The Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815), page 30
50. Lovett, Modern Spain, II, p. 574.
51. See D.W. Alexander, Rod of Iron: French Counter-Insurgency Policy in Aragon during the Peninsular War (Wilmington, DE, 1985), passim.
52. Muir, Britain and Napoleon, p. 115.
53. See Muir, Britain and Napoleon, pp. 116–17.
54. See D.D. Horward, Napoleon and Iberia: The Twin Sieges of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida (Tallahassee, 1984); Oman, History, III, pp. 231–81.
55. See Oman, History, III, pp. 544–89.
56. Muir, Britain and Napoleon, pp. 133–6.
57. See Oman, History, IV, 1–90.
58. Oman, History, IV, pp. 131–205 and 247–87.
59. Oman, History, IV, pp. 288–348.
60. Oman, History, IV, pp. 404–60.
61. Oman, History, V, 157–86.
62. Oman, History, V, pp. 217–64.
63. See Lovett, Modern Spain, I, p. 203.
64. Lovett, Modern Spain, Il, pp. 415–90.
65. Quoted in R. Carr, Spain, 1808–1975 (Oxford, 1982), p. 109.
66. See Lovett, Modern Spain, I, p. 126.
67. Esdaile, Spanish Army, p. 166.
68. See Esdaile, Spanish Army, pp. 154–85.
69. See Esdaile, Spanish Army, pp. 168–71.
70. See WSD, VIII, pp. 16–18; WD, VI, pp. 559–60, 594–5; WD, XII, p. 27. Also see C. Esdaile, The Duke of Wellington and the Command of the Spanish Army, 1812–14 (London, 1990).
71. Lovett, Modern Spain, II, pp. 565–70.
72. Lovett, Modern Spain, II, pp. 828–9.
73. Oman, History, V, pp. 335–82.
74. Oman, History, V, pp. 475–518 and VI, pp. 1–166.
75. Oman, History, VI, pp. 299–545.
76. Oman, History, VI, pp. 557–740.
77. Oman, History, VII, pp. 356–75.
78. Oman, History, VII, pp. 465–95.
79. Lovett, Modern Spain, II, pp. 827–8.
80. Quoted in Lovett, Modern Spain. II, p. 830.
9
* * *
The Road to Moscow: The Demise of the Franco-Russian Entente
By the beginning of 1810, Napoleon presided over the greatest empire seen in Europe since Roman times. Although, on the periphery of the continent, his armies still faced implacable foes in the form of the Spanish, Portuguese and the Calabrian insurrectionists, all of whom were actively underpinned by British forces, subsidies and supplies, both he and his enemies were aware that these conflicts were very unlikely to prove decisive in themselves.1 Indeed, once the emperor was sufficiently free from other distractions to commit enough troops to the job, the revolt in the south of Italy was snuffed out just as that in the Tyrol had been.2 In the Iberian Peninsula, too, his legions appeared to be gaining the upper hand. As we have seen, Napoleon’s plans for the subjugation of Spain and Portugal had been disrupted at a crucial juncture by Vienna’s preparations for a renewal of the war in the East. Austria’s subsequent defeat released thousands of Imperial troops for the completion of that task and, during 1810, with the wily Massena at their head, they were to advance to the very outskirts of Lisbon, driving the Anglo-Portuguese army before them. Although Wellington was able to give Massena a bloody nose at Bussaco and, thanks to the Lines of Torres Vedras, which he had had the foresight to build, ultimately retain Britain’s foothold on the Peninsula,3 his political masters in London realized that only Prussia, Austria and Russia possessed the military potential to deal the Napoleonic empire a decisive blow. But, with the first of these crushed and the other two actively collaborating with France following her recent victories over them, there seemed little prospect of this occurring. Moreover, the relentless extension of the Continental System was gravely affecting patterns of international trade, causing, if only intermittently, serious economic hardship in Britain’s manufacturing regions. This coincided with a run of poor harvests,4 necessitating the import of costly French and Dutch wheat during the winters of 1808 and 1809.5 Equally, the Royal Navy’s enforcement of the Orders-in-Council was generating more than a few adverse results. Besides the strain that maintaining a protracted, continent-wide blockade imposed on the fleet itself, the USA, like other neutrals before it, was being progressively alienated by the constraints that British policy imposed on her merchantmen, the Orders being perceived by the American government as a ‘measure of commercial rivalry’ designed to prevent their country’s trading relations interfering ‘with the monopoly which [Britain] . . . covets for her own commerce and navigation’.6 Indeed, the deepening strategic stalemate was evidence enough of Britain’s inability to tackle Napoleon without the aid of continental allies. Mastery of the seas might have been a necessary condition for the defeat of France, but it was not a sufficient one. In the absence of any viable peace overtures from her, the cabinet neither knew how the war was to be ended in the longer term nor actively prosecuted in the interim. Napoleon, however, had no real vision of what form a satisfactory settlement with Britain might take.7 He only knew what he was opposed to: ‘I do not want a peace which ruins . . . [France’s] trade as Amiens did,’ he insisted. ‘For peace to be practicable and lasting . . . [Britain] has got to be convinced that she can count on no help from the Continent.’8 To be sure, the Royal Navy could continue to seize the enemy’s colonial possessions with virtual impunity. Yet without markets for their produce these could prove more of a liability than an asset and, in the absence of any overall peace settlement, could not even be used as bargaining chips. As evinced by the Louisiana Purchase, Napoleon had in any case long since written many of them off as either indefensible or not worth protecting.
Europe in 1810
It was against this bleak background that a chain of events began which, among other things, was to lift the drooping spirits of the British and promised to give them the continental allies they were so sorely in need of. Ever since Napoleon’s triumph at Tilsit, his relations with Russia had been slowly deteriorating. There were numerous factors which contributed to the unravelling of the Franco-Russian entente, but the following stand out as the most significant.
First, while Napoleon genuinely sought to placate Alexander, each of them was first disappointed and then antagonized by the conduct of the other. For his part, Napoleon strove to tread carefully so far as Romanov interests in Eastern Europe were concerned: in the main, the bulk of La Grande Armée was kept at a very respectful distance from Russia’s western frontier; the Tsar was encouraged to expand his domains at the expense of Sweden and Turkey; and, recognizing that the region was a traditional sphere of Russian influence, Napoleon held back from seeking to restore the ancient kingdom of Poland, even going so far as to offer the Tsar a convention to that effect. Periodically, suggestions for joint military ventures also emanated from Paris. Although Turkey, Persia and India were the ostensible targets, Napoleon primarily regarded these expeditions as a means of indirectly menacing Britain – an objective of which London was only too well aware. For his part, Alexander was eager to acquire Constantinople and, it will be recalled, had attacked the Turks in a bid to conquer the Danubian principalities. But, while he talked of dismembering the Ottoman Empire, Napoleon was no more keen to see an increase in Romanov influence in the Balkans than the British, who were becoming understandably wary of French and Russian expansionism towards the eastern Mediterranean. As the Tsar strove to wrest Wallachia and Moldavia from the Turks, Napoleon, having already acquired Dalmatia after Austerlitz, added Illyria to his gains in the wake of Wagram, severing Austria from the Adriatic with a cordon of French possessions that extended from the Kingdom of Italy as far as Cattaro on the fringe of the Ottoman Empire. In response to these developments, the British took the precaution of seizing all of the Ionian Islands save Corfu, where the French garrison proved indomitable.9 Realizing that the situation was becoming disadvantageous, and with more important concerns elsewhere, Napoleon shirked from fully supporting the Russians, effectively encouraging the Porte to stand up to them. His behind-the-scenes endeavours to restrain Alexander in this fashion inevitably appeared duplicitous, generating appreciable suspicion and resentment.
Sweden became another source of Franco-Russian strife. Under the enlightened despot Gustav IV, she had played only a minor part in the Napoleonic Wars so far, vainly struggling to retain Pomerania and Finland as she became embroiled with not only France but Russia and Denmark as well. However, imminent defeat in war was not so much the cause as the occasion of Gustav’s downfall. His far-reaching reforms having alienated the traditional power-brokers in Sweden, he was arrested by his own guards in a palace coup in March 1809 and exiled, his ageing uncle Charles succeeding him as king. It was not unlike the revolution that had toppled the ancien régime in Spain. The disaffected nobles who had overthrown Gustav – the so-called ‘men of 1809’ – strove to restore their feudal privileges at the expense of not only their emancipated peasants but also the bourgeoisie and the monarchy, all of whom were seen as potential threats to the old order.10 A constitution that protected their interests was rammed through the Riksdag, and their nominee, Prince Christian August, was elected as heir to the throne.
Racked by political schisms and militarily weak, Sweden was easy prey for her assailants. Having tried unsuccessfully to conciliate them, her new rulers had to accept harsh peace terms, ceding Finland to Russia and joining the Continental System. When Prince Christian died suddenly in May 1810, however, various groups within Swedish society glimpsed a chance of salvation. If a Frenchman were to follow Charles as king, Napoleon might take Sweden under his arm. She might be granted some relaxation of the restrictions on her trade, as well as some degree of protection from Russia; indeed, Finland might even be returned. The Swedish Army, disheartened by years of decline, saw obvious benefits in a closer association with the great conqueror, while, entranced by the social and political reforms that followed in his wake, many members of the middle and lower classes hoped for a liberalization of the constitution that would result in them wielding more influence.
Mindful of his kindly treatment of their soldiers captured at Lübeck in 1806, in the eyes of many Swedes the obvious French candidate for the crown was Marshal Bernadotte, who had further enhanced his popularity during a lengthy stint as governor of the Hansestädte in the wake of Tilsit.11 As we have seen, he was publicly dismissed from La Grande Armée at Wagram, but had since redeemed himself somewhat by his performance in the face of the British landing at Walcheren.12 With King Charles in poor health, Bernadotte, having received an apprehensive Napoleon’s grudging consent, arrived in Sweden in October 1810 to become crown prince and virtual regent. Though once a Jacobin, he had no intention of satisfying the Swedish liberals’ aspirations; even before he ascended the throne in 1818, he made it apparent that he was neither going to reverse the social and economic reforms introduced by Gustav IV nor be constrained by the noble faction which had deposed him. Bernadotte was bent on ruling as an enlightened absolute – and, moreover, one as free from French control as possible.13
Predictably, however, the Tsar saw all of this in a more sinister light, as did the British. With the enlarged Duchy of Warsaw barring any Romanov expansion westwards, Austria trying to supplant Russia as France’s closest ally, and Napoleon plotting with the Porte, the apparent spread of French influence throughout Scandinavia looked ominous; Russia was being encircled. Napoleon, too, had grounds for feeling uneasy. His meeting with the Tsar at Erfurt in September 1808 had taken place under circumstances very different from those which had prevailed at Tilsit just 14 months earlier. Anxious to stop Napoleon overreaching himself, Talleyrand had secretly encouraged Alexander to stand up to his master. In any event, Napoleon, already perturbed by events in Spain, had no choice but to treat the Tsar as an equal partner; he needed Russian help lest Austria might turn on him while he was preoccupied with the Peninsula. Yet if, at Erfurt, Alexander was quick to shake off his subservience to his ‘cousin’, he was rather slower to act when the Austrians finally struck. Indeed, he contented himself with the occupation, for purely selfish reasons, of parts of Austrian Galicia, while continuing with his bid to take territory from the Swedes and Turks.
So far as the British are concerned, throughout 1810 and 1811 the inscrutability of both Sweden’s and Russia’s foreign policy further muddled what was already a perplexing situation. Nominally at war with both these countries, the British had established a modus vivendi with the former in particular. In return for discreetly avoiding confrontation with her garrisons and gunboats, the Royal Navy was permitted unofficial access to supplies and anchorages.14 In 1811, however, this phoney war threatened to take a more serious turn when the Swedes impounded large quantities of British merchandise which were being transported in neutral vessels. The Carlshamm Cargoes affair, as it is known, was ultimately resolved through lengthy negotiations, but it did little to ease Britain’s suspicions of Bernadotte. Separated from the land mass of Central Europe by the Baltic, which was dominated by the Royal Navy, Sweden lay beyond the reach of Napoleon’s armies, if not those of his Russian and Danish allies. Nevertheless, despite her relative geographic isolation, like Denmark and Portugal before her she could not expect to remain aloof from the struggle between the great powers indefinitely. Sure enough, Napoleon was soon bawling at the Swedish Ambassador to Paris that:
Neutrality no longer exists. Britain doesn’t recognize it, neither can I. You’re suffering? Don’t you think I suffer, that France, Bordeaux, Holland and Germany are suffering? That’s why there must be an end to it. . . . Open war, or else reliable friendship. Choose now.15
Similarly, just a year after Bernadotte’s election as crown prince, London’s sense that the Prussians and, perhaps, the Russians might be tempted into a new anti-French alliance spawned diplomatic efforts to force the Swedes off the fence. The existing state of relations between London and Stockholm could not be allowed to persist, Bernadotte was warned, since it was ‘deeply injurious to the interests not only of Great Britain, but of every power excepting that of Bonaparte’.16
At this juncture, Bernadotte was pardonably reluctant openly to align his adopted little country with either side. But the onset of the Baltic winter ruled out any British military action against Sweden for the time being and, in any case, London’s hopes regarding the construction of a fresh coalition were to dribble away, letting Bernadotte off the hook. During May 1811, Prussia, anxious to avoid any further erosion of her standing and territory, had secretly approached France for an alliance. However, uneasy about the impact such a development might have on his relations with Russia, Napoleon had disregarded this overture and, interpreting his failure to respond as a harbinger of impending French encroachments on her domains, Prussia had begun sounding out Britain, Russia and Austria as to the prospects of them coming to her aid. When Napoleon finally did reply to Prussia’s entreaty, he demanded that she cease her preparations for war forthwith or face reoccupation. She was also either to join the Rheinbund or to conclude an unconditional, offensive–defensive pact with France. Moreover, the emperor insisted, details of these exchanges were to be published in both Berlin and St Petersburg.17 Unprepared to contemplate another ruinous confrontation with Napoleon, Frederick William yielded, dissipating Britain’s dream of a new, powerful coalition. Several Prussian officers left for Russia in disgust, while the poet and publicist Heinrich von Kleist, whose Hermannschlacht, though ostensibly about the battle between ancient Rome and the Germanic tribes, mirrored the contemporary struggle against Napoleon, was plunged into despair; already badly depressed by Austria’s defeat in 1809 and by the inadequacy of his political invective, he took his own life.
Coincident with and of influence on all of this was a plan hatched by the Tsar to mount an offensive which would overrun the Grand Duchy of Warsaw and provoke a rebellion across northern Germany. By proclaiming the restoration of their ancient kingdom, albeit under Russia’s tutelage, Alexander hoped to win over the Poles, giving him an additional 50 000 troops and simultaneously depriving Napoleon of the same number. Prussia and Denmark were also expected to rally to his cause. However, Polish mistrust of Russia and loyalty to France joined with Prussian apprehensiveness and Austrian alarm to smother the scheme in its infancy.18 The Tsar slowly abandoned any thought of offensive action and the spectre of war receded for the time being at least. Nevertheless, the plot deeply shocked Napoleon, and he promptly embarked on a programme of precautionary measures; key German and Polish fortresses were strengthened, and more troops were deployed across the eastern reaches of his empire.
Although he sought simultaneously to reassure Alexander of his friendship,19 in among the conspiracies, real and imagined, there were other issues which continued to sour the personal and political relations between the two men.20 Pre-eminent among these were Napoleon’s attempts to extend, refine and enforce the Continental System. Bent on combating smuggling, on 13 December 1810, he abruptly annexed Holland, Hamburg, the old Hansestädte and the entire north German littoral, including Oldenburg. Not only had the integrity of this enclave been recognized at Tilsit, but also the Tsar’s favourite sister, Catherine, happened to be the wife of the heir to the duchy.
However, tidings of this occurrence had not yet reached St Petersburg when, on New Year’s Eve, Alexander issued an ukase which greatly increased tariffs on all imports arriving overland, while reducing those on goods brought in by sea. Russia had been deliberately neglecting the enforcement of some of the Continental System’s regulations for some time. The Baltic trade in timber, flax, hemp and grain was cherished by numerous boyars and merchants, and Napoleon’s restrictions on this profitable commercial intercourse were commensurably resented.21 Equally, the Russian government could ill afford the concomitant loss of customs revenue. While it is questionable whether the impact of Napoleon’s decrees did much more than compound Russia’s existing economic woes, undermining his prohibitions clearly had a domestic political appeal as well as any mercantile benefits. Certainly, the ukase was primarily designed to counter his attempts to secure France a ‘veiled monopoly’ on the importation and distribution of colonial produce.22 More has been said about the ramifications of this elsewhere, but, given the continental countries’ enforced dependence on overland communications as a consequence of Britain’s stranglehold on maritime trade, whereas Russia’s imports of French brandy, wine and textiles were hard hit, she became an entrepôt for ‘neutral’ merchandise, much of it British. This made a mockery of the System and, sooner or later, Napoleon would have to put a stop to it. Although his attempts at Britain’s economic strangulation were being thwarted all over the continent by smugglers, acquisitive consumers and malversation, brazen defiance by a major power like Russia could not be seen to be tolerated.
