Book: History of Modern Europe 1792 1878

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[Secret Treaty of Alliance.]

[Conspiracy of the two Emperors.]

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 of the west.
A secret Treaty of Alliance, distinct from the Treaty of Peace, was also
signed by 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 Ottoman 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 undertook, in the event of Great Britain refusing 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 Russian Empire was provided for under the form of a French mediation.
In the event of the Porte declining this mediation, Napoleon undertook to
assist Russia to liberate all the European territory subject to the yoke of
the Sultan, with the exception of Roumelia and Constantinople. A partition
of the liberated territory between France and Russia, 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. [140]

Such was this vast and threatening scheme, conceived by the man whose whole
career had been one consistent struggle for 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 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
be shut out from all the rest; the armies which had hitherto fought under
British subsidies for 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
France 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 Formio 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.

[English expedition against Denmark, July, 1807.]

Two days before the signature of the Treaty of Tilsit the British troops
which had once been so anxiously expected by the Czar landed in the island
of Ruegen. 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 striking a
blow. The negotiations between Napoleon and Alexander had scarcely begun,
when secret intelligence of their purport was sent to the British
Government. [141] 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 Napoleon's violation of Danish neutrality,
and to seize upon the navy which would otherwise be seized by France and
Russia.

[Bombardment of Copenhagen, Sept. 2.]

On the 28th of July a fleet with 20,000 men on board set sail from the
British coast. The troops landed in Denmark in the middle of August, and
united with the corps which had already been despatched to Ruegen. 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 Napoleon, 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 courageous
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 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 compelled 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 spoil. England received an
armament which had been taken from a people who 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 indignation. 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 assumed 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 Government itself. Napoleon
in his correspondence of this date alludes to certain promises made to him
by the Court 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. [142] Had the British Cabinet possessed evidence of the
determination of the Danish Government to transfer its fleet to Napoleon
without resistance, the attack upon Denmark, considered 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 Government
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 anticipate one another in forcing each neutral
state to take part with themselves.

[Napoleon's demands upon Portugal.]

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 Continental League
by the attacks of its privateers upon British merchant-vessels in the
Baltic. The second neutral Power whose fate had been decided by the two
Emperors at Tilsit received the summons of Napoleon a few days before the
attack on Copenhagen. The Regent of Portugal himself informed the British
Government that he had been required by Napoleon to close his ports to
British vessels, to declare war on England, and to confiscate all British
property within his dominions. Placed between a Power which could strip him
of his dominions on land, and one which could despoil him of everything he
possessed beyond the sea, the Regent determined to maintain his ancient
friendship with Great Britain, and to submit to Napoleon only in so far as
the English Government would excuse him, as acting under coercion. Although
a nominal state of war arose between Portugal and England, the Regent
really acted in the interest of England, and followed the advice of the
British Cabinet up to the end.

[Treaty of Fontainebleau between France and Spain for the partition of
Portugal, Oct. 27.]

The end was soon to come. The demands of Napoleon, arbitrary and oppressive
as they were, by no means expressed his full intentions towards Portugal.
He had determined to seize upon this country, and to employ it as a means
for extending his own dominion over the whole of the Spanish Peninsula. An
army-corps, under the command of Junot, had been already placed in the
Pyrenees. On the 12th of October Napoleon received the answer of the Regent
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
his ambassador 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, was for the moment employed as his accomplice. A treaty was
concluded at Fontainebleau between Napoleon and King Charles IV. for the
partition of Portugal (Oct. 27). [143] 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 Portuguese 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 Godoy, 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.

[Junot invades Portugal, Nov., 1807.]

[Flight of the House of Braganza.]

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 Napoleon's
design. Junot advanced without resistance through the intervening Spanish
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 against the master of the Continent. Already in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the House of Braganza had been
familiar with the project of transferring the seat of their Government to
Brazil; and now, with the approval of Great Britain, the Regent 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 property on ship-board. On the 29th of November, when the
French were now close at hand, the squadron which bore the House of
Braganza to its colonial home dropped down the Tagus, saluted by the cannon
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 Portugal 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 significance of Napoleon's intervention in the affairs
of the Peninsula was not discovered until some months were passed.

[Prussia after the Peace of Tilsit.]

[Stein Minister, Oct. 5, 1807.]

Portugal and Denmark had felt the consequences of the peace made at Tilsit.
Less, however, depended upon the fate of the Danish fleet and the
Portuguese Royal Family than upon the fate of Prussia, the most cruelly
wronged of all the victims sacrificed by Alexander's ambition. The
unfortunate Prussian State, reduced to half its former extent, devastated
and impoverished by war, and burdened 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, unwittingly brought to the head
of the Prussian Government 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 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.

[Edict of Emancipation, Oct. 9, 1807.]

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 historian Niebuhr, had
already sketched large measures of reform before Hardenberg quitted office.
Stein's appointment brought to the head of the State a man immeasurably
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 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, and of all the legal distinctions which fixed within
the limits of their caste the noble, the citizen, and the peasant. In
setting his name to the edict [144] which, on the 9th of October, 1807,
made an end of the mediaeval framework of Prussian society, Stein was indeed
but consummating a change which the progress of neighbouring States must
have forced upon Prussia, whoever held its government. The Decree was
framed upon the report of Hardenberg's Commission, and was published by
Stein within six days after his own entry upon office. Great as were the
changes involved in this edict of emancipation, it contained no more than
was necessary to bring Prussia up to the level of the least advanced of the
western Continental States. In Austria pure serfage had been abolished by
Maria Theresa thirty years before; it vanished, along with most of the
legal distinctions of class, wherever the victories of France carried a new
political order; even the misused peasantry of Poland had been freed from
their degrading yoke within the borders of the newly-founded Duchy of
Warsaw. If Prussia was not to renounce its partnership in European progress
and range itself with its barbarous eastern neighbour, that order which
fettered the peasant to the soil, and limited every Prussian to the
hereditary occupations of his class could no longer be maintained. It is
not as an achievement of individual genius, but as the most vivid
expression of the differences between the old and the new Europe, that the
first measure of Stein deserves a closer examination.

[The Prussian peasant before and after the Edict of Oct. 9.]

The Edict of October 9, 1807, extinguished all personal servitude; it
permitted the noble, the citizen, and the peasant to follow any calling; it
abolished the rule which prevented land held by a member of one class from
passing into the hands of another class; it empowered families to free
their estates from entail. Taken together, these enactments substitute the
free disposition of labour and property for the outworn doctrine which
Prussia had inherited from the feudal ages, that what a man is born that he
shall live and die. The extinction of serfage, though not the most
prominent provision of the Edict, was the one whose effects were the
soonest felt. In the greater part of Prussia the marks of serfage, as
distinct from payments and services amounting to a kind of rent, were the
obligation of the peasant to remain on his holding, and the right of the
lord to take the peasant's children as unpaid servants into his house. A
general relation of obedience and command existed, as between an hereditary
subject and master, although the lord could neither exact an arbitrary
amount of labour nor inflict the cruel punishments which had been common in
Poland and Hungary. What the villein was in England in the thirteenth
century, that the serf was in Prussia in the year 1806; and the change
which in England gradually elevated the villein into the free copyholder
was that change which, so many centuries later, the Prussian legislator
effected by one great measure. Stein made the Prussian peasant what the
English copyholder had become at the accession of Henry VII., and what the
French peasant had been before 1789, a free person, but one bound to render
fixed dues and service to the lord of the manor in virtue of the occupation
of his land. These feudal dues and services, which the French peasant,
accustomed for centuries before the Revolution to consider himself as the
full proprietor of the land, treated as a mere grievance and abuse, Stein
considered to be the best form in which the joint interest of the lord and
the peasant could be maintained. It was reserved for Hardenberg, four years
later, to free the peasant from all obligations towards his lord, and to
place him in unshackled proprietorship of two-thirds of his former holding,
the lord receiving the remaining one-third in compensation for the loss of
feudal dues. Neither Stein nor Hardenberg interfered with the right of the
lord to act as judge and police-magistrate within the limits of his manor;
and the hereditary legal jurisdiction, which was abolished in Scotland in
1747, and in France in 1789, continued unchanged in Prussia down to the
year 1848.

[Relative position of the peasant in Prussia and England.]

The history of Agrarian Reform upon the Continent shows how vast was the
interval of time by which some of the greatest social changes in England
had anticipated the corresponding changes in almost all other nations. But
if the Prussian peasant at the beginning of this century remained in the
servile condition which had passed out of mind in Great Britain before the
Reformation, the early prosperity of the peasant in England was dearly
purchased by a subsequent decline which has made his present lot far
inferior to that of the children or grandchildren of the Prussian serf.
However heavy the load of the Prussian serf, his holding was at least
protected by law from absorption into the domain of his lord. Before
sufficient capital had been amassed in Prussia to render landed property an
object of competition, the forced military service of Frederick had made it
a rule of State that the farmsteads of the peasant class must remain
undiminished in number, at whatever violence to the laws of the market or
the desires of great landlords. No process was permitted to take place
corresponding to that by which in England, after the villein had become the
free copyholder, the lord, with or without technical legal right,
terminated the copyhold tenure of his retainer, and made the land as much
his own exclusive property as the chairs and tables in his house. In
Prussia, if the law kept the peasant on the land, it also kept the land for
the peasant. Economic conditions, in the absence of such control in
England, worked against the class of small holders. Their early
enfranchisement in fact contributed to their extinction. It would perhaps
have been better for the English labouring class to remain bound by a
semi-servile tie to their land, than to gain a free holding which the law,
siding with the landlord, treated as terminable at the expiration of
particular lives, and which the increasing capital of the rich made its
favourite prey. It is little profit to the landless, resourceless English
labourer to know that his ancestor was a yeoman when the Prussian was a
serf. Long as the bondage of the peasant on the mainland endured,
prosperity came at last. The conditions which once distinguished
agricultural England from the Continent are now reversed. Nowhere on the
Continent is there a labouring class so stripped and despoiled of all
interest in the soil, so sedulously excluded from all possibilities of
proprietorship, as in England. In England alone the absence of internal
revolution and foreign pressure has preserved a class whom a life spent in
toil leaves as bare and dependent as when it began, and to whom the only
boon which their country can offer is the education which may lead them to
quit it.

[Reform of Prussian Army.]

[Short service.]

Besides the commission which had drafted the Edict of Emancipation, Stein
found a military commission engaged on a plan for the reorganisation of the
Prussian army. The existing system forced the peasant to serve in the ranks
for twenty years, and drew the officers from the nobility, leaving the
inhabitants of towns without either the duty or the right to enter the army
at all. Since the battle of Jena, no one doubted that the principle of
universal liability to military service must be introduced into Prussia; on
the other hand, the very disasters of the State rendered it impossible to
maintain an army on anything approaching to its former scale. With half its
territory torn from it, and the remainder devastated by war, Prussia could
barely afford to keep 40,000 soldiers in arms. Such were the conditions
laid before the men who were charged with the construction of a new
Prussian military system. Their conclusions, imperfect in themselves, and
but partially carried out in the succeeding years, have nevertheless been
the basis of the latest military organisation of Prussia and of Europe
generally. The problem was solved by the adoption of a short period of
service and the rapid drafting of the trained conscript into a
reserve-force. Scharnhorst, President of the Military Commission, to whom
more than to any one man Prussia owed its military revival, proposed to
maintain an Active Army of 40,000 men; a Reserve, into which soldiers
should pass after short service in the active army; a Landwehr, to be
employed only for the internal defence of the country; and a Landsturm, or
general arming of the population, for a species of guerilla warfare.
Scharnhorst's project was warmly supported by Stein, who held a seat and a
vote on the Military Commission; and the system of short service, with a
Reserve, was immediately brought into action, though on a very limited
scale. The remainder of the scheme had to wait for the assistance of
events. The principle of universal military obligation was first proclaimed
in the war of 1813, when also the Landwehr was first enrolled.

[Stein's plans of political reform.]

[Design for a Parliament, for Municipalities, and District boards.]

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