Book: History of Modern Europe 1792 1878

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[Peace of Vienna, Oct. 14, 1809.]

[Real effects of the war of 1809.]

The Treaty of Vienna, the last which Napoleon signed as a conqueror, took
from the Austrian Empire 50,000 square miles of territory 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 Napoleon's own
Empire, under the title of the Illyrian Provinces. 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 at the expense of the Power which had
called Germany to arms; Austria, which at the beginning of the
Revolutionary War had owned territory upon the Rhine and exercised a
predominating influence over all Italy, seemed now to be finally excluded
both from Germany and the Mediterranean. Yet, however striking the change
of frontier 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 an 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 which France had at length excited in Europe. The revolt of the
Tyrol, the exploits of Brunswick 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 Peninsula. 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 so many
dangers. Russia was alienated by the annexation 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 characteristic of Europe. The
estrangement of Russia, the growth of national spirit in Germany and in
Spain, involved a danger to Napoleon's power which far outweighed the
visible results of his victory.

[Austria and the Tyrol.]

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 establishment 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 having been the first
to 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 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 Germany. Austria had made a great
venture and failed; and the Government rather resumed than abandoned its
normal attitude in turning its back upon the professions of 1809.

[Austrian policy after 1809.]

[Metternich.]

Henceforward the policy of Austria was one of calculation, untinged by
national sympathies. France had been a cruel enemy; yet 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 Germany, was no fitting helmsman for the State in
the shifting course that now lay before it. A diplomatist was called to
power who had hitherto by Napoleon's own desire represented the Austrian
State at Paris. Count Metternich, the new Chief Minister, was the son of a
Rhenish 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
Rhenish Principalities, French in their outer life, unconscious of the
instinct of nationality, polished and seductive in that personal management
which passed for the highest type of statesmanship. Metternich had been
ambassador 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 Napoleon expected in him, but he also carried with him a calm and
penetrating self-possession, and the conviction 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.

[Marriage of Napoleon with Marie Louise, 1810.]

[Severance of Napoleon and Alexander.]

Metternich's first undertaking gave singular evidence 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 of the imperial suitor
turned towards 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 anointed
the bride with the same sacred oil with which he had consecrated the
banners of 1809; the servile press which narrated the wedding festivities
found no 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 aristocracy upon the 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; but the object of Metternich was attained. The
friendship between France and Russia, which had 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 annexes Papal States, May, 1809.]

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 the 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 Pius VII., was detained for the next three years. The Roman
States received the laws and the civil organisation of France. [164]
Bishops and clergy who refused the oath of fidelity to Napoleon were
imprisoned or exiled; the monasteries and convents were dissolved; the
cardinals 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 Catholicism, 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.

[Napoleon annexes, Holland, July, 1810.]

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 govern for the benefit of his subjects. He had endeavoured
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
Holland, but affairs grew worse and worse. French troops overran the
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 incorporated with the French Empire.

[Annexation of Le Valais, and of the North German coast.]

Two more annexations followed before the end of the year. The Republic of
the Valais was declared to have neglected the duty imposed upon it of
repairing the road over the Simplon, and forfeited its independence. The
North German coast district, comprising the Hanse towns, Oldenburg, and
part of the Kingdom 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. [165]

[Extent of Napoleon's Empire and Dependencies, 1810.]

Napoleon's dominion had now reached its widest bounds. The frontier of the
Empire began at Luebeck on the Baltic, touched the Rhine at Wesel, and
followed the river and the Jura mountains to the foot of the Lake of
Geneva; then, crossing the Alps above the source of the Rhone, it ran with
the rivers Sesia and Po to a point nearly opposite 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 Archduchess and the ceremonial of a Court to Napoleon's sister
Eliza; the Kingdom of Italy, formed by Lombardy, 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 Illyrian 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 Rhine,
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.

[Benefits of Napoleon's rule.]

[Wrongs of Napoleon's rule.]

[Commercial blockade.]

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 raised upon the ruins of all that was obsolete and forceless upon the
western Continent; the benefits as well as the wrongs or his supremacy were
now seen in their widest operation. All Italy, the northern districts of
Germany which were incorporated with the Empire, and a great part of the
Confederate Territory of the Rhine, received in the Code Napoleon a law
which, to an extent hitherto unknown in 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 improvement 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 enlightenment which Napoleon's supremacy bestowed
upon a great part of Europe. The price which was paid for them was the
suppression of every vestige of liberty, the conscription, and the
Continental blockade. On the whole, the yoke was patiently borne. The
Italians and the Germans of the Rhenish 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 Napoleon's commercial system and
of the agencies by which he attempted to enforce it. In the hope of ruining
the trade of Great Britain, Napoleon spared no severity against the owners
of anything 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. [166]
The French were themselves compelled to extract sugar from beetroot, and to
substitute 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
bodily 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 tobacconist to exclusive dependence upon the market-gardener.

[The Czar withdraws from Napoleon's commercial system, Dec., 1810.]

[France and Russia preparing for war, 1811.]

It was not, however, by its effects upon Napoleon's German vassals that the
Continental system contributed to the fall of its author. Whatever the
discontent of these communities, they obeyed Napoleon as long as he was
victorious, and abandoned him only when his cause was lost. Its real
political importance lay in the hostility which it excited between France
and Russia. The Czar, who had attached himself to Napoleon's commercial
system at the Peace of Tilsit, withdrew from it in the year succeeding the
Peace of Vienna. The trade of the Russian Empire had been ruined by the
closure of its ports to British vessels and British goods. Napoleon had
broken his promise to Russia by adding West Galicia to the Polish Duchy of
Warsaw; and the Czar refused to sacrifice the wealth of his subjects any
longer in the interest of an insincere ally. At the end of the year 1810 an
order was published at St. Petersburg, opening the harbours of Russia to
all ships bearing a neutral flag, and imposing a duty upon many of the
products of France. This edict was scarcely less than a direct challenge to
the French Emperor. Napoleon exaggerated the effect of his Continental
prohibitions upon English traffic. He imagined that the command of the
European coast-line, and nothing short of this, would enable him to exhaust
his enemy; and he was prepared to risk a war with Russia rather than permit
it to frustrate his long-cherished hopes. Already in the Austrian marriage
Napoleon had marked the severance of his interests from those of Alexander.
An 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 Oldenburg, whose sovereign was a member of his
own family. The last event was immediately followed by the publication of
the new Russian tariff. In the spring of 1811 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 situation was shown
by the immense levies that were ordered both in France and Russia; and the
rest of the year was spent in preparations for the campaign which was
destined to decide the fate of Europe.

[Affairs in Spain and Portugal, 1809-1812.]

[Lines of Torres Vedras, 1809-1810.]

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 Russia, 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 in judgment made him willing to look on from a distance
whilst his generals engaged with this last 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 of the Spanish Peninsula
was too difficult a task for his marshals; nor perhaps would it have been
so if Wellington 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 Russian 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 neighbourhood of Almeida, Wellington
employed thousands of Portuguese labourers in turning the promontory into
one vast fortress. No rumour of the operation was allowed to reach the
enemy. A double series of fortifications, known as the Lines of Torres
Vedras, 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 everything that might sustain an invading army,
and the irregular troops of Portugal closed in upon its rear. [167]

[Retreat of Massena, 1810-11.]

[Massena's campaign against Wellington, 1810.]

In June, 1810, Marshal Massena, who had won the highest distinction at
Aspern and Wagram, arrived in Spain, and took up the command of the army
destined for the conquest of Portugal. Ciudad Rodrigo was invested:
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 September, the French, 70,000
strong, entered Portugal. Wellington retreated down the valley of the
Mondego, devastating the country. At length he halted at Busaco and gave
battle (September 27). The French were defeated; the victory gave the
Portuguese full confidence in the English leader; but other roads were open
to the invader, and Wellington continued his retreat. Massena followed, and
heard for the first time of the fortifications of Torres Vedras when he was
within five days' march of them. On nearing the mountain-barrier, Massena
searched in vain for an unprotected point. Fifty thousand English and
Portuguese regular troops, besides a multitude of Portuguese militia, were
collected behind the lines; with the present number of the French an
assault was hopeless. Massena waited for reinforcements. It was with the
utmost difficulty that he could keep his army from starving; at length,
when the country was utterly exhausted, he commenced his retreat (Nov. 14).
Wellington descended from the heights, but his marching force was still too
weak to risk a pitched battle. Massena halted and took post at Santarem, on
the Tagus. Here, and in the neighbouring valley of the Zezere, he
maintained himself during the winter. But in March, 1811, reinforcements
arrived from England: Wellington moved forward against his enemy, and the
retreat of the French began in real earnest. Massena made his way
northwards, hard pressed by the English, and devastating the country with
merciless severity in order to retard pursuit. Fire and ruin marked the
track of the retreating army; but such were the sufferings of the French
themselves, 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.

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