussian army, led by Suvaroff, had reached Moravia, and the Court of Vienna was only awaiting its own moment for declaring war. So far were the newly-established Grovernments in Eome and Naples from being able to assist the French upon the Adige, that the French had to send troops to Rome and Naples to support the new Governments. The force which the French could place upon the frontier was inferior to that which two years of preparation had given to Austria : the Russians, who were expected to arrive in Lombardy in April, approached with the con- fidence of men who had given to the French none of their recent triumphs. Nor among the leaders was personal superiority any longer markedly on the side M 178 MODERN EUROPE. 1799. of the French, as in the war of the First Coalition. Suvaroff and the Archduke Charles were a fair match for any of the Eepublican generals, except Bonaparte, who was absent in Egypt. The executive of France had deeply declined. Carnot was in exile ; the work of organisation which he had pursued with such energy and disinterestedness flagged under his mediocre and corrupt successors. Skilful generals and brave soldiers were never wanting to the Republic ; but no single con- trolling will, no storm of national passion, inspired the Go- vernment with the force which it had possessed under the Convention, and which returned to it under Napoleon. A new character was given to the war now breaking out by the inclusion of Switzerland in the area of combat. In the war of the first Coalition, Switzerland had been neutral territory; but the events of 1798 had left the French in possession of all Switzerland west of the Rhine, and an Austrian force subsequently occupied the Grisons. The line separating the combatants now ran without a break from Mainz to the Adriatic. The French armies were in continuous communication with one an- other, and the movements of each could be modified ac- cording to the requirements of the rest. On the other hand, a disaster sustained at any one point of the line endangered every other point ; for no neutral territory intervened, as in 1796, to check a lateral movement of the enemy, and to protect the communications of a French army in Lombardy from a victorious Austrian force in southern Germany. The importance of the Swiss passes in this relation was understood and even 17M. BATTLE OF 8T00KA0H, 179 overrated by the French Government; and an energy was thrown into their mountain warfare which might have produced greater results upon the plains. Three armies formed the order of battle on either side. Jourdan held the French command upon the Ehine; Massena in Switzerland; Scherer, the least capable of the Eepublican generals, on the Adige. On the side of the Allies the Archduke Charles commanded in southern Grermany ; in Lombardy the Austrians were led by Kray, pending the arrival of Suvaroff and his corps ; in Switzerland the command was given to Hotze, a Swiss officer who had gained some distinction in foreign service. It was the design of the French to push their centre under Massena through the mountains into the Tyrol, and by a combined attack of the central and the southern army to destroy the Austrians upon the upper Adige, while Jourdan, also in communication with the centre, drove the Archduke down the Danube upon Vienna. Early in March the campaign opened. Massena assailed the Austrian positions east of the head-waters of the Ehine, and forced back the enemy into the heart of the Grisons. Jourdan crossed the Ehine at Strasburg, and passed the Black Forest with 40,000 men. His orders were to attack the Archduke Charles, whatever the Archduke's superiority of force. The French and the Austrian armies met at Stockach, near the head of the Lake of Constance. The Archduke (March 25.) Overwhelming numbers gave JoS^an *lt the Archduke a complete victory. Jourdan '^' was not only stopped in his advance, but forced to M 2 180 MODERN EUROPE. 1799. retreat beyond the EHne. Whatever might be the for- tune of the armies of Switzerland and Italy, all hope of an advance upon Vienna by the Danube was at an end. Freed from the invader's presence, the Austrians now spread themselves over Baden, up to the gates of Eas- tadt, where, in spite of the war between France and Austria, the envoys of the minor German States still continued their conferences with the French agents. On the 28th of April the French envoys, now three in number, were required by the Austrians to depart within twenty-four hours. An escort, for which they applied, was refused. Scarcely had their carriages passed throue^h the city spates when they Murder of the ^ ^ ./ & J S^^tadt^ApS were attacked by a squadron of Austrian 28 hussars. Two of the French envoys were murdered ; the third left for dead. Whether this frightful violation of international law was the mere out- rage of a drunken soldiery, as it was represented to be by the Austrian Government; whether it was to any extent occasioned by superior civil orders, or connected with French emigrants living in the neighbourhood, remains unknown. Investigations begun by the Arch- duke Charles were stopped by the Cabinet, in order that a more public inquiry might be held by the Diet. This inquiry, however, never took place. In the year 1804 all papers relating to the Archduke's investigation were removed by the Government from the military archives. They have never since been discovered.* * See HeKert, Der Rastatter Gresandteiimord, aud Sybel's article thereon, in Hist. Zeitsclirift, voL 32. 1780. MA88ENA AT ZUEIOH. 181 The outburst of wrath with which the French people learnt the fate of their envoys would have cost Austria dear if Austria had now been the losing party in the war; but, for the present, everything seemed to turn against the Eepublic. Jourdan had scarcely been over- thrown in Q-ermany before a ruinous defeat ^^^ ^ ^^^^^ at Magnano, oi* the Adige, drove back the "^^^ ^^"^ '^' army of Italy to .within a few miles of Milan ; while Massena, deprived of the fruit of his own victories by the disasters of his colleagues, had to abandon the eastern half pf Switzerland, and to retire upon the line of the river Limnat, Lucerne, and the Gothard. Charles now moved from Germany into Switzerland. Massena fixed his centre at Zurich, and awaited the Archduke's assault. For five weeks Charles remained inactive : at length, on the 4th of June, he gave battle. After two days' struggle against greatly superior forces, Massena was compelled to evacuate Zurich. He retreated, however, no farther than to the ridge of the XJetliberg, a few miles west of the city; and here, fortifying his new position, he held obstinately on, while the Austrians established themselves in the central passes of Switzer- land, and disaster after disaster seemed to be annihilating the French arms in Italy. Suvaroff, at the head of 17,000 Eussians, had arrived in Lombardy in the middle of April, ffis first battle was fought, and his first victory won, at the passage of the Adda on the 25th of E^.^aJSEI April. It was followed by the surrender of Milan and the dissolution of the Cisalpine Republic. 182 MODERN EUROPE. 1799. Moreau, who now held the French command, fell back upon Alessandria, intending to cover both Grenoa and Turin ; but a sudden movement of Suvaroff brought the Russians into the Sardinian capital before it was even known to be in jeopardy. The French general, cut off from the roads over the Alps, threw himself upon the Apennines above Genoa, and waited for the army which had occupied l^aples, and which, under the command of Macdonald, was now hurrying to his support, gathering with it on its march the troops that lay scattered on the south of the Po. Macdonald moved swiftly through central Italy, and crossed the Apennines above Pistoia in the beginning of June. His arrival at Modena with 20,000 men threatened to turn the balance in favour of the French. Suvaroff, aware of his danger, collected all the troops within reach with the utmost despatch, and pushed eastwards to meet Macdonald on the Trebbia. Moreau descended from the Apennines in the same direc- tion ; but he had underrated the swiftness of the Eussian general ; and, before he had advanced over half the dis- tance, Macdonald was attacked by Suvaroff on the Trebbia, and overthrown in three days of the most desperate fighting that had been seen in the war. (June 18.)^ All southern Italy now rose against the Govern- ments established by the French. Cardinal Euifo, with a band of fanatical peasants, known as tbe Army of the Faith, made himself master of Apulia and Calabria • Danilevsky-Miliutin, ii. 214. Despatch of Lord W. Bentiuck from the allied head-quarters at Piacenza, June 23, in Records : Italian States, 'vol. 68. Bentinck arrived a few days before this battle : his despatches cover the whole North-Italian campaign from this time. 1799. NELSON AT NAPLES. 183 amid scenes of savage cruelty, and appeared before Naples, where the lazzaroni were ready to unite with •^ Naples the hordes of the Faithful in murder and pillage. Confident of support within the city, and as- sisted by some English and Eussian vessels in the har- bour, Euffo attacked the suburbs of Naples on the morning of the 13th of June. Massacre and outrage con- tinued within and without the city for five days. On the morning of the 19th, the Cardinal proposed a suspension of arms. It was accepted by the Eepublicans, who were in possession of the forts. Negotiations followed. On the 28rd conditions of peace were signed by Ruffo on behalf of the King of Naples, and by the representatives of Great Britain and of Russia in guarantee for their faithful execution. It was agreed that the Republican garrison should march out with the honours of war ; that their persons and property should be respected ; that those who might prefer to leave the country should be conveyed to Toulon on neutral vessels ; and that all who remained at home should be free from molestation. The garrison did not leave the forts that night. On the following morning, while they were embarking on board the polaccas which were to take them to Toulon, Nelson's fleet appeared in the Bay of Naples. Nelson declared that in treating with rebels Cardinal RufFo had disobeyed the King's orders, and he pronounced the capitulation null and void. The polaccas, with the Repub- licans crowded on board, were attached to the stems of the English ships, pending the arrival of King Ferdinand. On the 29th of June, Admiral Caracciolo, who had taken 184 MOVEBN DUBOPK 1799. office Tinder the new G-overnment, and on its fall had at- tempted to escape in disguise, was brought a captive be- fore Nelson. !N'elson ordered him to be tried by a Neapolitan court-martial, and, in spite of his old age, his rank, and his long service to the State, caused him to be hanged from a Neapolitan ship's yard-arm, and his body to be thrown into the sea. Some days later, King Ferdinand arrived from Palermo, and Nelson now handed over all his prisoners to the Bourbon authorities. A reign of terror followed. Innumerable persons were thrown into prison. Courts-martial, or com- Eeign of Terror. . . missions administering any law that pleased themselves, sent the flower of the Neapolitan nation to the scaffold. Above a hundred sentences of death were carried out in Naples itself : confiscation, exile, and im- prisonment struck down thousands of families. It was peculiar to the Neapolitan proscriptions that a Grovern- ment with the names of religion and right incessantly upon its lips selected for extermination both among men and women those who were most distinguished in character, in science, and in letters, whilst it chose for promotion and enrichment those who were known for deeds of savage violence. The part borne by Nelson in this work of death has left a stain on his glory which time cannot efface."^ * Nelson Despatches, iii., 447 ; Sir W. Hamilton's Despatch of July 14, in Records : Sicily, vol. 45. ITelfert, Konigin Karolina, p. 38. Details of the proscription in CoUetta, v., 6. According to Hamilton, some of the Republicans in the forts had actually gone to their homes before Nelson pronounced the capitulation void. " "When we anchored in the Bay, the 24th of June, the capitulation of the castles had in some measure taken place. Fourteen large polacks had taken on board out of the castles 1799. • SUVABOFF AND THE AUSTlilANS. 185 It was on the advance of the Army of Naples under Macdonald that the French rested their last hope of recovering Lombardy. The battle of the Trebbia scattered this hope to the winds, and left it only too doubtful whether France could be saved from invasion. Suvaroff himself was eager to fall upon Moreau before Macdonald could rally from his defeat, and to drive him westwards along the coast-road into France. It was a moment when the fortune of the Eepublic hung in the scales. Had Suvaroff been permitted to follow his own counsels, France would probably have seen the remnant of her Italian armies totally destroyed, and the Russians advancing upon Lyons or Marseilles. The Republic was saved, as it had been in 1793, by the dissensions of its enemies. It was not only for the purpose of resisting French aggression that Austria had renewed the war, but for the purpose of extending its own ^^^^eeign- dominion in Italy. These designs were con- "^itaiy. cealed from Russia ; they were partially made known by the most conspicuous and criminal of the Neapolitan rebels that had chosen to go to Toulon; the others had already been permitted to return to their homes." If this is so, Nelson's pretext that the capitulation had not been executed was a mere afterthought. Helfert is mistaken in calling the letter or procLmuition of July 8th repudiating the treaty, a forgery. It is perfectly genuine. It was published by Nelson in the King's name, and is enclosed in Hamilton's despatch. Hamilton's exultations about himself aud his wife, and their share in those events, are sorry reading. " In short. Lord Nelson and I. with Emma, have carried affairs to this happy crisis. Emma is really the Queen's bosom friend. . . You may imagine, when we three agree, what real business is done. . . At least I shall end my diplomatieal career gloriously, as you wlU see by what the King of Naples writes from this ship to his Minister in London, owing the recovery of his kingdom to the King's fleet, and Lord Nelson and mo." (Aug. 4, id.) Hamilton states tho number of persons in prison at Naples on Sept. 12 to be above eight thousand. 186 MOBEEN EUEOPE. 1799. Thugut to tlie Britisli ambassador, under the most strin- gent obligation to secrecy. On tbe I7tb of August, 1799, Lord Minto acquainted his Government with the intentions of the Austrian Court. *' The Emperor proposes to retain Piedmont, and to take all that part of Savoy which is important in a military view. I have no doubt of his intention to keep Nice also, if he gets it, which will make the Yar his boundary with France. The whole territory of the Grenoese Eepublic seems to be an object of serious speculation. . . The Papal Legations will, I am persuaded, be retained by the Emperor . . I am not yet master of the designs on Tuscany." * This was the sense in which Austria understood the phrase of defending the rights of Europe against Erench aggression. It was not, however, for this that the Czar had sent his army from beyond the Carpathians. Since the opening of the campaign Suvaroff had been in perpetual conflict with the military Council of Vienna, f Suvarofl" was bent upon a ceaseless * Castlereagh, iv. ; Records: Austria, 56. Lord Minto had just succeeded Sir Morton Eden as ambassador. The English Government was willing to grant the House of Hapsburg almost anything for the sake " of strengthening that barrier which the military means and resources of Vienna can alone oppose against the future enterprises of France." Grenville to Minto, May 13, 1800. Though they felt some regard for the rights of the King of Piedmont, Pitt and Grenville were just as ready to hand over the Republic of Genoa to the Hapsburgs as Bonaparte had been to hand over Yenice ; in fact, they looked forward to the destruction of the Genoese State with avowed pleasure, because it easily fell under the influence of France. Their principal anxiety was that if Austria " should retain Yenice and Genoa and possibly acquire Leghorn," it should grant England an advantageous commercial treaty. Grenville to Minto, Feb. 8, 1800 ; Castlereagh, v. 3—11. t Lord Mulgrave to Grenville, Sept. 12, 1799 ; Records : Army of Switzerland, vol. 80. " Suvaroff opened himself to me in the most uure- 178a BUVAEOFF AND THE AU8TUIANS. 187 pursuit of the enemy; the Austrian Council insisted upon the reduction of fortresses. What at first appeared as a mere difi^erence of military opinion appeared in its true political character when the allied troops entered Piedmont. The Czar desired with his whole soul to crush the men of the Revolution, and to restore the governments which France had overthrown. As soon as his troops entered Turin, Suvaroff proclaimed the restoration of the House of Savoy, and summoned all Sardinian officers to fight for their King. He was in- terrupted by a letter from Vienna requiring him to leave political affairs in the hands of the Viennese Ministry.-^ The Eussians had already done as much in served manner. He began by stating that he had been called at a very advanced period of life from his retirement, whore his ample fortune and honours placed him beyond the allurement of any motives of interest. Attachment to his sovereign and zeal for his God inspired him with the hope and the expectation of conquests. He now found himself under very different circumstances. He found himself surrounded by the parasites or spies of Thugut, men at his devotion, creatures of his power : an army bigoted to a defensive system, afraid even to pursue their successes when that system had permitted them to obtain any ; he had to encounter the further check of a Government at Vienna averse to enterprise, &c. * Miliutin, 2.20, 3.186; Minto, Aug. 10, 1799; Records: Austria, voL 56. " I had no sooner mentioned this topic (Piedmont) than I perceived I had touched a very delicate point. M. de Thugut's manner changed instantly from that of coolness and civility to a great show of warmth attended with some sharpness. He became immediately loud and ani- mated, and expressed chagrin at the invitation sent to the King of Sardinia. . . He considers the conquest of Piedmont as one made by Austria of an enemy's country. He denies that the King of Sardinia can be considered as an ally or as a friend, or even as a neuter ; and, besides imputing a thousand instances of ill-faith to that Court, relies on the actual alliance made by it with the French Republic by which the King of Sardinia had appropriated to himself part of the Emperor's dominions in Lombardy, an offence which, I perceive, wiU not be easily forgotten. . . I mention these circumstances to show the degree of passion which the Court of Vienna mixes with this discussion." Minto answered Thugut's luvectiTe 188 MOBEBN EUROPE. 1799. Italy as tlie Austrian Cabinet desired them to do, and the first wish of Thugut was now to free himself from his troublesome ally. Suvaroff raged against the Austrian Government in every despatch, and tendered his resignation. His complaints inclined the Czar to accept a new military scheme, which was supported by the English Grovernment in the hope of terminating the contention between SuvarojBT and the Austrian Council. It was agreed at St. Petersburg that, as soon as the French armies were destroyed, the reduction of the Italian fortresses should be left exclusively New Plan of the ^^ ^^^ Austriaus ; and that Suvaroff, uniting ^' with a new Russian army now not far dis- tant, should complete the conquest of Switzerland, and then invade France by the Jura, supported on his right by the Archduke Charles. An attack was to be made at the same time upon Holland by a combined British and E-ussian force. If executed in its original form, this design would have thrown a formidable army upon France at the side of Franche Comt6, where it is least protected by for- tresses. But at the last moment an alteration in the plan was made at Vienna. The prospect of an Anglo- witli the odd remark " that perhaps in the present extraordinary period the most rational object of this war was to restore the integrity of the moral principle both in civil and political life, and that this principle of justice should take the lead in his mind of those con- siderations of temporary convenience which in ordinary times might not have escaped his notice." Thugut then said " that the Emperor of Russia had desisted from his measure of the King of Sardinia's immediate recall, leaving the time of that return to the Emperor." On the margin -Lf the despatch, against this sentence, is written in pencil, in Lord Greo^ ville's handwriting, " I am persuaded this is not true," 178G. DESIGNS OF AUSTRIA. 189 Eussian victory in Holland again fixed the thoughts of the Austrian Minister upon Belgium, which had been so lightly abandoned five years before, and which Thugut now hoped to re-occupy and to barter for Bavaria or some other territory. "The Emperor,'' he wrote, " cannot turn a deaf ear to the appeal of his subjects. He cannot consent that the Netherlands shall be disposed of without his own concurrence."* The efiect of this perverse and mischievous resolution was that the Archduke Charles received orders to send the greater part of his army from Switzerland to the Lower Ehine, and to leave only 25,000 men to support the new Eussian division which, under Greneral Korsa- koff, was approaching from the north to meet Suvaroff. The Archduke, as soon as the new instructions reached him, was filled with the presentiment of disaster, and warned his Government that in the general displacement of forces an opportunity would be given to Massena, who was still above Ziirich, to strike a fatal blow. Every despatch that passed between Vienna and St. Petersburg now increased the Czar's suspicion of Austria. The Pope and the King of Naples were convinced that Thugut had the same design upon their own territories which had been shown in his treatment of Piedmont. f * Miliutin, 3. 117. And so almost verbatim in a conversation described in Eden's despatch, Aug. 3 ; Records : Austria, vol. 55. " M. de Thugut's answer was evidently dictated by a suspicion rankling in his mind that the Netherlands might be made a means of aggrandisement for Prussia. His jealousy and aversion to that Power are at this moment more inveterate than I have before seen them. It is probable that he may have some idea of establishing there the Great Duke of Tuscany." t Thugut's territorial policy did actually make him propose to abolish the Papacy not only as a temporal Power, but as a religious institution. ** Baron Thugut argued strongly on the possibility of doing without a Pope, 190 MODERN EUROFE. 1799. They appealed to the Czar for protection. The Czar proposed a European Congress, at which the Powers might learn one another's real intentions. The proposal was not accepted by Austria ; but, while disclaiming all desire to despoil the King of Sardinia, the Pope, or the King of [N^aples, Thugut admitted that Austria claimed an improvement of its Italian frontier, in other words, the annexation of a portion of Piedmont, and of the northern part of the Eoman States. The Czar replied that he had taken up arms in order to check one aggres- sive Government, and that he should not permit another to take its place. For the moment, however, the allied forces continued to co-operate in Italy against the French army on the Apennines covering Genoa. This army had received reinforcements, and was now placed under the command and of each sovereign taking on himself the function of head of the National Church, as in England. I said that, as a Protestant, I could not be supposed to think the authority of the Bishop of Rome necessary ; but that in the present state of religious opinion, and considering the only alternative in those matters, viz., the subsistence of the Roman Catholic faith or the extinction of Christianity itself, I preferred, though a Protestgjit, the Pope to the Goddess of Reason. However, the mind of Baron Thugut is not open to any reasoning of a general nature when it is put in competition with conquest or acquisition of territory." Minto to G-renville, Oct. 22, 1799 ; Records : Austria, vol. 57. The sus- picions of Austria current at the Neapolitan Court are curiously shown in the Nelson Correspondence. Nelson writes to Minto (Aug. 20) at Vienna : " For the sake of the civilised world, let us work together, and as the best act of our lives manage to hang Thugut. . . As you are with Thugut, your penetrating mind will discover the villain in all his actions. . . . That Thugut is caballing . . . Pray keep an eye upon the rascal, and you will soon j[ind what I say is true. Let us hang these three miscreants, and all will go smooth." Suvaroff was not more complimentary. " How can that desk- worm, that night-owl, direct an army from his dusky lest, even if he had the sword of Scanderbeg?" (Sept. 3.) UMi 8UVAE0FF ENTERS SWITZERLAND. 191 of Joubert, one of the youngest and most spirited of the Eepublican generals. Joubert determined to attack the Eussians before the fall of Mantua should add the besieging army to Suvaroff's forces in the field. But the information which he received from Lombardy mis- led him. In the second week of August he was still unaware that Mantua had fallen a fortnight before. lie descended from the mountains to attack Suvaroflf at Tortona, with a force about equal to Suvaroif's own. On reaching Novi he learnt that the army of Mantua was also before him. (Aug. 15.) It was Battle of novi, too late to retreat ; Joubert could only give ^"^' ^^' to his men the example of Eepublican spirit and devo- tion. Suvaroff himself, with Kray, the conqueror of Mantua, began the attack : the onset of a second Aus- trian corps, at tbe moment when the strength of the Eussians was failing, decided the day. Joubert did not live to witness the close of a defeat which cost France eleven thousand men.* The allied Governments had so framed their plans that the most overwhelming victory could produce no result. Instead of entering France, Suvaroff ^ „ o ' Duvaroff goes in- was compelled to turn back into Switzerland, ^ Switzerland, while the Austrians continued to besiege the fortresses of Piedmont. In Switzerland Suvaroff had to meet an enemy who was forewarned of his approach, and who • Milintin, iii. 37 ; Bentinck, Aug. 16, from the battle-field ; Records : Italiau States, vol. 58. His letter ends : " I must apologise to your Lord- ship for the appearance of this despatch" (it is on thin Italian paper and almost illegible): " we" (i.e., Suvaroff *8 staff) " have had the misfortune to have had our bagg»ge plundered by the Cossacks.** 192 MODERN EUBOFE. 1799. had employed every resource of military skill and daring to prevent tlie union of tlie two Eussian armies now advancing from tlie south and the north. Before Suvaroff could leave Italy, a series of admirably -planned attacks had given Massena the whole network of the central Alpine passes, and closed every avenue of com- munication between Suvaroff and the army with which he hoped to co-operate. The folly of the Aus- trian Cabinet seconded the French general's exertions. No sooner had Korsakoff and the new Eussian division reached Schaffhausen than the Archduke Charles, forced by his orders from Vienna, turned northwards (Sept. 3), leaving the Eussians with no support but Hotze's corps, which was scattered over six cantons.* Korsakoff advanced to Zurich ; Massena remained in his old posi- tion on the Uetliberg. It was now that Suvaroff began his march into the Alps, sorely harassed and delayed by the want of the mountain -teams which the Austrians had promised him, and fflled with the apprehension that Korsakoff would suffer some irreparable disaster before his own arrival. • Every capable soldier saw the ruinous miscliief of the Archduke's withdrawal. " Not only are all prospects of our making any progress in Switzerland at an end, but the chance of maintaining the position now occupied is extremely precarious. The jealousy and mistrust that exists between the Austrians and Russians is inconceivable. I shall not pretend to offer an opinion on what might be the most advantageous arrangement for the army of Switzerland, but it is certain that none can be so bad as that which at present exists." Colonel Crauford, English military envoy, Sept. 5, 1799 ; Records : Army of Switzerland, vol. 79. The subsequent operations of Korsakoff are described in despatches of Colonel Bamsay and Lord Mulgrave, id. vol. 80, 81. Conversations with the Archdulw Charles in those of Mr. Wickham, id. voL 77. 17». RETREAT OF 8UVAR0FF, 193 Two roads lead from the Italian lakes to central Switzerland ; one, starting from tlie head of Lago Mag- giore and crossing the Q-othard, ends on the shore of Lake Lucerne ; the other, crossing the Spliigen, runs from the Lake of Como to Reichenau, in the valley of the Rhine. The Gothard in 1799 was not practi- cable for cannon ; it was chosen by Suvaroff, however, for his own advance, with the object of falling upon Mas- sena's rear with the utmost possible speed. He left Bellinzona on the 21st of September, fought his way in a desperate fashion through the French outposts that guarded the defiles of the Grothard, and arrived at Altorf near the Lake of Lucerne. Here it was discovered that the westward road by which Suvaroff meant to strike upon the enemy's communications had no existence. Aban- doning this design, Suvaroff made straight for the district where his colleague was encamped, by a shepherd's patli leading north-eastwards across heights of 7,000 feet to the valley of the Muotta. Over this desolate region the Russians made their way ; and the resolution which brought them as far as the Muotta would have brought them past every other obstacle to the spot where they were to meet their countrymen. But the hour was past. While Suvaroff was stUl struggling in the mountains, Massena advanced against second Batue of Zurich, put Korsakoff's army to total rout, ziiriS>,8ept.'26. and drove it, with the loss of all its baggage and of a great part of its artillery, outside the area of hostilities. The first rumours of the catastrophe reached Suvaroff on the Muotta; he still pushed on eastwards, and, N 194 MODERN EVBOFE. 1799. thougli almost without ammunition, overthrew a corps commanded by Massena in person, and cleared the road over the Pragel at the point of the bayonet, arriving in Glarus on the 1st of October. Here the full extent of Korsakoff's disaster was jnade known to him. To advance or to fall back was ruin. It only remained for Retreat of Suvaroff s army to make its escape across a suvarofp. ^-^^ ^^^ suow-covcrcd mountain- tract into the valley of the Ehine, where the river flows below the northern heights of the Grrisons. This exploit crowned a campaign which filled Europe with astonishment. The Alpine traveller of to-day turns with some distrust from narratives which characterise with every epithet of horror and dismay scenes which are the delight of our age ; but the retreat of Suvaroff's army, a starving, footsore multi- tude, over what was then an untrodden wilderness of rock, and through fresh-fallen autumn snow two feet deep, had little in common with the boldest feats of Alpine hardihood.* It was achieved with loss and suficring ; * The despatches of Colonel Clinton, English attache with Savaroff, are in singular contrast to the highly-coloured accounts of this retreat common in histories. Of the most critical part he only says : " On the 6th the army passed the Panix mountain, which the snow that had fallen during the last week had rendered dangerous, and several horses and mules were lost on the march." He expresses the poorest opinion of Suvaroff and his ofl&cers : " The Marshal is entirely worn out and incapable of any exertion : he will not suffer the subject of the indiscipline of his army to be mentioned to him. He is popular with his army because he puts no check whatever on its licentiousness. His honesty is now his only remaining good quality." Records : Army of Switzerland, vol. 80. - The elaborate plan for SuvarofE's and Korsakoff's combined movements, made as if Switzerland had been an open country and Massena's army a flock of sheep, was constructed by the Austrian colonel Weyrother, the same person who subsequently planned the battle of Austerlitz. On learning the plan from Suvaroft', Lord Mulgrave, who was no great genius, wrote to London demonstrating 17». EXPEDITION TO HOLLAND, Vdh it brought the army from a position of the utmost danger into one of security; but it was followed by no renewed attack. Proposals for a combination between SuvarofP and the Archduke Charles resulted only in mutual taunts and menaces. The co-operation of Eussia in the wat was at an end. The French remained masters of the whole of the Swiss territory that they had lost since the beginning of the campaign. In the summer months of 1799 the Czar had relieved his irritation against Austria by framing in British and concert with the British Cabinet the plan ti°oTJgain8t -*- Holland, Aug., for a joint expedition against Holland. It ^^^• was agreed that 25,000 English and 17,000 Eussian troops, brought from the Baltic in British ships, should attack the French in the Batavian Eepublic, and raise an insurrection on behalf of the exiled Stadtholder. Throughout July the Kentish coast-towns were alive with the bustle of war; and on the 13th of August the first English division, numbering 12,000 men, set sail from Deal under the command of Sir Ealph Abercromby. After tossing ofi* the Dutch coast for a fortnight, the troops landed at the promontory of the Helder. A Dutch corps was defeated on the sand-hiUs, and the English captured the fort of the Helder, commanding the Texel anchorage. Immediately afterwards a movement in favour of the Stadtholder broke out among the officers of the Dutch fleet. The captains hoisted the Orange flag, and brought their ships over to the English. its certain failure, and predicting almost exactly the eyents that took place. N 2 196 MODERN EUROPE. 1799. This was fhe first and tlie last result of the expedi- tion. The Russian contingent and a second English division reached Holland in the middle of September, and with them came the Duke of York, who now took the command out of the hands of Abercromby. On the other side reinforcements daily arri\^d from France, until the enemy's troops, led by Greneral Brune, were equal in strength to the invaders. A battle fought at Alkmaar on the 19th of September gave the Allies some partial successes and no permanent advantage ; and on the 3rd of October the Duke of York gained one of those so- called victories which result in the retreat of the con- querors. Never were there so many good reasons for a bad conclusion. The Eussians moved too fast or too slow ; the ditches set at nought the rules of strategy ; it was discovered that the climate of Holland was unfavourable to health, and that the Dutch had not the slightest inclination to get back their Stadth older. The result of a series of mischances, every one of which would have been foreseen by an average midshipman in Nelson's fleet, or an average sergeant in Massena's army, was that York had to purchase a retreat for the allied forces at a price equivalent to an unconditional surrender. He was allowed to re-embark on con- sideration that Grreat Britain restored to the Fi'ench 8,000 French and Dutch prisoners, and handed over in perfect repair all the military works which our own soldiers had erected at the Helder. Bitter complaints were raised among the Russian officers against York's conduct of the expedition. He was accused of sacrificing 17WL EXPEDITION TO HOLLAND. . 197 the Eussian regiments in battle, and of courting a general defeat in order not to expose his own men. The accusa- tion was groundless. Where York was, treachery or bad faith was superfluous. York in command, the feeblest enemy became invincible. Incompetence among the hereditary chiefs of the English army had become part of the order of nature. The Ministry, when taxed with failure, obstinately shut their eyes to the true cause of the disaster. Parliament was reminded that defeat was the most probable conclusion of any military operations that we might undertake, and that England ought not to expect success when Prussia and Austria had so long met only with misfortune. Under the command of Nelson, English sailors were indeed mani- festing that kind of superiority to the seamen of other nations which the hunter possesses over his prey ; yet this gave no reason why foresight and daring should count for anything ashore. If the nation wished to see its soldiers undefeated, it must keep them at home to defend their country. Even among the Opposition no voice was raised to protest against the system which sacrificed English life and military honour to the dignity of the Eoyal Family. The coUapse of the Anglo- Russian expedition was viewed with more equanimity in England than in Eussia. The Czar dismissed his unfortunate generals. York returned home, to run horses at Newmarket, to job commissions with his mistress, and to earn his column at St. James's Park. It was at this moment, when the tide of military success was already turning in favour of the Republic, that 198 ♦ MODERN EUROPE. 17QSK the revolution took place whicli made Bonaparte Unpopularity of absolutc rulcr of France. Since the attack the Directory. ^£ ^|^^ QoverDment upon the Royalists in Fructidor, 1797, the Directory and the factions had come no nearer to a system of mutual concession, or to a peaceful acquiescence in the will of a parliamentary majority. The Directory, assailed both by the extreme Jacobins and by the Constitutionalists, was still strong enough to crush each party in its turn. The elections of 1798, which strengthened the Jacobins, were an- nulled with as little scruple as the Royalist elections in the preceding year ; it was only when defeat in Grermany and Italy had brought the Grovernment into universal discredit that the Constitutionalist party, fortified by the return of a large majority in the elections of 1799, dared to turn the attack upon the Directors themselves. The excitement of foreign conquest had hitherto shielded the abuses of Grovernment from criticism ; but when Italy was lost, when generals and soldiers found themselves without pay, without clothes, without reinforcements, one general outcry arose against the Directory, and the nation resolved to have done with a Gfovernment whose outrages and extortions had led to nothing but military ruin. The disasters 'of France in the spring of 1799, which resulted from the failure of the Grovernment to raise the armies to their proper strength, were not in reality connected with the defects of the Constitution. They were caused in part by the shameless jobbery of indi- vidual members of the Administration, in part by the absence of any agency, like that of the Conventional 1799. FEANOE IN 1799. 1^9 Commissioners of 1793, to enforce the control of the central Grovernment over the local authorities, left isolated and independent by the changes of 1 789. Faults enough belonged, however, to the existing political order; and the Constitutionalists, who now for the second time found themselves with a majority in the Councils, were not disposed to prolong a system which from the first had turned their majorities into derision. A party grew up around the Abbe Siey^s intent upon some change which should give France a government really representing its best elements. What piansof si6y*«, the change was to be few could say ; but it was known that Si^y^s, who had taken a leading part in 1789, and had condemned the Constitution of 1795 from the moment when it was sketched, had elaborated a scheme which he considered exempt from every error that had vitiated its predecessors. As the first step to reform, Si^yes himself was elected to a Directorship then falling vacant. Barras attached himself to Siey^s ; the three remaining Directors, who were Jacobins and popular in Paris, were forced to surrender their seats. Si^y^s now only needed a soldier to carry out his plans. His first thought had turned on Joubert, but Joubert was killed at Novi. Moreau scrupled to raise his hand against the law ; Bernadotte, a general distinguished both in war and in administration, declined to play a secondary part. Nor in fact was the support of Si^y^s indispensable to any popular and ambitious soldier who was prepared to attack the Government. Sidyes and his friends ofiered the alliance of a party weighty in 200 MODERN EUBOFE, 1799. cliaracter and antecedents ; but there were other well- known names and powerful interests at the command of an enterprising leader, and all France awaited the down- fall of a Government whose action had resulted only in disorder at home and defeat abroad. Such was the political situation when, in the summer of 1799, Bonaparte, baffled in an attack upon the Syrian fortress of St. Jean d'Acre, returned to Egypt, and re- ceived the first tidings from Europe which had reached him since the outbreak of the war. He saw that his opportunity had arrived. He determined to leave his army, whose ultimate failure was inevitable, and to offer to France in his own person that sovereignty of genius and strength for which the whole nation was longing. On the 7th of October a despatch from Bonaparte was read in the Council of Five Hundred, announcing a victory over the Turks at Aboukir. It brought the first news that had been received for many months from the army of Egypt ; it excited an outburst of joyous enthusiasm for the general and the army whom a hated Grovernment was believed to have sent into exile ; it recalled that suc- cession of victories which had been unchecked by a single defeat, and that Peace which had given France a dominion wider than any that her Kings had won. While every thought was turned upon Bonaparte, the French nation suddenly heard that Bonaparte himself had landed on the coast of Provence. "I was sitting that day," says Beranger in his autobiography, " in our reading-room with thirty or forty other persons. Suddenly the news was brought in that Bonaparte had returned from 179ft. RETURN OF BONAPARTE. 201 Egypt. At the words, every man in the room started to his feet and burst into one lon^ shout „ ^ Bonaparte r»> of joy." The emotion portrayed by B^ranger • ^.^yVt. ooT was that of the whole of France. Almost everything that now darkens the early fame of Bona- parte was then unknown. His falsities, his cold, un- pitying heart were familiar only to accomplices and dis- tant sufferers ; even his most flagrant wrongs, such as the destruction of Venice, were excused by a political necessity, or disguised as acts of righteous chastisement. The hopes, the imagination of France saw in Bonaparte the young, unsullied, irresistible hero of the Eepublic. His fame had risen throughout a crisis which had de- stroyed all confidence in others. The stale placemen of the factions sank into insignificance by his side ; even sincere Eepublicans, who feared the rule of a soldier, confessed that it is not always given to a nation to choose the mode of its own deliverance. From the moment that Bonaparte landed at Frdjus, he was master of France. Sieyes saw that Bonaparte, and no one else, was the man through whom he could overthrow the existing Constitution.* So little sympathy si6yfe«andBon». existed, however, between Si^y^s and the soldier to whom he now offered his support, that Bona- parte only accepted Sidy 6s' project after satisfying him- self that neither Barras nor Bernadotte would help him to supreme power. Once convinced of this, Bonaparte closed with Sidy^s* offers. It was agreed that Sidyfes and his friend Ducos should resign their * Miot de Melito, cL ix. Lucien Bonaparte, Beyolntion de Bnunaire, p. SL 202 MODEHn ETJUOPE. 179d. Directorships, and that the three remaining Directors should be driven from office. The Assemblies, or any part of them favourable to the plot, were to appoint a Triumvirate composed of Bonaparte, Sieyes, and Ducos, for the purpose of drawing up a new Constitution. In the new Constitution it was understood, though without any definite arrangement, that Bonaparte and Sieyes were to be the leading figures. The Council of Ancients was in great part in league with the conspirators : the only obstacle likely to hinder the success of the plot was a rising of the Parisian populace. As a precaution against attack, it was determined to transfer the meeting of the Councils to St. Cloud. Bonaparte had secured the support of almost all the generals and troops in Paris. His brother Lucien, now President of the Council of Five Hundred, hoped to paralyse the action of his own Assembly, in which the conspirators were in the minority. Early on the morning of the 9th of November (18 Brum aire), a crowd of generals and officers Brumaire (Nov. mct bcforc Bouapartc's house. At the 9), 1799. ^ same moment a portion of the Council of Ancients assembled, and passed a decree which adjourned the session to St. Cloud, and conferred on Bonaparte the command over all the troops in Paris. The decree was carried to Bonaparte's house and read to the military throng, who acknowledged it by brandishing their swords. Bonaparte then ordered the troops to their posts, received the resignation of Barras, and arrested the two remaining Directors in the Luxembourg. During the 17M. 18 BBUMAIBE, 205 night there was great agitation in Paris. The arrest of the two Directors and the display of military force re- vealed the true nature of the conspiracy, and excited men to resistance who had hitherto seen no great cause for alarm. The Councils met at St. Cloud at two on the next day. The Ancients were ready for what was coming ; the Five Hundred refused to listen to Bona- parte's accomplices, and took the oath of fidelity to the Constitution. Bonaparte himself entered the Council of Ancients, and in violent, confused language declared that he had come to save the Republic from unseen dangers. He then left the Assembly, and entered the Chamber of the Five Hundred, escorted by armed grenadiers. A roar of indignation greeted the appear- ance of the bayonets. The members rushed in a mass upon Bonaparte, and drove him out of the hall. His brother now left the President's chair and joined the soldiers outside, whom he harangued in the character of President of the Assembly. The soldiers, hitherto waver- ing, were assured by Lucien's civil authority and his treacherous eloquence. The drums beat ; the word of command was given ; and the last free representatives of France struggled through doorways and windows before the levelled and advancing bayonets. The Constitution which Si6y6s hoped now to impose upon France had been elaborated by its author ^^ .^^, j^ ^^ at the close of the Roign of Terror. Designed ^"^^^^o^-^ at that epoch, it bore the trace of all those apprehen- sions which gave shape to the Constitution of 1795. The statutory outrages of 1793, the Royalist reaction 204 MOimUN EUROPE. 1799. shown in the events of Vend^miaire, were the perils from which both Siey^s and the legislators of 1795 en- deavoured to guard the future of France. It had be- come clear that a popular election might at any moment return a royalist majority to the Assembly : the Con- stitution of 1795 averted this danger by prolonging the power of the Conventionalists ; Sieyes overcame it by extinguishing popular election altogether. He gave to the nation no right but that of selecting half a million persons who should be eligible to offices in the Com- munes, and who should themselves elect a smaller body of fifty thousand, eligible to offices in the Departments. The fifty thousand were in their turn to choose five thou- sand, who should be eligible to places in the Grovernment and the Legislature. The actual appointments were to be made, however, not by the electors, but by the Executive. With the irrational multitude thus deprived of the power to bring back its old oppressors, priests, royalists, and nobles might safely do their worst. By way of still further precaution, Sieyes proposed that every Frenchman who had been elected to the Legis- lature since 1789 should be inscribed for ten years among the privileged five thousand. Such were the safeguards provided against a Bour- bonist reaction. To guard against a recurrence of those evils which France had sufiered from the precipitate votes of a single Assembly, Sieyes broke up the legisla- ture into as many chambers as there are stages in the passing of a law. The first chamber, or Council of State, was to give shape to measures suggested by the 1799. PLANS OF SIJSY^S. 20o Executive ; a second chamber, known as the Tribunate, was to discuss the measures so framed, and ascertain the objections to which they were liable ; the third cham- ber, known as the Legislative Body, was to decide in silence for or against the measures, after hearing an ar- gument between representatives of the Council and of the Tribunate. As a last impregnable bulwark against Jacobins and Bourbon ists alike, Si^y^s created a Senate whose members should hold office for life, and be em- powered to annul every law in which the Chambers might infringe upon the Constitution. It only remained to invent an Executive. In the other parts of his Constitution, Si^y^s had borrowed from Eome, from Grreece, and from Venice ; in his Executive he improved upon the political theories of Great Britain. He proposed that the Government should consist of two Consuls and a Great Elector ; the Elector, like an English king, appointing and dismissing the Consuls, but taking no active part in the administra- tion himself. The Consuls were to be respe>3tively re- stricted to the affairs of peace and of war. MODERN EUROPE. 1799. Frencli armies took a different cliaracter. Belgium and Holland, the Rhine Provinces, the Cisalpine, the Roman, and the Parthenopean Republics, had all received, under whatever circumstances of wrong, at least the forms of popular sovereignty. The reality of power may have belonged to French generals and commissioners ; but, however insincerely uttered, the call to freedom excited hopes and aspirations which were not insincere them- selves. The Italian festivals of emancipation, the trees of liberty, the rhetoric of patriotic assemblies, had betrayed little enough of the instinct for self-govern- ment ; but they marked a separation from the past ; and the period between the years 1796 and 1799 was in fact the birth-time of those hopes which have since been realised in the freedom and the unity of Italy. So long as Prance had her own tumultuous assemblies, her elec- tions in the village and in the county-town, it was impossible for her to form republics beyond the Alps without introducing at least some germ of republican organisation and spirit. But when all power was con- centrated in a single man, when the spoken and the written word became an offence against the State, when the commotion of the old municipalities was succeeded by the silence and the discipline of a body of clerks work- ing round their chief, then the advance of France ceases to ejjjJjdemoCTacy Preuch iulluence ceased to mean the sup- und^rmonSS port of popular forccb against the Grovern- cal systems. ments. The form which Bonaparte had given to France was the form which he intended for the clients of France. Hence in those communities which 1799. BULB OF UONAPABTE. 213 directly received the impress of the Consulate, as in Bavaria and the minor German States, authority, instead of being overthrown, was greatly strengthened. Bona- parte carried beyond the Rhine that portion of the spirit of the Eevolution which he accepted at home, the suppression of privilege, the extinction of feudal rights, the reduction of all ranks to equality before the law, and the admission of all to the public service. But this levelling of the social order in the client-states of France, and the establishment of system and unity in the place of obsolete privilege, cleared the way not for the supre- macy of the people, but for the supremacy of the Crown. The power which was taken away from corporations, from knights, and from ecclesiastics, was given, not to a popular Eepresentative, but to Cabinet Ministers and officials ranged after the model of the official hierarchy of France. What the French had in the first epoch of their Revolution endeavoured to impart to Europe — the spirit of Hberty and self-government — ^they had now renounced themselves. The belief in popular right, which made the difference between the changes of 1789 and those attempted by the Emperor Joseph, sank in the storms of the Revolution. Yet the statesmanship of Bonaparte, if it repelled the liberal and disinterested sentiment of 1789, was no mere cunning of a Corsican soldier, or exploit of mediaeval genius born outside its age. Subject to the fullest gratification of his own most despotic or most malignant impulse, Bonaparte carried into his creations the ideas upon which the greatest European innovators before the 214 MODERN EUllOPE. md. Frencli Eevolution had. based their work. What Frederick and Joseph had accomplished, or failed to accomplish, was realised in Western Germany when its Bona arte le " Sovcrcigns bccamc the clients of the First SlEeiiS Consul. Bonaparte was no child of the monarchs of tiie . 18th century. Frcncli Ecvolution ; he was the last and the greatest of the autocratic legislators who worked in an unfree age. Under his rule France lost what had seemed to be most its own; it most powerfully advanced the forms of progress common to itself and. the rest of Europe. Bonaparte raised no population to liberty : in extinguish- ing privilege and abolishing the legal distinctions of birth, in levelling all personal and corporate authority beneath the single rule of the State, he prepared the way for a rational freedom, when, at a later day, the Govern- ment of the State should itself become the representative of the nation's will. CHAPTEE V. Overtures of Bonaparte to Austria and England — The "War continues— Massena besieged in Genoa — Moreau invades Southern Germany — Bonaparte crosses the St. Bernard, and descends in the rear of the .Austriana— Battle of Marengo — Austrians retire behind the Mincio — Treaty between England and Austria — ^Austria continues the War — Battle of Hohenlinden — Peace of Luneville— War between England and the Northern Maritime League — Battle of Copenhagen — ^iturder of Paul — End of the ]\Iaritime "War — English Army enters Egypt — French defeated at Alexandria — They capitu- late at Cairo and Alexandria — Preliminaries of Peace between England and France signed at London, followed by Peace of Amiens — Pitt's Irish Policy and his retirement — Debates on the Peace — Aggressions of Bonaparte during the Continental Peace— Holland, Italy, Switzerland — Settlement of Germany under French and Russian influence — Suppression of Ecclesiastical States and Free Cities — Its effects — Stein — France under the Consulate — The Civil Code— The Concordat. The establishment of the Consulate gave France peace from the strife of parties. Peace from ■•■ Overtures of foreign warfare was not less desired by the iustrik"^d S nation ; and although the Eirst Consul him- self was restlessly planning the next campaign, it belonged to his policy to represent himself as the mediator between France and Europe. Discarding the usual diplomatic forms, Bonaparte addressed letters in his own name to the Emperor Francis and to King George III., deploring the miseries inflicted by war upon nations naturally allied, and declaring his personal anxiety to enter upon negotiations for peace. The reply of Austria, which was courteously worded, produced an offer on the pai't of Bonaparte to treat for peace upon 216 MODERN EUROPE, im. the basis of the Treaty of Campo Formio. Such a proposal was the best evidence of Bonaparte's real intentions. Austria had re -conquered Lombardy, and driven the armies of the Eepublic from the Adige to within a few miles of Nice. To propose a peace which should merely restore the situation existing at the beginning of the war was pure irony. The Austrian Government accordiogly declared itself unable to treat without the concurrence of its allies. The answer of England to the overtures of the First Consul was rough and defiant. It recounted the causes of war and distrust which precluded England from negotiating with a revolutionary Government; and, though not insisting on the restoration of the Bourbons as a condition of peace, it stated that no guarantee for the sincerity and good behaviour of Trance would be so acceptable to Great Britain as the recall of the ancient family.^ Few State papers have been distinguished by worse faults of judgment than this English manifesto. It was intended to recommend the Bourbons to France as a means of procuring peace : it enabled Bonaparte to represent England as violently interfering with the rights of the French people, and the Bourbons as seek- ing their restoration at the hand of the enemy of their country. The answer made to Pitt's Government from Paris was such as one high-spirited nation which had recently expelled its rulers might address to another that had expelled its rulers a century before. France, it was said, had as good a right to dismiss an incapable dynasty • Pari. Hist xzxiv. 1198. Ihugut, Briefe, iL, 4A&. 1800. MOUEAU INVADES GERMANY. 217 as Great Britain. If Talleyrand's reply failed to con- vince King Greorge tliat before restoring the Bourbons he ought to surrender his own throne to the Stuarts, it succeeded in transferring attention from the wrongs inflicted by France to the pretensions advanced by England. That it affected the actual course of events there is no reason to believe. The French Government was well acquainted with the real grounds of war possessed by England, in spite of the errors by which the British Cabinet weakened the statement of its cause. What the mass of the French people now thought, or did not think, had become a matter of very little importance. The war continued. Winter and the early spring of 1800 passed in France amidst vigorous situation of the but concealed preparations for the campaign *™"^ which was to drive the Austrians from Italy. In Piedmont the Austrians spent months in inaction, which might have given them Genoa and completed the conquest of Italy before Bonaparte's army could take the field. It was not until the beginning of April that Melas, their general, assailed the French positions on the Genoese Apennines; a fortnight more was spent in moun- tain warfare before Massena, who now held the French command, found himself shut up in Genoa and blockaded by land and sea. The army which Bonaparte was about to lead into Italy lay in between Dijon and Geneva, await- ing the arrival of the First Consul. On the Ehine, f5rom Strasburg to Schaffhausen, a force of 100,000 men was ready to cross into Germany under the command of 218 MODERN EVBOPB. I800. Moreau, who was charged with the task of pushing the Austrians back from the Upper Danube, and so rendering any attack through Switzerland upon the communica- tions of Bonaparte's Italian force impossible. Moreau invades ~.,r • tt t* t t A South Germany, Moreau s armv was the nrst to move. An April, 1800. ^ •' ^ , Austrian force, not inferior to Moreau's own, lay within the bend of the Ehine that covers Baden and Wiirtemberg. Moreau crossed the Bhine at various points, and by a succession of ingenious manoeu\Tes led his adversary, Kray, to occupy all the roads through the Black Forest except those by which the northern divisions of the French were actually passing. A series of engagements, conspicuous for the skill of the French general and the courage of the defeated Austrians, gave Moreau possession of the country south of the Danube as far as XJlm, where Kray took refuge in his entrenched camp. Beyond this point Moreau's instructions forbade him to advance. His task was fulfilled by the severance of the Austrian army from the roads into Italy. Bonaparte's own army was now in motion. Its des- tination was still secret ; its very existence crosses the Alps, was doubtod bv the Austrian e^enerals. On May, 1800. '^ ° the 8th of May the First Consul himself arrived at Greneva, and assumed the command. The campaign upon which this army was now entering was designed by Bonaparte to surpass everything that Europe had hitherto seen most striking in war. The feats of Massena and Suvaroff in the Alps had filled his imagi- nation with mountain warfare. A victory over nature more imposing than theirs might, in the present position 1800. BONAFABTE 0B0SSE8 ST,\^ig^^^^^^2l9 of the Austrian forces in Lorabardy, be made the prelude to a victory in the field without a parallel in its effects upon the enemy. Instead of relieving Genoa by an advance along the coast-road, Bonaparte intended to march across the Alps and to descend in the rear of the Austrians. A single defeat would then cut the Aus- trians off from their communications with Mantua, and result either in the capitulation of their army or in the evacuation of the whole of the country that they had won. Bonaparte led his army into the mountains. The pass of the Great St. Bernard, though not a carriage- road, offered little difficulty to a commander supplied with every resource of engineering material and skill ; and by this road the army crossed the Alps. The cannons were taken from their carriages and dragged up the mountain in hollowed trees; thousands of mules transported the ammunition and supplies ; workshops for repairs were established on either slope of the mountain ; and in the Monastery of St. Bernard there were stores collected sufficient to feed the soldiers as they reached the summit during six successive days (May 15 — 20). The passage of the St. Bernard was a triumph of orga- nisation, foresight, and good management ; as a military exploit it involved none of the danger, none of the suf- fering, none of the hazard, which gave such interest to the campaign of Massena and Suvaroff. Bonaparte had rightly calculated upon the unreadi- ness of his enemy. The advanced guard of the French army poured down the valley of the Dora-Baltea upon the scanty Austrian detachments at Ivrea and Chiusella, 220 MODERN EUROPE. im before Melas, who "had in vain been warned of tbe depar- Bonaparte cuts ^^^^ ^^ ^^ Trench from Greneva, arrived off the Austrian . , -, <» n t i m • i t • army from With a lew thousand men at Turin to dis- Eastem Lom- bardy. p^^^ ^]^g entrance into Italy. Melas himself, on the opening of the campaign, had followed a French division to Nice, leaving Greneral Ott in charge of the army investing Grenoa. On reaching Turin he discovered the full extent of his peril, and sent orders to Ott to raise the siege of Grenoa and to join him with every regiment that he could collect. Ott, however, was unwilling to abandon the prey at this moment falling into his grasp. He remained stationary till the 5th of June, when Massena, reduced to the most cruel extremi- ties by famine, was forced to surrender Genoa to the besiegers. But his obstinate endurance had the full effect of a battle won. Ott's delay rendered Melas powerless to hinder the movements of Bonaparte, when, instead of marching upon Genoa, as both French and Austrian s expected him to do, he turned eastward, and thrust his army between the Austrians and their own fortresses. Bonaparte himself entered Milan (June 2) ; Lannes and Murat were sent to seize the bridges over the Po and the Adda. The Austrian detachment guard- ing Piacenza was overpowered ; the communications of Melas with the country north of the Po were completely severed. Nothing remained for the Austrian commander but to break through the French or to make his escape to Genoa. The French centre was now at Stradella, half-way between Piacenza and Alessandria. Melas was at length 1800 BATTLE OF MARENGO. 221 joined by Ott at Alessandria, but so scattered were the Austrian forces, that out of 80,000 men Melas had not more than 33,000 at his command. -Bonaparte's forces were equal in number; his only fear was that Melas might use his last line of retreat, and escape to Genoa without an engagement. The Austrian general, how- ever, who had shared with Suvaroff the triumph over Joubert at Novi, resolved to stake everything upon a pitched battle. He awaited Bonaparte's approach at Alessandria. On the 12th of June Bonaparte advanced westward from Stradella. His anxiety lest Melas might be escaping from his hands increased with every hour of the march that brought him no tidings of the enemy ; and on the 13th, when his advanced guard had come almost up to the walls of Alessandria without seeing an enemy, he could bear the suspense no longer, and ordered Desaix to march southward towards Novi and hold the road to Genoa. Desaix led off his ^ , , Battle of M»- division. Early the next morning the ST' '^"'^ ^^ whole army of Melas issued from Ales- sandria, and threw itself upon the weakened line of the French at Marengo. The attack carried everything before it : at the end of seven hours' fighting, Melas, exhausted by his personal exertions, returned into Ales- sandria, and sent out tidings of a complete victory. It was at this moment that Desaix, who had turned at the sound of the cannon, appeared on the field, and declared that, although one battle had been lost, another might be won. A sudden cavalry-charge struck panic into the Austrians, who believed the battle ended and the foe 222 MODERN EUBOPK isoo. overthrown. Whole brigades threw down their arms and fled; and ere the day closed a mass of fugitives, cavalry and infantry, thronging over the marshes of the Bormida, was all that remained of the victorious Aus- trian centre. The suddenness of the disaster, the despe- rate position of the army, cut off from its communications. Conditions of overthrew the mind of Melas, and he agreed to Armistice. ^^ armistlcc more fatal than an unconditional surrender. The Austrians retired behind the Mincio, and abandoned to the French every fortress in Northern Italy that lay west of that river. A single battle had produced the result of a campaign of victories and sieges. Marengo was the most brilliant in conception of all Bonaparte's triumphs. If in its execution the genius of the great commander had for a moment failed him, no mention of the long hours of peril and confusion was allowed to obscure the splendour of Bonaparte's victory. Every document was altered or suppressed which con- tained a report of the real facts of the. battle. The descriptions given to the French nation claimed only new homage to the First Consul's invincible genius and power.* At Vienna the military situation was viewed more calmly than in Melas' camp. The conditions of the Austria con- armisticc were generally condemned, and tinuesthewar. ^^^ suddcn chaugc iu the policy of Austria was prevented by a treaty with England, binding Austria, in return for British subsidies, and for a secret • Memorial du Dep6t de la Guerre, 1826, iv., 268. Bentinck's despatch, June 16 ; Records : Italian States, vol. 59. 1800. AUSTRIA AND ENGLAND, 223 promise of part of Piedmont, to make no separate peace with France before the end of February, 1801. This treaty was signed a few hours before the arrival of the news of Marengo. It was the work of Thugut, who still maintained his influence over the Emperor, in spite of growing unpopularity and almost universal opposition. Public opinion, however, forced the Emperor at least to take steps for ascertaining the French terms of peace. An env9y was sent to Paris ; and, as there could be no peace without the consent of England, conferences were held with the object of establishing a naval armistice between England and France. England, however, re- fused the concessions demanded by the First Consul; and the negotiations were broken off in September. But this interval of three months had weakened the authority of the Minister and stimulated the intrigues which at every great crisis paralysed the action of Austria. At length, while Thugut was receiving the subsidies of Great Britain and arranging for the most vigorous prosecution of the war, the Emperor, concealing the transaction from his Minister, purchased a new armistice by the surrender of the fortresses of Ulm and Ingolstadt to Moreau's army.* * Thugut, Briefe il 227, 281, 393; Minto*8 despatch, Sept. 24, 1800; Records : Austria, toI. 60. " The Emperor was in the act of receiving a con- siderable subsidy for a vigorous prosecution of the war at the very moment when he was clandestinely and in person making the most abject submis- sion to the common enemy. Baron Thugut was all yesterday under the greatest uneasiness concerning the event which he had reason to appre- Jiond, but which was not yet certain. He still retained, however, a slight hope, from the apparent impossibility of any one's committing such an act of infamy and folly. I never saw him or any other man so affected as he was when he communicated this transaction to me to-day. I said 224 MOBERN SUROPK isoi. A letter written by Tliugut after a council lield on the 25tli of September gives some indication of the stormy scene which then passed in the Emperor's presence. Thugat tendered his resignation, which was accepted ; and Lehrbach, the author of the new armistice, was placed in office. But the reproaches of the British ambassador forced the weak Emperor to rescind this appointment on the day after it had been published to the world. There w^as no one in Vienna capable of filling the vacant post; and after a short interval the old Minister resumed the duties of his office, without, how- ever, openly resuming the title. The remainder of the armistice was employed in strengthening the force op- posed to Moreau, who now received orders to advance upon Yienna. The Archduke John, a royal strategist of eighteen, was furnished with a plan for surrounding the Trench army and cutting it off from its communications. Moreau lay upon the Isar ; the Austrians held the line that these fortresses being demanded as pledges of sincerity, the Emperor should have given on the same principle the arms and ammunition of the army. Baron Thugut added that after giving up the soldiers' muskets, the clothes would be required off their backs, and that if the Emperor took pains to acqujiint the world that he would not defend his crown, there would not be wanting those who would take it from his head, and perhaps his head with it. He became so strongly affected that, in laying hold of my hand to express the strong concern he felt at the notion of having committed me and abused the confidence I had reposed in his counsels, he burst into tears and literally wept. I mention these details because they confirm the assurance that every part of these feeble measures has either been adopted against his opinion or executed surreptitiously and contrary to the directions he had given." After the final coUapse of Austria, Minto writes of Thugut: "He never for a moment lost his presence of mind or his courage, nor ever bent to weak and unbecoming counsels. And perhaps this can be said of him alone in this whole empire.*' Jan 3, 1801, id. law. BATTLE OF HOUENLINBEN. 226 of the Inn. On the termination of the armistice the Austrians advanced and made some devious marches in pursuance of the Archduke's enterprise, until a general confusion, attributed to the weather, caused them to abandon their manoeuvres and move straight against the enemy. On the 3rd of December the Austrians plunfjed into ihe snow-blocked roads of the undeu, Dec. s, ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 1800. Forest of Hohenlinden, believing that they had nothing near them but the rear-guard of a retiring French division. Moreau waited until they had reached tlie heart of the forest, and then fell upon them with his whole force in front, in flank, and in the rear. The defeat of the Austrians was overwhelming. What re- mained of the war was rather a chase than a struggle. Moreau successively crossed the Inn, the Salza, and the Traun ; and on the 25th of December the Emperor, seeing that no effort of Pitt could keep Moreau out of Vienna, accepted an armistice at Steyer, and agreed to treat for peace without reference to Great Britain. Defeats on the Mincio, announced during the following days, increased the necessity for peace. Thugut was finally removed from power. Some resis- tance was offered to the conditions proposed by Bona- parte, but these were directed more to the establishment of French influence in Germany than to the humiliation of the House of Hapsburg. Little was taken from Austria but what she had surrendered at Campo Formio. It was not by the cession of Italian or Slavonic provinces that the Government of Vienna paid for Marengo and Hohenlinden, but at the cost of that 223 MODERN EUROPE. isoi divided Grerman race whose misfortune it was to "have for its head a sovereign whose interests in the Empire and in Grermany were among the least of all his interests. The Peace of Lnneville,* concluded between viUe, Feb. 9," Fraucc and the Emperor on the 9th of 1801. ^ ^ Eebruary, 1801, without even a reference to the Diet of the Empire, placed the minor States of Germany at the mercy of the French Eepublic. It left to the House of Hapsburg the Venetian territory which it had gained in 1797; it required no reduction of the Hapsburg influence in Italy beyond the abdication of the Grand Duke of Tuscany ; but it ceded to France, without the disguises of 1797, the German provinces west of the Bhine, and it formally bound the Empire to compensate the dispossessed lay Sovereigns in such a manner as should be approved by France. The French Bepublic was thus made arbiter, as a matter of right, in the rearrangement of the maimed and shattered Empire. Even the Grand Duke of Tuscany, like his predecessor in ejection, the Duke of Modena, was to receive some portion of the German race for his subjects, in compensation for the Italians taken from him. To such a pass had political disunion brought a nation which at that time could show the greatest names in Europe in letters, in science, and in art. Austria having succumbed, the Court of Naples, which had been the first of the Allies to Peace with Naples. declare war, was left at the mercy of Bona- parte. Its cruelties and tyranny called for severe • Martens, vii., 296. 1801. THE ARMED NETJTEALITY. 227 punishment ; but the intercession of the Czar kept the Bourbons upon the throne, and Naples received peace upon no harder condition than the exclusion of English vessels from its ports. England was now left alone in its struggle with the Erench Eepublic. Nor was it any longer to be a struggle only against France and its de- pendencies. The rigour with which the English Govern- ment had used its superiority at sea, com- ^.^^^^ ^^^^ bined with the folly which it had shown in ^"^^»^»^ the Anglo-Eussian attack upon Holland, raised against it a Maritime League under the leadership of a Power which England had offended as a neutral and exasperated as an ally. Since the pitiful Dutch campaign, the Czar had transferred to Great Britain the hatred which he had hitherto borne to France. The occasion was skilfuUy used by Bonaparte, to whom, as a soldier, the Czar felt less repugnance than to the Government of advocates and contractors which he had attacked in 1799. The First Consul restored without ransom several thousands of Eussian prisoners, for whom the Austrians and the English had refused to give up Frenchmen in exchange, and followed up this advance by proposing that the guardianship of Malta, which was now blockaded by the English, should be given to the Czar. Paul had caused himself to be made Grand Master of the Maltese Order of St. John of Jerusalem. His vanity was touched by Bonaparte's proposal, and a friendly relation was established between the French and Eussian Govern- ments. England, on the other hand, refused to place Malta under Eussian guardianship, either before or after p 2 228 MODERN EUROPE. isoi. its surrender. This completed the breach between the Courts of London and St. Petersburg. The Czar seized all the English vessels in his ports and imprisoned their crews (Sept. 9). A difference of long standing existed between England and the Northern Maritime Powers, which was capable at any moment of being made a cause of war. The rights exercised over neutral vessels by English ships in time of hostilities, though good in inter- national law, were so oppressive that, at the time of the American rebellion, the Northern Powers had formed a league, known as the Armed Neutrality, for the purpose of resisting by force the interference of the English with neutral nierchantmen upon the high seas. Since the outbreak of war with France, English vessels had again pushed the rights of belligerents to extremes. The Armed Neutrality of 1780 was accordingly revived under the auspices of the Czar. The League time Laague" was sis^ued ou the 16th of December, 1800, Dec, 1800. ^ ^ by Russia, Sweden, and Denmark. Some days later Prussia gave in its adhesion.* The points at issue between Great Britain and the Neutrals were such as arise between a great Points at issaa i -r» • . . . t naval Power intent upon ruimng its ad- versary and that larger part of the world which remains at peace and desires to carry on its trade with as little obstruction as possible. It was admitted on all sides that a belligerent may search a neutral vessel in order to ascertain that it is not conveying contraband of war, * Koch, und Schoell, Histoire des Trait^s, vi., 6. Nelson Despatches, iv.. 299. 1801. TEE ARMED NEUTRALITY. 229 and that a neutral vessel, attempting to enter a blockaded port, renders itself liable to forfeiture ; but beyond these two points everything was in dispute. A Danish ship conveys a cargo of wine from a Bordeaux merchant to his agent in New York. Is the wine liable to be seized in the mid-Atlantic by an English cruiser, to the destruction of the Danish carrying-trade, or is the Danish flag to protect French property from a Power whose naval superiority makes capture upon the high seas its principal means of offence? England announces that a French port is in a state of blockade. Is a Swedish vessel, stopped while making for the port in question, to be considered a lawful prize, when, if it had reached the port, it would as a matter of fact have found no real blockade in ex- istence ? A Eussian cargo of hemp, pitch, and timber is intercepted by an English vessel on its way to an open port in France. Is the staple produce of the Eussian Empire to lose its market as contraband of war ? or is an English man-of-war to allow material to pass into France, without which the repair of French vessels of war would be impossible ? These were the questions raised as often as a firm of shipowners in a neutral country saw their vessel come back into port cleared of its cargo, or heard that it was lying in the Thames awaiting the judgment of the Admiralty Court. Great Britain claimed the right to seize all French property, in whatever vessel it might be sailing, and to confiscate, as contraband of war, not only muskets, gunpowder, and cannon, but wheat, on which 230 MODERN EUUOFE. mi. the provisioning of armies depended, and hemp, pitch, iron, and timber, ont of which the navies of her ad- versary were formed. The IsTeutrals, on the other hand, demanded that a neutral flag should give safe passage to all goods on board, not being contraband of war ; that the presence of a vessel of State as convoy should ex- empt merchantmen from search; that no port should be considered in a state of blockade unless a competent blockading force was actually in front of it ; and that contraband of war should include no other stores than those directly available for battle. Considerations of reason and equity may be urged in support of every possible theory of the rights of belligerents and neu- trals ; but the theory of every nation has, as a matter of fact, been that which at the time accorded with its own interests. When a long era of peace had familiarised Great Britain with the idea that in the future struggles of Europe it was more likely to be a spectator than a belligerent, Great Britain accepted the ISTeutrals' theory of international law at the Congress of Paris in 1856; but in 1801, when the lot of England seemed to be eternal warfare, any limitation of the rights of a belligerent appeared to every English jurist to contra- dict the first principles of reason. Better to add a general maritime war to the existing dilGficulties of the country than to abandon the exercise of its naval War between Superiority in crippling the commerce of an Northern Mari- advcrsarv. Thc Declaration of armed Neu- time Powers, *' Jan., 1801. trality, announcing the intention of the Allied Powers to resist the seizure of French goods on 1801. DHJATB OF PAUL. 231 board their own merchantmen, was treated in this country as a declaration of war. The Government laid an embargo upon all vessels of the allied neutrals lying in English ports (Jan. 14th, 1801), and issued a swarm of privateers against the trading ships making for the Baltic. Negotiations failed to lower the demands of either side, and England prepared to deal with the navies of Eussia, Denmark, Sweden, and Prussia. At the moment, the concentrated naval strength of England made it more than a match for its adversaries. A fleet of seventeen ships of the line sailed from Yar- mouth on the 12th of March, under the command of Parker and Nelson, with orders to coerce the Danes and to prevent the junction of the confederate navies. The fleet reached the Sound. The Swedish batteries com- manding the Sound failed to open fire. Nelson kept to the eastern side of the channel, and brought his ships safely past the storm of shot poured upon them from the Danish guns at Elsinore. He appeared before Copenhagen at mid-day on the 30th hageiJl°ApiffT of March. Preparations for resistance were made by the Danes with extraordinary spirit and resolu- tion. The whole population of Copenhagen volunteered for service on the ships, the forts, and the floating batteries. Two days were spent by the English in ex- ploring the shallows of the channel ; on the morning of the 2nd of April Nelson led his ships into action in front of the harbour. Three ran aground ; the Danish fire from land and sea was so violent that after some hours Admiral Parker, who watched the engagement from the •232 MODERN EUEOFK isoi. mid-channel, gave the signal of recall. ]N"elson laughed at the signal, and continued the battle. In another hour the six Danish men-of-war and the whole of the floating batteries were disabled or sunk. The English themselves had suffered most severely from a resistance more skilful and more determined than anything that they had experienced from the French, and Nelson gladly offered a truce as soon as his own victory was assured. The truce was followed by negotiation, and the negotiation by an armistice for fourteen weeks, a term which INTelson considered sufficient to enable him to visit and to over- throw the navies of Sweden and Eussia. But an event had already occurred more momentous in its bearing upon the INTorthern Confederacy than the battle of Copenhas^en itself. On the ni^ht Murder of Paul, r t» & March 23. ^f ^^^ 23rd of March the Czar of Eussia was assassinated in his palace. Paul's tyrannical violence, and his caprice verging upon insanity, had exhausted the patience of a court acquainted with no mode of remonstrance but homicide. Blood-stained hands brought to the Grand Duke Alexander the crown which he had consented to receive after a pacific abdication. Alexander immediately reversed the policy of his father, and sent friendly communications both to the Grovem- ment at London and to the commander of the British fleet in the Baltic. The maintenance of commerce with England was in fact more important to Eussia than the protection of its carrying trade. Nelson's attack was averted. A compromise was made between the two Governments, which saved Eussia's interests without WL TEE FBENOH IN EGYPT. 233 depriving England of its chief rights against France. The principles of the Armed Neutrality were abandoned by the Government of St. Petersburg in so far as they related to the protection of an enemy*s goods by the neutral flaff. Great Britain continued to „ ^^^ o Peace between seize French merchandise on board what- SiT^^NortiS^ ever craft it might be found; but it was stipulated that the presence of a ship of war should exempt neutral vessels from search by privateers, and that no port should be considered as in a state of blockade unless a reasonable blockading force was ac- tually in front of it. The articles condemned as con- traband were so limited as not to include the flax, hemp, and timber, on whose export the commerce of Eussia depended. With these concessions the Czar was easily brought to declare Eussia again neutral. The minor Powers of the Baltic followed the example of St. Peters- burg ; and the naval confederacy which had threatened to turn the balance in the conflict between England and the French Eepublic left its only trace in the undeserved suffering of Denmark. Eight years of warfare had left France unassailable in Western Europe, and England in command of every sea. No Continental armies could any longer be raised by British subsidies: the navies of the Baltic, with which Bonaparte had hoped to meet England on the seas, lay at peace in their ports. Egypt ^^^^j^jj^ was now the only arena remaining where French and English combatants could meet, and the dis- solution of the Northern Confederacy had determined 234 MODJ^BN EUROPE. isoi. the fate of Egypt by leaving England in undisputed command of the approach to Egypt by sea. The French army, vainly expecting reinforcements, and attacked by the Turks from the east, was caught in a trap. Soon after the departure of Bonaparte from Alexandria, his successor. General Kleber, had addressed a report to the Directory, describing the miserable condition of the force which Bonaparte had chosen to abandon. The report was intercepted by the English, and the Govern- ment immediately determined to accept no capitulation which did not surrender the whole of the French army as prisoners of war. An order to this effect w^as sent to the Mediterranean. Before, however, the order reached Sir Sidney Smith, the English admiral co-operating with the Turks, an agreement had been already signed by him at El Arish, granting Kleber's army a free return to France. (Feb. 24, 1800.) After Kleber, in fulfilment of the conditions of the treaty, had withdrawn his troops from certain positions, Sir Sidney Smith found himself com- pelled to inform the French General that in the nego- tiations of El Arish he had exceeded his powers, and that the British Government insisted upon the surrender of the French forces. Kleber replied by instantly giving battle to the Turks at Heliopolis, and putting to the rout an army six times as numerous as his own. The posi- tion of the French seemed to be growing stronger in Egypt, and the prospect of a Turkish re- conquest more doubtful, when the dagger of a fanatic robbed the French of their able chief, and transferred the command to General Menou, one of the very few French officers of 180L THE ENGLISH OONQUEB EGYPT. 235 marked incapacity who held command at any time durin<^ the war. The British Government, as soon as it learnt what had taken place between Kleber and Sir Sidney Smith, declared itself willing to be bound by the convention of El Arish. The offer was, however, rejected by the French. It was clear that the Turks could never end the war by themselves ; and the British Ministry at last came to understand that Egypt must be re-conquered by English arms. On the 8th of March, 1801, a corps of 17,000 men, led by Sir Ealph Abercromby, landed at Aboukir Bay. According^ to the plan of the lands in Egypt. J or March, 1801. British Government, Abercromby 's attack was to be supported by a Turkish corps from Syria, and by an Anglo-Indian division brought from Ceylon to Kosseir, on the Bed Sea. The Turks and the Indian troops were, however, behind their time, and Aber- cromby opened the campaign alone. Menou had still 27,000 troops at his disposal. Had he moved up with the whole of his army from Cairo, he might have destroyed the English immediately after their landing. Instead of doing so, he allowed weak isolated detach- ments of the French to sink before superior numbers. The English had already gained confidence of victory when Menou advanced in some force in order to give battle in front of Alexandria. The decisive engagement took place on the 21st of March. The French were completely defeated. Menou, however, still refused to concentrate his forces ; and in the course of a few weeks 13,000 French troops which had been left behind at 236 MODERN EUROPE. isoL Cairo were cut ofF from communication with tlie rest of the army. A series of attempts made by Admiral Gan- teaume to land reinforcements from France ended fruit- lessly. Towards the end of June the arrival of a Turkish force enabled the English to surround the French in Cairo. The circuit of the works was too large to be successfully defended; on the other hand, the English were without the heavy artillery necessary for a siege. Under these circumstances the terms which had origin- ally been offered at El Arish were again proposed to General Belliard for himself and the army late at Cairo' of Cairo. Thcv wcre accepted, and Cairo June 27, 1801. •' \ was surrendered to the English on condition that the garrison should be conveyed back to France (June 27). Soon after the capitulation General Baird reached Lower Egypt with an Anglo-Indian division. Menou with the remainder of the French army was now shut up in Alexandria. His forts and outworks were successively carried ; his flotilla was destroyed ; and when all hope of support from France had been abandoned, the army of Alexandria, which formed the remnant of the troops with which Bonaparte had won his earliest And at Alex- victorics iu Italy, found itself compelled to ^ ' ""^ ' surrender the last stronghold of the French in Egypt (Aug. 30). It was the first important success which had been gained by English soldiers over the troops of the Eepublic ; the first compaign in which English generalship had permitted the army to show itself in its true quality. Peace was now at hand. Soon after the Treaty of 1801-2. PRELIMINARIES OF LONDON. 237 Lun^ville had withdrawn Austria from the war, un- official nesrotiations had he«:un between the ^ *= ^ NegotiatioM f or Governments of Great Britain and France. p®*^- The object with which Pitt had entered upon the war, the maintenance of the old European system against the aggression of France, was now seen to be one which England must abandon. England had borne its share in the defence of the Continent. If the Continental Powers could no longer resist the ascendancy of a single State, England could not struggle for the Balance of Power alone. The negotiations of 1801 had little in common with those of 1796. Belgium, which had been the burden of all Pitt's earlier despatches, no longer figured as an object of contention. The frontier of the Ehine, with the virtual possession of Holland and Northern Italy, under the title of the Batavian, Ligurian, and Cisalpine Eepublics, was tacitly conceded to France. In place of the restoration of the Nether- lands, the negotiators of 1801 argued about the disposal of Egypt, of Malta, and of the colonies which Great Britain had conquered from France and its allies. Events decided the fate of Egypt. The restoration of Malta to the Knights of St. John was strenuously demanded by France, and not refused by England. It was in relation to the colonial claims of France that the two Govern- ments found it most difficult to agree. Great Britain, which had lost no territory itself, had conquered nearly all the Asiatic and Atlantic colonies of the French Eepublic and of its Dutch and Spanish allies. In return for the restoration of Ceylon, the Cape of Good Hope, 238 MODERN EUBOFK 1800. Guiana, Trinidad, and various East and West Indian settlements, France had nothing to offer to Grreat Britain but peace. If peace, however, was to be made, the only possible settlement was by means of a compromise ; and it was finally agreed that England should retain Ceylon and Trinidad, and restore the rest of the colonies which it had taken from France, Spain, and Holland. Pre- liminaries of peace embodying these con- Preliminaries of,.,. . tjtt n t i London, Oct 1, ditious wcrc sisrned at Jjondon on the 1st 1801. '&• of October, 1801. Hostilities ceased; but an interval of several months between the preliminary agreement and the conclusion of the final treaty was employed by Bonaparte in new usurpations upon the Continent, to which he forced the British Government to lend a kind of sanction in the continuance of the negotiations. The Government, though discontented, was unwilling to treat these acts as new occasions of Peace of Ainiens. ^'a^' ^hc coufercnces wcrc at length March 27, 1802. "bj-Q^gj^t -fco a closc, aud the definitive treaty between France and Great Britain was signed at Amiens on the 27th of March, 1802.^ The Minister who, since the first outbreak of war, had so resolutely struggled for the freedom of Europe, Ktt's retirement. ^^^ HO lougcr iu powcr wheu Great Britain Its cause. entered into negotiations with the First Consul. In the same week that Austria signed the Peace of Lund villa, Pitt had retired from office. The catastrophe which dissolved his last Continental alliance may possibly have disposed Pitt to make way for men * De Clerc^ Traites de la France, L, 4)84 180L PITT RETIRES. 239 who could treat for peace with a better grace than him- self, but the immediate cause of his retirement was an affair of internal policy. Among the few important domestic measures which Pitt had not sacrificed to foreign warfare, was a project for the Legislative Union of Grreat Britain and Ireland. Ireland had up to this time possessed a Parliament nominally independent of that of Great Britain. Its population, however, was too much divided to create a really national government ; and, even if the internal conditions of the country had been better, the practical sovereignty of Great Britain must at that time have prevented the Parliament of Dublin from being more than an agency of ministerial corruption. It was the desire of Pitt to give to Ireland, in the place of a fictitious independence, that real par- ticipation in the political life of Great Britain which has more than recompensed Scotland and Wales for the loss of separate nationality. As an earnest of legislative justice, Pitt gave hopes to the leaders of the Irish Catholic party that the disabilities which excluded Boman Catholics from the House of Commons and from many offices in the public service would be no longer maintained. On this understanding the Catholics of Ireland abstained from ofierinsf land and gi^^* ° Britain, 1600. to Pitt's project a resistance which would probably have led to its failure. A majority of mem- bers in the Protestant Parliament of Dublin accepted the price which the Ministry offered for their votes. A series of resolutions in favour of the Legislative Union of the two countries was transmitted to England in the 240 MODERN EUROPE, mi. spring of 1800 ; the Englisli Parliament passed the Act of Union in the same summer; and the first United Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland assembled at London at the beginning of the year 1801. Pitt now prepared to fulfil his virtual promise to the Irish Catholics. A measure obliterating Pitt desires to,, -it i?**i tt* 'j. emancipate the tho aucieut imes 01 Civil and relisfious enmity. Catholics. ^ ... and calling to public life a class hitherto treated as alien and hostile to the State, would have been in true consonance with all that was best in Pitt's own statesmanship. But the ignorant bigotry of King George III. was excited against him by men who hated every act of justice or tolerance to Eoman Catholics ; and it proved of greater force than the genius of the Minister. The old threat of the King's personal enmity was publicly addressed to Pitt's colleague, Dun- das, when the proposal for Catholic emancipation was under discussion in the Cabinet ; and, with a just re- ^.,, £:ard for his own dignity, Pitt withdrew from Pitt resigns, O n J ' Feb. 1801. ^^^^ ^-^^^ ^ ;^gQ^)^ ^^^^^^ ^^ influcnce a Sovereign who believed his soul to be staked on the letter of the Coronation Oath. The ablest members of Pitt's Government, Grenville, Dundas, and Windham, retired with their leader. Addington, Speaker of the ,^^. ^ House of Commons, became Prime Minister, Addington ' ' '^^^^^^- with colleagues as undistinguished as him- self. It was under the Government of Addington that the negotiations were begun which resulted in the signature of Preliminaries of Peace in October, 1 801 . Pitt himself supported the new Ministry in their 180L THE PEACE OF 1801. 241 policy of peace; Grenville, lately Pitt's Foreign Minster, unsparingly condemned both the cession of the con- quered colonies and the policy of granting France peace on any terms whatever. Viewed by the ihePeaoe light of our own knowledge of events, the ^^'^^^ Peace of 1801 appears no more than an unprofitable break in an inevitable war ; and perhaps even then the signs of Bonaparte's ambition justified those who, like Grenville, urged the nation to give no truce to France, and to trust to Bonaparte's own injustice to raise us up allies upon the Continent. But, for the moment, peace seemed at least worth a trial. The modes of prosecuting a war of offence were exhausted ; the cost of the national defence remained the same. There were no more navies to destroy, no more colonies to seize ; the sole means of injuring the enemy was by blockading his ports, and depriving him of his maritime commerce. On the other hand, the possibility of a French invasion required the maintenance of an enormous army and militia in England, and prevented any great reduction in the expenses of the war, which had already added two hundred millions to the National Debt. Nothing was lost by making peace, except certain colonies and military positions which few were anxious to retain. The argument that England could at any moment re- cover what she now surrendered was indeed a far sounder one than most of those which went to prove that the positions in question were of no real service. Tet even on the latter point there was no want of high authority It was Nelson himself who assured the House of Lords Q 242 MOJDEBN EUROPE, 180L that neitlier Malta nor the Cape of Good Hope could ever be of importance to Great Britain.* In the face of such testimony, the men who lamented that England should allow the adversary to recover any lost ground in the midst of a struggle for life or death, passed for obstinate fanatics. The Legislature reflected the general feeling of the nation; and the policy of the Government was confirmed in the Lords and the Com- mons by majorities of ten to one. Although the Ministry of Addington had acted with energ^v both in Eo:ypt and in the Baltic, it Aggressions of ^•^ ^-^ ^ ' ^Th^^co^^ was generally felt that Pitt's retirement peace. jj^arted the surrender of that resolute policy which had guided England since 1793. When once the Preliminaries of Peace had been signed in London, Bonaparte rightly judged that Addington would waive many just causes of complaint, rather than break off the negotiations which were to convert the Preliminaries into a definitive treaty. Accordingly, in his instructions to Joseph Bonaparte, who represented France at the conferences held at Amiens, the Eirst Consul wrote through Talleyrand as follows : — " You are forbidden to entertain any proposition relating to the King of Sar- dinia, or to the Stadtholder, or to the internal affairs of Batavia, of Helvetia, or the Eepublic of Italy. None of these subjects have anything to do with the discussions of England.'* The list of subjects excluded from the consideration of England was the list of aggressions by which Bonaparte intended to fiU up the interval of Con- • Pari Hist. Nov. 3, 1801. 1802. THE BATAVIAN BEPUBLW. 2-13 tinental peace. In tlie Treaty of Lun^ville, the inde- pendence of the newly -established republics in Holland, Switzerland, and Italy had been recognised by France. The restoration of Piedmont to the House of Savoy had been the condition on which the Czar made peace. But on every one of these points the engagements of France were made only to be broken. So far from bringing independence to the client-republics of France, the peace of Lun6ville was but the introduction to a series of changes which brought these States directly into the hands of the First Consul. The establishment of absolute government in France itself entailed a corresponding change in each of its dependencies, and the creation of an executive which should accept the First Consul's orders with as little question as the Prefect of a French department. Holland received its new con- Holland sept stitution while France was still at war with ^^^ England. The existing Government and Legislature of the Batavian Eepublic were dissolved (Sept., 1801), and replaced by a council of twelve persons, each holding the office of President in turn for a period of three months, and by a legislature of thirty-five, which met only for a few days in the year. The power given to the new Presi- dent during his office was enough, and not more than enough, to make him an effective servant : a three- months' Minister and an Assembly that met and parted at the word of command were not likely to enter into serious rivalry with the First Consul. The Dutch peaceably accepted the constitution thus forced upon them; they possessed no means of resistance, q2 244 MODERN EUROPE, I802. and their affairs excited but little interest upon the Continent. Far more striking was the revolution next effected by the First Consul. In obedience to orders sent from Paris to the Legislature of the Cisalpine Eepublic, a body of four hundred and fifty Italian repre- Bonaparte made "^ J xr FSiin^^'itepib- sentatives crossed the Alps in the middle of winter in order to meet the First Consul at Lyons, and to deliberate upon a constitution for the Cisalpine Eepublic. The constitution had, as a matter of fact, been drawn up by Talleyrand, and sent to the Legislature at Milan some months before. But it was not for the sake of Italy that its representatives were collected at Lyons, in the presence of the First Consul, with every circumstance of national solemnity. It was the most striking homage which Bonaparte could exact from a foreign race in the face of all France ; it was the testimony that other lands besides France desired Bonaparte to be their sovereign. "When all the minor offices in the new Cisal])ine Constitution had been filled, the Italians learnt that the real object of the convo- cation was to place the sceptre in Bonaparte's hands. They accepted the part which they found themselves forced to play, and offered to the First Consul the presidency of the Cisalpine State (Jan. 25, 1802). Unlike the French Consulate, the chief magistracy in the new Cisalpine Constitution might be prolonged beyond the term of ten years. Bonaparte had practically won the Crown of Lombardy; and he had given to France the example of a submission more unqualified laua. SWITZERLAND. 245 than its own. A single phrase rewarded the people who had thus placed themselves in his hands. The Cisalpine Eepublic was allowed to assume the name of Italian Republic. The new title indicated the national hopes which had sprung up in Italy during the past ten years ; it indicated no real desire on the part of Bona- parte to form either a free or a united Italian nation. In the Cisalpine State itself, although a good adminis- tration and the extinction of feudal privileges made Bonaparte's government acceptable, patriots who asked for freedom ran the risk of exile or imprisonment. What further influence was exercised by France upon Italian soil was not employed for the consolidation of Italy. Tuscany was bestowed by Bonaparte upon the Spanish Prince of Parma, and controlled by agents of the First Consul. Piedmont, which nexedtoFi^ce^ Sept, 1802. had long been governed by French gene- rals, was at length definitely annexed to France. Switzerland had not, like the Cisalpine Eepublic, derived its liberty from the victories of intervention in French armies, nor could Bonaparte claim Switzerland. the presidency of the Helvetic State under the title of its founder. The struggles of the Swiss parties, how- ever, placed the country at the mercy of France. Since the expulsion of the Austrians by Massena in 1799, the Antagonism between the Democrats of the town and the Federalists of the Forest Cantons had broken out afresh. A French army still occupied Switzerland ; the Minister of the First Consul received instructions to interfere with all parties and consolidate none. In the autumn of 246 MODERN EUBOPK , 1802. 1801, tlie Federalists were permitted to dissolve tlie central Helvetic Government, whicli had been created by the Directory in 1798. One change followed another, until, on the 19th of May, 1802, a second Constitution was proclaimed, based, like that of 1798, on centralising and democratic principles, and almost extinguishing the old local independence of the members of the Swiss League. No sooner had French partisans created this Constitution, which could only be main- tained by force against the hostility of Berne and the Forest Cantons, than the French army quitted Switzer- land. Civil war instantly broke out, and in the course of a few weeks the Grovernment established by the French had lost all Switzerland except the Pays de Yaud. This was the crisis for which Bonaparte had been waiting^. On the 4th of October a Bonaparte Me- ^ HeivJticLeag^e! proclamatlou appeared at Lausanne, an- nouncing that the First Consul had ac- cepted the office of Mediator of the Helvetic League. A French army entered Switzerland. Fifty-six deputies from the cantons were summoned to Paris ; and, in the beginning of 1803, a new Constitution, which left the central Government powerless in the hands of France and reduced the national sovereignty to cantonal self- administration, placed Switzerland on a level with the Batavian and the Cisalpine dependencies of Bonaparte. The Ehone Yalley, with the mountains crossed by the new road over the Simp] on, was converted into a separate republic under the title of La Yalais. . The new chief magistrate of the Helvetic Confederacy entered 1801-a. SETTLEMENT OF GERMANY. 247 upon his office with a pension paid out of Bonaparte's secret police fund. Such was the nature of the independence which the Peace of Luneville gave to Holland, to fletuement of Northern Italy, and to Switzerland. The Germany, re-organisation of Germany, wliich was provided for by the same treaty, affected larger interests, and left more permanent traces upon European history. In the provinces ceded to France lay the territory of the ancient ecclesiastical princes of the empire, the Electors of Mainz, Cologne, and Treves; but, besides these spiritual sovereigns, a variety of secular potentates, ranging from the Elector Palatine, with 600,000 sub- jects, to the Prince of Wiedrunkel, with a single village, owned territory upon the left bank of the Ehine ; and for the dispossessed lay princes new territories had now to be formed by the destruction of other ecclesiastical States in the interior of Germany. Affairs returned to the state in which they had stood in 1798, and the comedy of Eastadt was renewed at the point where it had been broken off : the only difference was that the French statesmen who controlled the partition of ecclesiastical Germany now remained in Paris, instead of coming to the Ehine, to run the risk of being mur- dered by Austrian hussars. Scarcely was the Treaty of Luneville signed when the whole company of intriguers who had touted at Eastadt posted off to the French capital with their maps and their money-bags, the keener for the work when it became known that by common consent the Free Cities of the Empire were 248 MODERN EUROPE. isoi^ now to be thrown into tlie spoil, Talleyrand and his confidant Matliieu liad no occasion to ask for bribes, or to manoeuvre for the position of arbiters in Germany. They were overwhelmed with importunities. Solemn diplomatists of the old school toiled up four flights of stairs to the office of the needy secretary, or danced attendance at the parties of the witty Minister. They hugged Talleyrand's poodle ; they vied with one another in gaining a smile from the child whom he brought up at his house."^ The shrewder of them for- tified their attentions with solid bargains, and made it their principal care not to be outbidden at the auction. Thus the game was kept up as long as there was a bishopric or a city in the market. This was the real process of the Grerman re- organisa- tion. A pretended one was meanwhile enacted by the Diet of Eatisbon. The Diet deliberated during the whole of the summer of 1801 without arriving at a single resolution. Not even the sudden change of Eus- sian policy that followed the death of the Emperor Paul and deprived Bonaparte of the support of the Northern Maritime League, could stimulate the German Powers to united action. The old antagonism of Austria and Prussia paralysed the Diet. Austria sought a German indemnity for the dethroned Grand Duke of Tuscany : Prussia aimed at extending its influence into Southern Germany by the annexation of Wiirzburg and Bam- * Gagern, Mein Antheil, i., 119. He protests that lie never carried the dog. The waltz was introduced about this time at Paris by French- men returning from G-ermany, which gave occasion to the mot that the French had annexed even the national dance of the Germans. 1801-81 SETTLEMENT OF GERMANY, 249 berg. Thus the summer of 1801 was lost in inter- minable debate, until Bonaparte regained the influence over Russia which he had held before the death of Paul, and finally set himself free from all check and restraint by concluding peace with England. No part of Bonaparte's diplomacy was more ably conceived or more likely to result in a permanent em- pire than that which affected the secondary ^ ^ «^ German poucy States of Germany. The rivaliy of Austria °' Bonaparte. and Prussia, the dread of Austrian aggression felt in Bavaria, the grotesque ambition of the petty sovereigns of Baden and Wiirtemburg, were all understood and turned to account in- the policy which from this time shaped the French protectorate beyond the Rhine. Bonaparte intended to give to Prussia such an increase of territory upon the Baltic as should counterbalance the power of Austria ; and for this purpose he was willing to sacrifice Hanover or Mecklenburg : but he forbade Prussia's extension to the south. Austria, so far from gaining new territory in Bavaria, was to be deprived of its own outlying • possessions in Western Germany, and excluded from all influence in this region. Bavaria, dependent upon French protection against Austria, was to be greatly strengthened. Baden and Wiir- temberg, enriched by the spoil of little sovereignties, of Bishoprics and Free Cities, were to look to France for further elevation and aggrandisement. Thus, while two rival Powers balanced one another upon the Baltic and the Lower Danube, the sovereigns of central and western Germany, owing everything to the Power that 250 MODEUN EVBOPM. rm. had humbled Austria, would find in submission to France the best security for their own gains, and the best protection against their more powerful neighbours. One condition alone could have frustrated a policy agreeable to so many interests, namely, the existence of a national sentiment among the Grermans themselves. But the peoples of Germany cared as little about a Fatherland as their princes. To the Hessian and the Bavarian at the centre of the Empire, Grermany was scarcely more tban it was to the Swiss or the Dutch, who had left the Empire centuries before. The inhabi- tants of the Ehenish Provinces had murmured for a while at the extortionate rule of the Directory; but their severance from Germany and their incorporation with a foreign race touched no fibre of patriotic regret; and after the establishment of a better order of things under the Consulate the annexation to France appears to have become highljT- popular.* Among a race whose members could thus be actually conquered and annexed without doing violence to their feelings Bonaparte had no difficulty in finding willing allies. While the Diet dragged on its debates upon the settlement of the Em- pire, the minor States pursued their bargainings with the French Government; and on the 14th of August, 1801, Bavaria signed the first of those Treaty between ^ ?a^"'fo^^S treaties which made the First Consul the many, Oct 11, patrou of Westcm Germany. Two months 1801. ^ ^ later a secret treaty between France and Russia admitted the new Czar, Alexander, to a share in • Perthes, Politische Zustiinde, i, 31L 180J. END OF FREE CITIES AND BISH0PEI03, 251 the reorganisation of the Empire. The Governments of Paris and St. Petersburg pledged themselves to united action for the purpose of maintaining an equilibrium between Austria and Prussia ; and the Czar further stipulated for the advancement of his own relatives, the Sovereigns of Bavaria, Baden, and Wiirtemberg. The relationship of these petty princes to the Eussian family enabled Bonaparte to present to the Czar, as a graceful concession, the very measure which most vitally advanced his own power in Grermany. Alexander's intervention made resistance on the part of Austria hopeless. One after another the German Sovereigns settled with their patrons for a share in the spoil ; and on the 3rd of June, 1802, a secret agreement between France and Eussia embodied the whole of these arrangements, and disposed of almost all the Free Cities and the entire ecclesiastical territory of the Empire. When everything had thus been settled by the foreigners, a Committee, to which the Diet of Eatisbon had referred the work of re-organisation, began its ses- sions, assisted by a French and a Eussian representative. The Scheme which had been agreed upon between France and Eussia was produced entire ; and in spite of the anjj^er and the tlireats of accepts French Austria it passed the Committee with no greater dehiy than was inseparable from everything con- nected with German affairs. The Committee presented the Scheme to the Diet : the Diet only agitated itself as to the means of passing the Scheme without violating those formalities which were the breath of its life. The 252 MOBTHEN EUBOPE, 1803. proposed destruction of all the Ecclesiastical States, and of forty -five out of tlie fifty Free Cities, would extin- guish a third part of the members of the Diet itself. If these unfortunate bodies were permitted to vote upon the measure, their votes might result in its rejection : if unsummoned, their absence would impair the validity Df the resolution. By a masterpiece of conscientious End of German pcdautry it was agrccd that the doomed pre- states and forty- latcs aud cities shouM be duly called to vote five Free Cities, "^ March, 1803. ^^ their turn, and that upon the mention of each name the answer " absent " should be returned by an officer. Thus, faithful to its formalities, the Empire voted the destruction of its ancient Constitu- tion ; and the sovereignties of the Ecclesiastics and Free Cities, which had lasted for so many centuries, vanished from Europe (March, 1808).* The loss was small indeed. The internal condition Effect on Ger- ^^ ^^^ pricst-rulcd districts was generally "^^' wretched ; heavy ignorance, beggary, and in- tolerance reduced life to a gross and dismal inertia. Ex- cept in their patronage of music, the ecclesiastical princes had perhaps rendered no single service to Germany. The Free Cities, as a rule, were sunk in debt; the management of their affairs had become the perquisite of a few lawyers and privileged families. For Germany, as a nation, the destruction of these petty sovereignties was not only an advantage but an absolute necessity. The order by which they were superseded was not de- * Koch nnd Sclioell, vi., 247. Beer, Zehn Jalire Oesterreichischer Politik, p. 35. Haiisser, ii., 398. 1803. EFFECT ON GERMAN Y. 253 vised in the interest of Germany itself ; yet even in the arrangements imposed by the foreigner Germany gained centres from which the institutions of modern political life entered into regions where no public authority had yet been known beyond the court of the bishop or the feudal officers of the manor * Through the suppression of the Ecclesiastical States a Protestant majority was produced in the Diet. The change bore witness to the decline of Austrian and of Catholic energy during the past century ; it scarcely indicated the future supremacy of the Protestant rival of Austria ; for the real interests of Germany were but faintly imaged in the Diet, and the leadership of the race was still open to the Power which should most sincerely identify itself with the German nation. The first result of the changed character of the Diet was the confiscation of all landed property held by religious or charitable bodies, even where these had never advanced the slightest claim to political independence. The Diet declared the whole of the land held in Germany by pious foundations to be at the disposal of the Governments for purposes of religion, of education, and of financial relief. The more needy courts immediately seized so welcome an oppor- tunity of increasing their revenues. Germany lost nothing by the dissolution of some hundreds of monas- teries ; the suppression of hospitals and the impoverish- ment of Universities was a doubtful benefit. Through the destruction of the Ecclesiastical States and the con- fiscation of Church lands, the support of an army of ^ Perthes, Politisclie Zustaude, ii., 402, 9*>q, 254 MODERN EUROPE, im. priests was tlirown upon tlie public revenues. The Elector of Cologne, who had been an indifferent civil ruler, became a very prosperous clergyman on £20,000 a year. All the members of the annexed or disendowed establishments, down to the acolytes and the sacristans, were credited with annuities equal in value to what they had lost. But in the confusion caused by war the means to satisfy these claims was not always forth- coming ; and the ecclesiastical revolution, so beneficial on the whole to the public interest, was not effected without much severe and undeserved individual suffering. The movement of 1803 put an end to an order of things more curious as a survival of the mixed religious Governments in ^ud political form of the Holy Eoman Em- more absolute pire than important in the actual state of and more regu- ■*■ ^ ^- Europe. The temporal power now lost by the Church in Germany had been held in such sluggish hands that its effect was hardly visible except in a denser prejudice and an idler life than prevailed under other Grovernments. The first consequence of its down- fall was that a great part of Grermany which had hitherto had no political organisation at all gained the benefit of a regular system of taxation, of police, of civil and of criminal justice. If harsh and despotic, the Grovernments which rose to power at the expense of the Church were usually not wanting in the love of order and uniformity. Officers of the State administered a fixed law where custom and privilege had hitherto been the only rule. Appointments ceased to be bought or inherited ; trades and professions were thrown open ; the 1901 THE KN1QET8, 255 peasant was relieved of his heaviest feudal burdens. Among the newly consolidated States, Bavaria was the one where the reforming impulse of fo*r^Sr iiont the time took the strongest form. A new dynasty, springing from the west of the Ehine, brought something of the spirit of French liberalism into a country hitherto unsurpassed in Western Europe for its ignorance and bigotry* The Minister Montgelas, a politician of French enlightenment, entered upon the same crusade against feudal and ecclesiastical disorder which Joseph had inaugurated in Austria twenty years before. His measures for subjecting the clergy to the law, and for depriving the Church of its control over education, were almost identical with those which in 1790 had led to the revolt of Belgium; and the Bavarian landowners now unconsciously reproduced all the mediaeval platitudes of the University of Louvain. Montgelas organised and levelled with a remorseless common sense. Among his victims there was a class which had escaped destruction in the recent changes. The Kjaights of the Empire, with their village jurisdic- tions, were still legally existent ; but to Montgelas such a class appeared a mere absurdity, and he g^ ^^^^^ ^ sent his soldiers to disperse their courts and *^® Knighta. to seize their tolls. Loud lamentation assailed the Emperor at Vienna. If the dethroned bishops had be- wailed the approaching extinction of Christianity in Europe, the knights just as convincingly deplored the end of chivalry. Knightly honour, now being swept • Friedrich, Qeschichte des Vatikaiiischen Konzils, L, 27, 174, 256 1I0D:EBN EUBOPB. 1304. from tlie earth, was proved to be tlie true soul of German nationality, the invisible support of the Imperial throne. For a moment the intervention of the Emperor forced Montgelas to withdraw his grasp from the sacred rents and turnpikes; but the threatening storm passed over, and the example of Bavaria was gradually followed by the neighbouring Courts. It was to the weak and unpatriotic princes who were enriched by the French that the knights fell vic- tims. Among the knights thus despoiled by the Duke of Nassau was the Eitter vom Stein, a nobleman who had entered the Prussian service in the reign of Frederick the Grreat, and who had lately been placed in stem and the . "^ -'■ Duke of Nassau. }^{^ officc iu thc newly-acqulrcd province of Miinster. Stein was thoroughly familiar with the advantages of systematic government ; the loss of his native parochial j urisdiction was not a serious one to a man who had become a power in Prussia ; and although domestic pride had its share in Stein's resentment, the protest now published by him against the aggressions of the Duke of Nassau sounded a different note from that of his order generally. That a score of farmers should pay their dues and take off their hats to the officer of the Duke of Nassau instead of to the bailiff of the Eitter vom Stein was not a matter to excite deep feeling in Europe ; but that the consolidation of Germany should be w^orked out in the interest of French hirelings instead of in the interests of the German people was justly treated by Stein as a subject for 1801-4. STEIN AND THE DUKE OF NASSAU, 257 patriotic anger. In his letter to tlie Duke of Nassau,* Stein reproached his own despoiler and the whole tribe of petty princes with that treason to German interests which had won them the protection of the foreigner. He argued that the knights were a far less important obstacle to German unity than on the Minor those very princes to whom the knights were sacrificed ; and he invoked that distant day which should give to Germany a real national unity, over knights and princes alike, under the leadership of a single patriotic sovereign. Stein's appeal found little response among his contemporaries. Like a sober man among drunkards, he seemed to be scarcely rational. The simple conception of a nation sacrificing its internal rivalries in order to avert foreign rule was folly to the politicians who had all their lives long been outwitting one another at Vienna or Berlin, or who had just become persons of consequence in Europe through the patronage of Bonaparte. Yet, if years of intolerable suffering were necessary before any large party in Germany rose to the idea of German union, the ground had now at least been broken. In the changes that followed the Peace of Luneville the fixity and routine of Ger- many received its death-blow. In all but name the Empire had ceased to exist. Change and re-constitu- tion in one form or another had become familiar to all men's minds ; and one real statesman at the least was already beginning to learn the lesson which later events were to teach to the rest of the German race. • Pertz, Leben Stem, i., 257. Seeley*8 Stein, i., 126. B France. 1801—1804. 258 MODERN EUBOi'K I801-4. Four years of peace separated t"he Treaty of Lun^- ville from the next outbreak of war between France and any Continental Power. They were years of extension of French influence in every neighbouring State ; in France itself, years of the con- solidation of Bonaparte's power, and of the decline of everything that checked his personal rule. The legis- lative bodies sank into the insignificance for which they had been designed; everything that was suffered to wear the appearance, of strength owed its vigour to the personal support of the First Consul. Among the insti- tutions which date from this period, two, equally asso- ciated with the name of Napoleon, have taken a prominent place in history, the Civil Code and the Concordat. Since the middle of the eighteenth century the codification of law had been pur- sued with more or less success by almost every govern- ment in Europe. In France the Constituent Assembly of 1789 had ordered the statutes, by which it superseded the old variety of local customs, to be thus cast into a systematic form. A Committee of the Convention had completed the draft of a Civil Code. The Directory had in its turn appointed a Commission ; but the pro- ject still remained unfulfilled when the Directory was driven from power. Bonaparte instinctively threw himself into a task so congenial to his own systematising spirit, and stimulated the efforts of the best jurists in France by his personal interest and pride in the work of legislation. A Commission of lawyers, ap- pointed by the First Consul, presented the successive 1801-4. NAFOLEON AS A LEGISLATOR. 259 chapters of a Civil Code to the Council of State. In the discussions in the Council of State Bonaparte him- self took an active, thougli not always a beneficial, part. The draft of each chapter, as it left the Council of State, was submitted, as a project of Law, to the Tribunate and to the Legislative Body. For a moment the free expression of opinion in the Tribunate caused Bonaparte to suspend his work in impatient jealousy. The Tri- bunate, however, was soon brought to silence ; and in March, 1804, France received the Code which has formed from that time to the present tbe basis of its civil rights. When Napoleon declared that he desired his fame to rest upon the Civil Code, he showed his appreciation of the power which names exercise over mankind. It is probable that a majority of the inhabitants of Western Europe believe that Napoleon actually invented the laws which bear his name. As a matter of fact, the substance of these laws was fixed by the successive As- semblies of the Eevolution; and, in the final revision which produced the Civil Code, Napoleon appears to have originated neither more nor less than several of the members of his Council whose names have long been forgotten. He is unquestionably entitled to the honour of a great legislator, not, however, as one Napoieon m % who, like " Solon or like Mahomet, himself "^r"^- created a new body of law, but as one who most vigor- ously pursued the work of consolidating and popular- ising law by the help of all the skilled and scientific minds whose resources were at his command. Thousfh faulty in parta, the Civil Code, through its conciseness, B 2 260 MODERN EUBOPE. 1801-4. its simplicity, and its justice, enabled Napoleon to carry a new and incomparably better social order into every country that became part of bis Empire. Four other Codes, appearing at intervals from the year 1804 to thcj year 1810, embodied, in a corresponding form, the Law of Commerce, the Criminal Law, and the Rules of Civil and of Criminal Process.* The whole remains a monu- ment of the legal energy of the period which began in 1789, and of the sagacity with which ^N'apoleon asso- ciated with his own rule all the science and the reform- ing zeal of the jurists of his day. ^^ff^a,r more distinctively the work of Napoleon's own mind was the reconciliation with the Church The Concordat. of Eome effected by the Concordat. It was a restoration of religi on sim ilar to that res toration of political order which made the public service the engine of a s in gle ^ will. The bishops and priests, whose ap- pointment the Concordat transferred from their congre- gations to the Government, were as much instruments of the First Consul as his prefects and his gendarmes. The spiritual wants of the public, the craving of the poor for religious consolation, were made the pretext for introducing the new theological police. But the * Tlie first-hand account of tlie formation of the Code Napoleon, with the Proces- Verbal of the Council of State and the principal reports, speeches, &c., made in the Tribunate and the Legislative Bodies, is to be found in the work of Baron Locre, " La Legislation de la France," pub- lished at Paris in 1827. Locre was Secretary of the Council of State under the Consulate and the Empire, and possessed a quantity of records which had not been published before 1827. The Proces- Verbal, though perhaps not always faithful, contains the only record of Napoleon's own share in the discussions of the Council of State. 1801-4. THE OONOORDAT. 261 situation of the Catholic Church was in reality no worse in France at the commencement of the Consulate than its present situation in Ireland. The Republic had indeed subjected the non-juripg priests t o t he heaviest pen alties ; but the exercise of Christian worship, which, even in the Reign of Terror, had only been interrupted by local and individual fanaticism, had long recovered the protection of the law, services in the open air being alone prohibited."'*" Since 1795 the local authorities had been compelled to admit the religious societies of their district to the use of church-buildings. Though the coup d'etat of Fructidor, 1797, renewed the prosecu- * The statement, so often repeated, that the Convention prohibited Christian worship, or "abolished Christianity," in France, is a fiction. Thronghout the Reign of Terror the Convention maintained the State Church, as established by the Constituent Assembly in 1791. Though the salaries of the clergy fell into arrear, the Convention rejected a proposal to cease paying them. The non-juring priests were condemned by the Convention to transportation, and were liable to be put to death if they returned to France. But where churches were profaned, or constitutional priests molested, it was the work of local bodies, or of individual Conven- tionalists on mission, not of the law. The Commune of Paris shut up most, but not all, of the churches in Paris. Other local bodies did the same. After the Reign of Terror ended, the Convention adopted the proposal which it had rejected before, and abolished the State salary of the clergy (Sept. 20th, 1794). This merely placed all sects on a level. But local fanatics were still busy against religion ; and the Convention accordingly had to pass a law (Feb. 23, 1795), forbidding all interference with Christian services. This law required that worsMp sliould not be held in a distinctive building (i.e., church), nor in the open air. Very soon afterwards the Convention (May 23) permitted the churches to be used for worship. The laws against non-juring priests wore not now enforced, and a number of churches in Paris were actually given up to non-juring priests. The Directory was inclined to renew the persecution of this class in 1 796, but the Assemblies would not permit it ; and in July, 1797, the Council of Five Hundred passed a motion totally abolishing the legal penalties of non- jurors. This was immediately followed by the coup d'etat of Fructidor. 2G2 MODERN EUBOFK i80i-4. tion of non-juring priests, it in no way cliecked the activity of the Constitutional CliurcTi, now free from all connexion with the Civil Government. While the non- juring priests, exiled as political offenders, or theatri- cally adoring the sacred elements in the woods, pretended that the age of the martyrs had returned to France, a Constitutional Church, ministering in 4,000 parishes, unprivileged but unharassed by the State, supplied the nation with an earnest and respectable body of clergy.* But in the eyes of the First Consul everything left to voluntary association was so much lost to the central power. In the order of nature, peasants must obey priests, priests must obey bishops, and bishops must obey the First Consul. An alliance with the Pope offered to Bonaparte the means of supplanting the popular organisation of the Constitutional Church by an imposing hierarchy, rigid in its orthodoxy and unquestioning in its devotion to himself. In return for the consecration of his own rule, Bonaparte did not shrink from inviting the Pope to an exercise of authority such as the Holy See had never even claimed in France. The whole of the existing French Bishops, both the exiled non-jurors and those of the Constitu- tional Church, were summoned to resign their Sees into the hands of the Pope ; against all who refused to do so sentence of deposition was pronounced by the Pontiff, without a word heard in defence, or the shadow of a fault alleged. The Sees were re-organised, and filled up by * Gregoire, Membires, ii., 87. Annales de la Religion, x., 441 ; Pres- sense, L'^glise et la Revolution, p. 359. 1801^ EI8E OF ULTRAMONTANISM, (_^ nominees of the First Consul. The position of the great body of the clergy was substantially altered in its relation to the Bishops. Episcopal power was made despotic, like all other power in France : thousands of the clergy, hitherto secure in their livings, were placed at the disposal of their bishop, and rendered liable to be transferred at the pleasure of their superior from place to place. The Constitutional d^tr^ the Free Church vanished, but religion appeared to be honoured by becoming part of the State. ^^^ In its immediate action, the Napoleonic Church served the purpose for which it was intended. For some few years the clergy unflaggingly preached, prayed, and catechised to the glory of their restorer. In the greater cycle of religious change, the Concordat of Besvuta in Bonaparte appears in another light. "^How- ■^*'"*°'°°**^'^«™- ever little appreciated at the time, it was the greatest, the most critical, victory which the Eoman See has ever gained over the more enlightened and the more national elements in the Catholic Churc^) It converted the Catholicism of France from a faith already far more in- dependent than that of F^ndlon and Bossuet into the Catholicism which in our own day has outstripped the bigotry of Spain and Austria in welcoming the dogma of Papal infallibility. The lower clergy, condemned by the State to an intolerable subjection, soon found their only hope in an appeal to Eome, and instinctively worked as the emissaries of the Koman See. The Bishops, who owed their office to an unprecedented exercise of Papal po\/er and to the destruction of religious inde- 264 MODERN EUROPE. i80i-4 pendence in France, were not the men who could main- tain a struggle with the Papacy for the ancient Grallican liberties. In the resistance to the Papacy which had been maintained by the Continental Churches in a greater or less degree during the eighteenth century, France had on the whole taken the most effective part ; but, from the time when the Concordat dissolved both the ancient and the revolutionary Church system of France, the Grallican tradition of the past became as powerless among the French clergy as the philosophical liberalism of the Ee volution. In Germany the destruction of the temporal power sodotheGer- ^^ ^^^ Church tcudcd equally to Ultrambn- man changes, -fcauism. An archbishop of Cologne who governed half a million subjects was less likely to pros- trate himself before the Papal Chair than an archbishop of Cologne who was only one among a regiment of churchmen. The spiritual Electors and Princes who lost their dominions in 1801 had understood by the interests of their order something more tangible than a body of doctrines. When not hostile to the Papacy, they had usually treated it with indifference. The con- ception of a Catholic society exposed to persecution at the hands of the State on account of its devotion to Eome was one which had never entered the mind of German ecclesiastics in the eighteenth century. With- out the changes effected in Germany by the Treaty of Luneville, without the Concordat of Bonaparte, Catholic orthodoxy would never have become identical with Ultramontanism. In this respect the opening years of ibOi-1. ULTBAM0NTANI8M. 265 the present century mark a turning-point in the relation of the Church to modern life. Abeady, in place of the old monarchical Governments, friendly on the whole to the Catholic Church, events were preparing the way for that changed order with which the century seems destined to close ; — an emancipated France, a free Italy, a secular, state-disciplined Germany, and the Church in conspiracy against them all. y/y ^ CHAPTEE VI. Engknd claims Malta — ^War renewed — Bonaparte occnpies Hanover, and blockades the Elbe — Remonstrances of Prussia — Cadoudal's Plot — Murder of the Duke of Enghien — Napoleon Emperor — Coalition of 1805 — Prussia holds aloof — State of Austria — Failure of Napoleon's attempt to gain naral superiority in the Channel — Campaign in "Western Germany — Capitulation of TJlm — Trafalgar — Treaty of Potsdam between Prussia and the A l li es — The French enter Vienna — Haugwitz sent to Napoleon with Prussian Ultimatum — Battle of Austerlitz — Haugwitz signs a Treaty of Alliance with Napoleon — Peace — Treaty of Presburg— End of the Holy Roman Empire — Naples given to Joseph Bonaparte — Battle of Maida — The Napoleonic Empire and Dynasty — Federation of the Rhine — State of Germany — Possibility of maintaining the Empire of 1806. War was renewed between France and Great Britain in the spring of 1803. Addington's Gro vein- pares for war, ment, in their desire for peace, had borne with Bonaparte's aggressions during all the months of negotiation at Amiens ; they had met his complaints against the abuse of the English press by prosecuting his Eoyalist libellers ; throughout the Ses- sion of 1802 they had upheld the possibility of peace against the attacks of their parliamentary opponents. The invasion of Switzerland in the autumn of 1802, fol- lowing the annexation of Piedmont, forced the Ministry to alter its tone. The King's Speech at the meeting of Parliament in November declared that the changes in operation on the Continent demanded measures of security on the part of Great Britain. The naval and military forces of the country were restored to a war-footing; 180S. WAR RENEWED WITH ENGLAND. 267 the evacuation of Malta by Great Britain, which had hitherto been delayed chiefly through a misunderstand- ing with Eussia, was no longer treated as a matter of certainty. While the English Government still wavered, a challenge was thrown down by the First Consul which forced them into decided action. The Moniteur published on the 13th of January, 1803, a report upon Egypt by Colonel Sebastiani, pointing in the plainest terms to the renewal of French attacks upon the East. The British Government demanded explanations, and declared that until satisfaction was given upon this point ^^1^^^ claims they should retain possession of Malta. Malta was in fact appropriated by Great Britain as an equivalent for the Continental territory added to France since the end of the war.* It would have been better policy if, some months earlier, Bonaparte had been required to withdraw from Piedmont or from Switzerland, under pain of hostilities with England. Great Britain had as little technical right to retain Malta as Bonaparte had to annex Pied- mont. The desire for peace had, however, led Adding- ton's Government to remain inactive until Bonaparte's aggressions had become accomplished facts. It was now too late to attempt to undo them : England could only treat the settlement of Amiens as superseded, and claim compensation on its own side. Malta was the position most necessary to Great Britain, in order to prevent Bonaparte from carrying out projects in Egypt and Greece of which the Government had evidence inde- • Papers presented to Farliaraont, 1802 — 3, p. 96. 268 MODERN EUROPE. i803. pendent of Sebastiani's report. The value of Malta, so lately denied by ^N'elson, was now fully understood both in France and England. No sooner had the English Ministry avowed its intention of retaining the island than the First Consul declared himself compelled to take up arms in behalf of the faith of treaties. Ignoring his own violations of treaty-rights in Italy and Switzer- land, Bonaparte declared the retention of Malta by Great Britain to be an outrage against all Europe. He assailed the British Ambassador with the utmost fury at a reception held at the Tuileries on the 13th of March; and, after a correspondence of two months. Wax Ma wMch probably marked his sense of the ^^^' power and obstinacy of his enemy, the con- flict was renewed which was now to continue without a break until Bonaparte was driven from his throne. So long as England was without Continental allies its warfare was limited to the seizure of colonies and the blockade of ports : on the part of France nothing could be effected against the island Power except by Bona arte and actual iuvasiou. Thcrc was, however, among Hanover. ^^^ commuuitics of Grermany one which, in the arguments of a conqueror, might be treated as a dependency of England, and made to suffer for its con- nection with the British Crown. Hanover had hither- to by common agreement been dissociated from the wars in which its Elector engaged as King of England; even the personal presence of King Greorge II. at the battle of Dettingen had been held no ground for violating its neutrality. Bonaparte, however, was untroubled by 1803. TEE FRENGE OOOUPY HANOVEB. 269 precedents in a case where lie had so much to gain. Apart from its value as a possible object of exchange in the next treaty with England, Hanover would serve as a means of influencing Prussia : it was also worth so many millions in cash through the requisitions which might be imposed upon its inhabitants. The only scruple felt by Bonaparte in attacking Hanover arose from the pos- sibility of a forcible resistance on the part of Prussia to the appearance of a French army in North Germany. Accordingly, before the invasion began. General Duroc was sent to Berlin to inform the King of the First Consul's intentions, and to soothe any irritation that might be felt at the Prussian Court by assurances of friendship and respect. It was a moment of the most critical importance to Prussia. Prussia was the recognised 2:uardian ., . , O o Prussia i*-ni\ of Northern Germany ; every consideration ^^»°°^^- of interest and of honour required that its Government should forbid the proposed occupation of Hanover — if necessary, at the risk of actual war. Hanover in the hands of France meant the extinction of German inde- pendence up to the frontiers of the Prussian State. If, as it was held at Berlin, the cause of Great Britain was an unjust one, and if the connection of Hanover with the British Crown was for the future to make that province a scapegoat for the offences of England, the wisest course for Prussia would have been to deliver Hanover at once from its French and from its English enemies by occupying it with its own forces. The Foreign Minister, Count Haugwitz, appears to have 270 MODEBlSr EUROPE, 1803. recommended this step, but his counsels were overruled. King Frederick William III., who had succeeded his father in 1797, was a conscientious but a timid and spiritless being. Public affairs were in the hands of his private advisers, of whom the most influential were the so-called cabinet- secretaries, Lombard and Beyme, men credulously anxious for the goodwill of France, and perversely blind to the native force and worth which still existed in the Prussian Monarchy.* Instead of declaring the entry of the French into Hanover to be absolutely incompatible with the safety of the other North German States, King Frederick William endea- voured to avert it by diplomacy. He tendered his mediation to the British Government upon condi- tion of the evacuation of Malta ; and, when this proposal was bluntly rejected, he offered to the First Consul his personal security that Hanover should pay a sum of money in order to be spared the intended invasion. Such a proposal marked the depth to which Prussian statesmanship had sunk ; .it failed to affect the First Consul in the slightest degree. While negotiations were still proceeding, a French division, commanded by General Mortier, entered Hanover (May, 1803). The • " The King and his Ministers are in tha greatest distress and embar- rassment. The latter do not hesitate to avow it, and the King has for the last week shown snch evident symptoms of dejection that the least obser- vant could not but remark it. He has expressed himself most feelingly upon the unfortunate predicament in which he finds himself. He would welcome the hand that should assist him and the voice that should give him courage to extricate himself." — F. Jackson's despatch from Berlin, May 16, 1803; Records: Prussia, vol. 189. uoa. FBUSaiA AND HANOVER, 271 Hanoverian army was lost through the follies of the civil Government ; the Duke of Cambridge, com- •t (, A. .-!••• I • . French enter mander or one or its divisions, less ingenious Hanover, May, than his brother the Duke of York in find- ing excuses for capitulation, resigned his commission, and fled to England, along with many brave soldiers, who subsequently found in the army of Great Britain the opportunity for honourable service which was denied to them at home. Hanover passed into the possession of France, and for two years the miseries of French occupation were felt to the full. Extortion consumed the homely wealth of the country ; the games and meet- ings of the people were prohibited ; French spies violated the confidences of private life ; Hanover, laos law was administered by foreign soldiers; the press existed only for the purpose of French pro- selytism. It was in Hanover that the bitterness of that oppression was first felt which subsequently roused all North Germany against a foreign master, and forced upon the race the long-forgotten claims of patriotism and honour. Bonaparte had justly calculated upon the inaction of the Prussian Government when he gave the order to General Mortier to enter Hanover ; his next step proved the growth of his confidence in Prussia's impassivity. A French force was despatched to Cuxhaven, French blockade at the mouth of the Elbe, in order to stop *^*^^ the commerce of Great Britain with the interior of Germany. The British Government immediately in- formed the Court of Berlin that it should blockade the 272 MODERN EUROPE. 1803. Elbe and the Weser against the ships of all nations unless the French soldiers withdrew from the Elbe. As the linen trade of Silesia and other branches of Prussian industry depended upon the free navigation of the Elbe, the threatened reprisals of the British Government raised very serious questions for Prussia. It was France, not England, that had first violated the neutrality of the river highway ; and the King of Prussia now felt himself compelled to demand assurances from Bona- strance of partc that the interests of Germany should Prussia. ■*■ "^ suffer no further injury at his hands. A letter was written by the King to the First Consul, and entrusted to the cabinet- secretary Lombard, who car- ried it to Napoleon at Brussels (July, 1803). Lombard, the son of French parents who had settled at Berlin in the reign of Frederick the Great, had risen from a humble station through his skill in expression in the two languages that were native to him ; and the accom- plishments which would have made him a good clerk or a successful journalist made him in the eyes of Frederick William a counsellor for kings. The history of his mission to Brussels gives curious evidence both of the fascination exercised by Napoleon over common minds, and of the political helplessness which in Prussia could now be mistaken for the quality of a statesman. Lom- bard failed to obtain from Napoleon any guarantee or securit}^ whatever; yet he wrote back in terras of the utmost delight upon the success of his mission. Napo- leon had infatuated him by the mere exercise of his personal charm. " What I cannot describe,*' said Lorn- IflOl MISSION OF LOMBARD. 273 bard, in his report to the King relating his interview with the First Consul,* "is the tone of goodness and noble frankness with which he expressed his reverence for your Majesty's rights, and asked for that confidence from your Majesty which he so well deserves." " I only wish,*' he cried at the close of ]N'apoleon*s address, ** that I could convey to the King, my master, every one of your words and the tone in which they are uttered; he would then, I am sure, feel a double joy at the justice with which you have always been treated at his hands/' Lombard's colleagues at Berlin were perhaps not stronger men than the envoy himself, but they were at least beyond the range of Napoleon's voice and glance, and they received this rhapsod}^ with coldness. They com- plained that no single concession had been made by the First Consul upon the points raised by the King. Cux- haven continued in French hands ; the British inexor- ably blockaded the Germans upon their own neutral waters ; and the cautious statecraft of Prussia proved as valueless to Grermany as the obstinate, speculating, warfare of Austria. There was, however, a Power which watched the advance of French dominion into Northern Alexander Germany with less complaisance than the d^i«»««*- Germans themselves. The Czar of Eussia had gradually • Hansser li., 472. There are interesting acconnts of Lombard and the other leading porsons of Berlin in F. Jackson's despatches of this date. The charge of gross personal immorality made against Lombard is brought against almost every German public man of the time in the writings of opponents. History and politics are, however, a bad tribunal of private eharacter. 274 MODERN EUEOPK 1804. come to understand the part allotted to him by Bona- parte since the Peace of Lundville, and was no longer inclined to serve as the instrument of French ambition. Bonaparte's occupation of Hanover changed the attitude of Alexander into one of coldness and distrust. Alex- ander saw and lamented the help which he himself had given to Bonaparte in Germany: events that now took place in France itself, as well as the progress of French intrigues in Turkey,* threw him into the arms of Bona- parte's enemies, and prepared the way for a new European coalition. The First Consul had determined about^to become to assumc the dio-nitY of Emperor. The re- Emperor. O »/ J. newal of war with England excited a new out- burst of enthusiasm for his person ; nothing was want- ing to place the crown on his head but the discovery of a plot against his life. Such a plot had been long and carefully followed by the police. A Breton gentleman, Georges Cadoudal, had formed the design of attacking the First Consul in the streets of Paris in the midst of his guards. Cadoudal and his fellow-conspirators, in- cluding General Pichegru, were traced by the police from the coast of Normandy to Paris: an unsuccessful attempt was made to lure the Count of Artois, and other royal patrons of the conspiracy, from Great Britain. When all the conspirators who could be enticed to * Fonmier, Gentz tmd Cobenzl, p. 79. Beer, Zehn Jalire, p. 49. The despatches of Sir J . Warren of this date from St. Petersburg (Records: Russia, vol. 175) are full of plans for meeting an expected invasion of the Morea and the possible liberation of the Greeks by Bonaparte. They give the impression that Eastern affairs were really the dominant inte- rest with Alexander in his breach with France. MUBDEB OF ENQHIEN, 275 France were collected within the capital, the police, who had watched every stage of the movement, began to make arrests. Moreau, the last Eepublican soldier of France, was charged with complicity in the plot. Pichegru and Cadoudal were thrown into prison, there to await their doom ; Moreau, who probably wished for the overthrow of the Consular Government, but had no part in the design against Bonaparte's life,* was kept under arrest and loaded with official calumny. One sacrifice more remained to be made, in place of the Bourbon d'Artois, who baffled the police of the First Consul beyond the seas. In the territory of Baden, twelve miles from the French frontier, there lived a prince of the exiled house, the Duke of Enghien, a soldier under the first Coalition against France, now a harmless dependent on the bounty of England. French spies surrounded him ; his excursions into the mountains gave rise to a suspicion that he was concerned in Piche- gru's plot. This was enough to mark him for destruc- tion. Bonaparte gave orders that he should be seized, brought to Paris, and executed. On the 15th of March, 1804, a troop of French soldiers crossed the Rhine and arrested the Duke in his own Duke of Enghien. March -JO, IdOi. house at Ettenheim, They arrived with him at Paris on the 20th. He was taken to the fort of Vincennes without entering the city. On that same night a commission of six colonels sat in judgment upon the prisoner, whose grave was already dug, and pro- nounced sentence of death without hearing a word of • Miot de Melito, L, oh. 16. Savaxy, iL, 3^ b2 276 MODERN EUROPE. im. evidence. At daybreak tlie Duke was led out and shot. If some barbaric instinct made tbe slaughter of his predecessor's kindred in Bonaparte's own eyes the omen of a successful usurpation, it was not so with Europe generally. One universal sense of horror passed, over the Continent. The Court of Eussia put on mourning ; even the Diet of Eatisbon showed signs of human pas- sion at the indignity done to Germany by the seizure of the Duke of Enghien on German soil. Austria kept silent, but watched the signs of coming war. France alone showed no pity. Before the Duke of Enghien had been dead a week, the Senate besought Napoleon to give to France the security of a hereditary throne Prefects, bishops, mayors, and councils with one voice repeated the official prayer. A resolution Napoleon Em- . p « . • i i i i i o peror,Mayi8, m lavour 01 imperial- rule was brought for- ward in the Tribunate, and passed, after a noble and solitary protest on the part of Carnot. A decree of the Senate embodied the terms of the new Constitution; and on the 18th of May, without waiting for the sanction of a national vote. Napoleon assumed the title of Emperor of the French. In France itself the change was one more of the name than of the substance of power. Napoleon could not be vested with a more absolute authority than he already possessed ; but the forms of republican equality vanished; and although the real social equality given to France by the Eevolution was beyond reach of change, the nation had to put up with a bastard Court and a 1805. NAPOLEON EMPEBOn. 277 fictitious aristocracy of Corsican princes, Terrorist ex- cellencies, and Jacobin dukes. The new dynasty was recognised at Vienna and Berlin : on the part of Austria it received the compliment of an imitation. Three months after the assumption of the Imperial title by Napoleon, the Emperor Francis (Emperor in Ger- many, but King in Hungary and Bohemia) assumed the title of Emperor of all his Austrian dominions. Tlie true reason for this act was the virtual disso- lution of the Germanic system by the Peace of Austria, Aug., of Lun6ville, and the probability that the old Imperial dignity, if preserved in name, would soon be transferred to some client of Napoleon or to Napoleon himself. Such an apprehension was, however, not one that could be confessed to Europe. Instead of the ruin of Germany, the grandeur of Austria was made the ostensible ground of change. In language which seemed to be borrowed from the scriptural history of Nebuchad- nezzar, the Emperor Francis declared that, although no possible addition could be made to his own personal dignity, as Eoman Emperor, yet the ancient glory of the Austrian House, the grandeur of the principalities and kingdoms which were united under its dominion, re- quired that the Sovereigns of Austria should hold a title equal to that of the greatest European throne. A general war against Napoleon was already being pro- posed by the Court of St. Petersburg; but for the present the Corsican and the Hapsburg Caesar exchanged their hypocritical congratulations.* * A protest liauded in at "Vienna by Lonis XVIH. against Napoleon's title was burnt in the presence of the French ambassador. The Austrian 278 MODERN EUROPE. 1805. Almost at the same time that Bonaparte ascended the throne, Pitt returned to power in Grreat Minister. May, Britain. He was summoned by the general 1804. ^ ^ . . distrust felt in Addington's Ministry, and by the belief that no statesman but himself could rally the Powers of Europe against the common enemy. Pitt was not long in framing with Russia the plan of a third Coalition. The Czar broke off diplomatic intercourse with Napoleon in September, 1804, and induced the Court of Vienna to pledge itself to resist any further extension of French power. Sweden entered into en- gagements with Grreat Britain. On the opening of Parliament at the beginning of 1805, King Greorge III. announced that an understanding existed between Grreat Britain and Eussia, and asked in general terms for a provision for Continental subsidies. In April, a treaty was signed at St. Petersburg by the representatives of Coalition of B^ssia and Great Britain, far more compre- ^^^* hensive and more serious in its provisions than any which had yet united the Powers against France.^ Eussia and England bound themselves to direct their efforts to the formation of a European League capable of placing five hundred thousand men in the field. Grreat Britain undertook to furnish subsidies to every member of the League ; no peace was to be con- cluded with France but by common consent ; conquests title was assumed on August 10, but the publication was delayed a day on account of the sad memories of August 10, 1792. Fournier, p. 102. Beer, p. 60. * Papers presented to Parliament, 28th January, 1806, and 5th May, 1815. 1805. TEE TniRV GOALITIOn. 279 made by any of the belligerents were to remain un- appropriated until the general peace ; and at the termi- nation of the war a Congress was to fix certain disputed points of international right, and to establish a federa- tive European system for their maintenance and en- forcement. As the immediate objects of the League, the treaty specified the expulsion of the French from Holland, Switzerland, Italy, and Northern Germany; the re-establishment of the King of Sardinia in Pied- mont, with an increase of territory ; and the creation of a solid barrier against any future usurpations of France. The last expression signified the union of Holland and part of Belgium under the House of Orange. In this respect, as in the provision for a common disposal of conquests and for the settlement of European affliirs by a Congress, the Anglo-Eussian Treaty of 1805 defined the policy actually carried out in 1814. Other territorial changes now suggested by Pitt, including the annexa- tion of the Ehenish Provinces to the Prussian Monarchy, were not embodied in the treaty, but became from this time understood possibilities. England and Eussia had, however, some difficulty in securing allies. Although in violation of his promises to Austria, Napoleon had accepted the title of King of Italy from the Senate of the Italian Eepublic, and had crowned himself with the Iron Crown of Lombardy (March, 1805), the Ministers at Vienna would have pre- ferred peace, if that had been possible ; and their master reluctantly consented to a war against Napoleon when war in some form or other seemed inevitable. 280 MOBEBN EUBOPK im. The policy of Prussia was doubtful. For two years past Napoleon had made every effort to induce Prussia to enter into alliance with himself. After the invasion of Hanover he had doubled his attentions to the Court of Berlin, and had spared nothing in the way of promises and assurances of friendship to win the King PoUc of ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^' ^^^ neutrality of Prussia ^*^^'** was of no great service to France : its sup- 23ort would have been of priceless value, rendering any attack upon France by Eussia or Austria almost im- possible, and thus enabling Napoleon to throw his whole strength into the combat with Great Britain. In the spring of 1804, the King of Prussia, uncertain of the friendship of the Czar, and still unconvinced of the vanity of Napoleon's professions, had inclined to a de- fensive alliance with France. The news of the murder of the Duke of Enghien, arriving almost simultaneously with a message of goodwill from St. Petersburg, led him to abandon this project of alliance, but caused no breach with Napoleon. Frederick William adhered to the temporising policy which Prussia had followed since 1795, and the Foreign Minister, Haugwitz, who had recommended bolder measures, withdrew for a time from the Court."^ Baron Hardenberg, who had already acted as his deputy, stepped into his place. Hardenberg, the negotiator of the peace of Basle, had for the last ten years advocated a system of neutrality. A politician quick to grasp new social and political ideas, he was * Hardenberg, ii., 50 : corrected in the articles on Hardenberg and Haugwitz in the Deutsch Allgemeine Biographie 1805. rOLIOY OF PRUSSIA. 281 without that insight into the real forces at work in Europe which, in spite of errors in detail, made the political aims of Pitt, and of many far inferior men, substantially just and correct. So late as the end of the year 1804, Hardenherg not only failed to recognise the dangers to which Prussia was exposed from Napoleon's ambition, but conceived it to be still possible for Prussia to avert war between Prance and the Allied Powers by maintaining a good understanding with all parties alike. Hardenberg's neutrality excited the wrath of the Eus- sian Cabinet. While Metternich, the Austrian am- bassador at Berlin, cautiously felt his way, the Czar proposed in the last resort to force Prussia Prussia neutral. to take up arms. A few months more passed ; and, when hostilities were on the point of breaking out, Hanover was definitely offered to Prussia by Napoleon as the price of an alliance. Hardenherg, still believing that it lay within the power of Prussia, by means of a French alliance, both to curb Napoleon and to prevent a European war, urged the King to close with the offer of the French Emperor.* But the King shrank from a decision which involved the possi- bility of immediate war. The offer of Hanover was rejected, and Prussia connected itself neither with Napoleon nor his enemies. • Hardenherg, v., 167. Hardenherg was meanwhile representing himself to the British and Bnssian envoys as tlie partisan of the Allies. " He declared that he saw it was become impossible for this country to remain neutral, and that he should unequivocally make known his senti- ments to that ofPoct to the King. Ho added that if the decision depended upon himself, Eussia need entertain no apprehension as to the part he should take."— Jackjion, Sept. 3, 1805; Records: Prussia, vol. 194, 282 MOBBBN EUROPE. 1805. Pitt, the autlior of tlie Coalition of 1805, had formed the most sanguine estimate of the armaments state of Austria ^^ ^^^ alHes. Austria was said to have The army. entered upon a new era since the peace of Luneville, and to have turned to the best account all the disasters of its former campaigns. There had indeed been no want of fine professions from Vienna, but Pitt knew little of the real state of affairs. The Archduke Charles had been placed at the head of the military ad- ministration, and entrusted with extraordinary powers ; but the whole force of routine and corruption was ranged against him. He was deceived by his subordi- nates ; and after three years of reorganisation he re- signed his post, confessing that he left the army no nearer efficiency than it was before. Charles was re- placed at the War Office by Greneral Mack. Within six months this bustling charlatan imagined himself to have effected the reorganisation of which the Archduke despaired,^ while he had in fact only introduced new confusion into an army already hampered beyond any in Europe by its variety of races and languages. If the military reforms of Austria were delusive, its PoHticai condi- poHtical rcforms were still more so. The tion of Austria. Empcror had indeed consented to unite the Ministers, who had hitherto worked independently, in a Council of State ; but here reform stopped. Cobenzl, who was now First Minister, understood nothing but diplomacy. Men continued in office whose presence • Gentz, Schrif ten, iii., 60. Beer, 132, 141. Foumier, 104 Springer, 1,64 1805. 8TATE OF AUSTRIA 283 was an insuperable bar to any intelligent action : even in that mechanical routine which, in the eyes of the Emperor Francis, constituted the life of the State, everything was antiquated and self-contradictory. In all that affected the mental life of the people the years that followed the peace of Lun^ville were distinctly retrograde. Education was placed more than ever in the hands of the priests ; the censorship of the press was given to the police ; a commission was charged with the examination of all the books printed during the reign of the Emperor Joseph, and above two thousand works, which had come into being during that brief period of Austrian liberalism, were suppressed and destroyed. Trade regulations were issued which combined the ex- travagance of the French Eeign of Terror with the ig- norance of the Middle Ages. All the grain in the country was ordered to be sold before a certain date, and the Jews were prohibited from carrying on the corn-trade for a year. Such were the reforms described by Pitt in the English Parliament as having effected the regeneration of Austria. Nearer home things were judged in a truer light. Mack's paper-regiments, the helplessness and unreality of the whole system of Austrian officialism, were correctly appreciated by the men who had been most in earnest during the last war. Even Thugut now thought a contest hopeless. The Arch- duke Charles argued to the end for peace, and entered upon the war with the presentiment of defeat and ruin. The plans of the Allies for the campaign of 1805 284 MODERN EUROPE. im. covered an immense field."'*' It was intended that one Plans of cam- Austrian army should operate in Lombardy paign, 1806. i;ixider the Archduke Charles, while a second, under General Mack, entered Bavaria, and there awaited the arrival of the E-ussians, who were to unite with it in invading Trance : British and Eussian contingents were to combine with the King of Sweden in Pomerania, and with the King of Naples in Southern Italy. At the head-quarters of the Allies an impression prevailed that Napoleon was unprepared for war. It was even be- lieved that his character had lost something of its energy under the influence of an Imperial Court. Never was there a more fatal illusion. The forces of France had never been so overwhelming; the plans of Napoleon had never been worked out with greater minuteness and certainty. From Hanover to Strasburg masses of troops had been collected upon the frontier in readiness for the order to march; and, before the campaign opened, the magnificent army of Boulogne, which had been collected, for the invasion of England, was thrown into the scale against Austria. Events had occurred at sea which frustrated Napo- leon's plan for an attack upon Grreat Britain. Failure of Na- •*■ •*■ £^? agZi This attack, which in 1797 had been but lightly threatened, had, upon the renewal of war with England in 1803, become the object of Napo- leon's most serious efforts. An army was concentrated at Boulogne sufficient to overwhelm the military forces of England, if once it could reach the opposite shore. • itiistow, Krieg von 1805, p. 66. 1805. NAPOLEON'S NAVAL FAILURE. 285 Napoleon's thoughts were centred on a plan for obtain- ing the naval superioritj in the channel, if only for the few hours which it would take to transport the army from Boulogne to the English coast. It was his design to lure Nelson to the other side of the Atlantic by a feigned expedition against the West Indies, and, during the absence of the English admiral, to unite all the fleets at present lying blockaded in the French ports, as a cover for the invading armament. Admiral Villeneuve was ordered to sail to Martinique, and, after there meet- ing with some other ships, to re- cross the Atlantic with all possible speed, and liberate the fleets blockaded in Ferrol, Brest, and Rochefort. The junction of the fleets would give Napoleon a force of fifty sail in the British Channel, a force more than sufiicient to over- power all the squadrons which Great Britain could pos- sibly collect for the defence of its shores. Such a design exhibited all the power of combination which marked Napoleon's greatest triumphs ; but it required of an in- different marine the precision and swiftness of movement which belonged to the land-forces of France ; it assumed in the seamen of Great Britain the same absence of re- source which Napoleon had found among the soldiers of the Continent. In the present instance, however, Napoleon had to deal with a man as far superior to all the admirals of France as Napoleon himself was to the tjenerals of Austria and Prussia. Villeneuve „ , ^ Nelson aod set sail for the West Indies in the spring IpriT^ISe, of 1805, and succeeded in drawing Nelson after him; but, before he could re-cross the Atlantic, 286 MODERN EUROPE. I8O6. Nelson, incessantly pursuing tlie Frencli squadron in the West-Indian seas, and at length discovering its de- parture homewards at Antigua (June 13), had warned the English Grovernment of Yilleneuve's movement hy a message sent in the swiftest of the English hrigs.* The Government, within twenty-four hours of receiving Nelson's message, sent orders to Sir Robert Calder in- stantly to raise the blockades of Ferrol and Eochefort, and to wait for Yilleneuve off Cape Finisterre. Here Yilleneuve met the English fleet (July 22). He was worsted in a partial engagement, and retired into the harbour of Ferrol. The pressing orders of Napoleon forced the French admiral, after some delay, to attempt that movement on Brest and Eochefort on which the whole plan of the invasion of England depended. But Yilleneuve was no longer in a condition to meet the English force assembled against him. He put back without fighting, and retired to Cadiz. All hope of carrying out the attack upon England was lost. It only remained for Napoleon to avenge himself upon Austria through the army which was armies on Ba^ baulkcd of its Eugflish prev. On the 1st of varia, Sept. ^ . September, when the Austrians were now on the point of crossing the Inn, the camp of Boulogne was broken up. The army turned eastwards, and distributed itself over all the roads leading from the Channel to the Ehine and the Upper Danube. Far on the north-east the army of Hanover, commanded by Berna- dotte, moved as its left wing, and converged upon a * Nelson Despatches, vi., 457. 1805. CRITICAL SITUATION OF MACK 287 point in Southern Germany half-way between the fron- tiers of France and Austria. In the fables that long disguised the true character of every action of Napoleon, the admirable order of march now given to the French armies appears as the inspiration of a moment, due to the rebound of Napoleon's genius after learning the frustration of all his naval plans. In reality, the employment of the "Army of England" against a Continental coalition had always been an alternative present to Napoleon's mind; and it was threateningly mentioned in his letters at a time when Yilleneuve's failure was still unknown. The only advantage which the Allies derived from the remoteness of the Channel army was that Austria was able to occupy Bavaria vaae Bavaria, without resistance. General Mack, who was charged with this operation, crossed the Inn on the 8th of September. The Elector of Bavaria was known to be secretly hostile to the Coalition. The design of preventing his union with the French was a correct one ; but in the actual situation of the allied armies it was one that could not be executed without great risk. The preparations of Russia required more time than was al- lowed for them ; no Russian troops could reach the Inn before the end of October ; and, in consequence, the en- tire force operating in Western Germany did not exceed seventy thousand men. Any doubts, however, as to the prudence of an advance through Bavaria were silenced by the assurance that Napoleon had to brin^j^^^^^ bulk Bf > r life-long hatred of King George to Mr. Fox, a Ministry entered upon office framed by Fox and Gren- viUe conjointly; Fox taking the post of Foreign Secre- tary, with a leading influence in the Cabinet, and yielding Prussia in its determination to figlit. So late as December 20th the following instructions were sent to Harrowby at Berlin : " Even supposing the advan- tage of the day to have been decidedly with Bonaparte, it must have been ob- tained with a loss which cannot have left his force in a condition to contend with the army of Prussia and at the same time to make head against the Allies. If on the other hand it should appear that the advantage has been with the Allies, there is every r<3ason to hope that Prussia will come for- ward with vigour to decide the contest." Records : l^russia, vol. 196. It was the surrender of Ulm which really gave Pitt the shock attributed to Vusterlitz. The despatch then written — evidently from Pitt's dictation — bdrting the Emperor to do his duty, is the most impassioned and soul- ; g thing in the whole political correspondence of the time. 180& FBUSSIA AND NAPOLEON. 8U to Grenville the title of Premier. Addington received a place in tlie Ministry, and carried with him the support of a section of the Tory party, which was willing to countenance a policy of peace. Fox had from the first given his whole sympathy to the French Eevolution, as the cause of freedom. He had ascribed the calamities of Europe to the intervention of foreign Powers in favour of the Bourbon monarchy : he had palliated the aggressions of the French Eepublic as the consequences of unjust and unprovoked attack : even the extinction of liberty in France itself had not wholly destroyed his faith in the honour and the gene- rosity of the soldier of the Eevolution. In the brief interval of peace which in 1802 opened the Continent to English travellers, Fox had been the guest of the First Consul. His personal feeling towards the French Gro- vernment had in it nothins^ of that proud ^^ , <-' ^ Napoleon hopes and suspicious hatred which made negotia- pox ""S^h tion so difficult while Pitt continued in power. It was believed at Paris, and with good reason, that the first object of Fox on entering upon office would be the restoration of peace. Napoleon adopted his own plan in view of the change Hkely to arise in the spirit of the British^ Cabinet. It was his habit, wherever he saw signs of concession, to apply more violent means of inti- midation. In the present instance he determined to work upon the pacific leanings of Fox by adding Prussia to the forces arrayed against Great Britain. Prussia, isolated and discredited since the battle of Austerlitz, might first be driven into hostilities with England, and 312 MODEBN JEUBOPE. I8O& then be made to furnisli tlie very satisfaction demanded by England as the primary condition of peace. At the moment when Napoleon heard of Pitt's death, he was expecting the arrival of Count The King of ' r o to"p5uistthe Haugwitz at Paris for the purpose of obtain- cession of Hano- . t r* i * 'iij i i*i ver. mg some modincation in the treaty which he had signed on behalf of Prussia after the battle of Austerlitz. The principal feature in that treaty had been the grant of Hanover to Prussia by the French Emperor in return for its alliance. This was the point which, above all others excited King Frederick William's fears and scruples. He desired to retain Hanover, but he also desired to derive his title rather from its English owner than from its French invader. It was the object of Haugwitz' visit to Paris to obtain an alteration in the terms of the treaty which should make the Prussian occupation of Hanover appear to be merely provisional, and reserve to the King of England at least a nominal voice in its ultimate transfer. In full confidence that Napoleon would agree to such a change, the King of Prussia had concealed the fact of its cession to himself by Napoleon, and published an untruthful proclamation, stating that, in the interests of the Hanoverian people themselves, a treaty had been signed and ratified by the French and Prussian Glovernments, in virtue of which Hanover was placed under the protection of the King of Prussia until peace should be concluded between Great Britain and France. The British Grovernment received as- surances of Prussia's respect for the rights of King Greorge III. : the bitter truth that the treaty between France and 1808. PRUSSIA AND NAPOLEON. 313 Prussia contained no single word reserving the rights of the Elector, and that the very idea of qualifying the absolute cession of Hanover was an afterthought, lay hidden in the conscience of the Prussian Cabinet. Never had a Grovernment more completely placed itself at the mercy of a pitiless enemy. Count Haugwitz, on reach- ing Paris, was received by Napoleon with a storm of invective against the supposed partisans of England at the Prussian Court. Napoleon declared that the ill faith of Prussia had made an end even of that miserable pact which had been extorted after Austerlitz, and in- sisted that King Frederick William should openly defy Great Britain by closing the ports of Northern Grermany to British vessels, and by declaring himself endowed by Napoleon with Hanover in virtue of Napo- ^^ , ^ ^ Napoleon forces Icon's own right of conquest. Haugwitz ^''*i^ia^ signed a second and more humiliating treaty embodying these conditions ; and the Prussian Govern- ment, now brought into the depths of contempt, but unready for immediate war, executed the orders of its master."^ A proclamation, stating that Prussia had • Hardenberg, ii., 463. Hardenberg, who, in spite of his weak and ambiguous conduct up to the end of 1805, felt bitterly the disgraceful position in which Prussia had placed itself, now withdrew from office. " I received this morning a message from Baron Hardenberg requesting me to call on him. He said that he could no longer remain in office con- sistently with his honour, and that he waited only for the return of Count Haugwitz to give up to him the mauageraent of his department. ' You know,' he said, * my principles, and the efforts that I have made in favour of the good cause ; judge then of the pain that I must experience when I am condemned to be accessory to this measure. You know, jjrobably, that I was an advocate for the acquisition of Hanover, but I wivshed it upon terms honourable to both parties. I thought it a necessary bulwark to cover the Prussian dominions, and I thought that the House of Hanover might have 314 MODERN EUROPE. I80& received tlie absolute dominion of Hanover from its con- queror Napoleon, gave the lie to the earlier announce- ments of King Frederick William. A decree was published excluding the ships of England from the ports of Prussia and from those of Hanover itself (March 28, 1806). It was promptly answered by the seizure of four hundred Prussian vessels in British harbours, and by the total extinction of Prussian maritime commerce by British privateers.* been indemnified elsewhere. But now,' lie added, * j'abhorre les moyens infames par lesquels nous faisons cette acquisition. Nous pourrions rester les amis de Bonaparte sans etre ses esclaves.' He apologised for this language, and said I must not consider it as coming from a Prussian Minister, but from a man who unbosomed himself to his friend. ... I have only omitted the distressing picture of M. de Hardenberg's agitation during this conversation. He bewailed the fate of Prussia, and complained of the hardships he had undergone for the last three months, and of the want of firmness and resolution in Jlis Prussian Majesty. He several times expressed the hope that His Majesty's Government and that of Russia would make some allowances for the situation of this country. They had the means, he said, to do it an infinity of mischief. The British navy might destroy the Prussian commerce, and a Russian army might conquer some of her eastern provinces ; but Bonaparte would be the only gainer, as thereby Prussia would be thrown completely into his arms." — F. Jackson's despatch from Berlin, March 27, 1806; Records: Prussia, vol. 197. * On the British envoy demanding his passports, Haugwitz entered into a long defence of his conduct, alleging grounds of necessity. Mr. Jackson said that there could be no accommodation with England till the note excluding British vessels was reversed. " M. de Haugwitz immediately rejoined, * I was much surprised when I found that that note had been delivered to you.' * How,' I said, * can you be surprised who was the author of the measures that gave rise to it ? ' The only answer I received was, 'Ah! ne dites pas cela ' He observed that it would be worth con- sidering whether our refusal to acquiesce in the present state of things might not bring about one still more disastrous. I smiled, and asked if I was to understand that a Prussian army would take a part in the threat- ened invasion of England. He replied that he did not now mean to insinuate any such thing, but that it might be impossible to answer for events."— !(?., April 25. 1806. NAPOLEON OFFERS HANOVER TO ENGLAND, 316 Scarcely was Prussia committed to this ruinous conflict with Great Britain, when Napoleon ^ , *■ Napoleon negtv opened nes^otiations for peace with Mr. Fox's ^aZ,^m^% to" Government. The first condition required by Great Britain was the restitution of Hanover to King George III. It was unhesitatingly granted by Napoleon.* Thus was Prussia to be mocked of its prey, after it had been robbed of all its honour. For the present, however, no rumour of this part of the negotia- tion reached Berlin. The negotiation itself, which dragged on through several months, turned chiefly upon the future ownership of Sicily. Napoleon had in the first instance agreed that Sicily should be left in the hands of Ferdinand of Naples, who had never been expelled from it by the French. Finding, however, that the Eussian envoy d'Oubril, who had been sent to Paris with indefinite instructions by the Emperor Alexander, was willing to separate the cause of Eussia from that of England, and to sign a separate peace, Napoleon retracted his promise relating to Sicily, and demanded that this island should be ceded to his brother Joseph. D'Oubril signed Preliminaries on behalf of Eussia on the 20th of July, and left the English negotiator to obtain what terms he could. Fox had been willing to recognise the order of things established by Napoleon on the Italian mainland; he would even have ceded Sicily, if Eussia had urged this in a joint negotiation ; but he was too good a statesman to be cheated out of Sicily by a mere trick. He recalled the English envoy from Paris, and * Papers presented to Parliament, 1806, p. 63. 316 MODERN EUROPE. im waited for tlie judgment of the Czar upon the conduct of his own representative. The Czar disavowed d'Oubril's negotiations, and repudiated the treaty which he brought back to St. Petersburg. [N'apoleon had thus completely overreached himself, and, instead of severing Grreat Britain and Eussia by separate agreements, had only irritated and displeased them both. The negotiations went no farther ; their importance lay only in the effect which they produced upon Prussia, when Napoleon's offer of Hanover to Grreat Britain became known at Berlin. From the time when Haugwitz' second treaty placed his master at I^apoleon's feet, Prussia had been subjected to an unbroken series of insults and wrongs. Murat, as Duke of Bersr, had seized upon territory Prussia learns of *-' x •/ ^rnlnovJ^S allotted to Prussia in the distribution of the ^'4 ecclesiastical lands ; the establishment of a North Grerman Confederacy under Prussian leadership was suggested by Napoleon himself, only to be sum- marily forbidden as soon as Prussia attempted to carry the proposal into execution. There was scarcely a courtier in Berlin who did not feel that the yoke of the French had become past endurance ; even Haugwitz himself now considered war as a question of time. The patriotic party in the capital and the younger officers of the army bitterly denounced the dishonoured Grovem- ment, and urged the King to strike for the credit of his country.^ In the midst of this deepening agitation, a * " An order lias been issued to the officers of the garrison of Berlin to abstain, under severe penalties, from speaking of the state of public affairs. This order was given in consequence of the very general and loud expres- sions of dissatisfaction which issued from all classes of people, but parti- 1806. PRUSSIA RESOLVES ON WAR. 317 despatch arrived from Lucchesmi, the Prussian Ambas- sador at Paris (August 7), relating the offer of Hanover made by Napoleon to the British Government. For nearly three months Lucchesini had caught no glimpse of the negotiations between Great Britain and France ; suddenly, on entering into conversation with the English envoy at a dinner-party, he learnt the blow which Napoleon had intended to deal to Prussia. Lucchesini instantly communicated with the Court of Berlin ; but his despatch was opened by Talleyrand's agents before it left Paris, and the French Government was thus placed on its guard against the sudden explosion of Prussian wrath. Lucchesini's despatch had indeed all the importance that Talleyrand attributed to p^^^^^^ ^g^_ it. It brought that spasmodic access of reso- °^^ °° ^^' lution to the irresolute King which Bemadotte's violation of his territory had brought in the year before. The whole Prussian army was ordered to prepare for war; Brunswick was summoned to form plans of a campaign ; and appeals for help were sent to Vienna, to St. Peters- burg, and even to the hostile Court of London. cnlarly from the military, at the recent conduct of the Government ; for it has been in contemplation to publish an edict prohibiting the public at large from discussing questions of state policy. The experience of a very few days must convince the authors of this measure of the reverse of their expectation, the satires and sarcasms upon their conduct having become more universal than before." — Jackson's Despatch, March 22, id. " On Thursday night the windows of Count Haugwitz's house were completely demolished by some unknown person. As carbine bullets were chiefly made use of for the purpose, it is suspected to have been done by some of the garrison. The same thing had happened some nights before, but the Count took no notice of it Now a party of the police patrol the street.'* Id., April 27. 818 MODERN UUBOPK 1808. The condition of Prussia at this critical moment was cendition of ^^® which filled with the deepest alarm those few patriotic statesmen who were not hlinded by national vanity or by slavery to routine. The foreign policy of Prussia in 1805, miserable as it was, had been but a single manifestation of the helplessness, the moral deadness that ran through every part of its official and public life. Early in the year 1806 a paper was drawn up by Stein,"^ exposing, in language seldom used by a statesman, the character of the men by whom Frederick William was surrounded, and declaring that nothing but a speedy change of system could save the Prussian State from utter downfall and ruin. (Two measures of immediate necessity were specified by Stein, the establishment of a responsible council of Ministers, Ministers not in ^nd thc rcmoval of Haugwitz and all his the King's cabi- fpjg^^dg fj-OTCi pow^r. In the existing system of government: the Ministers were not the monarch's confidential advisers^ The Ministers performed their work in isolation from one another ; the Cabinet, or con- fidential council of the King, was composed of persons holding no public function, and free from all public responsibility. No guarantee existed that the policy of the country would-be the same for two days together. The Ministers were often unaware of the turn that affairs had taken in the Cabinet; and the history of Haugwitz' mission to Austerlitz showed that an indi- vidual might commit the State to engagements the very opposite of those which he was sent to contract. The * Pertz, i., 331. Seeley, i., 271. IBK, CONDITION OF PRUSSIA. 819 first necessity for Prussia was a responsible governing council : with such a council, formed from the heads of the actual Administration, the reform of the army and of the other branches of the public service, which was absolutely hopeless under the present system, might be attended with some chance of success. The army of Prussia, at an epoch when the conscrip- tion and the genius of Napoleon had revolutionised the art of war, was nothing but the army of Frederick the Great grown twenty years older.* It was obvious to all the world that its commissariat and march- st^teof the ing-regulations belonged to a time when ^^^''^'^^^y- weeks were allowed for movements now reckoned by days ; but there were circumstances less conspicuous from the outside which had paralysed the very spirit of soldiership, and prepared the way for a military collapse in which defeats in the field were the least dishonourable event. Old age had rendered the majority of the higher officers totally unfit for military service. In that bar- rack-like routine of officialism which passed in Prussia for the wisdom of government, the upper ranks of the army formed a species of administrative corps in time of peace, and received for their civil employment ■ 1 -I • 1 Higher officers. double the pay that they could earn m actual war. Aged men, with the rank of majors, colonels, and generals, mouldered in the offices of country towns, and murmured at the very mention of a war, which would deprive them of half their salaries. Except in the qase of certain princes, who were placed in high rank while • Hopfner, Der Krieg von 1806, i., 48. 320 MODERN EUROPE. 1806. young, and of a few vigorous patriarchs like Bliiclier, all the energy and military spirit of the army was to be found in men who had not passed the grade of captain. The higher officers were, on an average, nearly double the age of French officers of corresponding rank."^ Of the twenty-four lieutenant-generals, eighteen were over sixty ; the younger ones, with a single exception, were princes. Five out of the seven commanders of infantry were over seventy; even the sixteen cavalry generals included only two who had not reached sixty-five. Thesa were the men who, when the armies of Prussia were beaten in the field, surrendered its fortresses with as little concern as if they had been receiving the French on a visit of ceremony. Their vanity was as lamentable as their faint-heartedness. " The army of his Majesty," said General Eiichel on parade, "possesses several generals equal to Bonaparte." Faults of another cha- racter belonged to the generation which had grown up since Frederick. The arrogance and licentiousness of the younger officers was such that their ruin on the field of Jena caused positive joy to a great part of the middle classes of Prussia. But, however hateful their manners, and however rash their self-confidence, the vices of these younger men had no direct connection with the disasters of 1806. The gallants who sharpened their swords on the window-sill of the French Ambassador received a bitter lesson from the plebeian troopers of * A list of all Prussian officers in 1806 of and above the rank of major is given in Henckel von Donnersmarck, Erinnerungen, with their years of service. The average of a colonel's service is 42 years ; of a major's, 35. 1808. TEE PBXrsSIAN AR^^y^^\,,S^c^^^^J^ ^ Murat; but they showed courage in disaster, and sub- sequently gave to their country many officers of ability and honour. What was bad in the higher grades of the army was not retrieved by any excellence on the part common of the private soldier. The Prussian army "^ ^* was recruited in part from foreigners, but chiefly from Prussian serfs, who were compelled to serve. Men remained with their regiments till old age ; the rough character of the soldiers and the frequency of crimes and desertions occasioned the use of brutal punishments, which made the military service an object of horror to the better part of the middle and lower classes. The soldiers themselves, who could be ' flogged and drilled into high military perfection by a great general like Prederick, felt a surly indifference to their present task- masters, and were ready to desert in masses to their homes as soon as a defeat broke up the regimental muster and roll-call. A proposal made in the previous year to introduce that system of general service which has since made Prussia so great a military power was rejected by a committee of generals, on the ground that it " would convert the most formidable army of Europe into a militia." But whether Prussia entered the war with a militia or a regular army, under the men who held command in 1806 it could have met with but one fate. Neither soldiery nor fortresses could have saved a kingdom whose genei'als knew only how to capitulate. All southern Germany was still in Napoleon's hands. Y 322 MODERN BUBOPE. I8O6. As tlie probability of a war with Prussia became greater and e^reater, Napoleon had tiejlitened his Southern Qer- ^ ' ^ ^ SoTof ^PaS; grasp upon the Confederate States. Publi- '^* * cations originating among the patriotic circles of Austria were beginning to appeal to the Grerman people to unite against a foreign oppressor. An anony- mous pamphlet, entitled " Germany in its Deep Humi- liation/' was sold by various booksellers in Bavaria, among others by Palm, a citizen of Nuremberg. There is no evidence that Palm was even acquainted with the contents of the pamphlet ; but as in the case of the Duke of Enghien, two years before, Napoleon had required a victim to terrify the House of Bourbon, so now he required a victim to terrify those who among the German people might be inclined to listen to the call of patriotism. Palm was not too obscure for the new Charlemagne. The innocent and unoffending man, in- nocent even of the honourable crime of attempting to save his country, was dragged before a tribunal of French soldiers, and executed within twenty - four hours, in pursuance of the imperative orders of Napoleon (August 26). The murder was an unneces- sary one, for the Bavarians and the Wiirtembergers were in fact content with the yoke they bore ; its only effect was to arouse among a patient and home-loving class the doubt whether the German citizen and his family might not after all have some interest in the preservation of national independence. 'When, several years later, the oppressions of Napo- leon had given to a great part of the German race at im BU88IA AIW AUSTRIA 823 least the transient nobleness of a real patriotism, the story of Palm's death was one of those that kindled the bitterest sense of wrong : at the time, it exercised no influence upon the course of political events. Austria neutral. Southern Grermany remained passive, and Russia can give •^ ■»• Prussia no supplied Napoleon with a reserve of soldiers : p~™p*^«ip- Prussia had to look elsewhere for allies. Its pros- pects of receiving support were good, if the war should prove a protracted one, but not otherwise. Austria, crippled by the disasters of 1805, could only hope to renew the struggle if victory should declare against Napoleon. In other quarters help might be promised, but it could not be given at the time and at the place where it was needed. The Czar proffered the whole forces of his Empire ; King George III. forgave the despoilers of his patrimony when he found that they really intended to fight the Prench ; but the troops of Alexander lay far in the East, and the action of England in any Continental war was certain to be dilatory and in- effective. Prussia was exposed to the first shock of the war alone. In the existing situation of the French armies, a blow unusually swift and crushing might well be expected by all who understood Napoleon's warfare. A hundred and seventy thousand French soldiers, with contingents from the Rhenish Confede- ° Situation of rate States, lay between the Main and the SL^^iSJ Inn. The last weeks of peace, in which the Pi-ussian Government imagined themselves to be deceiv- ing the enemy while they pushed forward their own preparations, were employed by Napoleon in quietly V 2 32 i MODERN EVBOPE, 1806. concentrating this vast force upon the Main (September, 1806). Napoleon himself appeared to be absorbed in friendly negotiations with Greneral Knobelsdorff, the new Prussian Ambassador at Paris. In order to lull Napo- leon's suspicions, Haugwitz had recalled Lucchesini from Paris, and intentionally deceived his successor as to the real designs of the Prussian Cabinet. Knobelsdorff con- fidentially informed the Emperor that Prussia was not serious in its preparations for war. Napoleon, caring very little whether Prussia intended to fight or not, con- tinued at Paris in the appearance of the greatest calm, while his lieutenants in Southern Germany executed those unobserved movements which were to collect the Erench on the ^^^^^^ ^^J ^P<^^ ^^^ "^PP^^ ^^^i^' ^U thc meantime the advisers of King Frederick William supposed themselves to have made everything ready for a vigorous offensive. Divisions of the Prussian army, numbering nearly 130,000 men, were concentrated in the neighbourhood of Jena, on the Saale. The bolder Prussians on spirits iu the military council pressed for an the Saale. immediate advance through the Thuringian Forest, and for an attack upon what were supposed to be the scattered detachments of the French in Bavaria. Military pride and all the traditions of the Grreat Frede- rick impelled Prussia to take the ofiensive rather than to wait for the enemy upon the strong line of the Elbe. Political motives pointed in the same direction, for the support of Saxony was doubtful if once the French were permitted to approach Dresden. On the 23rd of September King Frederick William 1806L PLANS OF TBE PRUSSIANS, 325 arrived at the head-quarters of the army, which were now at Naumburg, on the Saale. But his presence brought no controlling mind to the direction of affairs. corAxaion of the Councils of war held on the two succeeding PruaaaM. days only revealed the discord and the irresolution of the military leaders of Prussia. Brunswick, the com- mander-in-chief, sketched the boldest plans, and shrank from the responsibility of executing them. Hohenlohe, who commanded the left wing, lost no opportunity of opposing his superior ; the suggestions of officers of real ability, like Scharnhorst, chief of the staff, fell unnoticed among the wrangling of pedants and partisans. Bruns- wick, himself a man of great intelligence though of little resolution, saw the true quality of the men who surrounded him. " Riichel,*' he cried, " is a tin trumpet, Mollendorf a dotard, Kalkreuth a cunning trickster. The generals of division are a set of stupid journeymen. Are these the people with whom one can make war on Napoleon ? No. The best service that I could render to the King would be to persuade him to keep the peace." ■'*■ It was ultimately decided, after two days of argument, that the army should advance through the Thuringian Forest, while feints on the right and left deceived the French as to its real direction. The diplo- matists, however, who were mad enough to tliink that an ultimatum which they had just despatched to Paris would bring Napoleon on to his knees, insisted that the opening of hostilities should be deferred till the 8th of * Miiffling, Aus Meinem Leben, p. 15. Hopfner, i., 157. Gorrespond- ance de Kapoleun, ziii., 150. 326 MODEBN EUROPE, I8O6. October, when the term of grace which they had given to Napoleon would expire. A few days after this decision had been formed, intelligence arrived at head -quarters that Napoleon him- self was upon the Rhine. Before the ultimatum reached the hands of General Knobelsdorff in Paris, Napoleon had quitted the capital, and the astonished Ambassador could only send the ultimatum in pursuit of him after he had gone to place himself at the head of 200,000 men. The news that Napoleon was actually in Mainz con- founded the diplomatists in the Prussian camp, and produced an order for an immediate advance. This was the wisest as well as the boldest determination that had yet been formed ; and an instant assault upon the French divisions on the Main might perhaps even now have given the Prussian army the superiority in the first en- counter. But some fatal excuse was always at hand to justify Brunswick in receding from his resolutions. A positive assurance was brought into camp by Lucchesini that Napoleon had laid his plans for remaining on the defensive on the south of the Tliuringian Forest. If this were true, there might yet be time to improve the plan of the campaign ; and on the 4th of October, when every hour was of priceless value, the forward march was arrested, and a new series of deliberations began at the head- quarters at Erfurt. In the council held on the 4th of October, a total change in the plan of operations was urged by Hohenlohe's staff. They contended, and rightly, that it was the design of Napoleon to pass the Prussian army on the ErfTirt. Oct. 4. 1806. PEU88IAN MOVEMENTS. 827 east by the valley of the Saale, and to cut it off from the roads to the Elbe. The delay in Brunswick's movements had in fact brought the French within striking distance of the Prussian communications. Hohenlohe urged the King to draw back the army from Erfurt to the Saale, or even to the east of it, in order to cover the roads to Leipzig and the Elbe. His theory of Napoleon's move- ments, which was the correct one, was adopted by the council, and the advance into the Thuringian Forest was abandoned ; but instead of immediately marching east- wards with the whole army, the generals wasted two more days in hesitations and half-measures. At length it was agreed that Hohenlohe should take post at Jena, and that the mass of the army should fall back to Weimar, with the object of striking a blow at some undetermined point on the line of Napoleon's advance. Napoleon, who had just received the Prussian ulti- matum with unbounded ridicule and contempt, was now moving along the roads that lead from Bamberg and Baireuth to the Upper Saale. On the 10th of October, as the division of Lannes was approaching Saalfeld, it was attacked by Prince Louis Ferdinand at the head of Hohenlohe's advanced guard. The attack Encounter at was made against Hohenlohe's orders. It s»*"^^' ^<^^«' resulted in the total rout of the Prussian force. Though the numbers engaged were small, the loss of magazines and artillery, and the death of Prince Louis Ferdinand, the hero of the war-party, gave to this first repulse the moral effect of a great military disaster. Hohenlohe's troops at Jena were seized with panic ; numbers of men 328 MODERN ETIBOPB, 18O6. threw away their arms and dispersed; the drivers of artillery- waggons and provision-carts cut the traces and rode off with their horses. Brunswick, however, and the main body of the army, were now at Weimar, close at hand ; and if Brunswick had decided to fight a great battle at Jena, the Prussians might have brought nearly 90,000 men into action. But the plans of the irresolute commander were again changed. It was resolved to fall back upon Magdeburg and the Elbe. Brunswick him- self moved northwards to Naumburg; Hohenlohe was ordered to hold the French in check at Jena until this movement was completed. Napoleon reached Jena. He had no intelligence of Brunswick's retreat, and imagined the mass of the Prussian army to be gathered round Hohenlohe, on the plateau before him. He sent Davoust, with a corps 27,000 strong, to outflank the enemy by a march in the direction of Naumburg, and himseK pre- pared to make the attack in front with 90,000 men, a force more than double Hohenlohe's real army. The attack was made on the 14th of October. Napoleon de- i i t j f«^tsHoheniohe Hoheulohe s army was dashed to pieces by Napoleon, and fled in wild disorder. Davoust's weak corps, which had not expected to meet with any important forces until it fell upon Hohenlohe's flank, foimd itseK in the presence of Brunswick's main army, when it arrived at Auerstadt, a few miles to the north. Fortune had given to the Prussian commander an extraordinary chance of retrieving what strategy had lost. A battle conducted with common military skill would not only have destroyed Davoust, but have secured, 1806. JENA AND AUEE8TADT. 329 at least for the larger portion of the Prussian forces, a safe retreat to Leipzig or the Elbe. The French general, availing himself of steep and broken ground, defeated numbers nearly double his own through the confusion of his adversary, who sent up detachment uavoust defeatB after detachment instead of throwing himself SlSdt, oct upon Davoust with his entire strength. The fighting was as furious on the Prussian side as its con- duct was unskilful. King Frederick William, who led the earlier cavalry charges, had two horses killed under him. Brunswick was mortally wounded. Many of the other generals were killed or disabled. There remained, however, a sufficient number of unbroken regiments to preserve some order in the retreat until the army came into contact with the remnant of Hohenlohe's forces, flying for their lives before the cavalry of Murat. Then all hope was lost. The fugitive mass struck panic and confusion into the retreating columns ; and with the exception of a few regiments which gathered round well- known leaders, the soldiers threw away their arms and spread over the country in headlong rout. Ruin of the There was no line of retreat, and no rallying- ^P"^^**" -^™y- point. The disaster of a single day made an end of the Prussian army as a force capable of meeting the enemy in the field. A great part of the troops was captured by the pursuing enemy during the next few days. The regiments which preserved their coherence were too weak to make any attempt to check Napoleon's advance, and could only hope to save themselves by escaping to the fortresses on the Oder. 330 MODERN ETJBOFE, 1806. Two days before the battle of Jena, an English Haugwitz and ^nvoj, Lord Morpeth, had arrived at the Lord Morpeth. ^ gad- quarter s of the King of Prussia, claim- ing the restoration' of Hanover, and bearing an offer of the friendship and support of Grreat Britain. At the moment when the Prussian monarchy was on the point of being hurled to the ground, its Government might have been thought likely to welcome any security that it should not be abandoned in its utmost need. Haug- witz, however, was at head-quarters, dictating lying bulletins, and perplexing the generals with ridiculous arguments of policy until the French actually opened fire. When the English envoy made known his arrival, he found that no one would transact business with him. Haugwitz had determined to evade all negotiations until the battle had been fought. He was unwilling to part with Hanover, and he hoped that a victory over Napo- leon would enable him to meet Lord Morpeth with a bolder countenance on the following day. When that day arrived. Ministers and diplomatists were flying head- long over the country. The King made his escape to Weimar, and wrote to Napoleon, begging for an armis- tice ; but the armistice was refused, and the pursuit of the broken army was followed up without a moment's pause. The capital offered no safe halting- place ; and Frederick William only rested when he had arrived at Graudenz, upon the Vistula. Hohenlohe's Btuwer of poor rcmuaut of an army passed the Elbe at Magdeburg, and took the road for Stettin, at the mouth of the Oder, leaving Berlin to its fate. The 1808L BLUOHEB AT LUBECK 831 retreat was badly conducted ; alternate halts and strained marclies discouraged tlie best of the soldiers. As the men passed their native villages they abandoned the famishing and broken-spirited columns ; and at the end of a fortnight's disasters Prince Hohenlohe surrendered to his pursuers at Prenzlau with his main body, now numbering only 10,000 men (Oct. 28). Bliicher, who had showed the utmost energy and for- titude after the catastrophe of Jena, was moving in the rear of Hohenlohe with a considerable force which his courage had gathered around him. On learning of Hohenlohe's capitulation, he instantly reversed his line of march, and made for the Hanoverian fortress of Hameln, in order to continue the war in the rear of the French. Overwhelming forces, however, cut off his retreat to the Elbe ; he was hemmed in on the east and on the west; and nothing remained for him Biucherat but to throw himself into the neutral town of Liibeck, and fight until food and ammunition failed him. The French were at his heels. The magistrates of Liibeck prayed that their city might not be made into a battle-field, but in vain ; Bliicher refused to move into the open country. The town was stormed by the French, and put to the sack. Bliicher was driven out, desperately fighting, and pent in between the Danish frontier and the sea. Here, surrounded by overpowering numbers, without food, without ammunition, he capitulated on the 7th of November, after his courage and resolution had done everything that could ennoble both general and soldiers in the midst of overwhelming calamity. 332 MODERN EUROPE. luoe. The honour of entering the Prussian capital was Napoleon at giveu bj Napolcou to Davoust, whose victory Berlin, Oct. 27. ^^ Aucrstadt had in fact far surpassed his own. Davoust entered Berlin without resistance on the 25th of October; Napoleon himself went to Potsdam, and carried off the sword and the scarf that lay upon the grave of Frederick the Grreat. Two days after Davoust, the Emperor made his own triumphal entry into the capital. He assumed the part of the protector of the people against the aristocracy, ordering the formation of a municipal body and of a civic guard for the city of Berlin. The military aristocracy he treated with the bitterest hatred and contempt. "I will make that noblesse," he cried, " so poor that they shall beg their bread." The disaster of Jena had indeed fearfully punished the insolence with which the officers of the army had treated the rest of the nation. The Guards were marched past the windows of the citizens of Berlin, a miserable troop of captives ; soldiers of rank who re- mained in the city had to attend upon the French Emperor to receive his orders. But calamity was only beginning. The overthrow of Jena had been caused by faults of gene- ralship, and cast no stain upon the courage of the officers ; the surrender of the Prussian fortresses, of Prussian whlch bcsTan on the day when the French entered Berlin, attached the utmost personal disgrace to their commanders. Even after the destruction of the army in the field, Prussia's situation would not have been hopeless if the commanders of fortresses had acted on the ordinary rules of military duty. Magde- iboj SUEEENDER OF PMUSSIAN F0BTEES8E8. 333 burg and the strongholds upon the Oder were sufficiently armed and provisioned to detain the entire Trench army, and to give time to the King to collect upon the Vistula a force as numerous as that which he had lost. But whatever is weakest in human nature — old age, fear, and credulity — seemed to have been placed at the head of Prussia's defences. The very object for which for- tresses exist was forgotten ; and the fact that one army had been beaten in the field was made a reason for permitting the enemy to forestall the organisation of another. Spandau surrendered on the 25th of October, Stettin on the 29th. These were places of no great strength ; but the next fortress to capitulate, Kiistrin on the Oder, was in full order for a long siege. It was surrendered by the older officers, amidst the curses of the subalterns and the common soldiers : the artillerymen had to be dragged from their guns by force. Magde- burg, with a garrison of 24,000 men and enormous supplies, fell before a French force not numerous enough to beleaguer it (Nov, 8). Neither Napoleon himself nor any one else in Europe could have foreseen such conduct on the Napoleon's part of the Prussian commanders. The '*'^'""'^* unexpected series of capitulations made him demand totally different terms of peace from those which he had ofiered after the battle of Jena. A week after the victory, Napoleon had demanded, as the price of peace, the cession of Prussia's territory west of the Elbe, with the exception of the town of Magdeburg, and the with- drawal of Prussia from the affairs of Germany. These 334 MODERN BVROTE. im. terms were communicated to King Frederick William; lie accepted them, and sent Luccliesini to Berlin to nego- tiate for peace upon this basis. Lucchesini had scarcely reached the capital when the tidings arrived of Hohen- lohe's capitulation, followed by the surrender of Stettin and Kiistrin. The Prussian envoy now sought in vain to procure Napoleon's ratification of the terms which he had himself proposed. No word of peace could be obtained : an armistice was all that the Emperor would grant, and the terms on which the armistice was offered rose with each new disaster to the Prussian arms. On the fall of Magdeburg becoming known, Napoleon demanded that the troops of Prussia should retire behind the Vistula, and surrender every fortress that they still retained, with the single exception of Konigsberg. Much as Prussia had lost, it would have cost Napoleon a second campaign to make himself master of what he now asked; but to such a depth had the Prussian Government sunk, that Lucchesini actually signed a con- vention at Charlottenburg (November 16), surrendering to Napoleon, in return for an armistice, the entire list of uncaptured fortresses, including Dantzig and Thorn on the Lower Vistula, Breslau, with the rest of the un- touched defences of Silesia, Warsaw and Praga in Prus- sian Poland, and Colberg upon the Pomeranian coast.* The treaty, however, required the Kins^'s Frederick -^ ' . . S^tiJueT' ratification. Frederick William, timorous as ^^^' he was, hesitated to confirm an agreement which ousted him from his dominions as completely * Hopfner, ii., 392. Hardenberg, iii., 230. 1806. STEIN AND HAUOWITZ. 335 as if the last soldier of Prussia had gone into captivity. The patriotic party, headed by Stein, pleaded for the honour of the country against the miserable Cabinet which now sought to complete its work of ruin. As- surance^ of support arrived from St. Petersburg. The King determined to reject the treaty, and to continue the war to the last extremity. Haugvvitz hereupon ten- dered his resignation, and terminated a political career disastrous beyond any recoi'ded in modern times. For a moment, it seemed as if the real interests of the country were at length to be recognised in the appointment of Stein to one of the three principal offices of State. But the King still remained blind to the necessity of unity in the government, and angrily dismissed Stein when he refused to hold the Ministry if representatives of the old Cabinet and of the peace-party were to have places beside him. The King's act was ill calculated to serve the interests of Prussia, either at home or abroad. Stein was the one Minister on whom the patriotic party of Prussia and the Governments of Europe could rely with perfect confidence.* His dismissal at this crisis proved • "CoTtat Stein, the only man of real talents in the administration, haa resigned or was dismissed. He is a considerable man, of great energy, chai'acter, and saperiority of mind, who possessed the public esteem in a high degree, and, I have no doubt, desorved it. . . . During the negotia- tion for an armistice, the expenses of Bonaparte's table and household at Berlin were defrayed by the King of Prussia. Since that period one of the Ministers called upon Stein, who was the chief of the finances, to pay 300,000 crowns on the same account. Stein refused with strong expressions of indignation. The King spoke to him : he remonstrated with His Majesty in the most forcible terms, descanted on the wretched humiliation of such mean conduct, and said that he never xjould pay money on such an account unless he had the order in writing from His Majesty. This order was 336 MODERN EUROPE. im, the incurable poverty of Frederick William's mental nature; it also proved tliat, so long as any hope remained of saving the Prussian State by the help of the Czar of Eussia, the patriotic party had little chance of creating a responsible government at home. Throughout the month of November Frencli armies overran Northern Grermany : Napoleon himself remained „ , . at Berlin, and laid the foundations of a Napoleon at ' ^^^^^- political system corresponding to that which he had imposed upon Southern Grermany after the victory of Austerlitz, The Houses of Brunswick and Hesse-Cassel were deposed, in order to create a new client-kingdom of Westphalia ; Saxony, with Weimar and four other duchies, entered the Confederation of the Ehine. A measure more widely affecting the Continent of Europe dated from the last days of the Emperor's residence at the Prussian capital. On the 21st of November, 1806, a decree was published at Berlin prohibitinsf the inhabitants of the entire The Berlin de- -^^ ^ uS'^^^^i, European territory allied with France from carrying on any commerce with Great Britain, or admitting any merchandise that had been produced in Grreat Britain or in its colonies."^ The line of coast thus closed to the shipping and the produce of the British Em- pire included everything from the Vistula to the southern point of Dalmatia, with the exception of Denmark and Portugal and the Austrian port of Trieste. All property given a few days after the conversation." — ^Hntchinson's Despatch, Jan. 1, 1807; Records: Prussia, voL 200. ' • Corr. Nap. xiii., 555. 1808. THE BERLIN DECliEE. 837 belonging to English subjects, all merchandise of Britisli origin, whoever might be the owner, was ordered to be confiscated : no vessel that had even touched at a British port was permitted to enter a Continental harbour. It was the fixed purpose of Napoleon to exhaust Great Britain, since he could not destroy its navies, or, accord- ing to his own expression, to conquer England upon the Continent. All that was most harsh and unjust in the operation of the Berlin Decree fell, however, more upon Napoleon's own subjects than upon Great Britain. The exclusion of British ships from the harbours of the allies of France was no more than the exercise of a common right in war ; even the seizure of the property of Eng- lishmen, though a violation of international law, bore at least an analogy to the seizure of French property at sea ; but the confiscation of the merchandise of German and Dutch traders, after it had lain for weeks in their own warehouses, solely because it had been produced in the British Empire, was an act of flagrant and odious oppression. The first result of the Berlin Decree was to fill the trading towns of North Germany with French revenue-officers and inquisitors. Peaceable tradesmen began to understand the import of the battle of Jena when French gendarmes threw their stock into the common furnace, or dragged them to prison for possess- ing a hogshead of Jamaica sugar or a bale of Leeds cloth. The merchants who possessed a large quantity of English or colonial wares were the heaviest sutferers by Napoleon's commercial policy : the public found the markets supplied by American and Danish traders, until, w 338 MODERN EUEOPK im. at a later period, tlie Britisli G-overnment adopted re- prisals, and prevented the ships of neutrals from entering any port from which English vessels were excluded. Then every cottage felt the stress of the war. But if the full consequences of the Berlin Decree were delayed until the retaliation of Great Britain reached the dimensions of Napoleon's own tyranny, the Decree itself marked on the part of Napoleon the assumption of a power in conflict with the needs and habits of European life. Like most of the schemes of Napoleon subsequent to the victories of 1806, it transgressed the limits of prac- tical statesmanship, and displayed an ambition no longer raised above mere tyranny by its harmony with forms of progress and with the better tendencies of the age. Immediately after signing the Berlin Decree, Napo- Napoieon and ^^^^ quittcd the Prussiau capital (Nov. 25). the Poles. rpi^^ ^^^^ ^^j^ ^£ ^.-j^^ ^^^ j^^^ ^^^ cloScd. The Prussian State was overthrown ; its territory as far as the Vistula lay at the mercy of the invader ; its king was a fugitive at Konigsberg, at the eastern extremity of his dominions. The second act of the war began with the rejection of the armistice which had been signed by Lucchesini,, and with the entry of Eussia into the field against Napoleon. The scene of hostilities was henceforward in Prussian Poland and in the Baltic Province lying between the lower Vistula and the Russian frontier. Napoleon entered Poland, as he had entered Italy ten years before, with the pretence of restoring liberty to an enslaved people. Kosciusko's name was fraudulently attached to a proclamation 1806. NAPOLEON IN FllUSSIAN POLAND, 339 summoning the Polish nation to arms ; and although Kosciusko himself declined to place any trust in the betrayer of Venice, thousands of his countrymen flocked to Napoleon's standard, or anticipated his arrival by capturing and expelling the Prussian detachments scat- tered through their country. Promises of the restoration of Polish independence were given by Napoleon in abundance; but the cause of Poland was the last to attract the sympathy of a man who considered the sacrifice of the weak to the strong to be the first prin- ciple of all good policy. To have attempted the resto- ration of Polish independence would have been to make permanent enemies of Russia and Prussia for the sake of an ally weaker than either of them. The project was not at this time seriously entertained by Napoleon. He had no motive to face a work of such enormous difficulty as the creation of a solid political order among the most unpractical race in Europe. He was glad to enrol the Polish nobles among his soldiers; he knew the value of their enthusiasm, and took pains to excite it ; but, when the battle was over, it was with Eussia, not Poland, that France had to settle ; and no better fabe remained, even for the Prussian provinces of Poland, than in part to be formed into a client-state, in part to be surrendered as a means of accommodation with the Czar. The armies of Russia were at some distance from the Vistula when, in November, 1806, Napoleon entered Polish territory. Their movements were slow, their num- bers insufficient. At the moment when all tlie forces of the Empire were required for the struggle against Napoleon, w 2 ^ • ' 340 MODERN EUROPE. 1807. troops were being sent into Moldavia against the Sultan. Nor were tlie Russian commanders anxious Campaign in EuS, SaT* ^^ ^^^^ what still remained of the Prussian kingdom. The disasters of Prussia, like those of Austria at the beginning of the campaign of 1805, excited less sympathy than contempt; and the inclination of the Czar's generals was rather to carry on the war upon the frontier of their own country than to commit themselves to a distant campaign with a despised ally. Lestocq, who commanded the remnant of the Prussian army upon the Vistula, was therefore directed to abandon his position at Thorn and to move eastwards. The French crossed the Vistula higher up the river; and by the middle of December the armies of Prance and Eussia lay opposite to one another in the neighbourhood of Pultusk, upon the Ukra and the !Narew. The first encounter, though not of a decisive character, resulted in the retreat of the Russians. Heavy rains and fathom- less mud checked the pursuit. War seemed almost impossible in such a country and such a climate; and Napoleon ordered his troops to take up their winter quarters along the Vistula, believing that nothing more could be attempted on either side before the spring. But the command of the Russian forces was now transferred from the aged and half -mad Kamenski,* who * " It is still doubtful wlio commands, and whether Kamensky has or has not given up the command. I wrote to him on the first moment of my arrival, but have received no answer from him. On the 23rd, the day of the first attack, he took off his coat and waistcoat,, put all his stars and ribbons over his shirt, and ran about the streets of Pultusk encouraging the soldiers, over whom he is said to have great influence." — Lord Hutchia- soii's Despatch, Jan. 1, 1807 ; Records : Prussia, vol. 200. 1807. BATTLE OF EYLAU. 3U had opened the campaign, to a general better qualified to cope with Napoleon. Bennigsen, the new com- mander-in-chief, was an active and daring soldier. Though a Grerman by birth, his soldiership was of that dogged and resolute order which suits the character of Eussian troops; and, in the mid-winter of 1806, Napo- leon found beyond the Vistula such an enemy as he had never encountered in Western Europe. Bennigsen con- ceived the design of surprising the extreme left of the French line, where Ney's division Beumgaen ia lay stretched towards the Baltic, far to the north-east of Napoleon's main body. Forest and marsh concealed the movement of the Eussian troops, and both Ney and Bernadotte narrowly escaped destruction. Napoleon now broke up his winter quarters, and marched in great force against Bennigsen in the district between Konigsberg and the mouth of the Vistula. Bennigsen manceuvred and retired until his troops clamoured for battle. He then took up a position at Eylau, and waited for the attack of the French. The battle of Eylau, fought in the midst of snow- storms on the 8th of February, 1807, was unlike any- thing that Napoleon had ever yet seen. His columns threw themselves in vain upon the Eussian infantry. Augereau's corps was totally destroyed in the beginning of the battle. The Eussians pressed upon the ground where -Napoleon himself stood ; and although the supe- riority of the Emperor's tactics at length turned the scale, and the French began a forward movement, their advance was stopped by the arrival of Lestocq and a m. Feb. 8, 1807. 342 MODERN EUBOPE. 1807. body of 13,000 Prussians. At the close of tlie engage- ment 30,000 men lay wounded or dead in tlie snow; the positions of the armies remained what they had been in the morning. Bennigsen's lieutenants urged him to renew the combat on the next day ; but the confusion of the Eussian army was such that the Trench, in spite of their losses and discouragement, would probably have gained the victory in a second battle ; ^ and the Eussian commander determined to fall back towards Konigsberg, content with having disabled the enemy and given ^Napoleon such a check as he had never received before. ^N'apoleon, who had announced his intention of entering Konigsberg in triumph, fell back upon the river Pas- sarge, and awaited the arrival of reinforcements. The warfare of the next few months was confined to the reduction of the Prussian fortresses which coibSf, ^^ liad not yet fallen into the hands of the Prench. Dantzig surrendered after a long and difficult siege ; the little town of Colberg upon the Pomeranian coast prolonged a defence as honourable to its inhabitants as to the military leaders. Two soldiers of singularly different character, each destined to play a conspicuous part in coming years, first distinguished themselves in the defence of Colberg. Gneisenau, a scientific soldier of the highest order, the future guide of Blucher's victorious campaigns, commanded the garrison ; Schill, a cavalry officer of adventurous daring, gathered round him a troop of hardy riders, and harassed the French with an audacity as perplexing to his military superiors as • Hutchinson's letter, in Adair, Mission to Yienna, p. 373. 1807. ACTION OF ENGLAND. 343 to the enemy. The citizens, led by their burgomaster, threw themselves into the work of defence with a vigour in striking contrast to the general apathy of the Prussian people ; and up to the end of the war Colberg remained uncaptured. Obscure as Colberg was, its inaction of defence might have given a new turn to the ^»^°d- war if the Grovernment of Great Britain had listened to the entreaties of the Emperor Alexander, and despatched a force to the Baltic to threaten the communications of Napoleon. The task was not a difficult one for a Power which could find troops, as England now did, to send to Constantinople, to Alexandria, and to Buenos Ayres; but military judgment was more than ever wanting to the British Cabinet. Fox had died at the beginning of the war ; his successors in Grenville's Ministry, though they possessed a sound theory of foreign policy,* were not fortunate in its application, nor were they prompt enough in giving financial help to their allies. Sud- denly, however. King George quarrelled with his Ministers upon the ancient question of Catholic Dis- abilities, and drove them from office (March 24). The country sided with the Kins:. A vine's Ministry _ *^ ° Varoh 84, 1807. Ministry came into power, composed of the old supporters of Pitt, men, with the exception of Can- ning and Castlereagh, of narrow views and poor capacity, headed by the Duke of Portland, who, in 1793, had given his name to the section of the Whig party which • For the Wliig foreign policy, see Adair, p. 11 — 13. Its principle was to relinquish the attempt to raise coalitions of half-hearted Governments against Franco by means of Britisli subsidies, but to give help to States which of their own free will entered into war with Napoleon. 344 MODERN EUBOPK I807. j oined Pitt. The foreign policy of the new Cabinet, which concealed its total lack of all other statesmanship, returned to the lines laid down by Pitt in 1805. Nego- tiations were opened with Russia for the despatch of an English army to the Baltic ; arms and money were pro- mised to the Prussian King. For a moment it seemed as if the Powers of Europe had never been united in so cordial a league. The Czar embraced the King of Prussia in the midst of his soldiers, and declared with tears that the two should stand or fall together. The Treaty of Bartenstein, signed in April, 1807, gj|tembd^een pledged thc Courts of St. Petersburg, Stock- iwlde^' Aprii^ holm, and Berlin to a joint prosecution of 1807 the war, and the common conclusion of peace. Great Britain joined the pact, and prepared to fulfil its part in the conflict upon the Baltic. But the task was a difficult one, for Grenville's Ministry had dispersed the fleet of transports ; and, although Canning determined upon the Baltic expedition in April, two months passed before the fleet was ready to sail. In the meantime army upon army was moving to the support of Napoleon, from France, from Spain, from Holland, and from Southern Germany. The paiJ^S E^ fortresses of the Elbe and the Oder, which Prussia 1807. ^ ' ought to have been his barrier, had become his base of operations ; and so enormous were the forces at his command, that, after manning every stronghold in Central Europe, he was able at the beginning of June to bring 140,000 men into the field beyond the Vistula. The Russians had also received reinforcements, but Ben- 1M, BATTLE OF PBIEDLAND. S46 nigsen's army was still weaker than tliat of the enemy. It was Bennigsen, nevertheless, who began the attack ; and now, as in the winter campaign, he attempted to sur- prise and crush the northern corps of Ney. The same general movement of the French army followed as in January. The Eussian commander, outnumbered by the French, retired to his fortified camp at Heilsberg. After sustaining a bloody repulse in an attack upon this position. Napoleon drew Bennigsen from his lair by marching straight upon Konigsberg. Ben- ^^^ ^^ ^^^ nigsen supposed himself to be in time to ^°<^"^'*°® i^- deal with an isolated corps ; he found himself face to face with the whole forces of the enemy at Friedland, accepted battle, and was unable to save his army from a severe and decisive defeat (June 14). The victory of Friedland brought the French into Konigsberg. Ben- nigsen retired behind the Niemen; and on the 19th of June an armistice closed the operations of the hostile forces upon the frontiers of Eussia.^ The situation of Bennigsen's army was by no means desperate. His men had not been surrounded; they had lost scarcely any prisoners ; they felt no fear of the French. But the general exaggerated the seriousness of his defeat. Like most of his officers, he was weary of the war, and felt no sympathy with the motives which led the Emperor to fight for the common cause of * The battle of Friedland is described in Lord Hutchinson's despatch (Records : Prussia, vol. 200 — in which volume are also Colonel Sountag's repoi-ts, containing curious details about the Russians, and some personal matter about Napoleon in a letter from an inhabitant of Eylan; also Gneisenan's appeal to Mr. Canning from Colberg). 346 MODERN EUEOPK 1807. Europe. The politicians wlio surrounded Alexander urged Mni to withdraw Eussia from a conflict in which she had nothing to gain. The Emperor wavered. The tardiness of Great Britain, the continued neutrality of Austria, cast a doubt upon the wisdom of -his own dis- interestedness ; and he determined to meet Napoleon, and ascertain the terms on which Eussia might be reconciled to the master of half the Continent. On the 25 th of June the two sovereigns met one another on the raft of Tilsit, in the mid- interview of ^exS/at stream of the river Niemen. The con- ^' ' "" • versation, which is alleged to have been opened by Alexander with an expression of hatred to- wards England, was heard by no one but the speakers. But whatever the eagerness or the reluctance of the Eussian monarch to sever himself from Great Britain, the purpose "of Napoleon was effected. Alexander sur- rendered himself to the addresses of a conqueror who seemed to ask for nothing and to offer everything. The negotiations were prolonged ; the relations of the two monarchs became more and more intimate ; and the issue of the struggle for life or death was that Eussia accepted the whole scheme of Napoleonic conquest, and took its place by the side of the despoiler in return for its share of the prey. It was in vain that the King of Prussia had rejected Napoleon's oiffers after the battle of Eylau, in fidelity to his engagements towards his ally. Pro- mises, treaties, and pity were alike cast to the winds. Tlie unfortunate Frederick William received no more embraces ; the friend with whom he was to stand or fall 1807. PEACE OF TILSIT. 847 bargained away the larger half of his dominions to Napo- leon, and even rectified the Eussian frontier at his ex- pense. Prussia's continued existence in any shape what- ever was described as a concession made by Napoleon to Alexander.' By the public articles of the xreatiesofTiiat. Treaties of Tilsit, signed by France, Kussia, '"^^' ^^' and Prussia in the first week of July, the King of Prussia ceded to Napoleon the whole of his dominions west of the Elbe, and the entire territory which Prussia had gained in the three partitions of Poland, with the exception of a district upon the Lower Vistula c nnecting Pomerania with Eastern Prussia. Out of the ceded territory on the west of the Elbe a Kingdom of Westphalia was createdfor Napoleon's brother Jerome; the Polish provinces of Prussia, with the exception of a strip made over to Alexander, were formed into the Grand-Duchy of Warsaw, and presented to Napoleon's vassal, the King of Saxony. Eussia recognised the Napoleonic client-states in Italy, Holland, and Grermany. The Czar undertook to offer his mediation in the conflict between France and Great Britain ; a secret article provided that, in the event of Great Britain and France being at war on the ensuing 1st of December, Prussia should declare war against Great Britain. Such were the stipulations contained in the formal Treaties of Peace between the three Powers. These, however, contained but a small part of the terms agreed upon between the masters of the east and secret Treaty of of the west. A secret Treaty of Alliance, -^ii»n« distinct from the Treaty of Peace, was also signed by 348 MODERN EUEOPK 180?. Napoleon and Alexander. In the conversations which won over the Czar to the cause of France, Napoleon had offered to Alexander the spoils of Sweden and the Otto- man Empire. Finland and the Danubian provinces were not too high a price for the support of a Power whose arms could paralyse Austria and Prussia. In return for the promise of this extension of his Empire, Alexander andertook, in the event of Great Britain re- fusing terms of peace dictated by himself, to unite his arms to those of Napoleon, and to force the neutral maritime Powers, Denmark and Portugal, to take part in the struggle against England. The annexation of Moldavia and Wallachia to the Eussian Empire was provided for under the form of a French mediation. In the event of the Porte declining this mediation, Napo- leon undertook to assist Eussia to liberate all the Euro- pean territory subject to the yoke of the Sultan, with the exception of Eoumelia and Constantinople. A partition of the liberated territory between France and Eussia, as well as the establishment of the Napoleonic house in Spain, probably formed the subject rather of a verbal understanding than of any written agreement."^ Such was this vast and threatening scheme, con- conspiracyofthe ccivcd by the man whose whole career had twoi^perors. -i ' ± j. i ^ c t been one consistent struggle tor personal domination, accepted by the man who among the rulers of the Continent had hitherto shown the greatest power of acting for a European end, and of interesting himself in a cause not directly his own. In the imagination of * Bignon, vi, 342. M07. PEACE OF TILSIT. 349 Napoleon, the national forces of the western continent had now ceased to exist. Austria excepted, there was no State upon the mainland whose army and navy were not prospectively in the hands of himself and his new ally. The commerce of Great Britain, already excluded from the greater part of Europe, was now to he shut out from, all the rest ; the armies which had hitherto fought under British subsidies fot the independence of Europe, the navies which had preserved their existence by neutrality or by friendship with England, were soon to be thrown without distinction against that last foe. If even at this moment an English statesman who had learnt the secret agreement of Tilsit might have looked without fear to the future of his country, it was not from any imperfection in the structure of Continental tyranny. The fleets of Denmark and Portugal might be of little real avail against English seamen ; the homes of the English people might still be as secure from foreign invasion as when Nelson guarded the seas ; but it was not from any vestige of political honour surviving in the Emperor Alexander. Where Alexander's action was of decisive importance, in his mediation between Erance and Prussia, he threw himself without scruple on to the side of oppression. It lay within his power to gain terms of peace for Prussia as lenient as those which Austria had gained at Campo Formic and at Luneville : he sacrificed Prussia, as he allied himself against the last upholders of national independence in Europe, in order that he might himself receive Finland and the Danubian Provinces. 350 MODERN JSUEOFK iso?. Two days before tlie signature of the Treaty of Tilsit the British troops which had once been so anxiously expected by the Czar landed in the island of Eiigen. The struggle in which they were intended to take their part was over. Sweden alone remained in arms; and even the Quixotic pugnacity of King Gustavus was unable to save Stralsund from a speedy capitulation. But the troops of Great Britain were not destined to _ ,. , , return without strikino: a blow. The English expedi- ^ De^rk July ncgotiatious between Napoleon and Alex- 1807. ' * ander had scarcely begun, when secret intelligence of their purport was sent to the British Government.-^ It became known in London that the fleet of Denmark was to be seized by Napoleon, and forced to fight against Great Britain. Canning and his colleagues acted with the promptitude that seldom failed the British Government when it could effect its object by the fleet alone. They determined to anticipate Napo- leon's violation of Danish neutrality, and to seize upon the navy which would otherwise be seized by Erance and Russia. On the 28th of July a fleet with 20,000 men on board set sail from the British coast. The troops landed * Papers presented to Parliament 1808, p. 106. The intelligence reached Canning on the 21st of July. Canning's despatch to Brook Taylor, July 22 ; Records : Denmark, vol. 196. It has never been known who sent the information, but it must have been some one very near the Czar, for it purported to give the very words used by Il^apoleon in his interview with Alexander on the raft. It is clear, from Canning's despatch of July 22, that this conversation and nothing else had up till then been reported. The informant was probably one of the authors of the English alliance of 1805. 1807. BOMBARDMENT OF COTEl^HAQEN. 861 in Denmark in the middle of August, and united with the corps which had already been despatched to Kiigen. The Danish Government was summoned to place its navy in the hands of Great Britain, in order that it might remain as a deposit in some British port until the conclusion of peace. While demanding this sacrifice of Danish neutrality, England undertook to protect the Danish nation and colonies from the hostility of Napo- leon, and to place at the disposal of its Government every means of naval and military defence. Failing the surrender of the fleet, the English declared that they would bombard Copenhagen. The reply given to this summons was such as might be expected from a cou- rageous nation exasperated against Great Britain by its harsh treatment of neutral ships of commerce, and inclined to submit to the despot of the Continent rather than to the tyrants of the seas. Negotiations proved fruitless, and on the 2nd of September the English opened fire on Copenhagen. For of Copenhagen. three days and nights the city underwent a bombardment of cruel efficiency. Eighteen hundred houses were levelled, the town was set on fire in several places, and a large number of the inhabitants lost their lives. At length the commander found himself com- pelled to capitulate. The fleet was handed over to Great Britain, with all the stores in the arsenal of Copenhagen. It was brought to England, no longer under the terms of a friendly neutrality, but as a prize of war. The captors themselves were ashamed of their spoU. England received an armament which had been taken 352 MODERN EUBOPK 1807. from a people wlio were not our enemies, and by an attack which was not war, with more misgiving than applause. In Europe the seemingly unprovoked assault upon a weak neutral State excited the utmost indigna- tion. The British Ministry, who were prevented from making public the evidence which they had received of the intention of the two Emperors, were believed to have invented the story of the Secret Treaty. The Danish Government denied that Napoleon had demanded their co-operation ; Napoleon and Alexander themselves as- sumed the air of indignant astonishment. But the facts alleged by Canning and his colleagues were correct. The conspiracy of the two Emperors was no fiction. The only question still remaining open — and this is indeed an essential one — ^relates to the engagements entered into by the Danish Grovernment itself. Napo- leon in his correspondence of this date alludes to certain promises made to him by the Com-t of Denmark, but he also complains that these promises had not been fulfilled ; and the context of the letter renders it almost certain that, whatever may have been demanded by Napoleon, nothing more was promised by Denmark than that its ports should be closed to English vessels."*^ Had the British Cabinet possessed evidence of the determination • Napoleon to Talleyrand, July 31, 1807. Ho instructs Talleyrand to enter into certain negotiations with the Danish Minister, which would be meaningless if the Grown Prince had already promised to hand over the fleet. The original English documents, in Records : Denmark, vols. 196, 197, really show that Canning never considered that he had any proof of the intentions of Denmark, and that he justified his action only by the inability of Denmark to resist Napoleon's demands. 1807. BOMBARDMENT OF OOPENHAQBN. 368 of the Danish Government to transfer its fleet to Napo- leon without resistance, the attack upon Denmark, con- sidered as virtually an act of war, would not have been unjust. But beyond an alleged expression of Napoleon at Tilsit, no such evidence was even stated to have reached London ; and the undoubted conspiracy of the Emperors against Danish neutrality was no sufficient ground for an action on the part of Great Britain which went so far beyond the mere frustration of their designs. The surrender of the Danish fleet demanded by England would have been an unqualified act of war on the part of Denmark against Napoleon ; it was no mere guarantee for a continued neutrality. Nor had the British Govern- ment the last excuse of an urgent and overwhelming necessity. Nineteen Danish men-of-war would not have turned the scale against England. The memory of Trafalgar might well have given a British Ministry courage to meet its enemies by the ordinary methods of war. Had the forces of Denmark been far larger than they actually were, the peril of Great Britain was not so extreme as to'excuse the wrong done to mankind by an example encouraging all future belligerents to antici- pate one another in forcing each neutral state to take part with themselves. The fleet which Napoleon had meant to turn against this country now lay safe within Portsmouth harbour. Denmark, in bitter resentment, declared war against Great Britain, and rendered some service to the Conti- nental League by the attacks of its privateers upon British merchant-vessels in the Baltic. The second X 354 MODERN EUROPE. 1807. neutral power wliose fate liad been decided by tbe two Emperors at Tilsit received tlie sam- mands upon moHs of NapolcoH a few days before tbe attack Portugal. -^ •^ on Copenhagen. Tbe Eegent of Portugal bimseK informed tbe Britisb Government that be bad been required by ISTapoleon to close bis ports to Britisb vessels, to declare war on England, and to confiscate all Britisb property within his dominions. Placed between a Power which could strip him of bis dominions on land, and one which could despoil him of everything he possessed beyond the sea, the Eegent determined to maintain his ancient friendship with Grreat Britain, and to submit to Napo- leon only in so far as the English Government would ex- cuse him, as acting under coercion. Although a nominal state of war arose between Portugal and England, tbe Eegent really acted in the interest of England, and fol- lowed the advice of the British Cabinet up to tbe end. The end was soon to come. The demands of Napo- leon, arbitrary and oppressive as they were, by no means expressed his full intentions towards Portugal. He bad determined to seize upon this, country, and to employ it as a means for extending his ^wn dominion over tbe whole of the Spanish Peninsula. An army- corps, under the command of Junot, bad been already placed in the Pyrenees. On the 12th of October Napo- leon received tbe answer of the Eegent of Portugal, consenting to declare war upon England, and only rejecting the dishonourable order to confiscate all English property. This single act of resistance was sufficient for Napoleon's purpose. He immediately recalled bis am- 1807. THE FBENOH ENTER POBTUQAL. 856 bassador from Lisbon, and gave orders to Junot to cross the frontier, and march upon Portugal. The King of Spain, who was to be Napoleon's next victim, fi I 111* Treaty of Pon. was for the moment employed as his accom- J^^^n^®*Fr^ plice. A treaty was concluded at Fontaine- Jartfuon^of'pi! . tugal, Oct. 27. bleau between Napoleon and King Charles lY. for the partition of Portugal (Oct. 27).* In return for the cession of the kingdom of Etruria, which was still nominally governed by a member of the Spanish house, the King of Spain was promised half the Por- tuguese colonies, along with the title of Emperor of the Indies ; the northern provinces of Portugal were reserved for the infant King of Etruria, its southern provinces for Grodoy, minister of Charles IV. ; the central districts were to remain in the hands of France, and to be employed as a means of regaining the Spanish colonies from England upon the conclusion of a general peace. Not one of these provisions was intended to be carried into effect. The conquest of Portugal was but a part of the conquest of the whole peninsula. But neither the Spanish Court nor the Spanish people suspected Napo- leon's design. Junot advanced without resistance through the intervening Spanish Portugal, not., territory, and pushed forward upon Lisbon with the utmost haste. The speed at which Napoleon's orders forced him to march reduced his army to utter prostration, and the least resistance would have resulted in its ruin. But the Court of Lisbon had determined to quit a country which they could not hope to defend • Cevallos, p. 73. X 2 356 MODERN UUBOPR . 1807. against the master of tlie Continent. Already in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the House of Bra- ganza had been familiar with the project of transferring the seat of their Government to Brazil ; and now, with the approval of Great Britain, the Eegent resolved to maintain the independence of his family by flight across the Atlantic. As Junot's troops approached the capital, the servants of the palace hastily stowed the royal pro- perty on ship-board. On the 29th of November, when FHghtoftheHouse ^^^ Freuch wcrc now close at hand, the of Braganza. gq^adron which bore the House of Braganza to its colonial home dropped down the Tagus, saluted by the cafinon of the English fleet that lay in the same river. Junot entered the capital a few hours later, and placed himself at the head of the Government without encountering any opposition. The occupation of Por- tugal was described by Napoleon as a reprisal for the bombardment of Copenhagen. It excited but little attention in Europe ; and even at the Spanish Court the only feeling was one of satisfaction at the approaching aggrandisement of the Bourbon monarchy. The full signiflcance of Napoleon's intervention in the aflairg of bhe Peninsula was not discovered until some months were passed. Portugal und Denmark had felt the consequences of the peace made at Tilsit. Less, however, de- pended upon the fate of the Danish fleet and the Portu- prussiaafterthe g^^sc Eoyal Family than upon the fate of Peace of Tilsit. p^.^^^-^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^^ WrOUgcd ;0f aU the victims sacrificed ,by Alexander's ambition. The 1807. STEIN MINTSTEll OF PRUSSIA. 357 unfortunate Prussian State, reduced to half its former extent, devastated and impoverished bj war, and bur- dened with the support of a French army, found in the crisis of its ruin the beginning of a worthier national life. Napoleon, in his own vindictive jealousy, unwit- tingly brought to the head of the Prussian G-ovemment the ablest and most patriotic statesman of the Continent. Since the spring of 1807 Baron Hardenberg had again been the leading Minister of Prussia, and it was to his counsel that the King's honourable rejection of a separate peace after the battle of Eylau was due. Napoleon could not permit this Minister, whom he had already branded as a partisan of Great Britain, to remain in power : he insisted upon Hardenberg's dismissal, and g^^^ Miniater recommended the King of Prussia to summon ^°*" ^' ^^' Stein, who was as yet known to Napoleon only as a skilful financier, likely to succeed in raising the money which the French intended to extort. Stein entered upon office on the 5th of October, 1807, with almost dictatorial power. The need of the most radical changes in the public services, as well as in the social order of the Prussian State, had been brought home to all enlightened men by the disasters of the war ; and a commission, which included among its members the his- torian Niebuhr, had already sketched large measures of reform before Hardenberg quitted office. Stein's appoint- ment brought to the head of the State a man immeasur- ably superior to Hardenberg in the energy necessary for the execution of great changes, and gave to those who were the most sincerely engaged in civil or military 358 MOBEBN EUROPE. 1807. reform a leader unrivalled in patriotic zeal, in boldness, and in purity of character. The first great legislative measure of Stein was the abolition of serfage, cipation, Oct. 9^ aud of all the lee^al distinctions which fixed 1807. ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ within the limits of their caste the noble, the citizen, and the peasant. In setting his name to the edict ^ which, on the 9th of October, 1807, made an end of the mediaival framework of Prussian society, Stein was indeed but consummating a change which the pro- gress of neighbouring States must have foir nication from the simple King than he saw himself in possession of the pretext for intervention which he had so long desired. The most pressing orders were given for the concentration of troops on the „ , •*• Napoleon about Spanish frontier ; Napoleon appeared to be So£fto7SF«^ on the point of entering Spain as the de- fender of the hereditary rights of Ferdinand. The opportunity, however, proved less favourable than Napo- leon had expected. The Crown Prince, overcome by his fears, begged forgiveness of his father, and disclosed the negotiations which had taken place between himself and the French Ambassador. Godoy, dismayed at find- ing Napoleon's hand in what he had supposed to be a mere palace-intrigue, abandoned all thought of proceed- ing further against the Crown Prince ; and a manifesto announced that Ferdinand was restored to the favour of his father. Napoleon now countermanded the order y 2 372 MODERN EUBOTB. 1807. which he had given for the despatch of the Ehenish troops to the Pyrenees, and contented himself with directing General Dupont, the commander of an army- corps nominally destined for Portugal, to sSri)ec^i807! cross the Spanish frontier and advance as far as Yittoria. Dupont's troops entered Spain in the last days of the year 1807, and were received with acclamations. It was universally believed that IN^apoleon Frencli wel- "^ -^ ^"^FerSiSd? had espoused the cause of Ferdinand, and intended to deliver the Spanish nation from the detested rule of Grodoy. Since the open attack made upon Ferdinand in the publication of the pretended con- spiracy, the Crown Prince, who was personally as con- temptible as any of his enemies, had become the idol of the people. For years past the hatred of the nation towards Godoy and the Queen had been constantly deepening, and the very reforms which Godoy effected in the hope of attaching to himself the more enlightened classes only served to, complete his unpopularity with the fanatical mass of the nation. The French, who gradually entered the Peninsula to the number of 80,000, and who described themselves as the protectors of Ferdinand and of the true Catholic faith, were able to spread themselves over the northern provinces without exciting suspicion. It was only when their commanders, by a series of tricks worthy of American savages, obtained possession of the frontier citadels and fortresses, that the wiser part of the nation began to entertain some doubt as to the real purpose of their ally. At the Court 1808. TEE FBENOH ENTER SPAIN. 373 itself and among the enemies of Ferdinand the advance of the French roused the utmost alarm. King Charles wrote to Napoleon in the tone of ancient friendship ; but the answer he received was threatening and myste- rious. The utterances which the Emperor let fall in the presence of persons likely to report them at Madrid were even more alarming, and were intended to terrify the Court into the resolution to take flight from Madrid. The capital once abandoned by the King, Napoleon judged that he might safely take everything into }iis own hands on the pretence of restoring to Spain the government which it had lost. On the 20th of February, 1808, Murat was ordered to quit Paris in order to assume the command ^.^^^ ^^ ^ in Spain. Not a word was said by Napoleon ^^' ^'^'^ to him before his departure. His instructions first reached him at Bayonne ; they were of a military nature, and gave no indication of the ultimate political object of his mission. Murat entered Spain on the 1st of March, knowing no more than that he was ordered to reassure all parties and to commit himself to none, but with full confidence that he himself was intended by Napoleon to be the successor ef the Bourbon dynasty. It was now that the Spanish Court, expecting the appearance of the French army in Madrid, resolved upon that flight which Napoleon considered so necessary to his own success. The project was not kept a secret. It passed from Godoy to the Ministers of State, and from them to the friends of Ferdinand. The populace of Madrid was in- flamed by the report that Godoy wae about to carry the 374 MODERN EUROPE, isos. King to a distance, in order to prolong the misgovern- ment whicli the French had determined to overthrow. A tumultuous crowd marched from the capital to Aran- juez, the residence of the Court. On the evening of the 17th of March, the palace of Grodoy was stormed by the mob. Godoy himself was seized, and carried to the barracks amid the blows and curses of the dicates, March populacc. Tho tcrrificd King:, who already 17,1808. ^ ^ , . . . . saw before him the fate of his cousin, Louis XYI., first published a decree depriving Godoy of all his dignities, and then abdicated in favour of his son. On the 19th of March Ferdinand was proclaimed King. Such was the unexpected intelligence that met Murat as he approached Madrid. The dissensions of the Court, which were to supply his ground of intervention, had been terminated by the Spaniards themselves : in the place of a despised dotard and a menaced favourite, Spain had gained a youthful sovereign around whom all classes of the nation rallied with the utmost enthusiasm. Murat's position became a very difficult one ; but he supplied what was wanting in his instructions by the craft of a man bent upon creating a vacancy in his own favour. He sent his aide-de-camp, Monthieu, to visit the dethroned sovereign, and obtained a protest from King Charles IV., declaring his abdication to have been extorted from him by force, and consequently to be null and void. This document Murat kept MaM, iSrch secret ; but he carefully abstained from doing anj^thing which might involve a recognition of Ferdinand's title. On the 23rd of March the French 1803. FERDINAND KINO. 875 troops entered Madrid. Nothing had as yet become known to the public that indicated an altered policy on the part of the French; and the soldiers of Murat, as the supposed friends of Ferdinand, met with as friendly a reception in Madrid as in the other towns of Spain. On the following day Ferdinand himself made his solemn entry into the capital, amid wild demonstrations of an almost barbaric loyalty. In the tumult of popular joy it was noticed that Murat's troops continued their exercises without the least regard to the pageant that so deeply stirred the hearts of the Spaniards. Suspicions were aroused ; the enthusiasm of the people for the French soldiers began to change into irritation and ill-will. The end of the long drama of deceit was in fact now close at hand. On the 4th of April Q-eneral Savary arrived at Madrid with instructions independent of those given to Murat. He was charged to entice the new Spanish ^ ■*■ Savary bnngfs sovereign from his capital, and to bring him, l^^o^e^^Apro, either as a dupe or as a prisoner, on to French soil. The task was not a difficult one. Savary pretended that Napoleon had actually entered Spain, and that he only required an assurance of Ferdinand's continued friendship before recognising him as the legi- timate successor of Charles IV. Ferdinand, he added, could show no greater mark of cordiality to his patron than by advancing to meet him on the road. Snared by these hopes, Ferdinand set out from Madrid, in company with Savary and some of his own foolish confidants. On reaching Burgos the party found no signs of the 376 MODERN JEJUnOPl). im. Emperor. They continued tlieir journey to Yittoria. Here Ferdinand's suspicions were aroused, and he de- clined to proceed farther. Savary hastened to Bayonne to report the delay to Napoleon. He returned with a letter which overcame Ferdinand's scruples and induced him to cross the Pyrenees, in spite of the prayers or statesmen and the loyal violence of the simple inhabi- tants of the district. At Bayonne Ferdinand was visited by Napoleon, but not a word was spoken on the object of his journey. In the afternoon the Emperor received Ferdinand and his suite at a neighbouring chateau, but preserved the same ominous silence. -When the other guests departed, the Canon Escoiquiz, a member of Ferdinand's retinue, was detained, and learned from Napoleon's own lips the fate in store for the Bourbon Monarchy. Savary returned to Bayonne with Ferdinand, and informed the prince that he must renounce the crown of Spain."^ For some days Ferdinand held out against Napo- leon's demands with a stubbornness not often shown by him in the course of his mean and hypocritical career. He was assailed not only by Napoleon but by those whose fall had been his own rise ; for Grodoy was sent to Bayonne by Murat, and the old King and Queen hurried after their son iii order to witness his humilia- tion. Ferdinand's parents attacked him with an inde- cency that astonished even Napoleon himself; but the Prince maintained his refusal until news arrived from Madrid which terrified him into submission. The * Escoiquiz, Expose, p. 57, 107. 1808 FERDINAND AT BAYONNE. 377 irritation of the capital had culminated in an armed conflict between the populace and the French troops. On an attempt being made by Murat to remove the remaining members of the royal family from the palace, the capital had broken into open insurrection, and wherever French soldiers were found alone . iii'i*ii 1 Attack on the or in small bodies they were massacred. French in Ma- •^ drid. May 2. (May 2.) Some hundreds of the French perished ; but the victory of Murat was speedy, and his vengeance ruthless. The insurgents were driven into the great central square of the city, and cut down by repeated charges of cavalry. When all resistance was over, numbers of the citizens were shot in cold blood. Such was the intelligence whjch reached Bayonne in the midst of Napoleon's struggle with Ferdinand. There was no further need of argument. Ferdinand was informed that if he withheld his resig- charies and ,.«.,/» , , , Ferdinand sur- nation tor twenty-tour hours longer he render their •^ Y rights to Napo- would be treated as a rebel. He yielded; ^®°°- and for a couple of country houses and two life-annui- ties the crown of Spain and the Indies was renounced in favour of Napoleon by father and son. The crown had indeed been won without a battle. That there remained a Spanish nation ready ••■ ** National spiritof to fight to the death for its independence *»»« spamard.. was not a circumstance which Napoleon had taken into account. His experience had as yet taught him of no force but that of Governments and armies. In the larger States, or groups of States, which had hitherto been the spoil of France, the sense of nationality scarcely 378 MODERN EUROPE. 1808. existed. Italy had felt it no disgrace to pass under the rule of Napoleon. The Grermans on both sides of the Ehine knew of a fatherland only as an arena of the keenest jealousies. In Prussia and in Austria the bond of citizenship was far less the love of country than the habit of obedience to government. England and Eussia, where patriotism existed in the sense in which it existed in Spain, had as yet been untouched by French armies. Judging from the action of the Germans and the Italians, Napoleon might well suppose that in settling with the Spanish Grovernment he had also settled with the Spanish people, or, at the worst, that his troops might have to fight some fanatical peasants, like those who resisted the expulsion of the Bourbons from Naples. But the Spanish nation was no mosaic of political curiosities like the Holy Eoman Empire, and no divided and oblivious family like the population of Italy. Spain, as a single nation united under its King, had once played the foremost part in Europe : when its grandeur departed, its pride had remained behind : the Spaniard, in all his torpor and impoverishment, retained the impulse of honour, the spirited self-respect, which periods of national ^greatness leave behind them among a race capable of cherishing their memory. Nor had those influences of a common European culture, which directly opposed themselves to patriotism in Germany, affected the home-bred energy of Spain. The temper of mind which could find satisfaction in the revival of a form of Greek art when Napoleon's cavalry were scouring Germany, or which could inquire whether mankind 1806. BPIBIT OF THE SPANIARDS. 379 would not profit by the removal of the barriers between nations, was unknown among the Spanish people. Their feeling towards a foreign invader was less distant from that of African savages than from that of the civilised and literary nations which had fallen so easy a prey to the French. Government, if it had degenerated into everything that was contemptible, had at least failed to reduce the people to the passive helplessness which resulted from the perfection of uniformity in Prussia. Provincial institutions, though corrupted, were not extinguished ; provincial attachments and prejudices existed in unbounded strength. Like the passion of the Spaniard for his native district, his passion for Spain was of a blind and furious character. Enlightened con- viction, though not altogether absent, had small place in the Spanish war of defence. Eeligious fanaticism, hatred of the foreigner, delight in physical barbarity, played their full part by the side of nobler elements in the struggle for national independence. The captivity of Ferdinand, and the conflict of Murat*s troops with the inhabitants of ^ ^ Rising- of ^paln, Madrid, had become known in the Spanish May^isce. cities before the middle of May. On the 20th of the same month the Gaceta announced the abdication of the Bourbon family. Nothing more was wanting to throw Spain into tumult. The same irresistible impulse seized provinces and cities separated by the whole breadth of the Peninsula. . Without communication, and with- out the guidance of any central authority, the Spanish people in every part of. the kingdom armed themselves 380 MODERN EUROPE, isos. against the usurper. Carthagena rose on the 22nd. Valencia forced its magistrates to proclaim King Ferdi- nand on the 23rd. Two days later the mountain-dis- trict of Asturias, with a population of half a million, formally declared war on Napoleon, and despatched envoys to Great Britain to ask for assistance. On the 26th, Santander and Seville, on opposite sides of the Peninsula, joined the national movement. Corunna, Badajoz, and Granada declared themselves on the Feast of St. Ferdinand, the 30th of May. Thtls within a week the entire country was in arms, except in those districts where the presence of French troops rendered revolt impossible. The action of the insurgents was everywhere the same. They seized upon the arms and munitions of war collected in the magazines, and forced the magistrates or commanders of towns to place them- selves at their head. Where the latter resisted, or were suspected of treachery to the national cause, they were in many cases put to death. Committees of Govern- ment were formed in the principal cities, and as many armies came into being as there were independent centres of the insurrection. Napoleon was in the meantime collecting a body of prelates and grandees at Bayonne, under the Napoleon's As- , „ t i • j i i l' i* sembiy at Bay- pretence 01 consultmsf the representatives oi onne, Jiine, 1808. ^ ox the Spanish nation. Half the members of the intended Assembly received a personal summons from the Emperor ; the other half were ordered to be chosen by popular election. When the order, however, was issued from Bayonne, the country was already in uoa UPRISING OF SPAIN. 381 full revolt Elections were held only in the districts occupied by the French, and not more than twenty representatives so elected proceeded to Bayonne. The remainder of the Assembly, which numbered in all ninety-one persons, was composed of courtiers who had accompanied the Eoyal Family across the Pyrenees, and of any Spaniards of distinction upon whom the French could lay their hands. Joseph Bonaparte was brought from Naples to receive the crown of Spain.* j ^ ^^^ On the 15th of June the Assembly of the ^^^^'^^^ Notables was opened. Its discussions followed the order prescribed by Napoleon on all similar occasions. Articles disguising a central absolute power with some pretence of national representation were laid before the Assembly, and adopted without criticism. Except in the privileges accorded to the Church, little indicated that the Constitution of Bayonne was intended for the Spanish rather than for any other nation. Its political forms were as valuable or as valueless as those which Napoleon had given to his other client States ; its prin- ciples of social order were those which even now despot- ism could not dissever from French supremacy — the abolition of feudal services, equality of taxation, admis- sion of all ranks to public employment. Titles of nobility were preserved, the privileges of nobility abolished One genuine act of homage was rendered to the national character. The Catholic religion was declared to be the only one permitted in Spain. v. While Napoleon was thus emancipating the peasants * Miot de Molito, ii., ch. 7. \ 382 MODERN EUROPE. 1808. from the nobles, and reconciling Ms supremacy witli tlie claims of the Church, peasants and townspeople were flocking to arms at the call of the priests, who so little appreciated the orthodoxy of their patron as to identify him in their manifestos with Calvin, with the Anti- christ, and with Apollyon.* The Emperor underrated the military efficiency of the national re- Attempts of Na- *' "^ pressSie^spaS volt, aud contcutcd himself with sending his lieutenants to repress it, while he him- self, expecting a speedy report of victory, remained in Bayonne. Divisions of the French army moved in all directions against the insurgents. Duponb was ordered to march upon Seville from the capital, Moncey upon Valencia ; Marshal Bessieres took command of a force intended to disperse the main army of the Spaniards, which threatened the roads from the Pyrenees to Madrid. The first encounters were all favourable to the practised French troops ; yet the objects which Napoleon set before his generals were not achieved. Moncey failed to reduce Valencia ; Dapont found himself outnumbered on passing the Sierra Morena, and had to retace his steps and halt at Andujar, where the road to Madrid leaves the valley of the Gruadalquivir. Without sustaining any severe loss, the French divisions were disheartened by exhausting and resultless marches ; the Spaniards gained new confidence on each successive day which passed without inflicting upon them a defeat. At length, liowever, the commanders of the northern army were forced by Marshal Bessieres to fight a pitched battle at * Baumgarten, i., 242. 1808. OAFITULATION OF BAYLEN. 888 Eio Seco, on the west of Valladolid (July 13th). Bes- sieres won a complete victory, and gained the lavish praises of his master for a battle which, according to Napoleon's own conception, ended the Spanish war by securing the roads from the Pyrenees to Madrid. Never had Napoleon so gravely mistaken the true character of a campaign. The vitality of the Spanish insurrection lay not in the support of the capital, which had never passed out of the hands of the French, but in the very independence of the several provincial movements. Unlike Vienna and Berlin, Madrid might be held by the French without the loss being felt by their adversary; Cadiz, Corunna, Lisbon, were equally serviceable bases for the insurrection. The victory of Marshal Bessi^res in the north preserved the communi- cation between France and Madrid, and it did nothing more. It failed to restore the balance of military force in the south of Spain, or to affect the operations of the Spanish troops which were now closing round Dupont upon the Guadalquivir. On the 15th of D^p^^t in ah- July Dupont was attacked at Andujar by greatly superior forces. His lieutenant, Vedel, knowing the Spaniards to be engaged in a turning movement, made a long march northwards in order to guard the line of retreat. In his absence the position of Baylen, immediately in Dupont's rear, was seized by the Spanif h general Keding. Dupont discovered himself to be sur- rounded. He divided his army into two columns, and moved on the night of the 18th from Andujar towards Baylen, in the hope of overpowering Rediug's division. 384 MODERN EUROPE. I8O8. At daybreak on the lOtli the positions of Eeding were attacked by the French. The struggle continued until mid- day, though the French soldiers sank exhausted with thirst and with the burning heat. At length the sound of cannon was heard in the rear. Castanos, the Spanish general commanding at Andujar, had discovered Dupont's retreat, and pressed behind him with troops Capitulation of ^^^^^^ ^^^ unwcaricd by conflict. Further Bayien, July 19. j^gjg^ance was hopelcss. Dupont had to negotiate for a surrender. He consented to deliver up Yedel's division as well as his own, although Yeders troops were in possession of the road to Madrid, the Spanish commander promising, on this condition, that the captives should not be retained as prisoners of war in Spain, but be permitted to return by sea to their native country. The entire army of Andalusia, num- bering 23,000 men, thus passed into the hands of an enemy whom Napoleon had not believed to possess a military existence. Dupont's anxiety to save something for France only aggravated the extent of the calamity ; for the Junta of Seville declined to ratify the terms of the capitulation, and the prisoners, with the exception of the superior officers, were sent to the galleys at Cadiz. The victorious Spaniards pushed forwards upon Madrid. King Joseph, who had entered the city only a week before, had to fly from his capital. The whole of the French troops in Spain were compelled to reiire to a defensive position upon the Ebro. The disaster of Bayien did not come alone. Napo- leon's attack upon Portugal had brought him within the 1808. CONVENTION OF OINTRA. 385 striking-range of Great Britain. On the 1st of August an English army, commanded by Sir Arthur Wellesley, landed on the Portuguese coast in portj^ai. at the mouth of the Mondego. Junot, the first invader of the Peninsula, was still at Lisbon ; his forces in occupation of Portugal numbered nearly 30,000 men, but they were widely dispersed, and he was unable to bring more than 13,000 men into the field against the 16,000 with whom Wellesley moved upon Lisbon. Junot advantjed to meet the invader. A battle was fought at Vimieiro, thirty miles north of vimieiro, Lisbon, on the 21st of August. The victory ^'^''^' was gained by the British ; and had the first advantage been followed up, Junot's army would scarcely have escaped capture. But the command had passed out of Wellesley's hands. His superior officer. Sir Harry Burrard, took up the direction of the army immediately the battle ended, and Wellesley had to acquiesce in a suspension of operations at a moment when the enemy seemed to be within his grasp. Junot made the best use of his reprieve. He entered into negotiations for the evacuation of Portugal, and obtained the most favourable terms in the Convention of Cintra, convention of signed on the 30th of August. The French ^^ ^"*- ** army was permitted to return to France with its arras and baggage. Wellesley, who had strongly condemned the inaction of his superior officers after the battle of the 21st, agreed with them that, after the enemy had once been permitted to escape, the evacuation of Portugal was the best result which the English could ob- 2 386 MODERN EUROPE. I8O8. tain * jTinot's troops were accordingly conveyed to French ports at the expense of the British Government, to the great displeasure of the puhlic, who expected to see the marshal and his army brought prisoners into Portsmouth. The English were as ill-humoured with their victory as the French with their defeat. When on the point of sending Junot to a court-martial for his capitulation, Napoleon learnt that the British Grove rnment had ordered its own generals to be brought to trial for per- mitting the enemy to escape them. If the Convention of Cintra gained little glory for England, the tidings of the successful uprising of the Spanish people against Napoleon, and of Dupont's capi- Effect of Spanish "tulatiou at Baylcu, created the deepest im- BsingonEurope. pj-gggj^^jj^ {j^ evcry couutry of Europe that still entertained the thought of resistance to France. The first great disaster had befallen Napoleon's arms. It had been inflicted by a nation without a government, without a policy, without a plan beyond that of the liberation of its fatherland from the foreigner. What Coalition after Coalition had failed to effect, the patriot- ism and energy of a single people deserted by its rulers seemed about to accomplish. The victory of the regular troops at Baylen was but a part of that great national movement in which every isolated outbreak had had its share in dividing and paralysing the Emperor's force. The capacity of untrained popular levies to resist prac- tised troops might be exaggerated in the first outburst of wonder and admiration caused by the Spanish rising ; • Welliugton Despatches, iii., 135. 1808. OEBMANT AND THE SPANIARDS. 387 but the difference made in the nature of the struggle by the spirit of popular resentment and determination was one upon which mistake was impossible. A sudden light broke in upon the politicians of Austria and Prussia, and explained the powerlessness of those Coali- tions in which the wars had always been the aflfair of the Cabinets, and never the affair of the people. What the Spanish nation had effected for itself against Napoleon was not impossible for the German nation, if once a national movement like that of Spain sprang up among the Q-erman race. ** I do not see," wrote Bliicher some time afterwards, "why we should not think ourselves as good as the Spaniards." The best men in the Austrian and Prussian Governments began to look forward to the kindling of popular ^^^^ "^ spirit as the surest means for combating the tyranny of Napoleon. Military preparations were pushed forward in Austria with unprecedented energy and on a scale rivalling that of France itself. In Prussia the party of Stein determined upon a renewal of the war, and decided to risk the extinction of the Prussian State rather than submit to the extortions by which Napoleon was completing the ruin of their country. It was among the patriots of Northern Germany that the course of the Spanish struggle excited the deepest emotion, and gave rise to the most resolute purpose of striking for European liberty. Since the nominal restoration of peace between France and Prussia by the cession of half the Pmssian kingdom, not a month had passed without the infliction z 2 Napoleon 388 MOBBBN EUROPE. isos. of some gross injustice npon the conquered nation. The evacuation of the country had in the first instance been made conditional upon the payment of certain requisi- tions in arrear. While the amount of this sum was being settled, all Prussia, except Konigsberg, remained in the hands of the French, and 157,000 Trench soldiers lived at free quarters upon the unfortunate inhabitants. At the end of the year 1807 King Frederick Wil- liam was informed that, besides paying to Napoleon 60,000,000 francs in money, and ceding domain lands of the same value, he must continue to support 40,000 French troops in five garrison-towns upon the Oder. Such was the dismay caused by this announcement, that Sg|in quitted Konigsberg, now the seat of government, and passed three months at the head-quarters of the French at Berlin, endeavouring to frame some settle- ment less disastrous to his country. Count Daru, ^Napo- Jeon's administrator in Prussia, treated the Minister with respect, and accepted his proposal for the evacua- tion of Prussian territory on payment of a fixed sum to the French. But the agreement required Napoleon's ratification, and for this Stein waited in vain.^ Month after month dragged on, and Napoleon made no reply. . At length the victories of the Spanish insur- rection in the summer of 1808 forced the Emperor to draw in his troops from beyond the Elbe. He placed a bold front upon his necessities, and demanded from the Prussian Government; as the price of evacuation, a still larger sum than that which had been named in the * Hausser, iii., 133. Seeley, i., 480. 1808 FERMENT IN PRUSSIA. 889 previous winter: he insisted that the Prussian army should be limited to 40,000 men, and the formation of the Landwehr abandoned ; and he required the support of a Prussian corps of 16,000 men, in the event of hos- tilities breaking out between France and Austria. Not even on these conditions was poieon. Sept., i8oa Prussia offered the complete evacuation of her territory. Napoleon still insisted on holding the three principal fortresses on the Oder with a garrison of 10,000 men. Such was the treaty proposed to the Prussian Court (September, 1808) at a time when every soldierly spirit thrilled with the tidings from Spain, and every statesman was convinced by the events of the last few months that Napoleon's treaties were but stages in a progression of wrongs. Stein and Scharnhorst urged the King to arm the nation for a struggle as desperate as that of Spain, and to delay only until Napo- leon himself was busied in the warfare of the Peninsula. Continued submission was ruin; revolt was at least not hopeless. However forlorn the condition of Prussia, its alliances were of the most formidable character. Austria was arming without disguise; Great Britain had intervened in the warfare of the Peninsula with an efficiency hitherto unknown in its military operations ; Spain, on the estimate of Napoleon himself, required an army of 200,000 men. Since the beginning of the Spanish insurrection Stein had occupied himself with the organisation of a general "**" ^^' outbreak throughout Northern Germany. Eightly or wrongly, he believed the train to be now laid, and 390 MOBEllN EUBOPE. 1808. encouraged the King of Prussia to count upon tlie sup- port of a popular insurrectiou against tlie Frencli in all the territories which they had taken from Prussia, from Hanover, and from Hesse. In one point alone Stein was completely misinformed. He believed that Alexander, in spite of the Treaty of Tilsit, would not be unwilling to see the storm burst upon Napoleon, and that in the event of another general war the forces of Russia would more probably be em- ployed against France than in its favour. The illusion was a fatal one. Alexander was still the accomplice of Napoleon. For the sake of the Danubian Principalities, Alexander was willing to hold central Europe in check while Napoleon crushed the Spaniards, and to stifle every bolder impulse in the simple King of Prussia. Napoleon himself dreaded the general explosion of Europe before Spain was conquered, and drew closer to his Russian ally. Difficulties that had been placed in the way of the Russian annexation of Roumania vanished. The Czar and the Emperor determined to display to all Europe the intimacy of their union by a Napoleon and l ^ ^ i^EXtoS!?! festal meeting at Erfurt in the midst of their victims and their dependents. The whole tribe of vassal Grerman sovereigns was summoned to the meeting-place ; representatives attended from the Courts of Vienna and Berlin. On the 7th of October Napoleon and Alexander made their entry into Erfurt. Pageants and festivities required the attendance of the crowned and titled rabble for several days ; but the only serious business was the settlement of a treaty confirm- 1808. THE MEETING AT EEFUBT. 391 ing the alliance of France and Russia, and the notifica- tion of the Czar to the envoy of the King of Prussia that his master must accept the terms demanded by !N"apoleon, and relinquish the idea of a struggle with France.* Count Q-oltz, the Prussian envoy, unwillingly signed the treaty which gave Prussia but a partial evacuation at so dear a cost, and wrote to the King that no course now remained for him but to abandon himself to unreserved dependence upon France, and to permit Stein and the patriotic party to retire from the direction of the State. Unless the King could summon up courage to declare war in defiance of Alexander, there was in fact no alternative left open to him. ISTapoleon had discovered Stein's plans for raising an insurrection in Germany several weeks before, and had given vent to the most furious outburst of wrath against Stein in the presence of the Prussian Ambassador at Erfurt. If the great struggle on which Stein's whole heart and soul were set was to be relinquished, if Spain was to be crushed before Prussia moved an arm, and Austria was to be left to fiffht its inevitable battle alone, then the „ ^ *--' Steiii resUnia, presence of Stein at the head of the Prus- Sed^N^^ sian State was only a snare to Europe, a peril to Prussia, and a misery to himself. Stein asked for and received his dismissal. (Nov. 24, 1808.) Stein's retirement averted the wrath of Napoleon from the King of Prussia ; but the whole malignity of • For the striking part J>layed at Erfurt by Talleyraud in opposition to Napoleon see Metternich's paper of December 4, in Beer, p. 516. It seems that Napoleon wished to involve the Czar in active measures against Austria, but was thwarted by Talleyrand. 392 MODERN EUROFE, im. that Corsican nature broke out against the high-spirited patriot as soon as fresh victories had released Napoleon from the ill- endured necessity of self-control. On the 1 6th of December, when Madrid had again passed into the possession of the French, an imperial order appeared, which gave the measure of ISTapoleon's hatred of the fallen Minister. Stein was denounced as the enemy of the Empire ; his property was confiscated ; he was ordered to be seized by the troops of the Emperor or his allies wherever they could lay their hands upon him. As in the days of Roman tyranny, the west of Europe could now afford no asylum to the enemies of the Em- peror. Eussia and Austria remained the only refuge of the exile. Stein escaped into Bohemia; and, as the crowning humiliation of the Prussian State, its police were forced to pursue as a criminal the statesman whose fortitude had still made it possible in the darkest days for Prussian patriots not to despair of their country. Central Europe secured by the negotiations with Alexander at Erfurt, Napoleon was now able to Spain, Nov., to place himsclf at the head of the French 1808. ... forces in Spain without fear of any immediate attack from the side of Grermany. Since the victory of Baylen the Spaniards had made little progress either towards good government or towards a good military administration. The provincial Juntas had consented to subordinate themselves to a central committee chosen from among their own members ; but this new supreme authority, which held its meetings at Aranjuez, proved one of the worst governments that 1908 THE SPANISH JVNTA. 893 even Spain itself had ever endured. It numbered thirty persons, twenty-eight of whom were priests, nobles, or officials.* Its qualities were those entrained in Spanish official life. In mentofaie o r Spanish Junta. legislation it attempted absolutely nothing but the restoration of the Inquisition and the protection of Church lands ; its administration was confined to a foolish interference with the better generals, and the acquisition of enormous supplies of war from Great Britain, which were either stolen by contractors or. allowed to fall into the hsLuds of the French. While the members of the Junta discussed the titles of honour which were to attach to them collectively and indivi- dually, and voted themselves salaries equal to those of Napoleon's generals, the armies fell into a state of desti- tution which scarcely any but Spanish troops would have been capable of enduring. The energy of the humbler classes alone prolonged the military existence of the insurrection ; the Q-ovemment organised nothing, comprehended nothing. Its part in the national move- ment was confined to a system of begging and boasting, which demoralised the Spaniards, and bewildered the agents and generals of England who first attempted the difficult task of assisting the Spaniards to help them- selves. When the approach of army after army, the levies of Germany, Poland, Holland, and Italy, in addi- tion to Napoleon's own veteran troops of Austerlitz and Jena, gave to the rest of the world some idea of the enormous force which Napoleon was about to throw on • Baumgarteu, i., 311. 894 MODERN EUROPE. 18O8. to Spain, tlie Spanisli Grovernment could form no better design than to repeat the movement of Baylen against IN'apoleon himself on the banks of the Ebro. The EmjDeror for the first time crossed the Pyrenees in the beginning of November, 1808. The victory of the Spaniards in the summer had forced the invaders to retire into the district between the Ebro and the Pyrenees, and the Ebro now formeJ the dividing-line between the hostile armies. It was the intention of Napoleon to roll back the extremes of the Spanish line to the east and the west, and, breaking through its centre, to move straight upon Burgos and Madrid. The Spaniards, for their part, were not content to act upon the defensive. When Napoleon arrived at Yittoria on the 5th of November, the left wing of the'sbi^ NaT, the Spanish army under Glenerajl Blake had already received orders to move eastwards from the upper waters of the Ebro, and to cut the French off from their communication with the Pyrenees. The movement was exactly that which Napoleon desired ; for in executing it, Blake had only to march far enough eastwards to find himself completely surrounded by French divisions. A premature movement of the French generals themselves alone saved Blake from total de- struction. He was attacked and defeated at Espinosa, on the upper Ebro, before he had advanced far enough to lose his line of retreat (Nov. 10) ; and, after suffering great losses, he succeeded in leading ofi* a remnant of his army into the mountains of Asturias. In the centre, Soult drove the enemy before him, and captured 1806. NAPOLEON ENTERS MADRID, 395 Burgos. Of the army which was to have cleared Spain of the French, nothing now remained but a corps on the right at Tudela, commanded by Palafox. The destruction of this body was committed by the Emperor to Lannes and Ney. Ney was ordered to take a long march southwards in order to cut off the retreat of the Spaniards ; he found it impossible, however, to execute his march within the time prescribed; and Palafox, beaten by Lannes at Tudela, made good his retreat into Saragossa. A series* of accidents had thus saved the. divisions of the Spanish army from actual capture, but there no longer existed a force capable of meeting the enemy in the field. Napoleon moved forward from Burgos upon Madrid. The rest of his march was a triumph. The batteries defending the mountain-pass of Somo Sierra were captured by a chars:e ^ ** <~j Napolieon enters of Polish cavalry; and the capital itself Madrid. Dec. 4. surrendered, after a short artillery fire, on the 4th of December, four weeks after the opening of the campaign. An English army was slowly and painfully making its way towards the Ebro at the time when •^ Campaien of Sir Napoleon broke in pieces the Spanish line JoKninoore. of defence. On the 14th of October Sir John Moore had assumed the command of 20,000 British troops at Lisbon. He was instructed to march to the neighbour- hood of Burgos, and to co-operate with the Spanish generals upon the Ebro. According to the habit of the English, no allowance was made for the movements of the enemy while their own were under consideration ; and the mountain-country which Moore had to tmvei'se placed 396 * MODEBK EUROPE. I8O8. additional obstacles in the way of an expedition at least a month too late in its starting. Moore believed it to be impossible to carry his artillery over the direct road from Lisbon to Salamanca, and sent it round by way of Madrid, while he himself advanced through Ciudad Eodrigo, reaching Salamanca on the 13th of November. Here, while still waiting for his artillery, rumours reached him of the destruction of Blake's army at Es- pinosa, and of the fall of Burgos. Later came the report of Palafox's overthrow at Tudela. Yet eveii now Moore could get no trustworthy information from the Spanish authorities. He remained for some time in suspense, and finally determined to retreat into Portugal. Orders were sent to Sir David Baird, who was approaching with reinforcements from Corunna, to turn back towards the northern coast. Scarcely had Moore formed this decision, when despatches arrived from Erere, the British agent at Madrid, stating that the Spaniards were about to defend the capital to the last extremity, and that Moore would be responsible for the ruin of Spain and the dis- grace of England if he failed to advance to its relief. To the great joy of his soldiers, Moore gave orders for a forward march. The army advanced upon Yalladolid, with the view of attacking the French upon their line of communication, while the siege of the capital engaged them in front. Baird was again ordered southwards. It was not until the 14th of December, ten days after Madrid had passed into the hands of the French, that Moore received intelligence of its fall. Neither the Spanish Grovernment nor the British agent who had Utt. NAFOLEON tN MADRID. 397 caused Moore to advance took the trouble to inform him of the surrender of the capital ; he learnt it from an intercepted French despatch. Erom the same despatch Moore learnt that to the north of him, at Saldanha, on the river Carrion, there lay a comparatively small Trench force under the command of Soult. The information was enough for Moore, heart-sick at the mockery to which his army had been subjected, and burning for decisive action. He turned northwards, 'and marched against Soult, in the hope of surprising him before the news of his danger could reach Napoleon in the capital. On the 19th of December a report reached Madrid that Moore had suspended his retreat on Portugal. Napoleon instantly divined the marches against actual movement of the English, and hurried from Madrid against Moore at the head of 40,000 men. Moore had met Baird on the 20th at Mayorga ; on the 23rd the united British divisions reached Sahagun, scarcely a day's march from Soult at Saldanha. Here the English commander learnt that Napoleon himself was on his track. Escape was a question of hours. Napoleon had pushed across the Guadarama mountains in forced marches through snow and storm. Had his vanguard been able to seize the bridge orver the river Esla at Benavente before the Jilnglish crossed it, Moore would have been cut off from all possibility of escape. The English reached the river first and blew up the bridge. This rescued them from imme- Eetreat of th* diate danger. The defence of the river gave Moore's army a start which rendered the superiority of 398 MODERN EUBQPK isos. Napoleon's nnm"bers of little effect. Tor a while Napo- leon followed Moore towards the nortliern coast. On tlie 1st of January, 1809, lie wrote an order whicli showed that he looked npon Moore's escape as now inevitahle, and on the next day he quitted the army, leaving to his marshals the honour of toiling after Moore to the coast, and of seizing some thousands of frozen or drunken British stragglers. Moore himself pushed on towards Corunna with a rapidity which was dearly paid for hy the demoralisation of his army. The sufferings and the excesses of the troops were frightful ; only the rear- guard, which had to face the enemy, preserved soldierly order. At length Moore found it necessary to halt and take up position, in order to restore the discipline of his army. He turned upon Soult at Lugo, and offered battle for two successive days ; but the French general declined an engagement ; and Moore, satisfied with having recruited his troops, continued his march upon Corunna. Soult still followed. On January 11th the English army reached the sea ; but the ships which were to convey them back to England were nowhere to be seen. A battle was inevitable, and Moore drew coruima.jan. ^V ^^^ troops, 14,000 iu numbcr, on a range of low hills outside the town, to await the attack of the French. On the 16th, when the fleet had now come into harbour, Soult gave battle. The French were defeated at every point of their attack. Moore fell at the moment of his victory, conscious that the army which he had so bravely led had nothing more to fear. The embarkation 180& SIR JOHN MOORE. 899 was effected that night ; on the next day the fleet put out to sea. Napoleon quitted Spain on the 19th of January, 1809, leaving his brother Joseph again in possession of the capital, and an army of 300,000 men under the best sfenerals of France en^asred with spain, Jan. w, the remnants of a defeated force which had never reached half that number. No brilliant victories remained to be won ; no enemy remained in the field important enough to require the presence of Napoleon. Difficulties of transit and the hostility of the people might render the subjugation of Spain a slower process than the subjugation of Prussia or Italy; but, to all appearance, the ultimate success of the Emperor's plans was certain, and the worst that lay before his lieutenants-, was a series of wearisome and obscure exertions against an inconsiderable foe. Yet, before the Emperor had been many weeks in Paris, a report reached him from Marshal Lannes which told of some strange form of military capacity among the people whose armies were so contemptible in the field. The city of Saragossa, after successfully resisting its besiegers in the summer of 1808, had been a second time ^S,i>L1Sa invested after the defeats of the Spanish armies upon the Ebro.* The besiegers themselves were suffering from extreme scarcity when, on the 22nd of January, 1809, Lannes took up the command. Lannes immediately called up all the troops within reach, and pressed the battering operations with the utmost \ngour. • Napier, ii. 17. 400 MODERN EUBOPK 1809. On tlie 29tli, the walls of Saragossa were stormed in four different places. According to all ordinary precedents of war, the French were now in possession of the city. But the besiegers found that their real work was only beginning. The streets were trenched and barricaded ; every dwell- ing was converted into a fortress ; for twenty days the French were forced to besiege house by house. In the centre of the town the popular leaders erected a gallows, and there they hanged every one who flinched from meeting the enemy. Disease was added to the horrors of warfare. In the cellars, where the women and children crowded in filth and darkness, a malignant pes- tilence broke out, which, at the beginning of February, raised the deaths to five hundred a day. The dead bodies were unburied ; in that poisoned atmosphere the slightest wound produced mortification and death. At length the powers of the defenders sank. A fourth part of the town had been won by the French ; of the townspeople and peasants who were within the walls at the beginning of the siege, it is said that thirty thousand had perished ; the remainder could only pro- long their defence to fall in a few days more before disease or the enemy. Even now there were members of the Junta who wished to fight as long as a man remained, but they were outnumbered. On the 20th of February what was left of Saragossa capitulated. Its resistance gave to the bravest of Napoleon's soldiers an impression of horror and dismay new even to men who had passed through seventeen years of revolutionary 1809. 8IEQE OF 8ABA0088A 401 warfare, but it failed to retard Napoleon's armies in the conquest of Spain. No attempt was made to relieve the heroic or ferocious city. Everywhere the tide of French conquest appeared to be steadily making its advance. Soult invaded Portugal ; in combination with him, two armies moved from Madrid upon the southern and the south-western provinces of Spain. Oporto fell on the 28th of March; in the same week the Spanish forces covering the south were decisively beaten at Ciudad Eeal and at Medellin upon the the Spaniards, ^ March, 1809. line of the Guadiana. The hopes of Europe fell. Spain itself could expect no second Saragossa. It appeared as if the complete subjugation of the Peninsula could now only be delayed by the mistakes of the French generals themselves, and by the untimely removal of that controlling will which had hitherto made every Tiiovement a step forward in conquest. A A CHAPTEE IX. Austria preparing for war— The war to be one on behalf of the German Nation — Patriotic movement in Prussia — Expected Insurrection in North Germany — Plans of Campaign — Austrian Manifesto to the Germans — Rising of the Tyrolese — Defeats of the Archduke Charles in Bavaria — French in Vienna — Attempts of Domberg and SchiU — Battle of Aspem— Second Passage of the Danube — Battle of Wagram — Armistice of Znaim — Austria waiting for events — Wellesley in Spain — He gains the Battle of Talavera, but retreats — ^Expedition against Antwerp fails — Austria makes Peace — ^Treaty of Vienna— Eeal Effects of the War of 1809— Austria after 1809— Metternich — ^Marriage of Napoleon with Marie LptriserTrrSeverance of Napoleon and Alexander — ^Napoleon annexes the Papal States, HoUand, La Valais, and the North German Coast — The Napoleonic Empire : Its benefits and wrongs — The Czar withdraws from Napoleon's Commercial System — War with Russia imminent — Wellington in Portugal: Lines of Torres Vedras; Massena's Campaign of 1810, and retreat — Soult in Andalusia — Wellington's Cam- paign of 1811 — Capture of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz— Salamanca. ]N"apoleon, qTiitting Spain in tlie third week of January, 1809, travelled to Paris with the utmost haste. He believed Austria to be on the point of de- Austria prepax- , . , , t r» i • tag for war, clariug War ; and on the very day oi his arrival at the capital he called out the con- tingents of the Ehenish Federation. In the course of the r>ext few weeks, however, he formed the opinion that Austria would either decline hostilities altogether, or at least find it impossible to declare war before the middle of May. Tor once the efforts of Austria out- stripped the calculations of her enemy. Count Stadion, the earnest and enlightened statesman who had held power in Austria since the Peace of Presburg, had 1809. ' AUSTMA AEMINO, 403 steadily prepared for a renewal of the struggle with France. He was convinced that Napoleon would soon enter upon new enterprises of conquest, and still farther extend his empire at the expense of Austria, unless attacked before Spain had fallen under his dominion. Metternich, now Austrian Ambassador at Paris, reported that Napoleon was intending to divide Turkey as soon as he had conquered Spain ; and, although he advised delay, he agreed with the Cabinet at Vienna that Austria must sooner or later strike in self-defence.* Stadion, more sanguine, was only prevented from. declaring war in 1808 by the counsels of the Archduke Charles and of other generals who were engaged in bringing the immense mass of new levies into military formation. Charles himself attached little value to the patriotic enthusiasm which, since the outbreak of the Spanish insurrection, had sprung up in the German provinces of Austria. He saw the approach of war with more appre- hension than pleasure; but, however faint his own hopes, he laboured earnestly in creating for Austria a force far superior to anything that she had possessed before, and infused into the mass of the army that con- fident and patriotic spirit which he saw in others rather than felt in himself. By the beginning of March, 1809, Austria had 200,000 men ready to take the field. The war now breaking out was to be a war for the German nation, as the strui^gfle to be » war for of the Spaniards had been a struggle for Spain. The animated appeals of the Emperor's generals • Metternich, il, 147. A a2 404 MODERN EUI^OPK 1309. formed a singular contrast to tlie silence with wMcli the Austrian Cabinet had hitherto entered into its wars. The Hapsburg sovereign now stood before the world less as the inheritor of an ancient empire and the repre- sentative of the Balance of Power than as the disin- terested champion of the Grerman race. On the part of the Emperor himself the language of devotion for Ger- many was scarcely more than ironical. Francis belonged to an age and to a system in which the idea of nation- ality had no existence ; and, like other sovereigns, he re- garded his possessions as a sort of superior property which ought to be defended by obedient domestic dogs against marauding foreign wolves. The same personal view of public affairs had hitherto satisfied the Austrians. It had been enough for them to be addressed as the dutiful children of a wise and affec- tionate father. The Emperor spoke the familiar Vien- nese dialect ; he was as homely in his notions and his prejudices as any beerseller in his dominions ; his sub- jects might see him at almost any hour of the day or night ; and out of the somewhat tough material of his character popular imagination had no difficulty in framing an idol of parental geniality and wisdom. Fif- teen years of failure and mismanagement had, however, impaired the beauty of the domestic fiction; and although old'fashioned AustrianS; like Haydn, the composer of the Austrian Hymn, were ready to go down to the grave invoking a blessing on their gracious master, the Emperor himself and his confidants were shrewd enough to see that the newly-excited sense of 1809. POLICY OF AUSTRIA,^ - ^qrH^ German patriotism would put them in possession of a forCe which they could hardly evoke by the old methods. One element of reality lay in the professions which were not for the most part meant very seriously. There was probably now no statesman in Austria who any longer felt a jealousy of the power of Prussia. With Count Stadion and his few real sup- porters the restoration of Grermany was a genuine and deeply-cherished desire ; with the majority of Austrian politicians the interests of Austria herself seemed at least for the present to require the liberation of North Germany. Thus the impassioned appeals of the Arch- duke Charles to all men of German race to rise against their foreign oppressor, and against their native princes who betrayed the interests of the Fatherland, gained the sanction of a Court hitherto very little inclined to form an alliance with popular agitation. If the chaotic disorder of the Austrian Government had been better understood in Europe, less importance would have been attached to this sudden change in its tone. No one in the higher ranks at Vienna was bound by the action of his colleagues. The Emperor, though industrious, had not the capacity to enforce any coherent system of govern- ment. His brothers caballed against one another, and against the persons who ligured as responsible ministers. State-papers were brought by soldiers to the Emperor for his signature without the knowledge of his ad- visers. The very manifestos which seemed to herald a new era for Germany owed most of their vigour to 406 MODERN' EUROPE, 1809 the literary men who were entrusted with their com- position.^ The answer likely to be rendered by Germany to the appeal of Austria was uncertain. In the Governing ■*■ ■■■ GeJ^'L^'on^tS Ehenish Federation there were undoubted side of Napoleon. . ^t i i 'n-n i i Signs 01 discontent with ± rench rule among the common people ; but the official classes were univer- sally on the side of Napoleon, who had given them their posts and their salaries ; while the troops, and especially the officers, who remembered the time when they had been mocked by the Austrians as " harlequins '' and "nose-bags," were won by the kindness of the great conqueror, who organised them under the hands of his own generals, and gave them the companionship of his own victorious legions. Little coiild be expected from districts where to the mass of the population the old regime of German independence had meant nothing more than attendance at the manor-court of a knight, or the occasional spectacle of a ducal wedding, or a deferred interest in the droning jobbery of some hereditary town- councillor. In Northern Germany there was far more pros- pect of a national insurrection. There the spirit of Stein and of those who had worked with him was making itself felt, in spite of the fall of the Minister. Scharn- horst's reforms had made the Prussian army a school of Patriotic move- patriotism, and the work of statesmen and ment in Prussia. , , . i t i i ^ i soldiers was promoted by men who spoke to the feelings and the intelligence of the nation. Literature lost its indifference to nationality and to home. The * Gentz, Tagebiicher, i., 60. 1809. NOBTHEBN GERMANY. 407 philosopher Fichte, the poet Arndt, the theologian Schleiermacher pressed the claims of Germany and of the manlier virtues upon a middle class singularly open to literary influences, singularly wanting in the experience and the impulses of active public life.* In the King- dom of Westphalia preparations for an insurrection against the French were made by officers who had served in the Prussian and the Hessian armies. In Prussia itself, by the side of many nobler agencies, the newly-founded Masonic society of the Tugendbund, or League of Virtue, made the cause of the Fatherland popular among thousands to whom it was an agreeable novelfcy to belong to any society at all. Ko spontaneous, irresistible uprising, like that which Europe had seen in the Spanish Peninsula, was to be expected among the unimpulsive population of the North German plains ; but the military circles of Prussia were generally in favour of war, and an insurrection of the population west of the Elbe was not improbable in the event of Napoleon's armj^ being defeated by Austria in the field. King Frederick William, too timid to resolve upon war himself, too timid even to look with satisfaction upon the bold attitude of Austria, had every reason for striking, if once the balance should incline against Napo- leon : ' even against his own inclination it was possible that the ardour of his soldiers might force him into war. So strong were the hopes of a general rising in Northern Germany, that the Austrian Government to some extent based its plans for the campaign on this * SteffeiLs, ▼!., 153. M^moires da Boi Jerome, iii., 340. 408 MODERN EUEOPE. isoa event. In the ordinary course of hostilities between Plans df France and Austria the line of operations campaign. ^ Germany is the valley of the Danube; but in preparing for the war of 1809 the Austrian Grovernment massed its forces in the north-west of Bo- hemia, with the object of throwing them directly upon Central Germany. The Trench troops #hich were now evacuating Prussia were still on their way westwards at the time when Austria was ready to open the campaign. Davoust, with about 60,000 men, was in Northern Bavaria, separated by a great distance from the nearest French divisions in Baden and on the Ehine. By a sudden incursion of the main army of Austria across the Bohemian mountains^ followed by an uprising in Northern Germany, Davoust and his scattered detach- ments could hardly escape destruction. Such was the original plan of the campaign, and it was probably a wise one in the present exceptional superiority of the Austrian preparations over those of France. For the first time since the creation of the Consulate it appeared as if the opening advantages of the war must inevitably be upon the side of the enemies of France. Napoleon had under- rated both the energy and the resources of his adversary. By the middle of March, when the Austrians were ready to descend upon Davoust from Bohemia, Napo- leon's first troops had hardly crossed the Ehine. For- tunately for the French commander, the Austrian Government, at the moment of delivering its well- planned blow, was seized with fear at its own boldness. Recollections of Hohenlinden and Ulm filled anxious 1800 PROCLAMATION TO THE GERMANS. 409 minds with the thought that the valley of the Danube was insufficiently defended ;- and on the 20th of March, when the army was on the point of breaking into Northern Bavaria, orders were given to divert the line of march to the south, and to enter the Ehenish Con- federacy by the roads of the Danube and the Inn. Thus the fruit of so much energy, and of the enemy's rare neglectfulness, was sacrificed at the last moment. It was not until the 9fch of April that the Austrian movement southward was completed, and that the army lay upon the line of the Inn, ready to attack Napoleon in the territory of his principal German ally. The proclamations now published by the Emperor and the Archduke bore striking testimony to the influence of the Spanish insurrection festo to the ■*■ Germans. in exciting the sense of national right, and awakening the Governments of Europe to the force which this placed in their hands. For the first time in history a manifesto was addressed "to the German nation." The contrast drawn in the Archduke's ad- dress to his army between the Spanish patriots dying in the defence of their country, and the German vassal- contingents dragged by Napoleon into Spain to deprive a gallant nation of its freedom, was one of the most just and the most telling that tyranny has ever given to the leaders of a righteous cause.* The Emperor's address " to ilie German nation " breathed the same spirit. It was not difficult for the politicians of the Ehenish Federation to ridicule the sudden enthusiasm for liberty • Beer, p. 370l Hansser, iii, 278. 410 MODJEEN BUBOPK im. and nationality shown by a Government which up to the present time had dreaded nothing so much as the excite- ment of popular movements ; but, however unconcernedly the Emperor and the old school of Austrian statesmen might adopt patriotic phrases which they had no inten- tion to remember when the struggle was over, such language was a reality in the effect which it produced upon the thousands who, both in Austria and^ of Germany, now for the first time heard to unite in defence of a common FatherlaJ The leading divisions of the Archduke's the Inn on the 9th of April. Besides the forces intended for the invasion of Bavaria, which numbered vadV'TavaiS; 170,000 mcu, thc Austrian Government had AprH 9, 1809. ' formed two smaller armies, with which the Princes Ferdinand and John were to take up the offen- sive in the Grand Duchy of Warsaw and in Northern Italy. On every side Austria was first in the field ; but even before its regular forces could encounter the enemy, a popular outbreak of the kind that the Government had invoked wrested from the French the whole of an im- portant province. While the army crossed Ty?oif April? thc luu, thc Tyrolcsc people rose, and over- powered the French and Bavarian detach- ments stationed in their country. The Tyrol had been taken from Austria at the Peace of Presburg, and attached to Napoleon's vassal kingdom of Bavaria. In geographical position and in relationship of blood the Tyrolese were as closely connected with the Bavarians as with the Austrians ; and the annexation would pro- 1800. EI8INQ OF THE TYROL. 411 bably have caused no lasting discontent if the Bavarian Government had condescended to take some account of the character of its new subjects. Under the rule of Austria the Tyrolese had enjoyed many privileges. They were exempt from military service, except in their own militia ; they paid few taxes ; they possessed forms of self-gj^vernment which were at least popular enough d after they had been lost. The people hops and clergy. Nowhere could the a more winning example of unbroken a simple people and a Catholic Crown. Protestantism and the unholy activities of reason had never brought trouble into the land. The people be- heved exactly what the priests told them, and delighted in the innumerable holidays provided by the Church. They had so little cupidity that no bribe could induce a Tyrolese peasant to inform the French of any move- ment; they had so little intelligence that, when their own courage and stout-heai'tedness had won their first battle, they persuaded one another that they had been led by a Saint on a white horse. Grrievances of a sub- stantial character were not wanting under the new Bavarian rule; but it was less the in- ItBoanaeax*. creased taxation and the enforcement of "**^"* military service that exasperated the people than the attacks made by the Government upon the property and rights of the Church. Montgelas, the reforming Bava- rian minister, treated the Tyrolese bishops with as little ceremony as the Swabian knights. The State laid claim to all advowsons; and upon the refusal of the bishops 412 MODERN MUBOPK 1809. to give up tlieir patronage, tlie bishops themselves were banished and their revenues sequestrated. A passion for uniformity and common sense prompted the Govern- ment to revive the Emperor Joseph's edicts against pilgrimages and Church holidays. It became a police- offence to shut up a shop on a saint's day, or to wear a gay dress at a festival. Bavarian soldiers closed the churches at the end of a prescribed number of masses. At a sale of Church property, ordered by the Govern- ment, some of the sacred vessels were permitted to fall into the hands of the Jews. These were the wrongs that fired the simple Tyrolese. They could have borne the visits of the tax-gatherer and the lists of conscription ; they could not bear that their priests should be overruled, or that their observ- ances should be limited to those sufficient for ordinary Catholics. Yet, with all its aspect of unreason, the question in the Tyrol was also part of that larger ques- tion whether Napoleon's pleasure should be the rule of European life, or nations should have some voice in the disposal of their own affairs. The Tyrolese were not more superstitious, and they were certainly much less cruel, than the Spaniards. (^They fought for ecclesias- tical absurdities ; but their cause was also the cause of national right, and the admiration which their courage excited in Europe was well deserved. ) Early in the year 1809 the Archduke Tyrolese expel •' •' S^riprt Jo^^ ^^^ ^^^ *^® leaders of the Tyrolese 1809 peasantry, and planned the first movements of a national insurrection. As soon as the Austrian army 1809. BI8INQ OF THE TYROL. 413 crossed the Inn, the peasants thronged to their ap- pointed meeting-places. Scattered detachments of the Bavarians were surrounded, and on the 12th of April the main hody of the Tyrolese, numbering about 15,000 men, advanced upon Innsbruck. The town was invested ; the Bavarian garrison, consisting of 3,000 regular troops, found itself forced to surrender after a severe engage- ment. On the next morning a French column, on the march from Italy to the Danube, approached Innsbruck, totally unaware of the events of the preceding day. The Tyrolese closed behind it as it advanced. It was not until the column was close to the town that its com- mander, Greneral Brisson, discovered that Innsbruck had fallen into an enemy's hands. Eetreat was impossible ; ammunition was wanting for a battle ; and Brisson had no choice but to surrender to the peasants, who had already proved more than a match for the Bavarian regular troops. The Tyrolese had done their work without the help of a single Austrian regiment. In five days the weak fabric of Bavarian rule had been thrown to the ground. The French only maintained themselves in the lower valley of the Adige ; and before the end of April their last positions at Trent and llove- redo were evacuated, and no foreign soldier remained on Tyrolese soil. The operations of the Austrian commanders upon the Inn formed a melancholy contrast to *' Campaign the activity of the mountaineers. In spite chan'^i'^^i'n of the delay of three weeks in opening the campaign, Davoust had still not efl'ected his junction 414 MOBEliN EUROPE. 1809. with the French troops in Southern Bavaria, and a rapid movement of the Austrians might even now have overwhelmed his isolated divisions at Eatishon. Napo- leon himself had remained in Paris till the last moment, instructing Berthier, the chief of the staff, to concen- trate the vanguard at Eatishon, if hj the 15th of April the enemy had not crossed the Inn, hut to draw back to the line of the Lech if the enemy crossed the Inn before that day.* The Archdiike entered Bavaria on the 9th; but, instead of retiring to the Lech, Berthier allowed the army to be scattered over an area sixty miles broad, from Eatishon to points above Augsburg. Davoust lay at Eatishon, a certain prey if the Archduke pushed forwards with vigour and thrust his army between the northern and the southern positions of the French. But nothing could change the sluggish- ness of the Austrian march. The Archduke was six days in moving from the Inn to the Isar ; and before the order was given for an advance upon Eatishon, Napoleon himself had arrived at Donauworth^ and taken the command out of the hands of his feeble lieutenant. It needed all the Emperor's energy to snatch vic- tory from the enemy's grasp. Davoust was orit^lf SS bidden to fall back from Eatishon to Neu- stadt ; the most pressing orders were sent to Massena, who commanded the right at Augsburg, to push forward to the north-east in the direction of his colleague, before the Austrians could throw the mass • Oorrespondance de Napoleon, xviii., 459, 472. Gentz, Tagebiicher, i. 120. Pelet, Memoirea sur la Guerre de 1809, i., 223. 1809. OAMFAIGN IN BAVAMIA 415 of their forces upon Davoust's weak corps. Both generals understood the urgency of the command. Da- voust set out from Eatisbon on the morning of the 19th. He was attacked by the Archduke, but so feebly and irresolutely that, with all their superiority in num- bers, the Austrians failed to overpower the enemy at any one point. Massena, immediately after receiving his orders, hurried from Augsburg north-eastwards, while Napoleon himself advanced into the mid-space between the two generals, and brought the right and left wings of the French army into communication with one another. In two days after the Emperor's arrival all the advantages of the Austrians were gone : the French, so lately exposed to destruction, formed a con- centrated mass in the presence of a scattered enemy. The issue of the campaign was decided by the movements of these two days. Napoleon was again at the head of 150,000 men ; the Archduke, already baulked in his first attack upon Davoust, was seized with unworthy terror when he found that Napoleon himself was before him, and resigned himself to anticipations of ruin. A series of manoeuvres and engagements in the finest style of Napoleonic warfare filled the next three days with French victories and Austrian disasters. On April the 20th the long line of the Archduke's army was cut in halves by an attack at Abensberg. The left was driven across the Isar at Landshut; the ri^ht, _^ commanded by the Archduke himself, was ^;^^"i^ overpowered at Eggmtihl on the 22nd, and forced northwards. The unbroken mass of the French 416 MODERN EUROPE. ^ array now thrust itself between the two defeated wings of the enemy. The only road remaining open to the Archduke was that through Eatisbon to the north of the Danube. In five days, although no engagement of the first order had taken place between the French and Austrian armies, Charles had lost 60,000 men ; the mass of his army was retreating into Bohemia, and the road to Vienna lay scarcely less open than after Mack's capitulation at TJlm four years before. A desperate battle fought against the advancing French at Edels- berg by the weak divisions that had remained on the south of the Danube, proved that the disasters of the campaign were due to the faults of the general, not to the men whom he commanded. But whatever hopes of ultimate success might still be based on the gallant temper of the army, it was impossible to prevent the fall of the capital. The French, leaving the Archduke French enter ^u the uorth of the Dauube, pressed forwards xenna. ay . ^Yong the direct route from the Inn to Vienna. The capital was bombarded and occupied. On the 13th of May N"apoleon again took up his quarters in the palace of the Austrian monarchs where he had signed the Peaxje of 1806. The divisions which had fallen back before him along the soathem road crossed the Danube at Vienna, and joined the Archduke on the bank of the river opposite the capital. The disasters of the Bavarian campaign involved the sacrifice of all that had resulted from Austrian victories elsewhere, and of all that might have been won by a general insurrection in Northern Germany. In Poland 1803. NAPOLEON ENTERS VIENNA. 417 and in Italy the war had opened favourably for Austria. Warsaw had been seized ; Eugene Beauharnais, the Viceroy of Italy, had been defeated by the Archduke John at Sacile, in Yenetia ; but it was impossible to pursue these advantages when the capital itself was on the point of falling into the hands of the enemy. The invading armies halted, and ere long the Archduke John commenced his retreat into the mountains. In Northern Germany no popular uprising could be ex- pected when once Austria had been defeated. The only movements that took place were undertaken by soldiers, and undertaken before the disasters in Bavaria became known. The leaders in this military con- Attempts of spiracy were Dornber^:, an officer in the s<'inii in Nor- ^ •' ^ thern Germany. service of King Jerome of Westphalia, and ^^^^ ^^• Schill, the Prussian cavalry leader who had so brilliantly distinguished himself in the defence of Colberg. Dorn- berg had taken service under Jerome with the design of raising Jerome's own army against him. It had been agreed by the conspirators that at the same moment Dornberg should raise the Hessian standard in West* phalia, and Schill, marching from Berlin with any part of the Prussian army that would follow him, should proclaim war against the French in defiance of the Prussian Government. Dornberg had made sure of the support of his own regiment ; but at the last moment the plot was discovered, and he was transferred to the command of a body of men upon whom he could not rely. He placed himself at the head of a band of pea- sants, and raised the standard of insui-rection. King B B 418 MODERN EXTBOPB. im. Jerome's troops met the solicitations of their country- men with a volley of bullets. Dornberg fled for his life ; and the revolt ended on the day after it had begun (April 23). Schill, unconscious of Dornberg's ruin, and deceived by reports of Austrian victories upon the Danube, led out his regiment from Berlin as if for a day's manoeuvring, and then summoned his men to fol- low him in raising a national insurrection against Napo- leon. The soldiers answered SchilFs eloquent \7ords with shouts of applause ; the march was continued westwards, and Schill crossed the Elbe, intending to fall upon the communications of Napoleon's army, already, as he believed, staggering under the blows delivered by the Archduke in the valley of the Danube. On reaching Halle, Schill learnt of the overthrow of the Archduke and of Dornberg's ruin in Westphalia. All hope of success in the enterprise on which he had quitted Berlin was dashed to the ground. The possi- bility of raising a popular insurrection vanished. Schill, however, had gone too far to recede ; and even now it was not too late to join the armies of Napoleon's enemies. Schill might move into Bohemia, or to some point on the northern coast where he would be within reach of English vessels. But in any case quick and steady de- cision was necessary; and this Schill could not attain. Though brave even to recklessness, and gifted with qualities which made him the idol of the public, Schill lacked the disinterestedness and self-mastery which calm the judgment in time of trial. The sudden ruin of his hopes left him without a plan. He wasted day after 1809. 80HILL. 419 day in purposeless marclies, while the enemy collected a force to overwhelm him. His influence over his men became impaired ; the denunciations of the Prussian Government prevented other soldiers from joining him. At length Schill determined to recross the Elbe, and to throw himself into the coast town of Stralsund, in Swedish Pomerania. He marched through Mecklen- burg, and suddenly appeared before Stral- scwu at strai sund at the moment when the French can- ""^ ' *^ ' noneers in garrison were firing a salvo in honour of Napoleon's entry into Vienna. A hand-to-hand fight gave Schill possession of the town, with all its stores. For a moment it seemed as if Stralsund might become a second Saragossa ; but the French were at hand before it was possible to create works of defence. Schill had but eighteen hundred men, half of whom were cavalry ; he understood nothing of military science, and would listen to no counsels. A week after his entry into Stralsund the town was stormed by a force four times more numerous than its defenders. Capitulation was no word for the man who had dared to make a private war upon Napoleon ; Schill could only set the ex- ample of an heroic death.* The officers who were not so fortunate as to fall with their leader were shot in cold blood, after trial by a French court-martial. Six hundred common soldiers who surrendered were sent to the galleys of Toulon to sicken among French thieves and murderers. The cruelty of the conqueror, the * " Je n'ai jamais tu d'affaire aussi sanglante et ausai meartri^re." Report of the French (Jenoral, Memoires de Jerome iy. 109. B B 2 420 MODERN EUROPE. 180». heroism of tlie conquered, gave to SdiiU's ill-planned venture the importance of a great act of patriotic mar- tyrdom. Another example had been given of self- sacrifice in the just cause. Schill's faults were forgotten ; his memory deepened the passion with which all the braver spirits of Grermany now looked for the day of reckoning with their oppressor.* Napoleon had finished the first act of the war of 1809 by the occupation of Vienna ; but no peace was possible until the Austrian army, which lay upon the opposite bank of the river, had been attacked and beaten. Four miles below Vienna the Danube is divided into two streams by the island of Lobau : the southern stream is the main channel of the river, the northern is only a hundred and fifty yards broad. It was here that Kapoleon determined to make the passage. The broad arm of the Danube, sheltered by the island from the enemy's fire, was easily bridged by boats ; the passage from the island to the northern bank, though liable to be disputed by the Austrians, was facilitated by the narrowing of the stream. On the 18th of May, Napoleon, supposing himself to have made good the connection between the island and the southern bank, began to bridge the northern arm of the river. His movements were observed by the enemy, but no opposition was offered. On the 20th a body of 40,000 the Danube, Freuch crosscd to the northern bank, and May 20. ' occupied the villages of Aspern and Essling. This was the movement for which the Archduke * See Arndt's Poem on Schill. Gedichte, i. 328 (ed. 1837). MOB. BATTLE OF ASPEBJ^. 421 Charles, who had now 80,000 men unSer Arms, had been waiting. Early on the 21st a mass of heavily-laden barges was let loose by the Austrians above the island. The waters of the Danube were s^wollen by the melting of the snows, and at midday the bridges of the French over the broad arm of the river were swept away. A little later, dense Austrian columns were seen advancing upon the villages of Aspern and Essling, where the French, cut off from their supports, had to meet an overpowering enemy in front, with an impassable river in their rear. The attack began at four in BattieofAapem, •fcfft y 2I22 the afternoon; when night fell the French had been driven out of Aspern, though they still held the Austrians at bay in their other position at Essling. During the night the long bridges were repaired ; forty thousand additional troops moved across the island to the northern bank of the Danube ; and the engagement was renewed, now between equal numbers, on the following morning. Five times the village of Aspern was lost and won. In the midst of the struggle the long bridges were again carried away. Unable to break the enemy, unable to hx^ng up any new forces from Vienna, Napoleon Ordered a retreat. The ^rmy was slowly withdrawn into the island of Lobau. There for the next two days it lay without fopd and without ammunition, severed from Vienna, and exposed to certain destruction if the Archduke could have thrown his army across the narrow arm of the river and renewed the engagement. Biit the Aus- trians were in no condition to follow up their victory. 422 MODERN EUBOPK 1809. Their losses were enormous; their stores were ex- hausted. The moments in which a single stroke might have overthrown the whole fabric of Napoleon's power were spent in forced inaction. By the third day after the battle of Aspern the communications between the island and the mainland were restored, and 'Ns,- poleon's energy had brought the army out of immediate danger. Nevertheless, although the worst was averted, and the Trench now lay secure in their island fortress, the Effect on Eu- defeat of Aspern changed the position of Napoleon in the eyes of all Europe. The belief in his invincibility was destroyed ; he had suffered a defeat in person, at the head of his finest troops, from an enemy little superior in strength to himself. The disasters of the Austrians in the opening of the cam- paign were forgotten ; everywhere the hopes of resistance woke into new life. Prussian statesmen urged their King to promise his support if Austria should gain one more victory. Other enemies were ready to fall upon Napoleon without waiting for this condition. Eng- land collected an immense armament destined for an attack upon some point, of the northern coast. Grer- many, lately mute and nerveless, - gave threatening signs. The Duke of Brunswick, driven from his inherit- ance after bis father's death at Jena, invaded the do- minions of Napoleon's vassal, the King of Saxony, and Brunswick in- expelled him from his capital. Popular insurrections broke out in Wiirtemberg and in Westphalia, and proved the rising force of national 18». EFFECT OF A8PERN. 423 feeling even in districts where the cause of Germany lately seemed so hopelessly lost. But Napoleon concerned himself little with these remoter enemies. Every energy of his mind was bent to the one great issue on which victory depended, the passage of the Danube. His chances of success were ptill good, if the French troops watching the enemy between Vienna and the Adriatic could be brought up in time for the final struggle. The Archduke Charles was in no hurry for a battle, believing that every hour increased the probability of an attack upon Napoleon by England or Prussia, or insurgent Grermany. Never was the dif- ference between Napoleon and his ablest adversaries more strikingly displayed than in the work which was accomplished by him during this same in- Napoieon'g pre- terval. He had determined that in the second passage of the Danube. next battle his army should march across '^^®' the Danube as safely and as rapidly as it could march along the streets of Vienna. Two solid bridges were built on piles across the broad arm of the river ; no less than six bridges of rafts were made ready to be thrown across the narrow arm when the moment arrived for the attack. By the end of June all the outlying divisions of the French army had gathered to the great rallying- point ; a hundred and eighty thousand men were in the island, or ready to enter it ; every movement, every position to be occupied by each member of this vast mass in its passage and advance, was fixed down to the minutest details. Napoleon had decided to cross from the eastern, not from the northern side of the island. 424 UODEBN BUBOFIj. isog. and thus to pass outside tlie fortifications wMcli the Archduke had erected on the former battle-field. To- wards midnight on the 4th of July, in the the Danube, mldst o£ a violcut storm, the six bridges July 4. ^ ' o were successively swung across the river. The artillery opened fire. One army corps after another, each drawn up opposite to its own bridge, marched to the northern shore, and by sunrise nearly the whole of Napoleon's force deployed on the left bank of the Danube. The river had been converted into a great highway ; the fortifications which had been erected by the Archduke were turned by the eastward direction of the passage. All that remained for the Austrian com- mander was to fight a pitched battle on ground that was now at least thoroughly familiar to him. Charles had taken up a good position on the hills that look over the village of Wagram. Here, with 130,000 men, he awaited the attack of the French. The first attack was made in the afternoon after the crossing of the river. It failed ; and the French army lay stretched during the night between the river and the hills, while the Archduke prepared to • descend upon their left on the morrow, and to force himself between the enemy and the bridges behind them. / Early on the morning of the 6th the two largest armies that had ever been brought face to face in Europe began their onslaught. Spectators Wagram July from the stccplcs of Vicnua saw the fire of the French little by little receding on their left, and dense masses of the Austrians pressing on 18W. BATTLE OF WAOBAM. 425 towards the bridges, on whose safety the existence of the French army depended. But ere long the forward movement stopped. Napoleon had thrown an over- powering force against the Austrian centre, and the Archduke found himself compelled to recall his victorious divisions and defend his own threatened line. Gradually the superior numbers of the French forced the enemy back. The Archduke John, who had been ordered up from Presburg, failed to appear on the field; and at two o'clock Charles ordered a retreat. The order of the Austrians was unbroken ; they had captured more prisoners than they had lost ; their retreat was covered by so powerful an artillery that the French could make no pursuit. The victory was no doubt Napoleon's, but it was a victory that had nothing in common with Jena and Austerlitz. Nothing was lost by the Austrians at Wagram but their positions and the reputation of their general. The army was still in fighting- order, with the fortresses of Bohemia behind it. Whether Austria would continue the war depended on the action of the other European Powers. If Great Britain successfully landed an armament in Northern Germany or dealt any overwhelming blow in Spain, if Prussia declared war on Napoleon, Austria might fight on. If the other Powers failed, Austria must make peace. The ar- Armisaoe of mistice of Znaitn, concluded on the 12th of '""^ '"' July, was recognised on all sides as a mere device to gain time. There was a pause in the great struggle in the central Continent. Its renewal or its termination depended upon the issue of events at a distance. 426 MODERN EUEOFE. 1800. For the moment the eyes of all Europe were fixed upon the British army in Spain. Sir Arthur vades Spain. Welleslev, who took command at Lisbon in June, 1809. •' the spring, had driven Soult out of Oporto, and was advancing by the valley of the Tagus upon the Spanish capital. Some appearance of additional strength was given to him by the support of a Spanish army under the command of Greneral Cuesta. Wellesley's march had, however, been delayed by the neglect and bad faith of the Spanish Grovernment, and time had been given to Soult to collect a large force in the neigh- bourhood of Salamanca, ready either to fall upon Wel- lesley from the north, or to unite with another French army which lay at Talavera, if its commander, Victor, had the wisdom to postpone an engagement. The English general knew nothing of Soult's presence on his flank: he continued his march towards Madrid along the valley of the Tagus, and finally drew up for battle at Talavera, when Victor, after retreating before Cuesta to some distance, hunted back his Spanish pur- suer to the point from which he had started.* The first Talavera. attack was made by Victor upon the English positions at evening on the 27th of July. Next morning the assault was renewed, and the battle became general. Wellesley gained a complete victory, but the English themselves suffered heavily, and the army remained in its position. Within the next few days Soult was discovered to be descending from the mountains between Salamanca and the Tagus. A force • Wellington Despatches, iv. 533. Sup. Desp. vi. 319. Napier, ii 357. 1809. TALAVEEA. 427 superior to Wellesley's own threatened to close upon him from the rear, and to hem him in between two fires. The sacrifices of Talavera proved to have been made in vain. Wellesley had no choice but to abandon his advance upon the Spanish capital, and to fall back upon Portugal by the roads south of the Tagus. In spite of the defeat of Victor, the French were the winners of the campaign. Madrid was still secure ; the fabric of French rule in the Spanish Peninsula was still un- shaken. The tidings of Wellesley 's retreat reached Napoleon and the Austrian negotiators, damping the hopes of Austria, and easing ^^ to pot- Napoleon's fears. Austria's continuance of the war now depended upon the success or failure of the long-expected descent of an English army upon the northern coast of Europe. Three months before the Austrian Government de- clared war upon Napoleon, it had acquainted Great Britain with its own plans, and urged the Cabinet to dispatch an English force to Northern Germany. Such a force, landing at the time of the battle of Aspern, would certainly have aroused both Prussia and the country between the Elbe and the Maine. But the difference between a movement executed in time and one executed weeks and months too late was still unknown at the English War Office. The Ministry did not even begin their preparations till the middle of June, and then they determined, in pursuance of a plan made some years earlier, to attack the French fleet and docks at Antwerp, and to ignore that patriotic 428 MODERN EUBOFE. . 1809. movement in Korthdrn Grermanj from which they had so much to hope. On the 28th of July, two months after the battle of Aspern and three weeks after the battle English Expe- ■*■ ^twerp.^^jSy! of Wagram, a fleet of thirty-seven ships of 1809 the line, with innumerable transports and gunboats, set sail from Dover for the Schelde. Forty thousand troops were on board ; the commander of the expedition was the Earl of Chatham, a court-favourite in whom Nature avenged herself upon Great Britain for what she had given to this countty in his father and his younger I)rother. The troops were landed on the, island of Walcheren. Instead of pushing forward to Antwerp with all possible haste, and surprising it before any preparations could be made for its defence. Lord Chatham placed half his army on the banks of various canals, and with the other half proceeded to invest Flushing. On the 16th of August this unfor- tunate town surrendered, after a bombardment that had reduced it to a mass of ruins. During the next ten days the English commander advanced about as many miles, andTthen discovered that for all prospect of taking Antwerp he might as well have remained in England. Whilst Chatham was groping about in Walcheren, the fortifications of Antwerp were restored, the fleet carried up the river, and a mass of troops collected sufficient to defend the town against a regular siege. Defeat stared the English in the face. At the end of August the general recommended the Government to recall the expedition, only leaving a 1809. THE WALOREEEN EXPEDITION. 429 force of 1 5,000 soldiers to occupy the marshes of Wal- cheren. Chatham's recommendations were accepted; and on a spot so notoriously pestiferous that Napoleon had refused to permit a single French soldier to serve there on garrison duty,* an English army-corps, which might at least have earned the same honour as Schill and Brunswick in Northern Grermany, was left to perish of fever and ague. When two thousand soldiers were in their graves, the rest were recalled to England. Great Britain had failed to weaken or to alarm Napoleon; the Kin^ of Prussia made no -*- ^ Atistria makes movement on hehalf of the losing cause; ^*®*^' and the Austrian Government unwillingly found itself compelled to accept conditions of peace. It was not so much a deficiency in its forces as the universal distrust of its generals that made it impossible for Austria to continue the war. The soldiers had fought as bravely as the French, but in vain. "If we had a million soldiers," it was said, " we must make peace ; for we have no one to command them." Count Stadion, who was for carrying on the war to the bitter end, despaired of throwing his own energetic courage into the men who surrounded the Emperor, and withdrew from public affairs. For week after week the Emperor fluctuated between the acceptance of Napoleon's hard conditions and the renewal of a struggle which was likely to involve his own dethronement as well the total conquest of the Austrian State. At length Napoleon's demands * OorresiH)iulauee de Najwleon : Decision, Mai 23, 1606. Parliameu- tary Papers 1810, p. 123, 6i)7. 430 MODERN EUROPE. 1809. were presented in tlie form of an ultimatum. In his distress the Emperor's thoughts turned towards the Minister who, eight years before, had been so strong, so resolute, when all around him wavered. Thugut, now seventy-six years old, was living in retirement. The Emperor sent one of his generals to ask his opinion on peace or war. " I thought to find him," reported the general, " broken in mind and body ; but the fire of his spirit is in its full force." Thugut's reply did honour to his foresight : " Make peace at any price. The existence of the Austrian monarchy is at stake : the dissolution of the French Empire is not far off." On the 14th of October the Emperor Francis accepted his conqueror's terms, and signed conditions of peace.^ The Treaty of Vienna, the last which Napoleon Peace of Vienna, sigucd as a couqucror, took from the Aus- trian Empire 50,000 square miles of terri- tory and more than 4,000,000 inhabitants. Salzburg, with part of Upper Austria, was ceded to Bavaria; Western Galicia, the territory gained by Austria in the final partition of Poland, was transferred to the Grand- Duchy of Warsaw; part of Carinthia, with the whole of the country lying between the Adriatic and the Save as far as the frontier of Bosnia, was annexed to IN'apo- leon's own Empire, under the title of the Illyrian Pro- vinces. Austria was cut off from the sea, and the dominion of Napoleon extended without a break to the borders of Turkey. Bavaria and Saxony, the outposts of French, sovereignty in Central Europe, were enriched • Beer, p. 445. Gentz, Tagebucher I 82, 118. 1809. PEACE OF VIENNA idl at the expense of the Power which had called Germany to arms ; Austria, which at the beginning of the Eevo- lutionary War had owned territory upon the Ehine and exercised a predominating influence over all Italy, seemed now to be finally excluded both from Germany and the Mediterranean. Yet, however jje^i effects o ..-•. ,1 -, «/» ,. I'l the war of 1809. striking the change oi iron tier which gave to Napoleon continuous dominion from the Straits of Calais to the border of Bosnia, the victories of France in 1809 brought in their train none of those great moral changes which had hitherto made each French conquest a stage in European progress. The campaign of 1796 had aroused the hope of national independence in Italy ; the settlements of 1801 and 1806 had put un end to Feudalism in Western Germany ; the victories of 1809 originated nothing but a change of frontier such as the next war might obliterate and undo. All that was permanent in the effects of the year 1809 was due, not to any new creations of Napoleon, but to the spirit of resistance wliich France had at length excited in Europe. The revolt of the Tyrol, the exploits of Bruns- wick and Schill, gave a stimulus to German patriotism which survived the defeat of Austria. Austria itself, though overpowered, had inflicted a deadly injury upon Napoleon, by withdrawing him from Spain at the moment when he might have completed its conquest, and by enabling Wellesley to gain a footing in the Penin- sula. Napoleon appeared to have gathered a richer spoil from the victories of 1809 than from any of his previous wars ; in reality he had never surrounded himself with 432 MODERN EUROPE. 1809, SO many dangers. Russia was alienated by the annexa- tion of West Galicia to the Polish Grand Duchy of "Warsaw; Northern Germany had profited by the examples of courage and patriotism shown so largely in 1809 on behalf of the Fatherland; Spain, supported by Wellesley's army, was still far frOm submission. The old indifference which had smoothed the way for the earlier French conquests was no longer the charac- teristic of Europe. The estrangement of Eussia, the growth of national spirit in Germany and in Spain, involved a danger to Napoleon's power which far out- weighed the visible results of his victory. Austria itself could only acquiesce in defeat: nor perhaps would the permanent interests of Europe have been promoted by its success. The championship of Germany which it assumed at the beginning of the war would no doubt have resulted in the temporary establish- ment of some form of German union under Austrian leadership, if the event of the war had been different ; but the sovereign of Hungary and Croatia could never be the true head of the German people ; and the conduct of the Austrian Government after the peace of 1809 gave little reason to regret its failure to revive a Teutonic Empire. No portion of the Emperor's subjects had fought for him with such determined loyalty as the _ ^ Tyrolese. After havinsr been the first to Austna add the "^ *-' '^^^ throw off the yoke of the stranger, they had again and again freed their country when Napoleon's generals supposed all resistance overcome ; and in return for their efforts the Emperor had solemnly assured them 1809. EFFECTS OF THE WAR OF 1809. 438 that he would never accept a peace which did not restore them to his Empire. If fair dealing was due anywhere it was due from the Court of Austria to the Tyrolese. Yet the only reward of the simple courage of these mountaineers was that the war-party at head-quarters recklessly employed them as a means of prolonging hostilities after the armistice of Znaim, and that up to the moment when peace was signed they were left in the belief that the Emperor meant to keep his promise. Austria, however, could not ruin herself to please the Tyrolese. Circumstances were changed ; and the phrases of patriotism which had excited so much rejoicing at the beginning of the war were now fallen out of fashion at Vienna. Nothing more was heard about the rights of nations and the deliverance of Grermany. Austria had made a great venture and failed ; and the Grovernment rather resumed than abandoned its normal attitude in turning its back upon the professions of 1809. Henceforward the policy of Austria was one of calculation, untinged by national sympa- thies. Trance had been a cruel enemy; yet after 1809. if there was a prospect of winning something for Austria by a French alliance, considerations of sentiment could not be allowed to stand in the way. A statesman who, like Count Stadion, had identified the interests of Austria with the liberation of Grermany, was no fitting helmsman for the State in the shifting course that now lay before it. A diplomatist was called to jj^j,^^. power who had hitherto by Napoleon's own desire represented the Austrian State at Paris. Count c c 434 MODERN EUROPE. 1809. Metternich, the new Chief Minister, was the son of a Ehenish nobleman who had held high office under the Austrian crown. His youth had been passed at Coblentz, and his character and tastes were those which in the eighteenth century had marked the court-circles of the little Ehenish Principalities, French in their outer life, unconscious of the in- stinct of nationality, polished and seductive in that personal management which passed for the highest type of statesmanship. Metternich had been ambas- sador at Dresden and at Berlin before he went to Paris. Napoleon had requested that he might be transferred to the Court of the Tuileries, on account of the marked personal courtesy shown by Metternich to the French ambassador at Berlin during the war between France and Austria in 1805. Metternich carried with him all the friendliness of personal intercourse which Na- poleon expected in him, but he also carried with him a calm and penetrating self-possession, and the convic- tion that Napoleon would give Europe no rest until his power was greatly diminished. He served Austria well at Paris, and in the negotiations for peace which followed the battle of Wagram he took a leading part. After the disasters of 1809, when war was impossible and isolation ruin, no statesman could so well serve Austria as one who had never confessed himself the enemy of any Power ; and, with the full approval of Napoleon, the late Ambassador at Paris was placed at the head of the Austrian State. Metternich's first undertaking gave singular evidence 1800. NAPOLEONS AUSTlilAN MAEEIAQE. 435 of the flexibility of system which was henceforward to guard Austria's interests. Before the grass had grown over the graves at Wagram, the Emperor Francis was persuaded to give his daughter in marriage to Napoleon. For some time past Napoleon had determined on divorcing Josephine and allying himself to one of the reigning houses of the Continent. His first advances were made at St. Petersburg ; but the Czar hesitated to form a connection which his subjects would view as a dishonour ; and the opportunity was seized by the less fastidious Austrians as soon as the fancies Marriage of of the imperial suitor turned towards ^iLSuiaT*^ Vienna. The Emperor Francis, who had been bullied by Napoleon upon the field of Austerlitz, ridiculed and insulted in every proclamation issued during the late campaign, gave up his daughter for what was called the good of his people, and reconciled himself to a son-in-law who had taken so many provinces for his dowry. Peace had not been proclaimed four months when the treaty was signed which united the House of Bonaparte to the family of Marie Antoinette. The Archduke Charles represented Napoleon in the espousals ; the Archbishop of Vienna anomted the bride with the same sacred oil with whion he had consecrated the banners of 1809 ; the servue press which narrated the wedding festivities found^o space to mention that the Emperor's bravest subject, the Tyrolese leader Hofer, was executed by Napoleon as a brigand in the interval between the contract and the celebration of the marriage. Old Austrian families, members of the only aristocrdcj c c 2 436 MODERN EUROPE. im, upon tlie Continent that still possessed political weight and a political tradition, lamented the Emperor's consent to a union which their prejudices called a mis-alliance, and their consciences an adultery; hut the ohject of Metternich was attained. The friendship N^pokonand bctwecn Frauce and Eussia, which had Alexander. inflicted so much evil on the Continent since the Peace of Tilsit, was dissolved ; the sword of Napoleon was turned away from Austria for at least some years ; the restoration of the lost provinces of the Hapsburg seemed not impossible, now that Napoleon and Alexander were left face to face in Europe, and the alliance of Austria had become so important to the power which had hitherto enriched itself at Austria's expense. Napoleon crowned his new bride, and felt himself at length the equal of the Hapsburgs and the Bourbons. Except in Spain, his arms were no longer resisted upon the Continent, and the period immediately succeeding the Peace of Vienna was that which brought Napoleon an- *^ steS, ^m^f, ^^^ Napoleonic Empire to its widest bounds. Already, in the pride of the first victories of 1809, Napoleon had completed his aggressions upon the Papal sovereignty by declaring the Ecclesiastical States to be united to the French Empire (May 17, 1809). The Pope retorted upon his despoiler with a Bull of Excommunication ; but the spiritual terrors were among the least formidable of those then active in Europe, and the sanctity of the Pontiff did not prevent Napoleon's soldiers from arresting him in the Quirinal, and carrying him as a prisoner to Savona. Here 1810. ANNEXATIONS OF 1810. 437 Pius VTI. was detained for the next three years. The Eoman States received the laws and the civil organisa- tion of France.* Bishops and clergy who refused the oath of fidelity to Napoleon were imprisoned or exiled ; the monasteries and convents were dissolved ; the car- dinals and great officers, along with the archives and the whole apparatus of ecclesiastical rule, were carried to Paris. In relation to the future of European Catholic- ism, the breach between Napoleon and Pius VII. was a more important event than was understood at the time : its immediate and visible result was that there was one sovereign the fewer in Europe, and one more province opened to the French conscription. The next of Napoleon's vassals who lost his throne was the King of Holland. Like Joseph in Spain, and like Murat in Naples, Louis Bonaparte had made an honest effort to e:overn for the nexes Holland, ^ July, 1810. benefit of his subjects. He had endea- voured to lighten the burdens which Napoleon laid upon the Dutch nation, already deprived of its colonies, its commerce, and its independence ; and every plea which Louis had made for his subjects had been treated by Napoleon as a breach of duty towards himself. The offence of the unfortunate King of Holland became unpardonable when he neglected to enforce the orders of Napoleon against the admission of English goods. Louis was summoned to Paris, and compelled to sign a treaty, ceding part of his dominions and placing his custom- houses in the hands of French officers. He returned to * Correspoudance de Napoleon, xix., 15, 265. 438 MOBEUN EUROPE. mo. Holland, but affairs grew worse and worse. Frencli troops overran tlie country ; Napoleon's letters were each more menacing than the last ; and at length Louis fled from his dominions (July 1, 1810), and delivered himself from a royalty which had proved the most intolerable kind of servitude. A week later Holland was incor- porated with the French Empire. Two more annexations followed before the end of the year. The Eepublic of the Yalais was Annexation of *' ■'■ Jf S*" North declared to have neglected the duty imposed German coast. .. „ ,..■ ., -, ,, upon it 01 repairmg the road over the Simplon, and forfeited its independence. The !N"orth- Grerman coast-district, comprising the Hanse towns, Oldenburg, and part of the Eangdom of Westphalia, was annexed to the French Empire, with the alleged object of more effectually shutting out British goods from the ports of the Elbe and the Weser. Hamburg, however, and most of the territory now incorporated with France, had been occupied by French troops ever since the war of 1806, and the legal change in its position scarcely made its subjection more complete. Had the history of this annexation been written by men of the peasant-class, it would probably have been described in terms of unmixed thankfulness and praise. In the Decree introducing the French principle of the free tenure of land, thirty-six distinct forms of feudal service are enumerated, as abolished without compensation.* Napoleon's dominion had now reached its widest bounds. The frontier of the Empire began at Liibeck • Oorresp. de Napoleon, xxiii, 62. Decret, 9 Dec, 1811. 1810. ANNEXATIONS OF 1810. 439 on the Baltic, touched the Ehine at Wesel, and followed the river and the Jura mountains to the foot of th© Lake of Geneva; then, crossing the Alps jj^^^^^^j^^ above the source of the Ehone, it ran with JSf^De^QiS^ the rivers Sesia and Po to a point nearly oppo- site Mantua, mounted to the watershed of the Apennines, and descended to the Mediterranean at Terracina. The late Ecclesiastical States were formed into the two Departments of the Tiber and of Trasimene ; Tuscany, also divided into French Departments, and represented in the French Legislative Body, gave the title of Arch- duchess and the ceremonial of a Court to Napoleon's sister Eliza ; the Kingdom of Italy, formed by Lom- bardy, Venice, and the country east of the Apennines as far south as Ascoli, belonged to Napoleon himself, but was not constitutionally united with the French Empire. On the east of the Adriatic the Ulyrian Provinces extended Napoleon's rule to the borders of Bosnia and Montenegro. Outside the frontier of this great Empire an order of feudatories ruled in Italy, in Germany, and in Poland. Murat, King of Naples, and the client-princes of the Confederation of the Ehine, holding all Germany up to the frontiers of Prussia and Austria, as well as the Grand-Duchy of Warsaw, were nominally sovereigns within their own dominions; but they held their dignities at Napoleon's pleasure, and the population and revenues of their States were at his service. The close of the year 1810 saw the last changes effected which Europe was destined to receive at the hands of Napoleon. The fabric of his sovereignty was 440 MODERN EUROPE. mo. raised upon the ruins of all tliat was obsolete and force- less upon the western Continent ; the bene- Benefits of p . n ii i* i • Napoleon's fits as well as the wrongs oi his supremacy were now seen in their widest operation. All Italy, the northern districts of Grermany which were incorporated with the Empire, and a great part of the Confederate Territory of the Ehine, received in the Code llSTapoleon a law which, to an extent hitherto unknown ill Europe, brought social justice into the daily affairs of life. The privileges of the noble, the feudal burdens of the peasant, the monopolies of the guilds, passed away, in most instances for ever. The comfort and improve- ment of mankind were vindicated as the true aim of property by the abolition of the devices which convert the soil into an instrument of family pride, and by the enforcement of a fair division of inheritances among the children of the possessor. Legal process, both civil and criminal, was brought within the comprehension of ordinary citizens, and submitted to the test of publicity. These were among the fruits of an earlier enliglitenment which Napoleon's supremacy bestowed upon a great part of Europe. The price which was paid for them was the Wrongs of Na- supprcssiou of cvcry vestige of liberty, the po eon 8 rue. couscrlption, aud the Continental blockade. On the whole, the yoke was patiently borne. The Italians and the Germans of the Ehenish Confederacy cared little what Government they obeyed ; their recruits who were sent to be killed by the Austrians or the Spaniards felt it no especial hardship to fight Napoleon's battles. More galling was the pressure of Commercial blockade. laia WB0NQ8 OF NAPOLEON'S BULB. 441 Napoleon's commercial system and of the agencies by whicli he attempted to enforce it. In the hope of ruining the trade of Great Britain, Napoleon spared no severity against the owners of any- thing that had touched British hands, and deprived the Continent of its entire supply of colonial produce, with the exception of such as was imported at enormous charges by traders licensed by himself. The possession of English goods became a capital ofFence. In the great trading towns a system of permanent terrorism was put ^ in force against the merchants. Soldiers ransacked their houses ; their letters were opened ; spies dogged their steps. It was in Hamburg, where Davoust exercised a sort of independent sovereignty, that the violence and injustice of the Napoleonic commercial system was seen in its most repulsive form ; in the greater part of the Empire it was felt more in the general decline of trade and in a multitude of annoying privations than in acts of obtrusive cruelty.* The French were themselves compelled to extract sugar from beetroot, and to sub- stitute chicory for coffee ; the Germans, less favoured by nature, and less rapid in adaptation, thirsted and sulked. Even in such torpid communities as Saxony political discontent was at length engendered by bodQy discomfort. Men who were proof against all the patriotic exaltation of Stein and Fichte felt that there must be something wrong in a system which sent up the price of coffee to five shillings a pound, and reduced the tobacco- nist to exclusive dependence upon the market-gardener. • M^moires de Jerome, t., 185. 442 MODEBn EUBOPR isiO, It was not, however, by its effects upon Napoleon's Grerman vassals that the Continental system contributed to the fall of its author. Wliatever the discontent of these communities, they obeyed Napoleon as long as he was victorious, and abandoned him only when hi° cause was lost. Its real political importanc<^ "* hostility which it excited betwe^^ ^ The czax with- The Czar, whc ... co Napo- draws from Na- , , i n -r^ <• poieon's com- Icou s commci ,,.^^m at the Peace oi mercial system, "^ Dec., 1810. Tilsit, withdrew from it in the year succeed- ing the Peace of Yienna. The trade of the Eussian Empire had been ruined by the closure of its ports to British vessels and British goods. Napoleon had broken his promise to Eussia by adding West Galicia to the Polish Duchy of Warsaw sacrifice the wealth of his interest of an insincere all/, ^t me ^RF^tne year 1810 an order was published at St. Petersh^^^ ing the harbours of Eussia to all shi: ^cutral flag, and imposing a duty upon many v^i the products of France. This edict was scarcely less than ^ '^*- lenge to the French Emperor. ^ ...^u. the effect of his Continental prohibitions upon English traffic. He imagined that the command of the Euro- pean coast-line, and nothing short of this, would enable him to exhaust his enemy ; and he was prepared to risk a war with Eussia rather than permit it to frustrate his long-cherished hopes. Already in the Austrian marriage Napoleon had marked the sever- ance of his interest from those of Alexander. An 1810. PBEPAEATIONS FOB WAR WITH BU88IA 413 attempted compromise upon the affairs of Poland produced only new alienation and distrust, an open affront was offered to Alexander in the annexation of the Duchy of Oldenhurg, whose sovereign was a memher of his. own family. The last event was immediately followed hy the puhlication of the new Eussian tariff. In the spring of 1811 sia preparing for Napoleon had determined upon war. With Spain still unsubdued, he had no motive to hurry on hostilities; Alexander on his part was still less ready for action ; and the forms of diplomatic intercourse were in consequence maintained for some time longer at Paris and St. Petersburg. But the true nature of the situa- tion was shown by the immense levies that were ordered iDoth in France and Eussia ; and the rest of the year was spent in preparations for the campaign which was destined to decide the fate of Europe. We have seen that during the period of more than two years that elapsed between the Peace of Vienna and the outbreak of war with Eussia, Napoleon had no enemy in arms upon the Continent except in the Spanish Peninsula. Had the Emperor himself taken up the command in Spain, he would probably within a few months have crushed both the Spanish armies and their English ally. A fatal error and Ptoitug«i. in judgment made him willing to look on from a distance whilst his generals engaged with this lavst foe. The disputes with the Pope and the King of Holland might well have been adjourned for another year ; but Napoleon felt no suspicions that the conquest 444 MODERN EUBOPK isio. of tlie Spanisli Peninsula was too difficult a task for his marshals ; nor perhaps would it have been so if Welling- ton had been like any of the generals whom Napoleon had himself encountered. The French forces in the Peninsula numbered over 300,000 men : in spite of the victory of Talavera, the English had been forced to retreat into Portugal. But the warfare of Wellington was a different thing from that even of the best Austrian or Eussian commanders. From the time of the retreat from Talavera he had foreseen that Portugal would be invaded by an army far outnumbering his own ; and he planned a scheme of defence as original, as strongly marked with true military insight, as Napoleon's own most daring schemes of attack. Behind Lisbon a rugged mountainous tract stretches from the Tagus to the sea : here, while the English army wintered in the neighbour- hood of Almeida, Wellington employed thousands of Portuguese labourers in turning the promontory into ^ one vast fortress. No rumour of the opera- Lines of Torres ,. n t j i ji a vedras. 1809- tiou was allowcd to reach the enemy. A 1810. ^ "^ double series of fortifications, known as the Lines of Torres Yedras, followed the mountain-bastion on the north of Lisbon, and left no single point open between the Tagus and the sea. This was the barrier to which Wellington meant in the last resort to draw his assailants, whilst the country was swept of every- thmg that might sustain an invading army, and the irregular troops of Portugal closed in upon its rear.* In June, 1810, Marshal Massena, who had won the * Wellington Supplemeiitary Despatches, vi, 41. Napier, iii.., 250. 1811. TOREW VEBRAS. 4^ highest distinction at Aspem and Wagram, arrived in Spain, and took up the command of the army destined for the conquest of Portugal. Ciudad Eodrigo was in- vested : Wellington, too weak to effect its relief, too wise to jeopardise his army for the sake of Spanish praise, lay motionless while this great fortress fell into the hands of the invader. In Septemher, the French, 70,f)00 strong, entered Portugal. Wellington retreated down the valley of the 'Mondego, devastating the .country. At length he halted at Busaco and gave hattle (Septemher 27). The French were defeated ; the victory gave the Portuguese full confidence in the English leader , hut other roads were open to the invader, and Wellino^ton -"• *-* Massena's cam- continued his retreat. Massena followed, ^^iSLgt^"^ and heard for the first time of the fortifica- tions of Torres Yedras when he was within five days' march of them. On nearing the mountain-harrier, Mas- sena searched in vain for an unprotected point. Fifty thousand English and Portuguese regular troops, hesides a nmjtitude of Portuguese militia, were collected he- hind the lines ; with the present numher of the French an assault was hopeless. Massena waited for reinforce- ments. It was with the utmost diflficulty that he could keep his army from starving ; at length, when the country was utterly exhausted, he commented his retreat (Nov. 14). Wellington descended from the heights, hut his marching force was still too weak to risk a pitched battle. Massena halted ai;^d took post at Santarem, oti the Tagus. Here, and in the neighbouring vaUey of the Zezere, he maintained himself during the winter. But 446 MODERN EUROPE. mo. in Marcli, 1811, reinforcements arrived from England: Wellington moved forward against Ms enemy, and the retreat of tlie Erencli began in real earnest. Massena. Masscna made his way northwards, hard pressed hj the English, and devastating the coTintrj with merciless severity in order to retard pur- suit. Eire and ruin marked the track of the retreating army ; but such were the sufferings of the Erench them- selves, both during the invasion and the retreat, that when Massena re-entered Spain, after a campaign in which only one pitched battle had been fought, his loss exceeded 30,000 men. Other Erench armies, in spite of a most destructive guerilla warfare, were in the meantime com- spain as far as plctiug the couqucst of thc south and the east of Spain. Soult captured Seville, and began to lay siege to Cadiz. Here, at the end of 1810, an order reached him from Napoleon to move to the sup- port of Massena. Leaving Victor in command at Cadiz, Soult marched northwards, routed the Spaniards, and con- quered the fortress of Badajoz, commanding the southern road into Portugal. Massena, however, was already in retreat, and Soult's own advance was cut short by intelli- gence that Grraham, the English general in Cadiz, had broken out upon the besi'^gers and inflicted a heavy defeat. Soult returned to Cadiz and resumed the blockade. "Wel- lington, thus freed from danger of attack from the south, and believing Massena to be thoroughly disabled, con- sidered that the time had come for a forward movement into Spain. It was necessary for him to capture the 1811. WELTANQTO^S CA^tPAIGN OF 1811. 447 fortresses of Almeida and Ciudad Eodrigo on the northern road, and to secure liis own communications with Portuo^al by wresting back Badaioz campaign of from the French. He left a small force to / besiege Almeida, and moved to Elvas to make arrange- ments with Beresford for the siege of Badajoz. But before the English commander had deemed it possible, the energy of Massena had restored his troops to effi- ciency , and the two armies of Massena and Soult were now ready to assail the English on the north and the south. Massena marched against the corps investing Almeida. Wellington hastened back to meet him, and fought a battle at Fuentes d*Onoro. The French were defeated; Almeida passed into the hands of the English. In the south, Soult advanced to the relief of Badajoz. He was overthrown by Beresford in the l>loody engage- ment of Albuera (May 1 6th) ; but his junction with the army of the north, which was now transferred: from Massena to Marmont, forced the English to raise the siege ; and Wellington, after audaciously offering battle to the combined French armies, retired within the Portu- guese frontier, and marched northwards with the design of laying siege to Ciudad Rodrigo. Again outnumbered by the French, he was " compelled to retire to canton- ments on the Coa. Throughout the autumn months, which were spent in forced inaction, Wellington held patiently to his belief that the French would be unable to keep their armies long united, on account of the scarcity of food. His cidculations wore correct, and at the close of the 44.8 MOBEBN JEUBOPB. ^l. year 1811 tlie Englisli were again superior in the field. Wellington moved against Cindad audad Eodrigo. Eodris^o, and took it by storm on the Jan. 19, 1812. ^ ' •' 19th of January, 1812. The road into Spain was opened ; it only remained to secure Portugal itseK by the capture of Badajoz. Wellington crossed the Tagus on the 8th of March, and completed the invest- ment of Badajoz ten days later. It was necessary to gain possession of the city, at whatever cost, before Soult could advance to its relief. On the night of the 6th of April Wellington gave orders for the assault, of Badajoz. Thc fuTy of the attack, the ferocity of the English soldiers in the moment of their victory, have made the storm of Badajoz conspicuous amongst the most terrible events of war. But the pur- pose of Wellington was effected ; the base of the English army in Portugal was secured from all possibility of attack; and at the moment when Napoleon was sum- moning his veteran regiments from beyond the Pyrenees for the invasion of Russia, the English commander, master of the frontier fortresses of Spain, was preparing to overwhelm the weakened armies in the Peninsula, and to drive the French from Madrid. It was in the summer of 1812, when Napoleon was now upon the point of opening the Eussian vades Spain. Campaign, that Wellington advanced against Marmont's positions in the north of Spain and the French lines of communication with the capital. Marmont fell back and allowed Wellington to pass Sala- manca ; but ^n reaching the Douro he turned upon his 1812. WELLINGTON'S MOVEMENTS IN THE PENINSULA. 4,19 adversary, and by a succession of swift and skilful marches brought the English into some danger of saiamanca. losing their communications with Portugal. Wellington himself now retreated as far as Salamanca, and there gave battle (July 22). A decisive victory- freed the English army from its peril, and annihi- lated all the advantages gained by Marmont's strategy and speed. The French were so heavily defeated that they had to fall back on Burgos. Wellington marched upon Madrid. At his approach King Joseph fled from the capital, and ordered Soult to evacuate Andalusia, and to meet him at Valencia, on the eastern coast. Wel- lington entered Madrid amidst the wild rejoicing of the Spaniards, and then turned northwards to complete the destruction of the army which he had beaten at Sala- manca. But the hour of his final success was not yet come. His advance upon Madrid, though wise as a political measure, had given the French northern army time to rally. He was checked by the obstinate defence of Burgos ; and finding the French strengthened by the very abandonment of territory which his victory had forced upon them, he retired retL^ to^porw to Portugal, giving to King Joseph a few months' more precarious enjoyment of his vassal-sove- reignty before his final and irrevocable ovei^throw. In Spain itseK the struggle of the nation for its inde- pendence had produced a political revolution *■ •"••*■ The irar excites as little foreseen by the Spaniards as by io";^t*^'"li Napoleon himself when the conflict began. When, in 1808, the people had taken up arms for its D D 450 MODEBN EUROPE. I8I2, native dynasty, tlie voices of those who demanded a reform in the abuses of the Bourbon government had scarcely been heard amid the tumult of loyal enthusiasm for Ferdinand. There existed, however, a group of liberally-minded men in Spain ; and as soon as the iavasion of the French and the subsequent successes of the Spaniards had overthrown both the old repressive system of the Bourbons and that which Napoleon attempted to put in its place, the opinions of these men, hitherto scarcely known outside the circle of their own acquaintances, suddenly became a power in the country through the liberation of the press. Jovel- lanos, an upright and large-minded statesman, who had suffered a long imprisonment in the last reign in conse- quence of his labours in the cause of progress, now repre- sented in the Central Junta the piirty of constitutional reform. The Junta itself acted with but little insight or sincerity. A majority of its members neither desired nor understood the great changes in government which Jovel- lanos advocated ; yet the Junta itself was an irregular and revolutionary body, and was forced to appeal to the nation in order to hold its ground against the old legal Councils of the monarchy, which possessed not only a better formal right, but all the habits of authority. The victories of Napoleon at the end of 1808, and the threateniug attitude both of the old official bodies and of the new provincial governments which had sprung up in every part of the kingdom, extorted from the Junta iu the spring of 1809 a declaration in favour of the assembling of the Cortes, or National Parliament, in the following year. Once made, the declaration could not be nullified or withdrawn. It 180&-10. LIBERAL MOVEMENT IN SPAIN. 451 was in vain that the Junta, alarmed at the progress of popular opinions, restored the censorship of the press, and attempted to suppress the liberal journals. The current of political agitation swept steadily on; and before the end of the year 1809 the conflict of parties, which Spain was henceforward to experience in common with the other Mediterranean States, had fairly begun.* The Spanish Liberals of 1809 made the same attack upon despotic power, and upheld the same ^ ^^^ Liberal, theories of popular right, as the leaders of the ^^"^^ ^sio. French nation twenty years before. Against them was ranged the whole force of Spanish officialism, soon to be supported by the overwhelming power of the clergy. In the outset, however, the Liberals carefully avoided in- fringing on the pre rogatives of the Church. Thus accom- modating its policy to the Catholic spirit of the nation, the party of reform gathered strength throughout the year 1809, as disaster after disaster excited the wrath of the people against both the past and the present holders of power. It was determined by the Junta that the Coiies should assemble on the 1st of March, 1810. According to the ancient usage of Spain, each of the Three Estates, the Clergy, the Nobles, and the Commons, would have been represented in the Cortes by a separate assembly. The opponents of reform pressed for the maintenance of this mediaeval order , the Liberals declared for a single Chamber; the Junta, guided by JoveUanos, adopted a middle course, and decided that the higher clergy and nobles should be jointly represented by one Chamber, the • Baumgarteu, Goscbichte Spauiens, i 405, * DD 2 452 MODEBJSr ETJBOFE. I810. Commons by. a second. Writs of election liad already been issued, wben the Junta, driven to Cadiz by tbe advance of the French armies, and assailed alike by Liberals, by reactionists, and by city mobs, ended its ineffective career, and resigned its powers into tbe hands of a Eegency composed of five persons (Jan. 30, 1810). Had the Eegency immediately taken steps to assemble the Cortes, Spain would probably have been content with the moderate reforms which two Chambers, formed ac- cording to the plans of Jovellanos, would have been likely to sanction. The Eegency, howevel*, preferred to keep power in its own hands, and ignored the promise which the Junta had given to the nation. Its policy of obstruc- tion, which was continued, for months after the time when the Cortes ought to have assembled, threw the Liberal party into the han^s of men of extremes, and prepared the way for revolution instead of reform. It was only when the report reached Spain that Ferdinand was about to marry the daughter of King Joseph, and to accept the succession to the Spanish crown from the usurper himself, that the Eegency consented to convoke the Cortes. But it was now no longer possible to create an Upper House to serve as a check upon the popular Assembly. A single Chamber was elected, and elected in great part within the walls of Cadiz itself ; for the representatives of districts where the presence of French soldiery rendered election impossible were chosen by refugees from those districts within Cadiz, amid the tumults of political passion which stir a great city in time of war and revolution. On the 24th of September, 1810, the Cortes opened. 1812. THE 00BTE8 IN 1812. 463 Its first act was to declare the sovereignty of the people, its next act to declare the freedom of the Press. In every debate a spirit of bitter hatred towards the old system of government and of deep distrust towards Ferdinand him- self revealed itself in the speeches of the Liberal deputies, althouo^h no one in the made by the ■^ ' O Cortes, 1812. Assembly dared to avow the least want of loyalty towards the exiled House. The Liberals knew how passionate was the love of the Spanish people for their Prince; but they resolved that, if Ferdinand re- turned to his throne, he should return without the power to revive the old abuses of Bourbon rule. In this spirit the Assembly proceeded to frame a Constitution for Spain. The Crown was treated as the antagonist and corrupter of the people ; its administrative powers were jealously re- duced ; it was confronted by an Assembly to be elected every two years, and the members of this Assembly were prohibited both from holding office under the Crown, and from presenting themselves for re-election at the end of their two years' service. To a Eepresentative Body thus excluded from all possibility of gaining any practical ac- quaintance with public affairs was entrusted not only the right of making laws, but the control 6f every branch of government. The executive was reduced to a mere cypher. Such was the Constitution which, under the fire of the French artillery now encompassing Cadiz, the Cortes of Spain proclaimed in the spring of the year 1812. Its principles had excited the most vehement opposition within the Assembly itself; by the nation, or at least 454 I^OBEBN EUROPE. I812. that part of it wliicli was in communication witli Cadiz, it appeared to be received with enthusiasm. against the^con- Thc Libcrals, who had triumphed over their stitution. -^ opponents in the debates in the Assembly, believed that their own victory was the victory of the Spanish people over the forces of despotism. But before the first rejoicings were over, ominous signs ap- peared of the strength of the opposite party, and of the incapacity of the Liberals themselves to form any effec- tive Government. The fanaticism of the clergy was excited by a law partly ratifying the suppression of monasteries begun by Joseph Bonaparte ; the enactments of the Cortes regarding the censorship of religious writ- ings threw the Church into open revolt. In declaring the freedom of the Press, the Cortes had expressly guarded themselves against extending this freedom to religious discussion ; the clergy now demanded the res- toration of the powers of the Inquisition, which had been in abeyance since the beginning of the war. The Cortes were willing to grant to the Bishops the right of condemning any writing as heretical, and they were willing to enforce by means of the ordinary tribunals the law which declared the Catholic religion to be the only one permitted in Spain ; but they declined to restore the jurisdiction of the Holy Office (Feb., 1813). Without this engine for the suppression of all mental independ- ence the priesthood of Spain conceived its cause to be lost. The anathema of the Church went out against the new order. Uniting with the partisans of absolutism, whom Wellington, provoked by the extravagances of the 1812. SPANISU CONSTITUTION OF 1812. 455 Liberals, now took under his protection, tlie clergy excited an ignorant people against its own emancipators, and awaited the time when the return of Ferdinand, and a combination of all the interests hostile to reform, should overthrow the Constitution which the Liberals fondly imagined to have given freedom to Spain. CHAPTEK X. War approaching "between France and Russia — ^Policy of Prussia — Hardenberg's Ministry — Prussia forced into Alliance with Napoleon — Austrian Alliance — Napoleon's Preparations —He enters Eussia — Alexander and Bernadotte—- Plan of the Russians to fight a battle at Drissa frustrated — They retreat on Witepsk — Sufferings of the French— French enter Smolensk© — ^Battle of Borodino — Evacuation of Moscow — Moscow fired — The Retreat from Moscow — The French at Smolensk© — Advance of Russian Armies from North and South — Battle of Krasnoi — Passage of the Beresina — The French reach the Niemen— York's Convention with the Russians — The Czar and Stein — Russian Army enters Prussia — Stein raises East Prussia — Treaty of Kalisch — Prussia declares War— Enthusiasm of the Nation — Idea of German Unity — The Landwehr. War between France and Eussia was known to be im- minent as early as tbe spring of 1^11. The approach of the conflict was watched with the deepest anxiety by the two States of central Europe which still retained some degree of independence. The Grovernments of Berlin and , , . ^ Yienna had been drawn toerether by misfor- Austria and o j Prussia in 1811. ^^^^^^ rjr^^ ^^^^ ultimate dcliverance formed the secret hope of both ; but their danger was too great to permit thjem to combine in open resistance to Napoleon s will. In spite of a tacit understanding between the two powers, each was compelled for the present to accept the conditions necessary to secure its own existence. The situation of Prussia in especial %as one of the utmost danger. Its territory lay directly between the French Empire ^nd Eussia ; its fortresses Were in the hands of Napoleon; its resources were certain to be seized by one 1811, POLICY OF HABDENBEEO. 457 or other of the hostile armies. Neutrality was impossi- ble, however much desired by Prussia itseK; and the only question to be decided by the Government was whether Prussia should enter the war as the ally of France or of Eussia. Had the party of Stein been in power, Prussia would have taken arms against Napoleon at every risk. Stein, however, was in exile ; his friends, though strong in the army, were not masters of the Government; the foreign policy of the country was directed by a statesman who trusted more to time and prudent management than to desperate resolves. Har- denberg had been recalled to office in 1810, Hardenbeig'. and permitted to resume the great measures ^^i^^^**^- of civil reform which had been broken off two years be- fore. The machinery of Government was reconstructed upon principles that had been laid down by Stein ; agrarian reform was carried still farther by the abolition of pea- sant's service, and the partition of peasant's land between the occupant and his lord ; an experiment, though a very ill-managed one, was made in the forms of constitu- tional Government by the convocation of three succes- sive assemblies of the Notables. On the part of the privileged orders Hardenberg encountered the most bitter opposition ; his own love of absolute power prevented him from winning popular confidence by any real ap- proach towards a Representative System. Nor was the foreign policy of the Minister of a character to excite enthusiasm. A true patriot at heart, he seemed at times to be destitute of patriotism, when he was in fact only destitute of the power to reveal his real motives. 458 MOBEliN EUEOFE. 18U. Convinced that Prussia could not remain neutral in the coming war, and believing some relief from its pre- sent burdens to be absolutely necessary, Hardenberg determined in the first instance to offer Prussia's support to Napoleon, demanding in return for it a foreigTpoSjy. reduction of the payments still due to France, and the removal of the limits imposed upon the Prussian army.* The offer of the Prussian alliance reached Napoleon in the spring of 1811 : he maintained an obstinate silence. While the Prussian envoy at Paris vainly waited for an audience, masses of troops advanced from the Ehine towards the Prussian frontier, and the French garrisons on the Oder were raised far beyond their stipulated strength. In July the envoy returned from Paris, announcing that Napoleon declined even to enter upon a discussion of the terms proposed by Har- denberg. King Frederick William now wrote to the Czar, proposing an alliance between Prussia and Eussia. It was not long before the report of Hardenberg's mili- tary preparations reached Paris. Napoleon announced that if they were not immediately suspended he should order Davoust to march on Berlin ; and he presented a counter-proposition for a Prussian alliance, which was in fact one of unqualified submission. The Government had to decide between accepting a treaty which placed Prussia among Napoleon's vassals, or certain war. Har- denberg, expecting favourable news from St. Petersburg, pronounced in favour of war; but the Czar, though anxious for the support of Prussia, had determined on a * Hardenberg (Ranke), iv. 268. Hausser, iii. 535. Seeley. ii. 447. 1812. PRUSSIAN ALLIANCE. 459 defensive plan of operations, and declared that he could send no troops heyond the Kussian frontier. Prussia was thus left to face Napoleon alone. Har- denberg shrank from the responsibility of ^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^ proclaiming a war for life or death, and a SIl^r'^^FS*, 1812. treaty was signed which added the people of Frederick the Great to that inglorious crowd which fought at Napoleon's orders against whatever remained of independence and nationality in Europe.* (Feb. 24th, 1812.) Prussia undertook to supply Napoleon with 20,000 men for the impending campaign, and to raise no levies and to give no orders to its troops without Napo- leon's consent. Such was the bitter termination of all those patriotic hopes and efforts which had carried Prus- sia through its darkest days. Hardenberg himself might make a merit of bending before the storm, and of preserv- ing for Prussia the means of striking when the time should come ; but the simpler instincts of the patriotic party felt his submission to be the very surrender of national existence. Stein in his exile denounced the Minister with unsparing bitterness. Scharnhorst re- signed his post ; many of the best officers in the Prussian army quitted the service of Bang Frederick William in order to join the Russians in the last struggle for Euro- pean liberty. The alliance which Napoleon pressed upon Austria was not of the same humiliating chiiracter as that which • Martens, Nouveau Eecueil i. 417. A copy, or the original, of this Treaty was captnred by tho Russians with other of Napoleon's papers during the retreat from Moscow, and a draft of it sent to London, which i*emaius in the Records. 460 MOBEBN ETJBOFE. I812. Prussia was forced to accept. Botli Metternicli and the Emperor Francis would liave preferred Alliance of Aus- . . 1 i p ii 1 tria with Napo- to remain neutral, tor the country was suffering fi'om a fearful State -bankruptcy, and the Grovernment had been compelled to reduce its paper money, in which all debts and salaries were payable, to a fifth of its nominal value. Napoleon, however, insisted on Austria's co-operation. The family-relations of the two Emperors pointed to a close alliance, and the reward which Napoleon held out to Austria, the restoration of the lUyrian provinces, was one of the utmost value. Nor was the Austrian con- tingent to be treated, like the Prussian, as a mere French army-corps. Its operations were to be separate from those of the French, and its command was to be held by an Austrian general, subordinate only to Napoleon himself. On these terms Metternich was not unwilling to enter the campaign. He satisfied his scruples by inventing a strange diplomatic form in which Austria was still described as a neutral, although she took part in the war,* and felt as little compunction in uniting with France as in explaining to the Courts of St. Petersburg and Berlin that the union was a hypocritical one. The Sovereign who was about to be attacked by Napoleon, and the Sovereigns who sent their troops 4)0 Napoleon's support, perfectly well understood one another's position. The Prussian corps, watched and outnumbered by the French, might have to fight the Russians because they could not help it ; the Austrians, * Metternich, i., 122. 1812. NAPOLEON ON THE NIEMBN. 461 directed by their own commander, would do no serious liarm to the Eussians so long as the Kussians did no harm to them. Should the Czar succeed in giving a good account of his adversary, he would have no difficulty in coming to a settlement with his adversary's forced allies. The Treaties which gave to Napoleon the hollow support of Austria and Prussia were signed early in the year 1812. During the next Nai>oieon*f?r in- three months all Northern Germany was covered with enormous masses of troops and waggon- trains, on their way from the Ehine to the Vistula. No expedition had ever been organised on anything approaching to the scale of the invasion of Eussia. In all the wars of the Trench since 1793 the enemy's country had furnished their armies with supplies, and the generals had trusted to their own exertions for everything but guns and ammunition. Such a method could not, however, be followed in an invasion of Eussia. The country beyond the Niemen was no weU- stocked garden, like Lombardy or Bavaria. Provisions for a mass of 450,000 men, with all the means of trans- port for carr3ring them far into Eussia, had to be collected at Dantzig and the fortresses of the Vistula. No mercy was shown to the unfortunate coimtries whose position now made them Napoleon's harvest- field and storehouse. Prussia was forced to supplement its military assistance with colossal grants of supplies. The whole of Napoleon's troops upon the march through Germany lived at the expense of the towns and villages 462 MODEIiN EUROPE. I812. tliroiigli whicli they passed; in "Westphalia sucli was tlie ruin caused by military requisitions tliat King Jerome wrote to Napoleon, warning him to fear the despair of men who had nothing more to lose.* At length the vast stores were collected, and the invading army reached the Vistula. Napoleon himself quitted Paris on the 9th of May, and received the homage of the Austrian and Prussian Sove- Eussian frontier. reisTus at Drcsdcn. The eastward movement June, 1812. » of the army continued. The Polish and East Prussian districts which had been the scene of the combats of 1807 were again traversed by French columns. On the 23rd of June the order was given to cross the Niemen and enter Eussian territory. Out of 600,000 troops whom Napoleon had organised for this campaign, 450,000 were actually upon the frontier. Of these, 380,000 formed the central army, under Napoleon's own command, at Kowno, on the Niemen , to the north, at Tilsit, there was formed a corps of 32,000, which included the contingent furnished by Prussia; the Austrians, under Schwarzenburg, with a small French division, lay to the south, on the borders of Gralicia. Against the main army of Napoleon, the real invading force, the Eussians could only bring up 150,000 men. These were formed into the First and Second Armies of the West. The First, or Northern Army, with which the Czar himself was present, numbered about 100,000, under the command of Barclay de Tolly ; the Second Army, half that strength, was led by Prince Bagration. • Memoires de Jerome, v. 247. lfii2. RUSSIAN PLANS. ' 463 In Soutliern Poland and on the Lower Niemen the Frencli auxiliary corps were faced by weak divisions. In all, the Eussians had only 220,000 men to oppose to more than double that number of the enemy. The principal reinforcements which they had to expect were from the armies hitherto engaged with the Turks upon the Danube. Alexander found it necessary to make peace with the Porte at the cost of a part of the spoils of Tilsit. The Danubian provinces, with the exception of Bessarabia, were restored to the Sultan, in order that Eussia might withdraw its forces from the south. Bernadotte, Crown Prince of Sweden, ^g^o^^ who was threatened with the loss of his own dominions in the event of Napoleon's victory, concluded an alliance with the Czar. In return for the co-operation of a Swedish army, Alexander undertook, with an indifference to national right worthy of Napo- leon himseK, to wrest Norway from Denmark, and to annex it to the Swedish crown. The head-quarters of the Eussian army were at Wilna when Napoleon crossed the Niemen. It was unknown whether the French intended to advance upon Moscow or upon St. Petersburg ; nor had any systematic plan of the campaign been adopted by the Czar. The idea of falling back before the enemy was indeed familiar in Eussia since the war between Poter the Great and Charles XII. of Sweden, and there was no want of good counsel in favour of a defensive warfare ; * but neither the Czar • Bogdanowitsch, L 72 ; Chambray, 1 186. Sir B. Wilson, Invasion of Russia, p. 15. 464 MOBEEN EUBOFE. 1813 nor any one of liis generals understood tlie simple tlieor j of a retreat in wliicb. no battles at all slionld be fongbt. Tbe most tbat was understood by a defensive system was tbe occupation of an entrencbed position for battle, and a retreat to a second line of entrencbments before tbe engagement was repeated. Tbe actual course of tbe campaign was no result of a profound design ; it resulted from tbe disagreement of tbe generals' plans, and tbe frustration of tbem all. It was intended in Eussians intend ., pi'i jpii ^ l_l:^ j t\ • to fight at tbe nrst mstance to n^ht a battle at Drissa, Drissa. " on tbe river Dwina. In tbis position, wbicb •was supposed to cover tbe roads botb to Moscow and St. Petersburg, a great entrencbed camp bad been formed, and bere tbe Eussian army was to make its first stand against Napoleon. Accordingly, as soon as tbe Trencb crossed tbe Niemen, botb Barclay and Bagration were ordered by tbe Czar to fall back upon Drissa. But tbe movements of tbe Frencb army were too rapid for tbe Eussian commanders to effect tbeir junction. Bagration, wbo lay at some distance to tbe soutb, was cut off from bis colleague, and forced to retreat along tbe eastern road towards Witepsk. Barclay readied Drissa in safety, but be knew bim- Eussian armies *' ?e'tJelton'wi£ sclf to bc unablc to bold it alone against ^^^^' 300,000 men. He evacuated tbe lines witbout waiting for tbe approacb of tbe Frencb, and fell back in tbe direction taken by tbe second army. Tbe first movement of defence bad tbus failed, and tbe Czar now quitted tbe camp, leaving to Barclay tbe com- mand of tbe wbole Eussian forces. laa. THE MAliGH TUIiOUGH EUSSIA. 465 Napoleon entered Wilna, the capital of Russian Poland, on the 28th of June. The last Russian detach- ments had only left it a few hours before ; but the French were in no condition for immediate pursuit. Before the army reached the Niemen the French tnna. *' port. unparalleled difficulties of the campaign had become only too clear. The vast waggon-trains broke down on the highways. The stores were abundant, but the animals which had to transport them died of exhaus- tion. No human genius, no perfection of foresight and care, could have achieved the enormous task which Napo- leon had ]^idertaken. In spite of a year's preparations the French suffered from hunger and thirst from the moment that they set foot on Russian soil. Thirty thousand stragglers had left the army before it reached Wilna ; twenty-five thousand sick were in the hospitals ; the transports were at an unknown distance in the rear. ALt the end of six days' march from the Niemen, Napo- leon found himself compelled to halt for nearly three weeks. The army did not leave Wilna till the 16th of July, when Barclay had already evacuated the camp at Drissa. When at length a march became possible, Napo- leon moved upon the Upper Dwina, hoping to intercept Barclay upon the road to Witepsk ; but difficulties of transport again brought him to a halt, and the Russian commander reached Witepsk before his adversary. Here Barclay drew up for battle, supposing Bagration's army to be but a short distance to the south. In the course of the night intelligence arrived that Bagration's army was nowhere near the rallying-point, but had been driven E B 466 MODEUN JEJUBOP:^. im. back towards Smolensko. Barclay immediately gave up the thonglit of fighting a battle, and took the road to Smolensko himself, leavins^ his watchrfires Barclay and ^ *-' at^mde^ka buming. His movement was unperceived by the French , the retreat was made in good order; and the two severed Enssian armies at length effected their junction at a point three hundred miles distant from the frontier. Napoleon, disappointed of battle, entered Witepsk on The French ^^^ cvenlng after the Eussians had abandoned was away. .^ (July 28). Barclay's escape was, for the French, a disaster of the first magnitude, since it ex- tinguished all hope of crushing the larger of the two Eussian armies by overwhelming numbers in one great and decisive engagement. The march of the French during the last twelve days showed at what cost every further step must be made. Since quitting Wilna the 50,000 sick and stragglers had risen to 100,000. Fever and disease struck down whole regiments. The provision- ing of the army was beyond all human power. Of the 200,000 men who still remained, it might almost be calculated in how many weeks the last would perish. So fearful was the prospect that Napoleon himself thought of abandoning any further advance until the next year, and of permitting the army to enter into winter-quarters upon the Dwina. But the conviction that all Eussian resistance would end with the capture of Moscow hurried him on. The army left Witepsk on the 13th of August, and followed the Eussians to Smolensko. Here the entire Eussian army clamoured for battle. Barclay stood 18ia. THE FRENCH ENTER 8M0LEN8K0. 467 alone in perceiving the necessity for retreat. The generals caballed against him ; the soldiers were on the point of mutiny ; the Czar himself wrote to express his impatience for an attack upon the French. Barclay nevertheless persisted in his resolution to abandon Smolensko. He so far yielded to the army as to permit the rearguard to engage in a bloody struggle with the French when they assaulted the town; but the smoiensko. •^ ' Aug. la evacuation was completed under cover of night ; and when the French made their entrance into Smolensko on the next morning they found it deserted and in ruins. The surrender of Smolensko was the last sacri- fice that Barclay could extort from Eussian pride. He no longer opposed the universal cry for battle, and the retreat was continued only with the intention of halting at the first strong position. Barclay himself was sur- veying a battle-ground when he heard that the command had been taken out of his hands. The Czar had been forced by national indignation at the loss of Smolensko to remove this able soldier, who was a Livo- nian by birth, and to transfer the command seded ly Kutp. to Kutusoff, a thorough Eussian, whom a life-time spent in victories over the Turk had made, in spite of his defeat at Austerlitz, the idol of the nation. When Kutusoff reached the camp, the prolonged miseries of the French advance had already reduced the invaders to the number of the advance from Smolenaka army opposed to them. As far as Smolensko the French had at least not suffered from the hostility of the population, who were Poles, not Eussians ; but on E E 2 468 MODERN EUROTB. I812. reaching Smolensko they entered a country where every peasant was a fanatical enemy. The villages were burnt down by their inhabitants, the corn destroyed, and the cattle driven into the woods. Every day's march onward from Smolensko cost the French three thousand men. On reaching the river Moskwa in the first week of September, a hundred and seventy-five thousand out of Napoleon's three hundred and eighty thousand soldiers were in the hospitals, or missing, or dead. About sixty thousand guarded the line of march. The Eussians, on the other hand, had received reinforcements which covered their losses at Smolensko ; and although detach- ments had been sent to support the army of Eiga, Kutusoff was still able to place over one hundred thousand men in the field. X On the 5th of September the Eussian army drew up for battle at Borodino, on the Moskwa, seventy miles west of the capital. At early morning on the 7th the French advanced to the attack. The battle was, in pro- portion to its numbers, the most sanguinary of modern times. Forty thousand French, thirty thousand Eussians were struck down. At the close of the day the French were in possession of the enemy's ground, but the Eus- Battie of Boro- siaus, uubrokcu in their order, had only re- treated to a second line of defence. Both sides claimed the victory ; neither had won it. It was no catastrophe such as Napoleon required for the decision of the war , it was no triumph sufficient to save Eussia from the necessity of abandoning its capital. Kutusoff had sus- tained too heavy a loss to face the French beneath the 1812. NAPOLEON AT MOSCOW. 469 walls of Moscow. Peace was no nearer for the 70,000 men who had heen killed or wounded in the fight. The French steadily advanced ; the Russians retreated to Moscow, and evacuated the capital when their generals decided that they could not encounter the French assault. The Holy City was left undefended oefore the invader. But the departure of the army was the smallest part of the evac- uation. The inhahitants, partly of their own free will, partly under the compulsion of the Governor, _^ ^ *' ^ Eracuataon of abandoned the city in a mass. No gloomy ^?S°^m^SI or excited crowd, as at Vienna and Berlin, thronged the streets to witness the entrance of the great conqueror, when on the 14th of September Napoleon took possession of Moscow. His troops marched through silent and deserted streets. In the solitude of the Kremlin Napoleon received the homage of a few foreigners, who alone could be collected by his servants to tender to him the submission of the city. But the worst was yet to come. On the night after Napoleon's entry, fires broke out in different parts of Moscow. They were ascribed at first to accident ; but when on the next day the French saw the flames gaining ground in every direction, and found that all the means for extinguishing fire had been removed from the city, they understood the doom to which Moscow had been devoted by its own defenders. Count Eostopchin, the governor, had determined on the destruction of Moscow without the knowledge of the Czar. The doors of the prisons wg-e thro>vn open. Eostopchin gave the signal by setting fire to his own palace, and let 470 MODBBN EUROPE. I812. loose "his bands of incendiaries over tlie city. For five days the flames rose and fell ; and when, on tlie evening of tlie 20tli, tlie last fires ceased, three -fourtlis of Mos- cow lay in ruins. Such was the prize for which ^N^apoleon had sacrificed 200,000 men, and engulfed the weak remnant Napoleon at r> 1 • • 1 1 1 -1 1 Moscow. Sept. of his army six hundred miles deep in an 14r-0ct 19. "^ ^ enemy's country. Throughout all the terrors of the advance Napoleon had held fast to the belief that Alexander's resistance would end with the fall of his capital. The events that accompanied the entry of the French into Moscow shook his confidence ; yet even now Napoleon could not believe that the Czar remained firm against all thoughts of peace. His experience in all earlier wars had given him confidence in the power of one con- spicuous disaster to unhinge the resolution of kings. His trust in the deepening impression made by the fall of Moscow was fostered by negotiations begun by Kutu- soff for the very purpose of delaying the French retreat. For fiye weeks Napoleon remained at Moscow as if spell- bound, unable to convince himself of his powerlessness to break Alexander's determination, unable to face a retreat which would display to all Europe the failure of his arms and the termination of his career of victory. At length the approach of winter forced him to action. It was im- possible to provision the army at Moscow during the winter months, even if there had been nothing to fear from the enemy. Even the mocking overtures of Kutusoff had ceased. The frightful reality could no longer be concealed. On the 19th of October the order for retreat was given. isa RETREAT FROM M0800W. 471 It was not the destruction of Moscow, but the departure of its inhabitants, that had brought the conqueror to ruin. Above two thousand houses were still standing; but whether the buildings remained or perished made little difference ; the whole value of the capital to Napoleon was lost when the inhabitants, whom he could have forced to procure supplies for his army, disappeared. Vienna and Berlin had been of such incalculable service to Napoleon because the whole native administration placed itself under his orders, and every rich and important citizen became a hostage for the activity of the rest. When the French gained Moscow, they gained nothing beyond the supplies which were at that moment in the city. All was lost to Napoleon when the class who in other capitals had been his instruments fled at his approach. The con- flagration of Moscow acted upon all Europe as a signal of inextinguishable national hatred ; as a military opera- tion, it neither accelerated the retreat of Napoleon nor added to the miseries which his army had to undergo. The French forces which quitted Moscow in October numbered about 100,000 men. Eeinforce- Napoieon leave* ments had come in during the occupation of the city, and the health of the soldiers had been in some degree restored by a month's rest. Everything now de- pended upon gaining a line of retreat where food could be found. Though but a fourth part of the army which entered Eussia in the summer, the army which left Mos- cow was still large enough to protect itself against the enemy, if allowed to retreat through a fresh country ; if forced back upon the devastiited line of its advance it was 472 MODERN' JSUBOPB. 18I2. impossible for it to escape destruction. Napoleon there- fore determined to make for Kaluga, on tlie south of Mos- cow, and to endeavour to gain a road to Smolensko far distant from that bj wbicb be bad come. Tbe army- moved from Moscow in a southern direction. But its route had been foreseen by Kutusoff . At the end of four days' march it was met by a Eussian corps at Jaroslavitz. A bloody struggle left the French in possession of the road : they continued their advance ; but it was only to j5nd that Kutusoff, with his full strength, had occupied a line of heights farther south, and barred the wiay to Kaluga. The effort of an assault was beyond the powers of the French. Napoleon surveyed the Forced to retreat , ... , •in c i i by the same eucmy s positiou, and recognised the latal necessity of abandoning the march south- wards and returning to the wasted road by which he had advanced. The meaning of the backward movement was quickly understood by the army. From the moment of quitting Jaroslavitz, disorder and despair increased with every march. Thirty thousand men were lost upon the road before a pursuer appeared in sight. When, on the 2nd of November, the army reached Wiazma, it num- bered no more than 65,000 men. ^ KutusofE was unadventurous in pursuit. The Kntasoflfouows ncccssity of moviug his army along a bypaxaueiroad. pg^j.g^^g][ j.^^ south of tho Freuch, iu ordcr to avoid starvation, diminished the opportunities for attack; but the general himself disliked risking his forces, and preferred to see the enemy's destruction effected by the elements. At Wiazma, where, on the 1812. THE FBENOE AT SMOLENSKO. 473 3rd of November, tlie Frencli were for the first time attacked in force, Kutusoff's own delay alone saved them from total ruin. In spite of heavy loss the French kept possession of the road, and secured their retreat to Smo- lensko, where stores of food had been accumulated, and where other and less exhausted French troops were at hand. Up to ,the 6th of November the weather had been sunny and dry. On the Gth the lon^- J J o prort. Not. 6. delayed terrors of Eussian winter broke upon the pursuers and the pursued. Snow darkened the air, and hid the last traces of vegetation from the starving cavalry trains. The temperature sank at times to forty degrees of frost. Death came, sometimes in the unfelt release from misery, sometimes in horrible forms of mutilation and disease. Both armies were exposed to the same sufferings ; but the Eussians had at least such succour as their countrymen could give : where the French sank, they died. The order of war disappeared under conditions which made life itself the accident of a meal or of a place by the camp-fire. Though most of the French soldiery continued to carry their arms, the Guard alone kept its separate smoientko. formation ; the other regiments marched in confused masses. From the 9th to the 13th of Novem- ber these starving bands arrived one after another at Smolensko, expecting that here their sufferings would end. But the organisation for distributing the stores accumulated in Smolensko no longer existed. The perishing crowds were left to find shelter where they could ; sacks of corn were thrown to them for food. 474 MODERN EUEOPB. I812 It was impossible for Napoleon to give his wearied Russian armies soldiers rest, £or new Russian armies were south attempt to advancino^ from the north and the south to cut off Frencli O retreat. ^^^ ^£p ^l^^l^ retreat. From the Danube and from the Baltic Sea troops were pressing forward to their meeting-point upon the rear of the invader. Witgen- stein, moving southwards at the head of the army of the Dwina, had overpowered the French corps stationed upon that river, and made himself master of Witepsk. The army of Bucharest, which had been toiling north- wards ever since the beginning of August, had advanced to within a few days' march of its meeting-point with the army of the Dwina upon the line of Napoleon's communications. Before Napoleon reached Smolensko he sent orders to Victor, who was at Smolensko with some reserves, to march against Witgenstein and drive him back upon the Dwina. Yictor set out on his mission. During the short halt of , Napoleon in Smo- lensko, Kutusoff pushed forward to the west of the KrasnoL Frcuch, and took post at Ejrasnoi, thirty miles farther along the road by which Napoleon had to pass. The retreat of the French seemed to be actually cut off. Had the Eussian general dared to face Napoleon and his Guards, he might have held the French in check until the arrival of the two auxiliary armies from the north and south enabled him to capture Napoleon and his entire force. Kutusoff, however, preferred a partial and certain victory to a struggle with Napoleon for life or death. He permitted Napoleon and the Guard to pass by unattacked, and 1B12. PASSAGE OF THE BEBESINA. 476 then fell upon tlie hinder divisions of the French army. ,(Nov. 17.) These unfortunate troops were successively cut to pieces. Twenty-six thousand were made prisoners. Ney, with a part of the rear-guard, only escaped by crossing the Dnieper on the ice. Of the army that had quitted Moscow there now remained but 10,000 com- batants and 20,000 followers. Kutusoff himself was brought to such a state of exhaustion that he could carry the pursuit no further, and entered into quarters upon the Dnieper. It was a few days after the battle at Kjrasnoi that the divisions of Victor, coming from the victor iomaNa. direction of the Dwina, suddenly encoun- ^**°* tered the remnant of Napoleon's army. Though aware that Napoleon was in retreat, they knew nothing of the calamities that had befallen him, and were struck with amazement when, in the middle of a forest, they met with what seemed more like a miserable troop of captives than an army upon the march. Victor's soldiers of a mere auxiliary corps found themselves more than double the effective strength of the whole army of Moscow. Their arrival again placed Napoleon at the head, of 30,000 disciplined troops, and gave the French a gleam of victory in the last and seemingly most hopeless struggle in the campaign. Admiral Tchit- chagoff, in command of the army marching from the Danube, had at length reached the line of Napoleon's retreat, and established himself at Borisov, where the road tlirough Poland crosses the river Beresina. The bridge was destroyed by the Russians, and Tchitchagoff 476 MODERN EUROPE. I812. opened comimiiiicatioii with Witgenstein's army, which lay only a few miles to the noii^h. It appeared as if the retreat of the French was now finally intercepted, and the surrender of Napoleon inevitahle. Yet even in this hopeless situation the military skill and daring of the French worked with something of its ancient power. The army reached the Beresina ; Napoleon succeeded in withdrawing the enemy from the real point Beresina. Nov. of passagc ; bridgcs wcrc thrown across the river, and after desperate fighting a great part of the army made good its footing upon the western hank (Nov. 28). But the losses even among the effec- tive troops were enormous. The fate of the miserable crowd that followed them, torn by the cannon-fire of the Eussians, and precipitated into the river by the breaking of one of the bridges, has made the passage of the Beresina a synonym for the utmost degree of human woe. This was the last engagement fought by the army. The Gruards still preserved their order; Marshal Ney still found soldiers capable of turning upon the pursuer with his own steady and unflagging courage ; but the bulk of the army struggled forward in confused crowds, harassed by the Cossacks, and laying down their arms by thousands before the enemy. The frost, which had broken up on the 19th, returned on the 30th of Novem- ber with even greaj!:er severity. Twenty thousand fresh troops which joined the army between the Beresina and Wilna scarcely arrested the process of dissolution. On the 3rd of December Napoleon (juitted the army. Wilna 1812. THE FllENOH BEACH THE NIEMEN. ill itself was abandoned with all its stores ; and when at length the fugitives reached the Niemen, French wach the they numbered little more than twenty ^»®"«^^^"»- thousand. Here, six months earlier, three hundred and eighty thousand men had crossed with Napoleon. A. hundred thousand more had joined the army in the course of its retreat. Of all this host, not the twentieth part reached the Prussian frontier. A hundred and seventy thousand remained prisoners in the hands of the Russians ; a greater number had perished. Of the twenty thousand men who now beheld the Niemen, probably not seven thousand had crossed with Napoleon. In the presence of a catastrophe so overwhelming and so un- paralleled the Russian generals might well be content with their own share in the work of destruction. Yet the event proved that Kutusoff had done ill in sparing the extremest effort to capture or annihilate his foe. Not only was Napoleon's own escape the pledge of continued war, but the remnant that escaped with him possessed a military value out of all proportion to its insignificant numbers. The best of the army were the last to suc- cumb. Out of those few thousands who endured to the end, a very large proportion were veteran officers, who immediately took their place at the head of Napoleon's newly-raised armies, and gave to them a military effi- ciency soon to be bitterly proved by Europe on many a German battle-field. Four hundred thousand men were lost to a conqueror who could still stake the lives of half a million more. The material power of Napoleon, though largely, wad 478 MODERN' EUROPE, I812. not fatally diminislied by tlie Eussian campaign ; it was tlirougli its moral effect, first proved in the action of Prussia, that the retreat from Moscow created a new order of things in Europe. The Prussian contingent, commanded by General von York, lay in front of Eiga, where it formed part of the French subsidiary army- corps led by Marshal Macdonald. Early in November the Eussian governor of Eiga addressed himself to York, assuring him that Napoleon was ruined, and soliciting York himself to take up arms against Mac- Prussian contin- douald.* York had no evidence, beyond gent at Riga. ** the word of the Eussian commander, of the extent of Napoleon's losses ; and even if the facts were as stated, it was by no means clear that the Czar might not be inclined to take vengeance on Prussia on account of its alliance with Napoleon. York returned a guarded answer to the Eussian, and sent an ofiicer to Wilna to as- certain the real state of the French army. On the 8th of December the o£B.cer returned, and described what he had himself seen. Soon afterwards the Eussian commandant produced a letter from the Czar, declaring his intention to deal with Prussia as a friend, not as an enemy. On these points all doubt was removed ; York's decision was thrown upon himseK. York was a rigid soldier of the old Prussian type, dominated by the idea of military duty. The act to which the Eussian commander invited him, and which the younger officers were ready to hail as the Kberation of Prussia, might be branded by his sovereign as desertion and treason. Whatever scruples • Droysen, Leben des Grafen York. L, 394. 1812. YORICS CONVENTION WITH THE RUSSIANS. 479 and perplexity might be felt in such a situation by a loyal and obedient soldier were felt by York. He never- theless chose the course which seemed to be for his country's good ; and having chosen it, he accepted all the consequences which it involved. On the ■*• York's conven- 30th of December a convention was signed R^LaS?' i^! 80 at Tauroggen, which, under the guise of a truce, practically withdrew the Prussian army from Napoleon, and gave the Eussians possession of Konigs- berg. The momentous character of the act was recog- nised by Napoleon as soon as the news reached Paris. York's force was the strongest military body upon the Eussian frontier ; united with Macdonald, it would have forced the Eussian pursuit to stop at the Niemen ; aban- doning Napoleon, it brought his enemies on to the Vistula, and threatened incalculable danger by its example to all the rest of Germany. For the moment, however, Napo- leon could count upon the spiritless obedience of King Frederick William. In the midst of the French regi- ments that garrisoned Berlin, the King wrote orders pronouncing York's convention null and void, and ordering York himself to be tried by court-martial. The news reached the loyal soldier : he received it with grief, but maintained his resolution to act for his country's good. " With bleeding heart," he wrote, " I burst the bond of obedience, and carry on the war upon my own responsibility. The army desires war with France ; the nation desires it; the King himself desires it, but his will is not free. The army must make his will free." 480 MOBEEN EUIWFE. 1813. York's act was nothing less tlian tlie turning-point in Prussian history. Another Prussian, at The Czar and ^ ^ '' Stein. ^]^jg great crisis of Europe, played as great, though not SQ conspicuous, a part. Before the outbreak of the Eussian war, the Czar had requested the exile Stein to come to St. Petersburg to aid him with his counsels during the struggle with Napoleon. Stein gladlj accepted the call ; and throughout the campaign he encouraged the Czar in the resolute resistance which the Eussian nation itseK required of its Grovernment. So long as French soldiers reiHained on Eussian soil, there was indeed little need for a foreigner to stimulate the Czar's energies ; but when the pursuit had gloriously ended on the Niemen, the case became very different. Kutusoff and the generals were disinclined to carry the war into G^many. The Eussian army had itself lost three -fourths of its numbers ; Eussian honour was satis- fied ; the liberation of Western Europe might be left to Western Europe itseK. Among the politicians who sur- rounded Alexander, there were a considerable number, including the first minister Eomanzoff, who still believed in the good policy of a French alliance. These were the influences with which Stein had to contend, when the question arose whether Eussia should rest satisfied with its own victories, or summon all Europe to unite in over- throwing Napoleon's tyranny. No record remains of the stages by which Alexander's mind rose to the clear and firm conception of a single European interest against Napoleon ; indications exist that it was Stein's personal influence which mo^ largely affected his decision. Even 1813. STEIN RAISES EAST PRUSSIA 481 in the darkest moments of the war, when the forces of Eussia seemed wholly incapable of checking Napoleon's advance, Stein had never abandoned his scheme for raising the German nation against Napoleon. The confidence with which he had assured Alexander of ultimate victory over the invader had been thoroughly justified ; the tri- umph which he had predicted had come with a rapidity and completeness even sui-passing his hopes. For a moment Alexander identified himself with the statesman who, in the midst of Germany's humiliation, had been so resolute, so far-sighted, so Aspiring.* The minister of the peace-party was dismissed : Alexander 1 ji'i J T 'J T~» • Alexander en- oraered his troops to advance mto rrussia, tere Prussia. ^ ' Jan., 1813. and charged Stein himself to assume the government of the Prussian districts occupied by Eussian armies. Stein's mission was to arm the Landwelir, and to gather all the resources of the country for war against France ; his powers were to continue until some definite arrangement should be made between the King of Prussia and the Czar. Armed with this commission from a foreign sovereign. Stein appeared at Konigsberg on the 22nd of January, 1818, and published an order requiring the governor of the province of East Prussia to won fJomAiex convoke an assembly for the purpose of ann- ing the people. Stein would have desired York to appear as President of the Assembly; but York, like most of the Prussian oSicials, was alarmed and indig- nant at Stein's assumption of power in Prussia ;is the * Pertz, iii 211, »eq. Seeley, iii 21. F F 482 MOBEBN EUROPE. 1813 representative of tlie Eussian Czar, and hesitated to con- nect himself with so revolutionary a measure as the arming of the people. It was only upon condition that Stein himself should not appear in the Assembly that York consented to recognise its powers. The Assembly met. York entered the house, and spoke a few soul- stirring words. His undisguised declaration of war with France was received with enthusiastic cheers. A plan for the formation of a Landwehr, based on Scharnhorst's plans of 1808, was laid before the Assembly, and accepted. Forty thousand- men were called to arms in Province of East . .^^^_ . ir»,i Prussia arms, a provuicc wnich included nothing west oi the Vistula. The nation itself had begun the war, and left its Grovernment no choice but to follow. Stein's task was fulfilled , and he retired to the quarters of Alexander, unwilling to mar by the appearance of foreign intervention the work to which the Prussian nation had now committed itself beyond power of recall. It was the fortune of the Prussian State, while its King dissembled before the French in Berlin, to possess a soldier brave enough to emancipate its army, and a citizen bold enough to usurp the government of its provinces. Frederick William forgave York his intrepidity ; Stein's action was never forgiven by the timid and jealous sovereign whose subjects he had summoned to arm them- selves for their country's deliverance. The Grovernment of Berlin, which since the begin- ning of the Eevolutionary War had neither been able to fight, nor to deceive, nor to be honest, was at length forced by circumstances into a certain effectiveness in 1813. TREATY OF KALiaCH. 483 all three forms of action. In tlie interval between the first tidings of Napoleon's disasters and the an- nouncement of York's convention with the Policv of Har- Russians, Hardenberg had been assuring denbergr. Napoleon of his devotion, and collecting troops which he carefully prevented from joining him.* The desire of the King was to gain concessions without taking part in the war either against Napoleon or on his side. When, however, the balance turned more decidedly against Napoleon, he grew bolder; and the news of York's defection, though it seriously embarrassed the Cabinet for the moment, practically decided it in favour of war with France. The messenger who was sent to remove York from his command received private instructions to fall into the hands of the Russians, and to inform the Czar that, if his troops advanced as far as the Oder, King Frederick William would be ready to conclude an alliance. Every post that arrived from East Prussia strengthened the warlike resolutions of the Government. At length the King ventured on the decisive step of quitting Berlin and placing himself at Breslau (Jan. 25). At Berlin he was in the power of the French ; at Breslau he was within easy reach of Alexander. The significance of the journey could not be mistaken : it was imme- diately followed by open prepiuntion for war with France. On February 3rd there appeared an edict inviting volun- teers to enrol themselves : a week later all exemptions from military service were abolished, and the entire male population of Prussia between the ages of seventeen • Ouckeu, Oestwreich und Preosseu, i. 28. P F 2 484 MODERN EUBOFE. 1813. and twenty-four was declared liable to serve. General Knesebeck was sent to tbe headquarters of tbe Czar, wbicb were now between Warsaw and Kaliscb, to conclude a treaty of alliance. Knesebeck demanded securities for the restoration to Prussia of all the Polish territory which it had possessed before 1806 ; the Czar, unwilling either to grant this condition or to lose the Prussian alliance, kept Knesebeck at his quarters, and sent Stein with a Eussian plenipotentiary to Breslau to conclude the treaty with Hardenberg himself. Stein and Hardenberg met at Breslau on the 26th February. Hardenberg accepted the Czar's terms, and the treaty, lisch. Feb. 27. ]jnown as the Treaty of Kalisch,* was signed on the following day. By this treaty, without guaran- teeing the restoration of Prussian Poland, Eussia under- took not to lay down its arms until the Prussian State as a whole was restored to the area and strength which it had possessed before 1806. Por this purpose annexa- tions were promised in Northern Grermany. With regard to Poland, Eussia promised no more than to permit Prussia to retain what it had received in 1772, together with a strip of territory to connect this district with Silesia. The meaning of the agreement was that Prussia should abandon to Eussia the greater part of its late Polish provinces, and receive an equivalent German terri- tory in its stead. The Treaty of Kalisch vixtuaUy sur- rendered to the Czar all that Prussia had gained in the partitions of Poland made in 1793 and in 1795. The * Martens, N. R., EEL 234. British and Foreign State Papers (Hertslet), i. 49. 1813. TREATY OF KALISCH. 485 sacrifice was deemed a most severe one by every Prussian politician, and was accepted only as a less evil tlian the loss of Eussia's friendship, and a renewed submission to Napoleon. No single statesman, not even Stein himself, appears to have understood that in exchanging its Polish conquests for German annexations, in turning to the German west instead of to the alien Slavonic east, Prussia was in fact taking the very step which made it the pos- sible head of a future united Germany. War was still not declared upon Napoleon by King Frederick WiQiam, but throughout the month of Feb- ruary the light cavalry of the Eussians pushed forward unhindered through Prussian territory towards the Oder, and crowds of volunteers, marching through Ber- lin on their way to the camps in Silesia, gave the French clear signs of the storm that was about to burst upon them.* The remnant of Napoleon's army, now com- manded by Eugene Beauharnais, had fallen back step by step to the Oder. Here, rest- ^to*SieSS** ing on the fortresses, it might probably have checked the Eussian advance : but the heart of Eugene failed; the line of the Oder was abandoned, and the retreat continued to Berlin and the Elbe. The Cossacks followed. On the 20th of February they actually entered Berlin and fought with the French in the streets. The French gaiTison was far superior in force ; but the appearance of the Cossacks caused such a ferment that, although the alliance between France and Prussia was still in nominal existence, the French * For Bresl&u in February, see Steffuus, 7. 68L 486 MODERN EUROPE. I8I8. troops expected to be cut to pieces by tbe people. For some days tbey continued to bivouac in tbe streets, and as soon as it became known tbat a regular Eussian force bad reacbed tbe Oder, Eugene determined to evacuate Berlin. On tbe 4tb of Marcb tbe last Frencb soldier quitted tbe Prussian capital. Tbe Cossacks rode tbrougb tbe town as tbe Frencb left it, and fougbt witb tbeir rear-guard. Some days later Witgenstein appeared witb Eussian infantry. On Marcb 17tb York made bis triumpbal entry at tbe bead of bis corps, bimself cold and rigid in tbe midst of tumultuous outbursts of patriotic joy. It was on tbis same day tbat King Frederick William issued bis proclamation to tbe Prussian declares wl^ pcoplc, declaring tbat war bad begun witb France, and summoning tbe nation to enter upon tbe struggle as one tbat must end eitber in victory or in total destruction. Tbe proclamation was sucb as became a monarcb conscious tbat bis own faint-bearted- ness bad been tbe principal cause of Prussia's bumilia- tion. It was simple and unboastful, admitting tbat tbe King bad made every effort to preserve tbe Frencb alliance, and ascribing tbe necessity for war to tbe in- tolerable wrongs inflicted by Napoleon in spite of Prussia's fulfilment of its treaty-obligations. Tbe ap- peal to tbe great memories of Prussia's earlier sovereigns, and to tbe example of Eussia, Spain, and all countries wbicb in present or in earlier times bad fougbt for tbeir independence against a stronger foe, was wortby of tbe trutbful and modest tone in wbicb tbe King spoke of tbe misfortunes of Prussia under bis own rule. laia. IDEA OF QEEMAN UNITY. 487 But no exhortations were necessary to fire the spirit of the Prussian people. Seven years of spirit of the suffering and humiliation had done their work. The old apathy of all classes had vanished under the pressure of a bitter sense of wrong. If among the Court party of Berlin and the Conservative landowners there existed a secret dread of the awakening of popular forces, the suspicion could not be now avowed. A move- ment as penetrating and as universal as that which France had experienced in 1792 swept through the Prussian State. It had required the experience of years of wretchedness, the intrusion of the French soldier upon the peace of the family, the sight of the homestead swept bare of its stock to supply the invaders of Eussia, the memory of Schill's companions shot in cold blood for the cause of the Fatherland, before the Prussian nation caught that flame which had spontaneously burst out in France, in Spain, and in Eussia at the first shock of foreign aggression. But the passion of the Prussian people, if it had taken long to kindle, was deep, stead- fast, and rational. It was undisgraced by the frenzies of 1792, or by the religious fanaticism of the Spanish war of liberation; wliere religion entered into the struggle, it heightened the spirit of seK-sacrifice rather than that of hatred to the enemy. Nor was it a thing of small moment to the future of Europe '■ Idea of Gemuui that in every leading mind the cause of "^'^• Prussia was identified with the cause of the whole Ger- man race. The actual condition of Germany warranted no such conclusion, for Saxony, Bavaria, and the whole 488 MODERN EUROPE. I813. of tlie Elienish Federation still followed Napoleon : but the spirit and tlie ideas whicb. became a living force wben at lengtb tbe contest with Napoleon broke ont were tbose of men like Stein, wbo in tbe depths of Grermany's humiliation had created the bright and noble image of a common Fatherland. It was no more given to Stein to see his hopes fulfilled than it was given to Mirabeau to establish constitutional liberty in France, or to the Italian patriots of 1797 to create a united Italy. A group of States where kings like Frederick William and Francis, ministers like Hardenberg and Metternich, governed millions of people totally destitute of political instincts and training, was not to be suddenly transformed into a free nation by the genius of an individual or the patriotism of a single epoch. But if the work of German union was one which, even in the barren form of military empire, required the efforts of two more generations, the ideals of 1813 were no transient and ineffective fancy. Time was on the side of those who called the Prussian monarchy the true centre round which Germany could gather. If in the sequel Prussia was slow to recognise its own oppor- tunities, the fault was less with patriots who hoped too much than with kings and ministers who dared too little. For the moment, the measures of the Prussian Go- .• *^v vernment were worthy of the spirit shown by Formation of the J r J Landwehr. ^"j^^ uatiou. Schamhorst's military system had given Prussia 100,000 trained soldiers ready to join the existing army of 45,000. The scheme for the forma- tion of a Landwehr, though not yet carried into effect. 1813. PRUSSIA IN 1813. 489 needed only to receive the sanetion of the King. On the same day that Frederick William issued his proclamation to the people, he decreed the formation of the Landwehr and the Landsturm. The latter force, which was intended in case of necessity to imitate the peasant warfare of Spain and La Yend^e, had no occasion to act: the Landwehr, though its arming was delayed hy the poverty and exhaustion of the country, gradually became a most formidable reserve, and sent its battalions to fight by the side of the regulars in some of the greatest engagements in the war. It was the want of arms and money, not of willing soldiers, that prevented Prussia from instantly attacking Napoleon with 200,000 men. The conscription was scarcely needed from the immense number of volunteers who joined the ranks. Though the completion of the Prussian armaments required some months more, Prussia did not need to stand upon the defensive. An army of 50,000 men was ready to cross the Elbe immediately on the annval of the Eussians, and to open the next campaign in the territory of Napoleon's allies of the Ehenish Federation. CHAPTEE XI. The War of Liberation — Bliiclier crosses the Elbe — ^Battle of Liitzen — ^The Allies retreat to Silesia — Battle of Bautzen — ^Armistice — Napoleon intends to intimidate Austria — Mistaken as to the forces of Austria — Metternich's Policy — Treaty of Reichenbach — ^Austria offers its Mediation — Congress of Prague — Austria enters the War — Aripies and Plans of Napoleon and the Allies— Campaign of August — Battles of Dresden, Grosbeeren, the Katz- bach, and Kulm — Effect of these Actions— Battle of Dennewitz — German Policy of Austria favourable\to the Princes of the Phenish Confederacy — Frustrated hopes of German Unity— Battle of Leipzig — ^The Allies reach the Rhine— Offers of Peace at Frankfort — Plan of Invasion of France — Backwardness of Austria — The Allies enter France — Campaign of 1814 — Congress of Chatillon — Napoleon moves to the rear of the Allies — The Allies advance on Paris — Capitulation of Paris — Entry of the Allies — Dethrone- ment of Napoleon — Restoration of the Bourbons — The Charta — Treaty of Paris — Territorial effects of the War, 1792-1814 — Every Power except France had gained — France relatively weaker in Europe — Summary of the permanent effects of this period on Europe. The first tliree montlis of the year 1813 were spent by Napoleon in Napoleoii ill vigorous preparation for a cam- paign in Nortliern Germany. Immediately after receiving tlie news of York's convention with tlie Eussians lie had ordered a levy of 350,000 men. It was in vain that Frederick William and Hardenberg affected to disavow the general as a traitor ; Napoleon divined the national character of York's act, and laid his account for a war against the combined forces of Prussia and Eussia. In spite of the catastrophe of the last campaign, Napo- leon was still stronger than his enemies. Italy and the Ehenish Federation had never wavered in their allegiance; 1818. BES0UBCE8 OF NAPOLEON, 4©1 Austria, though a cold ally, had at least shown no signs of hostility. The resources of an empire of forty million inhabitants were still at Napoleon's command. It was in the youth and inexperience of the new soldiers, and in the scarcity of good officers,* that the losses of the previous year showed their most visible effect. Lads of seventeen, commanded in great part by officers who had never been through a campaign, took the place of the soldiers who had fought at Friedland and Wagram. They were as brave as their predecessors, but they failed in bodily strength and endurance. Against them came the rem- nant of the men who had pursued Napoleon from Mos- cow, and a Prussian army which was but the vanguard of an armed nation. Nevertheless, Napoleon had no cause to expect defeat, provided that Austria remained on his side. Though the Prussian nation entered upon the con- flict in the most determined spirit, a war on the Elbe against Eussia and Prussia combined was a less desperate venture than a war with Eussia alone beyond the Niemen. When King Frederick William published his decla- ration of war (March 17), the army of Euff^ne had already fallen back as far west theEibe.Mard», as Magdeburg, leaving garrisons in most of the fortresses between the Elbe and the Eussian frontier. Napoleon was massing troops on the Maia, and preparing for an advance in force, when the Prussians, commanded by Bliicher, and some weak divisions of the Eussian army, pushed forward to the Elbe. On the 18th of March the * For the difference between the old and the new officers, see Oorr6e> pondance de Napoleon, 27 Avril, 1813. 492 ^ MODERN EUBOPK isia Cossacks appeared in fhe suburbs of Dresden, on tbe ri^ht bank of tbe river. Davoust, wbo was in command of tbe Frencb garrison, blew up two arcbes of tbe bridge, and retired to Magdeburg : Bliicber soon afterwards entered Dresden, and called upon tbe Saxon nation to rise against Napoleon. But be spoke to deaf ears. Tbe common people were indifferent ; tbe officials waited to see wbicb side would conquer. Bliicber could scarcely obtain pro- visions for bis army ; be passed on westwards, and came into tbe neigbbourbood of Leipzig. Here be found bim- self forced to bait, and to wait for bis allies. Tbougb a detacbment of tbe Russian army under Witgenstein bad already crossed tbe Elbe, tbe main army, witb Kutusoff, was still lingering at Kaliscb on tbe Polisb frontier, wbere it bad arrived six weeks before. As yet tbe Prus- sians bad only 50,000 men ready for action ; until tbe Russians came up, it was unsafe to advance far beyond tbe Elbe. Bliicber counted every moment lost tbat kept bim from battle : tbe Russian commander-in-cbief, sated witb glory and sinking beneatb tbe infirmities of a veteran, could scarcely be induced to sign an order of marcb. At lengtb Kutusoff's illness placed tbe command in younger bands. His strengtb failed bim during tbe marcb from Poland ; be was left dying in SUesia ; and on tbe 24tb of April tbe Czar and tbe King of Prussia led forward bis veteran troops into Dresden. Napoleon was now known to be approacbing witb considerable force by tbe roads of tbe Saale. A pitcbed battle west of tbe Elbe was necessary before tbe Allies could bope to win over any of tbe States of tbe Rbenish 1813. BATTLE OF LTtTZEN. 493 Confederacy; the flat country beyond Leipzig offered the best possible field for cavalry, in which the Battle of Allies were strong and Napoleon extremely deficient. It was accordingly determined to unite all the divisions of the army with Bliicher on the west of Leipzig, and to attack the French as soon as they descended from the hilly country of the Saale, and began their march across the Saxon plain. The Allies took post at Liitzen : the French advanced, and at midday on the 2nd of May the battle of Liitzen began. Till evening, victory inclined to the Allies. The Prussian soldiery fought with the utmost spirit ; for the first time in Napoleon's campaigns, the French infantry proved weaker than an enemy when fighting against them in equal numbers. But the gene- ralship of Napoleon turned the scale. Seventy thousand of the French were thrown upon fifty thousand of the Allies; the battle was fought in village streets and gardens, where cavalry were useless ; and at the close of the day, though the losses on each side were equal, the Allies were forced from the positions which they had gained. Such a result was equivalent to a lost battle. Napoleon's junction with the anny of Eugene at Magde- burg was now inevitable, unless a second engagement was fought and won. No course remained to the Allies but to stake everything upon a renewed attack, or to retire behind the Elbe and meet the reinforcements assembling in Silesia. King Frederick William declared for a second battle* ; he was over-ruled, and the retreat commenced. • Henckel von Donnersraarck, p. 187. The battles of Liitsen, Bautzen, and Leip^g are described in the despatches of Lord Catheart) who wit- 494 MODERN EUROPE. isia Napoleon entered Dresden on May 14t]i. No attempt was made by tlie Allies to liold the line of Dresden. May tlie Elbe ; all tbe sanguine bopes with wbicb Bliicber and bis comrades bad advanced to attack Napoleon witbin tbe borders of tbe Ebenisb Con- federacy were dasbed to tbe ground. Tbe Tatberland remained divided against itself. Saxony and tbe rest of tbe vassal States were secured to France by tbe victory of Li'itzen ; tbe liberation of Germany was only to be wrougbt by prolonged and obstinate warfare, and by tbe wholesale sacrifice of Prussian life. It was witb deep disappointment, but not witb any wavering of purpose, tbat tbe allied generals Bautzen. fell back before Napoleon towards tbe May 21. ^ ^ ^ ^ Silesian fortresses. Tbe Prussian troops wbicb bad bitberto taken part in tbe war were not tbe tbird part of tbose wbicb tbe Grovemment was arm- ing; new Eussian -divisions were on tbe marcb from Poland. As tbe Allies moved eastwards from tbe Elbe, botb tbeir own forces and tbose of Napoleon gatbered strength. Tbe retreat stopped at Bautzen, on tbe river Spree; and here, on tbe 19th of May, 90,000 of the Allies and tbe same number of the French drew up in order of battle. The Allies held a long, broken chain of hills behind the river, and the ground lying between these hills and tbe village of Bautzen. On tbe 20tb the French began tbe attack, and won the passage of tbe river. In spite of the approach of Ney with 40,000 nessed them in company with the Czar and King Frederick William. Records; Russia, 207, 209. I UNIVERSITY J im, ABMI8TI0E AFTER BAUTZEK. 495 more troops, the Czar and the King of Prussia deter- mined to continue the battle on the following day. The struggle of the 21st was of the same obstinate and indecisive character as that at Liitzen. Twenty-five thousand French had been killed or wounded before the day was over, but the bad generalship of the Allies had again given Napoleon the victory. The Prussian and Russian commanders were all at variance ; Alexander, who had to decide in their contentions, possessed no real military faculty. It was not for want of brave fighting and steadfastness before the enemy that Bautzen was lost. The AUies retreated in perfect order, and without the loss of a single gun. Napoleon followed, forcing his wearied regiments to ceaseless exertion, in the hope of ruining by pursuit an enemy whom he could not overthrow in battle. In a few more days the discord of the allied generals and the sufferings of the troops would probably have made them unable to resist Napoleon's army, weakened as it was. . But the conqueror himself halted in the mo- -L Anni8tio6. ment of victory. On the 4th of June ^"^^^ an armistice of seven weeks arrested the pursuit, and brought the first act of the War of Liberation to a close. ^. Napoleon's motive for granting this interval to his enemies, the most fatal step in his whole career, has been vaguely sought among the general rea- sons for military delay ; as a matter of fact, Austria. Napoleon was thinking neither of the condition of his own army nor of that of the Allies when he broke off 496 MODERN JSUBOPK 1813. hostilities, but o£ tlie probable action of the Court of Vienna.* " I shall grant a truce/' he wrote to the Viceroy of Italy (June 2, 1818), "on account of the armaments of Austria, and in order to gain time to bring up the Italian army to Laibach to threaten Vienna.'' Austria had indeed resolved to regain, either by war or negotia- tion, the provinces which it had lost in 1809. It was now preparing to offer its mediation, but it was also preparing to join the Allies in case Napoleon rejected its demands. Metternich was anxious to attain his object, if possible, without war. The Austrian State was bankrupt ; its army had greatly deteriorated since 1809 ; Metternich himself dreaded both the ambition of Russia and what he considered the revolutionary schemes of the Grerman patriots. It was his object not to drive Napo- leon from his throne, but to establish a European system in which neither France nor Eussia should be absolutely dominant. Soon after the retreat from Moscow the Cabinet of Vienna had informed Napoleon, though in the most friendly terms, that Austria could not longer remain in the position of a dependent ally.f Metternich stated, and not insincerely, that by certain concessions Napoleon might still count on Austria's friendship ; but at the same time he negotiated with the * The account given in the following pages of Napoleon's motives and action during the armistice is based upon the following letters printed in the twenty-fifth volume of the Correspondence : — To Eugene, June 2, July 1, July 17, Aug. 4; to Maret, July 8; to Daru, July 17; to Berthier, July 23 ; to Davoust, July 24, Aug. 5 ; to Ney, Aug. 4, Aug. 12. The statement of Napoleon's error as to the strength of the Austrian force is confirmed by Metternich, i. 150. t Oncken, i. 80. 1813. NAPOLEON AND AUSTRIA, 407 allied Powers, and encouraged tliem to believe that Austria would, under certain circumstances, strike on tlieir behaK. The course of the campaign of May was singularly favourable to Metternich's policy. Napoleon had not won a decided victory ; the Allies, on the other hand, were so far from success that Austria could set almost any price it pleased upon its alliance. By the beginning of June it had become a settled matter in the Austrian Cabinet that Napoleon must be made to resign the niyrian Provinces conquered in 1809 and the dis- tricts of North Grermany annexed in 1810 ; but it was still the hope of the Q-ovemment to obtain this result by peaceful means. Napoleon saw that Austria was about to change its attitude, but he had by no means penetrated the real intentions of Mettemich. He credited the Viennese Grovernment with a stronger sentiment hostility towards himself than it actually possessed ; at the same time he failed to appreciate the fixed and settled character of its purpose. He believed that the action of Austria would depend simply upon the means which he possessed to intimidate it ; that, if the army of Italy were absent, Austria would attack him ; that, on the other hand, if he could gain time to bring the army of Italy into Camiola, Austria would keep the peace. It was with this belief, and solely for the purpose of bringing up a force to menace Austria, that Napoleon stayed his hand against the Prussian and Eussian armies after the battle of Bautzen, and gave time for the gathering of the immense forces which were destined to effect his destruction. G G 498 MOBEEN EUEOFE, I813. Immediately after tlie conclusion of tlie armistice of June 4tli, Metternich invited Napoleon to Mettemicli oflPers iai-j tj- f» i Austria's media- acccpt Austria s mcdiatiou tor a general peace. The settlement which Metternich contemplated was a very different one from that on which Stein and the Prussian patriots had set their hopes. Austria was willing to leave to Napoleon the whole of Italy and Holland, the frontier of the Ehine, and the Protectorate of Western Grermany : all that wa.s required by Metternich, as arbiter of Europe, was the restoration of the provinces taken from Austria after the war of 1809, the reinstatement of Prussia in Western Poland, and the abandonment by France of the North- German district annexed in 1810. But to Napoleon the greater or less extent of the concessions asked by Austria was a matter of no moment. He was determined to make no concessions at all, and he entered into negotia- tions only for the purpose of disguising from Austria the real object with which he had granted the armistice. While Napoleon affected to be weighing the proposals of Austria, he was in fact calculating the number of marches which would place the Italian army on the Austrian frontier; this once effected, he expected to hear nothing more of Metternich's demands. It was a game of deceit ; but there was no one who was so thoroughly deceived as Napoleon Napoleon de- , . , ,. -p. . ,. . , ceived as to the himseli. Uv somc extraordmary miscalcu- f orces of Austria. •' ^ lation on the part of his secret agents he was led to believe that the whole force of Austria, both in the north and the south, amounted to only 100,000 I8ia AUSTRIA OFFERS ITS MEDIATION, 499 men,* and it was on this estimate that he had formed his plans of intimidation. In reality Austria had double that number of men ready to take the field. By degrees Napoleon saw reason to suspect himself in error. On the 11th of July he wrote to his Foreign Minister, Maret, bitterly reproaching him with the failure of the secret service to gain any trustworthy information. It was not too late to accept Metternich's terms. Yet even now, when the design of intimidating Austria had proved an utter delusion, and Napoleon was convinced that Austria would fight, and fight with very powerful forces, his pride and his invincible belief in his own superiority prevented him from drawing back. He made an attempt to enter upon a separate negotiation with Eussia, and, when this failed, he resolved to face the conflict with the whole of Europe. There was no longer any uncertainty among Napo- leon's enemies. On the 27th of June, Austria had signed a treaty at Eeichenbach, pledging itself to join the allied Powers in the event of Napoleon rejecting the conditions to be proposed by Reic'enLSi. Austria as mediator ; and the conditions so to be proposed were fixed by the same treaty. They were the following : — The suppression of the Duchy of Warsaw; the restoration to Austria of the lUyrian Provinces ; and the surrender by Napoleon of the North - German district annexed to his Empire in 1810. Terms more hostile to France than these Austria declined to embody in its mediation. The Elbe might still sever • Napoleou to Eugene, Ist July, 1813. a a 2 600 MODERN EUEOFE. I8l& Prussia from its Grerman provinces lost in 1807 ; Napo- leon might still retain, as chief of the Ehenish Con- federacy, his sovereignty over the greater part of the German race. From the moment when these conditions were fixed, there was nothing which the Prussian generals so much dreaded as that Napoleon might accept them, and so roh the Allies of the chance of crushing him by means of Austria's support. But their fears were groundless. The comisels of Napoleon were exactly those which his worst enemies would have desired him to Trague. July 15 adopt. War, and nothing but war, was his j&xed resolve. He affected to entertain Austria's propositions, and sent his envoy Caulaincourt to a Congress which Austria summoned at Prague ; but it was only for the purpose of gaining a few more weeks of preparation. The Congress met ; the armistice was prolonged to the 10th of August. Caulaincourt, how- ever, was given no power to close with Austria's demands. He was ignorant that he had only been sent to Prague in order to gain time. He saw the storm gathering: unable to believe that Napoleon intended to fight all Europe rather than make the concessions demanded of him, he imagined that his master still felt some doubt whether Austria and the other Powers meant to adhere to their word. As the day drew nigh which closed the armistice and the period given for a reply to Austria's ultimatum, Caulamcourt implored Napoleon not to deceive himself with hopes that Austria would draw back. Napoleon had no such hope ; he knew well that 1818. AUSTRIA ENTERS THE WAR M)l Austria would declare war, and lie accepted the issue. Caulaincourt heard nothing more. At mid- Au»tri» enten night on the 10th of August the Congress dechired itself dissolved. Before the dawn of the next morning the army in Silesia saw the blaze of the beacon- fires which told that negotiation was at an end, and that Austria was entering the war on the side of the Allies.* Seven days' notice was necessary before the com- mencement of actual hostilities. Napoleon, himself stationed at Dresden, held all the ifm and the lower course of the Elbe ; and his generals had long had orders to be ready to march on the morning of the 18th. Forces had come up from all parts of the Empire, raising the French army at the front to 300,000 men ; but, for the first time in Napoleon's career, his enemies had won from a pause in war results even sur- passing his own. The strength of the Prussian and Eussian armies was now enormously different from what it had been at Liitzen and Bautzen. The Prussian Landwehi% then a weaponless and ill-clad militia drilling in the villages, was now fully armed, and in great part at the front. New Eussian divisions had reached Silesia. Austria took the field with a force as numerous as that which had checked Napoleon in 1809. At the close of the armistice, 350,000 men actually faced the French positions upon the Elbe ; 300,000 more were on the march, or watching the German fortresses and the frontier of Italy. The allied troops operating against Napoleon were divided into three armies. In the north, * Metternich, L 163. 502 MODERN EUROPE, isia. between Wittenberg and Berlin, Bernadotte commanded 60,000 Eussians and Prussians, in addition to bis own Swedisb contingent. Bliicber was placed at tbe bead of 100,000 Eussians and Prussians in Silesia. Tbe Austrians remained undivided, and formed, togetber witb some Eussian and Prussian divisions, tbe great army of Bobemia, 200,000 strong, under tbe command of Scbwarzenberg. Tbe plan of tbe campaign bad been agreed upon by tbe Allies soon after tbe Treaty of Eeicbenbacb bad been made witb Austria. It was a sound, tbougb not a daring one. Tbe tbree armies, now forming an arc from Wittenberg to tbe nortb of Bobemia, were to converge upon tbe line of Napoleon's communications bebind Dresden ; if separately attacked. Plan of the tbcir geucrals were to avoid all bazardous Allies. 1 engagements, and to manoeuvre so as to weary tbe enemy and preserve tbeir own general rela- tions, as far as possible, uncbanged. Bliicber, as tbe most exposed, was expected to content bimself tbe longest witb tbe defensive ; tbe great army of Bobemia, after securing tbe mountain-passes between Bobemia and Saxony, migbt safely turn Napoleon's position at Dresden, and so draw tbe two weaker armies towards it for one vast and combined engagement in tbe plain of Leipzig. In outline, tbe plan of tbe AUies was tbat wbicb Napoleon expected tbem to adopt. His own design was Napoleon's plan ^^ anticipate it by an offensive of extraordi- of attack. nary suddenness and effect. Hostilities could not begin before tbe morning of tbe 18tb of August; 1813. TRIPLE MOVEMENT. 503 by the 21st or the 22nd, Napoleon calculated that he should have captured Berlin. Oudinot, who was at Wit- tenberg with 80,000 men, had received orders to advance upon the Prussian capital at the moment that the armis- tice expired, and to force it, if necessary by bombard- ment, into immediate surrender. The effect of this blow, as Napoleon supposed, would be to disperse the entire reserve-force of the Prussian monarchy, and paralyse the action of its army in the field. While Oudinot marched on Berlin, Bliicher was to be attacked in Silesia, and pre- vented from rendering any assistance either on the north or on the south. The mass of Napoleon's forces, centred at Dresden, and keeping watch upon the movements of the army of Bohemia, would either fight a great battle, or, if the Allies made a false movement, march straight upon Prague, the centre of Austria's supplies, and reach it before the enemy. AU the daring imagination of Napoleon's earlier campaigns displayed itseK in such a project, which, if successful, would have terminated the war within ten days ; but this imagination was no longer, as in those earlier campaigns, identical with insight into real possibilities. The success of Napoleon's plan in- volved the surprise or total defeat of Bemadotte before Berlin, the disablement of Bliicher, and a victory, or a strategical success equivalent to a victory, over the vast army of the south. It demanded of a soldiery, inferior to the enemy in numerical strength, the personal supe- riority which had belonged to the men of Jena and Austerlitz, when in fact the French regiments of con- scripts had ceased to be a match for equal numbers of 601 MODERN EUliOFE. isia. the enemy. But no experience could alter Napoleon's fixed belief in tlie fatuity of all warfare except liis own. After the havoc of Borodino, after the even struggles of Llitzen and Bautzen, he still reasoned as if he had before him the armies of Brunswick and Mack. His plan as- sumed the certainty of success in each of its parts ; for the failure of a single operation hazarded all the rest, by re- quiring the transfer of reinforcements from armies already too weak for the tasks assigned to them. Nevertheless, the utmost that Napoleon would acknowledge was that the execution of his design needed energy. He still underrated the force which Austria had brought into the field against him. Though ignorant of the real position and strength of the army in Bohemia, and compelled to wait for the enemy's movements before striking on this side, he already in imagination saw the war decided by the fall of the Prussian capital. On the 18th of August the forward movement began. Oudinot advanced from Wittenberg towards ment. Aug. 18 Bcrliu ; Napolcou himself hurried into Si- lesia, intending to deal Bliicher one heavy blow, and instantly to return and place himself before Schwarzenberg. On the 21st, and following days, the Prussian general ' was attacked and driven eastwards. Napoleon committed the pursuit to Macdonald, and hastened back to Dresden, already threatened by the advance of the Austrians from Bohemia. Schwarzen- berg and the allied sovereigns, as soon as they heard that Napoleon had gone to seek Bliicher in Silesia, had in fact abandoned their cautious plans, and determined to make 1813. BATTLE OF DRESDEN. 606 an assault upon Dresden with the Bohemian army alone. But it was in vain that they tried to surprise Napoleon. He was back at Dresden on the 25th, and ready for the attack. Never were Napoleon's hopes higher than on this day. His success in Silesia had filled him with con- fidence. He imagined Oudinot to be already in Berlin ; and the advance of Schwarzenberg against Dresden gave him the very opportunity which he desired for crushing the Bohemian army in one great battle, before it could draw support either from Bliicher or from Bemadotte. Another Austerlitz seemed to be at hand. Napoleon wrote to Paris that he should be in Prague before the enemy ; and, while he completed his defences in front of Dresden, he ordered Vandamm'e, with 40,000 ^^^ ^ jj^^ men, to cross the Elbe at Konigstein, and ^n. au?.26,27. force his way south-westwards on to the roads into Bohemia, in the rear of the Great Army, in order to destroy its magazines and menace its line of retreat on Prague. On August 26th Schw^arzenberg's host assailed the positions of Napoleon on the slopes and gardens out- side Dresden. Austrians, Eussians, and Prussians all took part in the attack. Moreau, the victor of Hohen- Ihiden, stood by the side of the Emperor Alexander, whom he had come to help against his own countrymen. He lived only to witness one of the last and greatest victories of France. The attack was everywhere re- pelled : the Austrian divisions were not only beaten, but disgraced and overthrown. At the end of two days* fighting the Allies were in full retreat, leaving 20,000 prisoners in the hands of Napoleon. It was a moment 506 MODERN EUROPE, 1813. when the hearts of the bravest sank, and when hope itself might well vanish, as the rumour passed through the Prussian regiments that Mettemich was again in friendly communication with Napoleon. But in the midst of Napoleon's triumph intelligence arrived which robbed it of all its worth. Oudinot, instead of conquer- ing Berlin, had been defeated by the Prussians of Ber- ^ , ^ nadotte's army at Grrossbeeren (Aug^. 23), and Battles of Gross- •^ \ to /> SrVMaS . 15,000 otbers lay witbin call. He placed Marmont and Ney on tbe nortb of Leipzig at the H H 514 MODBUN JSUEOI'JEJ. i8i3. village of Mockem, to meet tlie expected onslauglit of Bliiclier ; and himself, witli th.e great mass of his army, took post on the south, facing Schwarzenberg. On the morning of the 16th, Schwarzenberg began the attack. His numbers did not exceed 150,000, foT the greater part of the Eussian army was a march in the rear. The battle was an even one. The Austrians failed to gain ground : with one more army-corps Napoleon saw that he could overpower the enemy. He was still without intelligence of Bliicher's actual appear- ance in the north ; and in the rash hope that Bliicher's coming might be delayed, he sent orders to ISTey and Marmont to leave their positions and hurry to the south to throw themselves upon Schwarzenberg. 'Nej obeyed. Marmont, when the order reached him, was actually receiving Bliicher's first fire. He determined to remain and defend the village of Mockem, though left without support. York, commanding the van-guard of Blii cher's army, assailed him with the utmost fury. A third part of the troops engaged on each side were killed or wounded before the day closed ; but in the end the victory of the Prussians was complete. It was the only triumph won by the Allies on this first day of the battle, but it turned the scale against Napoleon. Marmont' s corps was destroyed ; Ney, divided between Napoleon and Marmont, had rendered no effective help to either. Schwarzenberg, saved from a great disaster, needed only to wait for Bernadotte and the Eussian reserves, and to renew the battle with an additional force of 100,000 men. laa. BATTLE OF LEIPZIG, 516 In the course of the night Napoleon sent proposals for peace. It was in the vain hope of receiving some friendly answer from his father-in-law, the Austrian Emperor, that he delayed making his retreat during the next day, while it might still have been unmolested. No answer was returned to his letter. In the evening of the 17th, Bennigsen's army reached the field of battle. Next morning began that vast and decisive encounter known in the language of Germany as " the Battle of battle of the nations," the greatest battle in all authentic history, the culmination of all the military effort of the Napoleonic age. Not less than 300,000 men fought on the side of the AUies; Napo- leon's own forces numbered 170,000. The battle raged all round Leipzig, except on the west, where no attempt was made to interpose between Napoleon and the line of his retreat. As in the first engagement, the decisive successes were those of Bliicher, now tardily aided by Bernadotte, on the north; Schwarzenberg's divisions, on the south side of the town, fought steadily, but without gaining much ground. But there was no longer any doubt as to the issue of the struggle. If Napoleon could not break the Allies in the first engagement, he had no chance against them now when they had been joined by 100,000 more men. The storm of attack grew wilder and wilder: there were no new forces to • call up for the defence. Before the day wiis half over Napoleon drew in his outer line, and began to make dispositions for a retreat from Leipzig. At evening long trains of wounded from the hospitals passed through H H 2 516 ^ M0D:EBK EUEOPB, 1813. the western gates of the city along the road towards the Ehine. In the darkness of night the whole army was withdrawn from its positions, and dense masses poured into the town, until every street was blocked with con- fused and impenetrable crowds of cavalry and infantry. The leading divisions moved out of the gates before sunrise. As the throng lessened, some degree of order was restored, and the troops which Napoleon intended to cover the retreat took their places under the walls of Leipzig. The Allies advanced to the storm on the morning of the 19th. The French were zig, 19th. driven into the town : the victorious enemy French retreat. •' pressed on towards the rear of the retreating columns. In the midst of the struggle an explosion was heard above the roar of the battle. The bridge over the Elster, the only outlet from Leipzig to the west, had been blown up by the mistake of a French soldier before the rear-guard began to cross. The mass of fugitives, driven from the streets of the town, found before them an impassable river. Some swam to the opposite bank or perished in attempting to do so; the rest, to the number of 15,000, laid down their arms. This was the end of the battle. Napoleon had lost in the three days 40,000 killed and wounded, 260 guns, and 30,000 prisoners. The killed and wounded of the Allies reached the enormous sum of 54,000. The campaign was at an end. Napoleon led off a large army, but one that was in no condition to turn upon its pursuers. At each stage in the retreat thousands of fever-stricken wretches were left to terrify even the 1818. " TEEMS OFFERED AT FBANKFOBT. 517 pursuing army with the dread of their infection. It was only when the French found the road to Frankfort blocked at Hanau by a Bavarian force that they rallied to the order of battle. The Napoi«m to •^ the Rhine. Bavarians were cut to pieces ; the road was opened; and, a fortnight after the Battle of Leipzig, Napoleon, with the remnant of his great army, re-crossed the Ehine. Behind him the fabric of his Empire fell to the ground. Jerome fled from Westphalia;* the princes of the Ehenish Confederacy came one after another to make their peace with the Allies ; Biilow, with the army which had conquered Ney at Dennewitz, marched tlirough the north of Germany to the deliverance of Helland. Three days after Napoleon had crossed the Ehine the Czar reached Frankfort; and here, on the conditions of 7th of November, a military council was to Napoieon at ' -^ Frankfort, Not. held, in which Bliicher and Grneisenau, ''*^- against almost all the other generals, advocated an im- mediate invasion of France. The soldiers, however, had time to re-c(msider their opinions, for, on the 9th, it was decided by tne representatives of the Powers to send au offer of peace to Napoleon, and the operations of the war were suspended by common consent. The condition on which peace was offered to Napoleon was the surrender of the conquests of France beyond the Alps and the Ehine. The Allies were still willing to permit the Emperor to retain Belgium, Savoy, and the Ehenish Provinces; they declined, however, to entei* into any negotiation until Napoleon had accepted this basis of * Memoires de Jeromei vi., 223. 518. MODE£,N MUIWFK 1813. peace; and thej demanded a distinct reply before tlie end of the month, of November. Napoleon, who had now arrived in Paris, and saw around him all the signs of power, returned indefinite answers. The month ended without the reply which Offer of pea<» ^^^ Allics required; and on the 1st of iJec. 1. ' December the offer of peace was declared to be withdrawn. It was still undecided whether the war should take the form of an actual invasion of France. The memory of Brunswick's campaign of 1792, and of the disasters of the first coalition in 1793, even now exercised a powerful influence over men's minds. Austria was unwilling to drive Napoleon to extremities, or to give to Eussia and Prussia the increased influence which they would gain in Europe from the total overthrow of Napoleon's power. It was ultimately determined that the allied armies should enter France, but Flan of invasion of France. .|.-j^^.j- j.-^^^ Austriaus, iustcad of crossing the north-eastern frontier, should make a detour by Switzer- land, and gain the plateau of Langres in Champagne, from which the rivers Seine, Marne, and Aube, with the roads following their valleys, descend in the direction of the capital. The plateau of Langres was said to be of such strategical importance that its occupation by an invader would immediately force Napoleon to make peace. As a matter of fact, the plateau was of no strategical importance whatever; but the Austrians desired to occupy it, partly with the view of guarding against any attack from the direction of Italy and Lyons, partly from their want of the heavy artillery necessary for 1813. WELimOTUN E^sTEUa FUANCE, 519 besieging the fortresses farther north,* and from a just appreciation of the dangers of a campaign conducted in a hostile country intersected by several rivers. Anything was welcomed by Metternich that seemed likely to avert, or even to postpone, a struggle with Napoleon for life or death. Bliicher correctly judged the march through Switzerland to be mere procrastination. He was himself permitted to take the straight road into Trance, though his movements were retarded in order to keep pace with the cautious steps of Schwarzenberg. On the last day of the year 1813 the Prussian general crossed the Khine near Coblentz; on the 18th of January, 1814, the Austrian army, having advanced from France, Jan., Switzerland by BeKort and Yesoul, reached its halting-place on the plateau of Langres. Here the march stopped ; and here it was expected that terms of peace would be proposed by Napoleon. It was not on the eastern side alone that the invader was now entering France. Wellington had passed the Pyrenees. His last victorious march into the north of • " Tonr lordship has only to recollect the fonr days* continued fighting at Leipzig, followed by fourteen dajrs' forced marches in the worst weather, in order to understand the reasons that made some repose absolutely neces- sary. The total loss of the Austriaiis alone, since the 10th of August, at the time of our arrival at Frankfort, waa 80,000 men. We were entirely unprovided with heavy artillery, the nearest battery tr^ not having advanced further than the frontiers of Bohemia.'* It was thought for » moment that the gates of Strasburg and Huningen miglit be opened by bribery, and the Austrian Government authorised the expenditure of a milli(m florins for this purpose ; in that case the march into Switrorland would have been abandoned. The bribing plan, however, broke down. —Lord Aberdeen's despatches, Nov. 24^ Dec. 26, 1818. Aecords: Austria, 107. 520 MODERN BUBOPK 1814. Spain began on tlie day when the Prussian and Eussian armies were defeated by Napoleon at Bautzen (May 21, 1813). During tbe armistice of Dresden, a week before Austria signed tbe treaty wbicb fixed tbe tering France couditious of its armed mediation, be bad from the south. gained an overwhelming triumph at Yittoria over King Joseph and the French army, as it retreated with all the spoils gathered in five years' occupation of Spain (June 21). A series of bloody engagements had given the English the passes of the P3rrenees in those same days of August and September that saw the allied armies close around Napoleon at Dresden: and when, after the catastrophe of Leipzig, the wreck of Napoleon's host was retreating beyond the Ehine, Soult, the defender of the Pyrenees, was driven by the British general from his entrenchments on the Nivelle, and forced back under the walls of Bayonne. Twenty years had passed since, in the tempestuous morn of the Eevolution, Hoche swept the armies of the first coalition across the Alsatian frontier. Since then, French soldiers had visited every capital, and watered every soil with their blood; but no ^foreign soldier had set foot on French soil. Now the cruel unable to hold goads of Napolcou's military glory had spent the nation's strength, and the force no longer existed which could bar the way to its gathered enemies. The armies placed upon the eastern frontier had to fall back before an enemy five times more numerous than themselves. Napoleon had not expected that the Allies would enter France before the spring. M14. CAMPAIGN IN FRANCE. 521 With three montlis given him for organisation, he could have made the frontier-armies strong enough to maintain their actual positions : the winter advance of the Allies compelled him to ahandon the border districts of France, and to concentrate his defence in Champagne, between the Marne, the Seine, and the Aube. This district was one which offered extraordinary advantages to a great general acting against an irresolute and ill- j^^^ .^.^ _,^ commanded enemy. By holding the bridges "^ defence, over the three rivers, and drawing his own supplies along the central road from Paris to Arcis-sur-Aube, Napoleon could securely throw the bulk of his forces from one side to the other against the flank of the Allies, while his own movements were covered by the rivers, which could not be passed except at the bridges. A capable commander at the head of the Allies would have employed the same river-strategy against Napoleon him- self, after conquering one or two points of passage by main force ; but Napoleon had nothing of the kind to fear from Schwarzenberg ; and if the Austrian head- quarters continued to control the movements of the allied armies, it WUs even now doubtful whether the campaign would close at Paris or on the Khine. For some days after the arrival of the monarchs and diplomatists at Langres (Jan. 22), Mettemich and the more timorous among the generals opposed q^^_ ^ any further advance into France, and *®^^ argued that the army had already gained all it needed by the occupation of the border provinces. It was only upon the threat of the Czar to continue the war by him- 522 MODERN EUROPE. 1814. self tliat tlie Austrians consented to move forward upon Paris. After several days had been lost in discussion, tlie advance from Langres was begun. Orders were given to Bliicber, who bad pusbed back tbe French divisions commanded by Marmont and Mortier, and who was now near St. Dizier on the Marne, to meet the Great Army at Brienne. This was the situation of the Allies when, on the 25th of January, Napoleon left Paris, and placed himself at Chalons on the Marne, at the head of his left wing, having his right at Troyes and at Arcis, guarding the bridges over the Seine and the Aube. Napoleon knew that Bliicber was moving towards the Austrians ; he hoped to hold the Prussian general in check at St. Dizier, and to throw himself upon the heads of Schwarzenberg's columns as they moved to- wards the Aube. Bliicber, however, had already passed St. Dizier when Napoleon reached it. Napoleon pursued, and overtook the Prussians at Brienne. After an in- decisive battle, Bliicber fell back towards Schwarzenberg. The allied armies effected their junction, and Bliicber, now supported by the Austrians, turned and marched down the right bank of the Aube to meet Napoleon. Napoleon, though far outnumbered, accepted battle. He was attacked at La Eothiere, close above Brienne, and defeated with heavy loss (Feb. 1). A vigorous pursuit would probably have ended the war ; but the Austrians held back. Schwarzenberg believed peace to be already gained, and condemned all further action as useless waste of life. In spite of the protests of the Emperor Alexander, he allowed Napoleon to retire un- 1814. CAMPAIGN IN FEANOE. 523 molested. Schwarzenberg's inaction was no mere error in military judgment. There was a direct conflict l^etween tlie Czar and tlie Austrian Cabinet as to the cik^. io be obtained by the war. Alexander already insisted on the dethronement of Napoleon; the Austrian Government would have been content to leave Napoleon in power if he would accept a peace giving France no worse a frontier than it had possessed in 1791. Castlereagh, who had come from England, and Hardenberg were as yet inclined to support Metternich's policy, although the whole Prussian army, the public opinion of Great Britain, and the counsels of Stein and all the bolder Prussian statesmen, were on the side of the Czar.* Already the influence of the peace -party was so far in the ascendant that negotiations had been opened with Napoleon. Eepresentatives of all the Powers assembled at Chatillon, in Burgundy; and ciiatiuon. Feb. there, towards the end of January, Caulain- court appeared on behalf of France. The first sitting took place on the 5th of February; on the following day Caulaincourt received full powers from Napoleon to conclude peace. The Allies laid down as the condition of peace the limitation of France to the frontiers of 1791. Had Caulaincourt dared to conclude peace in- stantly on these terms, Napoleon would have retained • CastlereajfVs dos))atch from Langres, Jan. 29, 1814. Beoords: Continent, Vol. 11. : " As far a» I have hitherto felt myself called on to give an opinion, I have stated tliat the British Government did not decline treating with Bnonaparte." " The Czar said ho observed my riew^ of the question was different iloiw what he believed prevailed in Engbuid* {id, Feb. 16). See Southey's fine Ode on the Negotiations of 1814 524 MOJPEEN EUROPE. 1814. liis throne ; but "he was aware that Napoleon had only granted him full powers in consequence of the disastrous tattle of La Eothi^re, and he feared to be disavowed by his master as soon as the army had escaped from danger. InBtead of simply accepting the Allies' offer, he raised questions as to the future of Italy and Grermany* The moment was lost ; on the 9tB,, of February the Czar recalled his envoy from Chatillon, and the sittings of the Congress were broken off. Schwarzenberg was now slowly and unwillingly moving foj-wards along the Seine towards Troyes. Bliicher was permitted to return to the Marne, and to advance upon Paris by an independent line of march. He crossed the country between the Aube and the Marne, and joined some divisions which he had left behiSid him on the latter river. But his dispositions were Defeats of Bltt- ^ liSne^ reb*io outrageously careless : his troops were scat- tered over a space of sixty miles from Chalons westward, as if he had no enemy to guard against except the weak divisions commanded by Mortier and Marmont, which had uniformly fallen back before his advance. Suddenly Napoleon himself appeared at the centre of the long Prussian line at Champaubert. He had hastened northwards in pursuit of Bliicher with 30,000 men, as soon as Schwarzenberg entered Troyes ; and on February 10th a weak Eussian corps that lay in the centre of Bliicher's column was overwhelmed before it was known the Emperor had left the Seine. Tl^en, turning leftwards, Napoleon overthrew the Prussian van-guard at Mont- mirail, and two days later attacked and defeated Bliicher 1814. OONQEEiSS OF OEATILLON. b2^ himself, who was bringing up the remainder of his troops in total ignorance of the enemy with whom he had to deal. In four days Bliicher's army, which numbered 70,000 men, had thrice been defeated in detail by a force of 30,000. Bliicher was compelled to fall back upon Chalons ; Napoleon instantly returned to the support of Oudinot's division, which he had left in front of Schwar- zenberg. In order to relieve Bliicher, the Austrians had pushed forward on the Seine beyond Montereau. Within three days after the battle with Bliicher, Napoleon was back upon the Seine, and attacking the heads of the Austrian column. On the 18th of February he gained so decisive a victory at Montereau that Schwarzenberg abandoned the advance, and fell back upon Troyes, sending word to Bliicher to come southwards again and help him to fight a great battle. Bliicher moved off with admirable energy, and came into the neighbourhood of Troyes witliin a week after his defeats upon the Marne. But the design of fighting a great battle was given up. The disinclination of the Austrians to vigorous action was too strong to be over- come ; and it was finally determined that Schwarzenberg should fall back almost to the plateau of Langres, leaving Bliicher to unite with the untoward, troops of Biilow which had conquered Hol- land, and to operate on the enemy's flank and rear. The effect of Napoleon's sudden victories on the Marne was instantly seen in the councils of the allied sovereigns. Alexander, who had withdrawn his envoy from Chatillon, could no longer hold out against nego- Monteres^ Feb. 18. 526 MODERN EUIiOPE. 18U. tiations witli Napoleon. He restored tlie powers of his envoy, and tlie Confess re-assembled. But Congress of ^ *-' ^ 8umed?'''Feb.'^S Napoleon already saw himself in imagination driving tlie invaders beyond the Ehine, and sent orders to Caulaincourt to insist upon the terms pro- posed at Frankfort, which left to France both the Ehenish Provinces and Belgium. At the same time he attempted to open a private negotiation with his father-in-law the Emperor of Austria, and to detach him from the cause of the Allies. The attempt failed ; the demands now made by Caulaincourt overcame even the peaceful inclinations of the Austrian Minister; and on the 1st of March the Allies signed a new treaty at Chaumont, pledging them- selves to conclude no peace with Napoleon that did not restore the frontier of 1791, and to maintain a defensive alliance against France for a period of twenty years.* Caulaincourt continued for another fortnight at Chatillon, instructed by Napoleon to prolong the negotiations, but forbidden to accept the only conditions which the Allies were willing to grant. Bliicher was now on his way northwards to join the so-called army of Bemadotte upon the Aisne. Napoleon fol- lows Bliicher tc the north. Battle ofLaon.Mar.lO, ihIL?!h.'Bfttte Since the Battle of Leipzig, Bernadotte him- self had taken no part in the movements of the army nominally under his command. The Nether- lands had been conquered by Biilow and the Eussian general Winzingerode, and these officers were now push- ing southwards in order to take part with Bliicher in a movement against Paris. Napoleon calculated that the * British and Foreign State Papers, 1. 121. ML4. THE ALLIES MOVE ON PARIS. 627 fortress of Soissons would bar the way to the northern army, and enable him to attack and crush Bliiclier before he could effect a junction with his colleagues. He set out in pursuit of the Prussians, still hoping for a second series of victories like those he had won upon the Mame. But the cowardice of the commander of Soissons ruined his chances of success. The fortress surrendered to the Eussians at the first summons. Bliiclier met the advanced guard of the northern army upon the Aisne on the 4th of March, and continued his march towards Laon for the purpose of uniting with its divisions which lay in the rear. The French followed, but the only advantage gained by Napoleon was a victory over a detached Eussian corps at Craonne. Marmont was defeated with heavy loss by a sally of Bliiclier from his strong position on the hill of Laon (March 10) ; and the Emperor himself, unable to restore the fortune of the battle, fell back upon Soissons, and thence marched southward to throw himself again upon the line of the southern army. Schwarzenberg had once more begun to move forward on the news of Bliicher's victory at Laon. His troops were so widely dispersed that Napoleon might even now have cut the line in halves had he kno\vn Schwarzenberg's real position. But he made a detour in order „ •t Napoleon to meet Oudinot*s corps, and gave the Aus- SS^ t^e SJ trians time to concentrate at Arcis-sur-Aube. Here, on the 20th of Mai'ch, Napoleon found himself in face of an army of 100,000 men. His own army was less than a third of that number ; yet with unalterable contempt for the enemy he risked another battle. No 528 MOBEEN EUROPE. isii. decided issue was readied in the first day's figliting, and Napoleon remained in position, expecting that Schwar- zenberg would retreat during the night. But on the n^orrow the Austrians were still fronting him. Schwar- zenberg had at length learnt his own real superiority, and resolved to assist the enemy no longer by a wretched system of retreat. A single act of firmness on the part of the Austrian commander showed ]N'apoleon that the war of battles was at an end. He abandoned all hope of resisting the invaders in front : it only remained for him to throw himself on to their rear, and, in company with the frontier-garrisons and the army of Lyons, to attack their communications with Germany. The plan was no unreasonable one, if Paris could either have sustained a siege or have fallen into the enemy's hands without ter- minating the war. But the Allies rightly judged that Napoleon's power would be extinct from the moment that Paris submitted. They received the intelligence of the Emperor's march to the east, and declined to follow him. The armies of Schwarzenberg and Bliicher approached one another, and moved together on Paris. It was at Vitry, on March 27th, that Napoleon first discovered that the troops which had appeared to be following his eastward movement were but a detachment of cavalry, and that the allied armies were in full march upon the capital. He instantly called up every division within reach, and pushed forward by forced marches for the Seine, hoping to fall upon Schwarzenberg's rear before the allied van-guard could reach Paris. But at each hour of the march it became more evident that the enemy was 1814. ^ CAPITULATION OF PABIS. 529 far in advance. For two days Napoleon urged his men forward ; at length, unable to bear the in- The AiiiM .d. tolerable suspense, he quitted the army on the morning of the 30th, and drove forward at the utmost speed along the road through Fontainebleau to the capital. As day sank, he met reports of a battle already begun. When he reached the village of Fromenteau, fifteen miles from Paris, at ten o'clock at night, he heard that Paris had actually surrendered. The Allies had pressed forward without taking any notice of Napoleon's movements,, and at early morning on the 30th they had opened the attack on Attack onPfcri., the north-eastern heights of Paris. Mar- March ao. mont, with the fragments of a beaten army and some weak divisions of the National Guard, had but 35,000 men to oppose to three times that number of the enemy. The Government had taken no steps to arm the people, or to prolong resistance after the outside line of defence was lost, although the erection of barricades would have held the Allies in check until Napoleon arrived with his army. While Marmont fought in the outer suburbs, masses of the people were drawn up on Montmartre, ex- pecting the Emperor's appeanmce, and the spectacle of a great and decisive battle. But the firing o^^pituiation o« in the outskirts stopped soon after noon : it '**' was announced that Marmont had capitulated. The re- port struck the people with stupor and fury. They had vainly been demimding arms since early morning ; and even after the capitulation unsigned papers were handed about by men of the working classes, advocating further I I 530 MODERN EUROPE, 1814. resistance.* But tlie people no longer knew tow to follow leaders of its own. ]N'apoleon liad trained France to look only to himself : Ms absence left the masses, who were still eager to fight for France, helpless in the presence of the conqueror : there were enemies enough of the Grovernment among the richer classes to make the entry of the foreigner into Paris a scene of actual joy and exaltation. To such an extent had the spirit of caste and the malignant delight in !N'apoleon*s ruin over- powered the love of France among the party of the old noblesse, that upon the entry of the allied forces into Paris on the 31st of March hundreds of aristocratic Allies enter womcu kisscd thc hauds, or the very boots Pans, March 81. ^^^ horscs, of thc Icadcrs of the train, and cheered the Cossacks who escorted a band of French prisoners, bleeding and exhausted, through the streets. Napoleon's reign was indeed at an end. Since the rupture of the Congress of Chatillon on the 18th of March, the Allies had determined to make his dethrone- ment a condition of peace. As the end approached, it was seen that no successor was possible but the chief of the House of Bourbon, although Austria would perhaps have consented to the establishment of a Eegency imder the Empress Marie Louise, and the Czar had for a time entertained the project of placing Bernadotte at the head of the French State. Immediately after the entry into Paris it was determined to raise the exile Louis XYIII. to the throne. The politicians of the Empire who followed Talleyrand were not unwilling to unite with the * Berauger, Biograpliie, ed. duod., p. 354. 1814. THE CZAR AND THE BOURBONS. 631 conquerors, and with the small party of Koyalist no- blesse, in recalling the Bourbon dynasty. Alexander, who was the real master of the situation, rightly judged Talleyrand to be the man most capable of enlisting the public opinion of France on the side of the new order. He took up his abode at Talleyrand's house, and em- ployed this dexterous statesman as the advocate both of the policy of the Allies, and of the principles of consti- tutional liberty, which at this time Alexander himself sincerely befriended. A Provisional Govern- ment was appointed under Talleyrand's aeXo^, leadership. On the 2nd of April the Senate proclaimed the dethronement of Napoleon. On the 6th it published a Constitution, and recalled the House of Bourbon. Louis XYIII. was still in England : his brother, the Count of Artois, had joined the invaders in France and assumed the title of Lieutenant of the Kingdom ; but the influence of Alexander was necessary to force this obstinate and unteachable man into anything like a constitutional position. The Provisional Government invited the Count to take up the administration until the King's arrival, in virtue of a decree of the Senate. D' Artois declined to recognise the Senate's competency, and claimed the Lieutenancy of the Kingdom as his brother's representative. The Senate refusing to admit the Count's divine right, some unmeaning words were exchanged when d' Artois entered Paris; and the Pro- visional Government, disregarding the claims of the Royal Lieutenant, continued in the full exercise of its I i2 532 MODERN EUROPE. 1814. powers. At lengtli tlie Czar insisted tliat d'Artois should give way. The decree of the Senate was accord- ingly accepted by him at the Tuileries on the 14th of April; the Provisional Government retired, and a Council of State was formed, in which Talleyrand still continued to exercise the real powers of government. In the address made by d'Artois on this occasion, he stated that although the King had not empowered him to accept the Constitution made b}^ the Senate on the 6th of April, he entertained no doubt that the King would accept the principles embodied in that Constitution, which were those of Eepresentative Grovernment, of the freedom of the press, and of the responsibility of minis- ters. A week after d'Artois' declaration, Louis XVIII. arrived in France. Louis XYIIL, though capable of adapting himself in practice to a constitutional system, had never permitted himself to question the divine right of the House of Bourbon to sovereign power. The exiles who surrounded him were slow to understand the needs of the time. They recommended the King to reject the Constitution. Louis made an ambiguous answer when the Legislative Body met him at Compiegne and invited an expression of the royal policy. It was again necessary for the Cz/ir to interfere, and to explain to the Kinsf that Louis XVnL ^ ^ and the Czar. Prauce could no longer be an absolute monarchy. Louis, however, was a better arguer than the Count of Artois. He reasoned as a man whom the sovereigns of Europe had felt it their duty to restore without any request from himself. If the Senate of mi. THE B0UBB0N8 IN PABI8. 633 Napoleon, lie urged, had the right to give France a Constitution, he himself ought never to have been brought from his peaceful English home. He was willing to grant a free Constitution to his people in exercise of his own royal rights, but he could not recog- nise one created by the servants of an usurper. Alex- ander was but half satisfied with the liberal professions of Louis : he did not, however, insist on his acceptance of the Constitution drawn up by the Senate, but he informed him that until the promises made by d'Artois w^ere confirmed by a royal proclamation, there would be no entry into Paris. The King at entem p»m, length signed a proclamation written by Talleyrand, and made his festal entry into the capital on the 3rd of May. The promises of Louis himseK, the unbroken cour- tesy and friendliness shown by the Allies to Paris since their victory a month before, had almost . . Feeling ol extinguished the popular feeling of hostility ^'^'' towards a dynasty which owed its recall to the over- throw of French armies. The foreign leaders themselves had begun to excite a certain admiration and interest. Alexander was considered, and with good reason, as a generous enemy ; the simplicity of the King of Prussia, his misfortunes, his well -remembered gallantry at the Battle of Jena, gained him general sympathy. It mH>ded but little on the part of the returning Bourbons to con- vert the interest and curiosity of Paris into affection. The cortege which entered the capital with Louis XVIII. brought back, in a singular motley of obsolete and of 534 MODERN EUROPE. 1814. foreign costumes, the bearers of many unforgotten names. The look of tlie King "himself, as lie drove tlirongli Paris, pleased tlie people. The childless father of the murdered Duke of Enghien gained the pitying attention of those few who knew the face of a man twenty-five years an exile. But there was one among the members of the returning families whom every heart in Paris went out to meet. The daughter of Louis XYI., who had shared the captivity of her parents and of her brother, the sole survivor of her deeply -wronged house, now returned as Duchess of Angouleme. The uniquely mournful history of her girlhood, and her subsequent marriage with her cousin, the son of the Count of Artois, made her the natural object of a warmer sympathy than could attach to either of the brothers of Louis XYI. But adversity had im- printed its lines too deeply upon the features and the disposition of this joyless woman for a moment's light to return. Her voice and her aspect repelled the affec- tion which thousands were eager to offer to her. Before the close of the first days of the restored monarchy, it was felt that the Bourbons had brought back no single person among them who was capable of winning the Prench nation's love. The recall of the ancient line had been allowed to appear to the world as the work of Prance itself ; Napo- leon's fate could only be fixed by his con- Napoleon. querors. After the fall of Paris, Napoleon remained at Pontainebleau awaiting events. The soldiers and the younger ofiicers of his army were still ready to fight for him ; the marshals, however, were utterly weary, NAPOLEON SENT TO ELBA, 535 and determined that France should no longer suffer for the sake of a single man. They informed Napoleon that he must abdicate. Yielding to their pressure, Napoleon, on the 3rd of April, drew up an act of abdication in favour of his infant son, and sent it by Caulaincourt to the allied sovereigns at Paris. The document was rejected by the Allies ; Caulaincourt returned with the intelli- gence that Napoleon must renounce the throne for him- self and all his family. For a moment the Emperor thought of renewing the war ; but the marshals refused their aid more resolutely than before, and, on the 6th of April, Napoleon signed an unconditional surrender of the throne for himself and his heirs. He was permitted by the Allies to retain the unmeaning title of Emperor, and to carry with him a body-^uard and a con- ,, , •^ ./ o Napoleon aeot siderable revenue to the island of Elba, toEib*. henceforward to be his principality and his prison. The choice of this island, within easy reach of France and Italy, and too extensive to be guarded without a large fleet, was due to Alexander's ill-judged generosity towards Napoleon, and to a promise made to Marmont that the liberty of the Emperor should be respected. Alexander was not left without warning of the probable effects of his leniency. Sir Charles Stewart, military representative of Great Britain at the allied head- quarters, urged both his own and the allied Governments to substitute some more distant island for Elba, if they desired to save Europe from a renewed Napoleonic war, and France from the misery of a second invasion. The Allies, though not without misgivings, adhered to their 536 MODERN EUROPE. 1814. original plan, and left it to time to justify tlie predictions of tlieir adviser. It was well known what would be tlie terms of peace, now that Napoleon was removed from the throne. Treaty of Paris, "^^^^ AlHcs had uo intcutiou of depriving France of any of the territory that it had held before 1792 : the conclusion of a definitive Treaty was only postponed until the Constitution, which Alex- ander required King Louis XYIII. to grant, had been drawn up by a royal commission and approved by the King. On the 27th of May the draft of this Constitu- tion, known as the Charta, was laid before the King, and sanctioned by him ; on the 80th, the Treaty of Paris was signed by the representatives of France and of all the great Powers.* France, surrendering all its con- quests, accepted the frontier of the 1st of January, 1792, with a slight addition of territory on the side of Savoy and at points on its northern and eastern border. It paid no indemnity. It was permitted to retain all the works of art accumulated by twenty years of rapine, except the trophies carried from the Brandenburg Grate of Berlin and the spoils of the Library of Vienna. It received back nearly all the colonies which had been taken from it by Great Britain. By the clauses of the Treaty disposing of the territory that had formed the Empire and the dependencies of Napoleon, Holland was restored to the House of Orange, with the provision that its territory should be largely increased; Switzer- land was declared independent; it was stipulated that * Britisli and Foreigu State Papers, 1. 151. 1814. Tim PEACE OF PAHIS. 537 Italy, with the exception of the Austrian Provinces, should consist of independent States, and that Germany should remain distributed among a multitude of sove- reigns, independent, but united by a Federal tie. The navigation of the Ehine was thrown open. By a special agreement with Great Britain the French Government undertook to unite its efforts to those of England in j)rocuring the suppression of the Slave-trade by all the Powers, and pledged itself to abolish the Slave-trade among French subjects within five years at the latest. For the settlement of all European questions not included in the Treaty of Paris it was agreed that a Congress of the Powers should, within two months, assemble at Vienna. These were the public articles of the Treaty of Paris. Secret clauses provided that the Allies — that is, the Allies independently of France — should control the distributions of territory to be made at the Congress ; that Austria should receive Venetia and all Northern Italy as far as the Ticino ; that Genoa should be given to the King of Sardinia ; and that the Southern Nether- lands should be united into a single kingdom >vith Holland, and thus form a solid bulwark against France on the north. No mention was made of Naples, whose sovereign, Murat, had abandoned Napoleon and allied himself with Austria, but without fulfilling in good faith the engagements into which he had entered against his former master. A nominal friend of the Allies, he knew that he had played a double game, and that his sovereignty, though not yet threatened, was insecure.* * Lord W. Beniiiick, who was with Marat, warned him againai the 538 MODERN EUBOTB. 1814. Mucli yet remained to be settled by the Congress at Vienna, but in tbe Treaty o£ Paris two arran{?ements at least of the s^reat Powers saw tbe obiects of 1814. ^ ^ ^ •* attained for wbicb tbey bad struggled so persistently tbrougb all tbe earlier years of tbe war, and wbicb at a later time bad appeared to pass almost out of tbe range of possibility. England saw tbe Netherlands once more converted into a barrier against France, and Antwerp beld by friendly bands. Austria reaped tbe full reward of its cool and well-balanced diplomacy during tbe crisis of 1813, in tbe annexation of an Italian territory tbat made it tbe real mistress of tbe Peninsula. Castlereagb and every otber English politician felt tbat Europe had done itself small honour in handing Yenice back to the Hapsburg ; but this had been the condition exacted by Metternich at Prague before be consented to throw the sword of Austria into the trembling scale ;* probable consequences of his duplicity. Bentiffck had, however, to be careful in his language, as the following shows. ' Murat having sent him a sword of honour, he wrote to the English Government, May 1, 1814 : '' It is a severe violence to my feelings to incur any degree of obligation to an indi- vidual whom I so entirely despise. But I feel it my duty not to betray any appearance of a spirit of animosity." To Murat he wrote on the same day : " The sword of a great captain is the most flattering present which a soldier can receive. It is with the highest gratitude that I accept the gift, Sire, which you have done me the honour to send." — Records : Sicily, Yol. 98. * Treaties of Teplitz, Sept. 9, 1813. In Bianchi, Storia Docnmentata della Diplomazia Europca, i. 334, there is a long protest addressed by Metternich to Castlereagh on May 26, 1814, referring with great minute- ness to a number of clauses in a secret Treaty signed by all the Powers at Prague on July 27, 1813, and ratified at London on August 23, giving Austria the disposal of all Italy. This protest, which has been accepted as genuine in Reuchlin's Geschichte Italiens and elsewhere, is, with the nlleged secret Treaty, a forgery. My grounds for this statement are as 1814. THE PSAOE OF PABIS. 589 and the Republican traditions both of Venice and of Genoa counted for little among the statesmen of 1814, in comparison with the divine right of a Duke of Modena or a Prince of Hesse Cassel.* France itself, though stripped of the dominion won by twenty years of warfare, was permitted to retain, for the benefit of a restored line of kings, the whole of its ancient territory, and the spoil of all the galleries and museums of Western Europe. It would have been no unnatural wrong if the conquerors of 1814 had dealt with the soil of France as France had dealt with other lands ; it would have been an act of bare justice to restore to its rightful owners the pillage that had been brought to Paris, and to re- cover from the French treasury a part of the enormous sums which ISTapoleon had extorted from conquered States. But the Courts were too well satisfied with their victory to enter into a strict account upon secondary matters ; and a prudent regard on the part of the Allies follows : — (1) There was no British envoy at Prague in Jnly, 1813. (2) The private as well as the official letters of Castlere^gli to Lord Caih- carf. of Sept. 13 and 18, and the instructions sent to Lord Aberdeen during August and September, prove that no joint Treaty existed up to that date, to which both England and Austria were parties. Records : Russia, 207, 209 A. Austria, 105. (3) Lord Aberdeen's reports of his negotiations with Metteruieh after this date conclusively prove that almost all Italian questions, including even the Austrian frontier, were tresied as matters to be decided by the Allios in common. While Austria's right to a preponderance in upper Italy is admitted, the affairs of Rome and Naples are always treated as mthiu the range of English policy. * The originals of the Genoese and Milanese petitions for independ- ence are in Records : Sicily, Vol. 98. " The Genoese universally desire th(^ restoration of their ancient Republic. They dread above all other arrangements their annexation to Piedmont, to the inhabit«nt8 of which there has always existed a peculiar aversion.*' — Bentinok*8 Despskd^ AprU 27, 1814, id. 540 " MODERN EUROPE. 1814. to the prospects of the House of Bourbon saved IVance from experiencing what it had inflicted upon others. The policy which now restored to France the frontier of 1792 was viewed with a very (different feeling in France and in all other countries. Europe looked with a kind of wonder upon its own generosity; France forgot the unparalleled provocations which it had offered to mankind, and only remembered that Belgium and the Ehenish Provinces had formed part of the Eepublic and the Empire for nearly twenty years. These early conquests of the Bepublic, which no one had attempted to wrest from France since 1795, had undoubtedly been the equivalent for which, in the days of the Directory, Austria had been permitted to extend itself in Italy, and Prussia in Germany. In the opinion of men who sincerely condemned ^Napoleon's distant conquests, the territory between France and the Rhine was no more than France might legitimately demand, as a counterpoise to the vast accessions falling to one or other of the Continental Powers out of the territory of Poland, Yenice, and the body of suppressed States in Grermany. Poland, excluding the districts taken from it before 1792, contained a population twice as great as that of Belgium and the Rhenish Provinces together : Au the Powers Venicc carrlcd with it, in addition to a gaS territory Commanding: province on the Italian main- by the war, 1792 ^ ^ ~^^^^' land, the Eastern Adriatic Coast as tar as Bagusa. If it were true that the proportionate in- crease of power formed the only solid principle of European policy, France sustained a grievous injury in 1814. FRANCE AND THE OTHER POWERS, 541 receiving back tlie limits of 1791, when every other State on the Continent was permitted to retain the territory, or an equivalent for the territory, which it had gained in the great changes that took place between 1791 and 1814. But in fact there had never been a time during the last hundred and fifty years when France, under an energetic Government, had not pos- sessed a force threatening to all its neighbours. France, reduced to its ancient limits, was still the equal, and far more than the equal, of any of the Continental Powers, with aU that they had gained during the Eevolutionary War. It remained the first of European nations, though no longer, as in the eighteenth century, the one great nation of the western continent. Its efforts after universal empire had aroused other nations into life. Had the course of French conquest ceased before Napoleon grasped power, France would have retained its frontier of the Rhine, and long have exercised an un- bounded influence over both Germany and Italy, through the incomparably juster and brighter social life which the Revolution, combined with all that France had in- herited from the past, enabled it to display to those countries. Napoleon, in the attempt to impose his rule upon all Europe, created a power in Germany whose military future was to be not less solid than that of France itself, and left to Europe, in the accord of his enemies, a firmer security against French attack than any that the efforts of statesmen had ever framed. The league of the older monarchies had proved stronger in the end than the genius and the ambition of 642 . MODEEN EUEOFK I8i^ a single man. But if, in tlie service of Napoleon, France permanenteffect ^'^ cxliausted its wcaltli, smik its fleets, and ri^Sisu. sacrificed a million lives, only that it might lose all its earlier conquests, and resume limits wliich it had outgrown before Napoleon held his first command, it was not thus with the work which, for or against itself, France had effected in Europe during the move- ments of the last twenty years. In the course of the epoch now ending the whole of the Continent up to the frontiers of Austria and Eussia had gained the two fruitful ideas of nationality and political freedom. There were now two nations in Europe where before National sense ex- thcrc had becu but aggregates of artificial anditSy. Statcs, Germany and Italy wcrc uo lougcF mere geographical expressions : in both countries, though in a very unequal degree, the newly-aroused sense of nationality haS brought with it the claim for unity and independence. In Grermany, Prussia had set a great example, and was hereafter to reap its reward ; in Italy there had been no State and no statesman to take the lead either in throwing off Napoleon's rule, or in forcing him, as the price of support, to give to his Italian kingdom a really national government. Failing to act for itself, the population of all Italy, except Naples, was parcelled out between Aus- tria and the ancient dynasties ; but the old days of pas- sive submission to the foreigner were gone for ever, and time was to show whether those were the dreamers who thought of a united Italy, or those who thought that Metternich's statesmanship had for ever settled the fate of Yenice and of Milan. 1814. PERMANENT EFFECT ON EVBOFJS. 643 The second legacy of the Eevolutionary epoch, the idea of constitutional freedom, which in 1789 had heen as much wanting in Spain, where national spirit was the strongest, as in those German States where it was the weakest, had heen excited in Italy hy the D,,i^,o, litt. events of 1796 and 1798, in Spain hy the ^"^• disappearance of the Bourhon king and the self -directed struggle of the nation against the invader : in Prussia it had been introduced by the Grovemment itself when Stein was at the head of the State. " It is impossible," wrote Lord Castlereagh in the spring of 1814, "not to perceive a great moral change coming on in Europe, and that the principles of freedom are in full operation."* There was in fact scarcely a Court in Europe which was not now declaring its intention to frame a Constitution. The professions might be lightly made ; the desire and the capacity for seK-govemment might still be limited to a narrower class than the friends of liberty imagined ; but the seed was sown, and a movement had begun which was to gather strength during the next thirty years of European history, while one revolution after another proved that Governments could no longer with safety disregard the rights of their subjects. Lastly, in all the territory that had formed Napo- leon's Empire and dependencies, and also in Prussia, legal changes had been made in the rights and relations of the different classes of society, so important as almost to create a new type of social life. Within the Empire itself the Code Napol^n, • Caatlereagh, x. la 544 MODERN EUROPE. 1814. conferring upon tlie subjects of France tlie benefits wbich tbe French had already won for themselves, had super- seded a society resting on class -privilege, on feudal service, and on the despotism of custom, by a society resting on equality before the law, on freedom of con- tract, and on the unshackled ownership and enjoyment of land, whether the holder possessed an acre or a league. The principles of the French Code, if not the Code itself, had been introduced into Napoleon's kingdom of Italy, into Naples, and into almost all the Grerman depend- encies of France. In Prussia the reforms of Stein and Hardenberg had been directed, though less boldly, to- wards the same end; and when, after 1814, the Ehenish Provinces were annexed to Prussia by the Congress of Vienna, the Grovemment was wise enough and liberal enough to leave these districts in the enjoyment of the laws which France had given them, and not to risk a comparison between even the best Prussian legislation and the Code Napoleon. In other territory now severed from France and restored to German or Italian princes, attempts were not wanting to obliterate the new order and to re-introduce the burdens and confusions of the old regime. But these reactions, even where unopposed for a time, were too much in conflict with the spirit of the age to gain more than a temporary and precarious success. The people had begun to know good and evil : examples of a free social order were too close at hand to render it possible for any part of the western continent lo relapse for any very long period into the condition of the eighteenth century. 1814.J THE NAPOLEONIC AGE. 546 It was indeed within a distinct limit that the Revo- lutionary epoch effected its work of political and social change. Neither England nor Austria re- ceived the slightest impulse to progress. England, on the contrary, suspended almost all internal improvement during the course of the war , the domestic policy of the Austrian Court, so energetic in the reign immediately preceding the Revolution, became for the next twenty years, except where it was a policy of re- pression, a policy of pure vacancy and inaction. But in all other States of Western Europe the period which reached its close with Napoleon's fall left deep and last- ing traces behiud it. Like other great epochs of change, it bore its own peculiar character. It was not, like the Renaissance and the Reformation, a time when new worlds of faith and knowledge transformed the whole scope and conception of human life ; it was not, like our own age, a time when scientific discovery and increased means of communication silently altered the physical conditions of existence; it was a time of changes directly political m their nature, and directly effected by the political agencies of legislation and of war. In the perspective of history the Napoleonic age will take its true place among other, and perhaps greater, epochs. Its elements of mere violence and disturbance will fill less space in the eyes of mankind ; its permanent crea- tions, more. As an epoch of purely political energy, concentrating the work of generations within the com- pass of twenty-five years, it will perhaps scajrcelj find a parallel. 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