Austerlitz: Napoleon and the Eagles of Europe (3 page)

On the far side of Europe, in Russia, great changes were taking place too. Tsar Paul I succeeded his mother, Catherine the Great in 1796. Paul’s bouts of mental illness and instability, combined with his violent mood swings, made many doubt his ability to lead Russia at this difficult time (Catherine herself had favoured Alexander, Paul’s eldest son, to follow her). In 1799 Paul took Russia into the Second Coalition due to his concerns regarding increasing French influence in the Mediterranean, epitomised by the occupation of Malta. Home to the ancient Order of the Knights of St John since 1530, the Knights turned to Paul for help, making him Grand Master of the Order.

Despite early success in the campaign, fighting alongside Austria, tensions grew between the two allies and Paul withdrew from the coalition late in 1799. Just over a year later, in March 1801, Tsar Paul I was dead, assassinated in a palace coup. Paul’s increasing irrational and sometimes bizarre behaviour had led to this plot against his life. His son and heir, Alexander, was aware of a conspiracy to depose his father, but seems not to have appreciated that the plotters – army officers and courtiers – intended murder. Alexander collapsed with grief when he heard the news. The attempt to soften the blow by explaining that Paul had suffered an apoplectic fit at the threat of detention and died, disguised a far more grisly end. The conspirators broke into his bedroom at the Mikhailovsky Palace during the night, and in the ensuing scuffle, a heavy blow to the head with a weighty snuffbox felled him. As he lay stunned on the floor, one of his assailants attempted to strangle him with a silk scarf while another crushed his windpipe with a paperweight. Against this murderous background the 23-year-old Alexander became tsar. He was destined to take a leading role in creating a Third Coalition against France.

In the meantime, to assist him in his political deliberations, Alexander formed his ‘Secret Committee’, an informal group of four close, liberal-minded friends, including Prince Adam Czartoryski, a member of an influential Polish family who had been sent to Russia in 1795 as a guarantee of his family’s future fidelity. The committee met regularly with Alexander, their principal task to ‘discover the wisest policy for an enlightened autocrat to pursue’.
⁶
Czartoryski would ride beside the tsar at Austerlitz. In many ways Alexander used the meetings as a think-tank, in which he could develop ideas in private. As he gained in confidence, his reluctance to delegate became more marked, as did his emerging desire to occupy a position as the great arbiter of Europe.

Initially, Alexander looked with interest at First Consul Bonaparte’s achievements in France. As long as he harboured no interests in the Balkans or eastern Mediterranean, Alexander saw no reason for future problems between the two nations: especially after France lost Malta to the British, with the final
fate of the island to be settled later at Amiens. And so, in October 1801, the two countries declared a formal peace. France recognised Russia’s interest in the eastern Mediterranean and agreed to consult Alexander on the subject of realigning the boundaries of the German states, where French involvement was significant.

Alexander, however, had been discussing this very topic for months with Frederick William III, king of Prussia. These discussions were conducted in private: the diplomats had not been invited.

Prussia had entered into the War of the First Coalition half-heartedly, eventually concluding a separate peace with France in April 1795 and maintained neutrality during the War of the Second Coalition. Alexander and Frederick then met in June 1802 and discussed a favourable settlement of Europe: each encouraging the other’s bloated and mistaken belief that they could influence Bonaparte’s foreign policy. While king and tsar cemented their new found friendship, the French leader negotiated directly with the German princes, ignoring Prussian or Russian sensibilities, and merely invited Russia to approve the
fait accompli.
Gradually Alexander’s admiration for Bonaparte waned.

The other great European power of the Third Coalition was Austria. The Habsburg Empire, presided over by the kaiser, Francis II, was a vast multinational entity and a great opponent of French expansion. Francis came to the throne as ‘Holy Roman emperor and king of Bohemia and Hungary’ in 1792: the same year that Revolutionary France first looked beyond her own borders. For the first twenty-three turbulent years of his reign, Francis’ empire was either actively at war with France or preparing for it. In 1792 Austria and Prussia formed the First Coalition against France. Britain, Sardinia, Naples, Spain, Holland, Portugal, and the minor German States joined them. But by April 1796, after many reverses, only Austria remained active in the field. A year later, although they had pushed the French back in Germany, the advance of Bonaparte’s army through Italy – and within 80 miles of Vienna – forced Francis to accept an armistice. This culminated in the Treaty of Campo Formio, signed in October 1797. By this treaty, Vienna lost the Austrian Netherlands (Belgium) and Lombardy, agreed to the French occupation of the left bank of the Rhine, and recognised the establishment of the French satellite state, the Cisalpine Republic in Italy. However, in compensation for these losses, Austria gained Dalmatia, Friol, and Venetian territory east of the River Adige.

No sooner had the war of the First Coalition officially ended than moves to create a Second Coalition were underway. Britain, Austria, Russia, Naples, Portugal and the Ottoman Empire joined the coalition, but the bulk of the fighting fell to the Austrians once more, aided by the Russians. From the start, relations between Austria and Russia were tense. Austria doubted Tsar Paul’s stability and harboured concerns over her own isolation while awaiting Russian
support. War broke out in March 1799 and with Bonaparte out of the way in Egypt (having captured Malta en route), the Austrians met with success: pushing the French back in Bavaria and – with Russian troops fighting alongside – also in Italy. But Austro-Russian relations continued to suffer, and later, in Switzerland, a particularly turbulent meeting between Archduke Charles and Field Marshal Suvorov, the respective Austrian and Russian commanders, spelt the end of Austro-Russian co-operation. By the end of the year Tsar Paul withdrew Russia from the coalition, and such Allied success as there had been now ended.

In October 1799 Bonaparte returned from Egypt, overthrew the French government the following month in a coup d’état, and by the end of the year securely held the reins of power as first consul. Reinvigorated by this change in command the French army resumed the war in 1800.

The Austrians – minus Russian support – attacked again in Italy and pushed the French back, but in Germany the French gained the upper hand. Then, in May 1800, Bonaparte led an army over the Alps, captured Milan, and defeated the Austrians at Marengo in June. Initial peace negotiations dragged on and in November Austria reopened the war. Only after suffering defeat at the Bavarian village of Hohenlinden in December, did the War of the Second Coalition finally come to an end. The ensuing Peace of Luneville, signed in February 1801, confirmed the agreements made at Campo Formio four years earlier.

Britain now stood alone, leaving her new prime minister, Addington, with no choice but to open peace discussions, paving the way to the signing of the Treaty of Amiens in March 1802.

The great ruling dynasties of Britain, Austria, Russia, had all now faced the emerging French nation on the field of battle and across the negotiating table. At Amiens, ten years of conflict ended. An extended peace promised time for the nations of Europe, ravaged by war, to rebuild their shattered economies. For France, with First Consul Bonaparte at the helm, it offered the opportunity to consolidate the stronger, more robust nation that had emerged from the chaos of the Revolution. But although his civil and legal achievements were remarkable, Bonaparte continued his expansionist polices: in August 1802 he annexed the island of Elba, followed swiftly by Piedmont and Parma. Then, in October, a large French force marched into and reoccupied Switzerland – a country they had evacuated but a few months earlier – thus creating buffer states along the country’s south-eastern border.

Thus, the Treaty of Amiens did not curb First Consul Bonaparte’s ambition: rather, it encouraged him to extend it further. And the great powers, drawn like moths to a flame, edged inevitably towards a return to hostilities. It was no longer a question of if war would resume, but when. The answer, 1805, was the year of Austerlitz: one of the greatest battles of the Napoleonic era.

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*
Russian proverb.

Chapter 2

‘Woe To Those Who Do Not Respect Treaties’
^*

The months that followed the signing of the Treaty of Amiens were a tense time. Britain and France continued to eye each other suspiciously, trying to fathom the other’s intentions, while Britain reluctantly began relinquishing her overseas conquests as stipulated in the treaty. But when the subject of Malta was raised, Britain balked. After Bonaparte’s failed Egyptian expedition, which threatened Britain’s possessions in the East, the island took on a great strategic importance, almost a first line of defence against further attempts in this region. Amiens decreed that neither Britain nor France should occupy the island. Russian guardianship was projected but Britain grew wary of an apparent improvement in relations between Tsar Alexander and the first consul. Other suggestions also met with British doubts, and so her garrison remained firmly rooted on the island.

Other issues gnawed at the stability of Europe. French troops still occupied Holland (the Batavian Republic) and Switzerland. The Treaty of Luneville, signed in 1801, stipulated that French troops would evacuate Holland once peace with Britain was declared. The British negotiators presumed these clauses were still in place and so failed to restate them in the Treaty of Amiens. Bonaparte, therefore, exploited this oversight and remained firmly in occupation. In response, Britain slowed down the process of handing back her overseas conquests.

Bonaparte did not disguise his animosity towards Britain. Her constant funding of his enemies in Europe, the personal attacks against him in the British press and the safe refuge she provided for Royalist
émigrés
who plotted and schemed for a restoration of the deposed Bourbons, incensed him.

Meanwhile, in Britain itself, the anticipated benefits to trade following the declaration of peace failed to materialise. Merchants hoping to forge new markets for their goods on the Continent were disappointed, as Bonaparte had no intention of allowing Britain to profit from trade with France, and
successfully obstructed the renewal of commerce. The British government complained without result and the citizens of both countries snarled at each other across the English Channel.

In Russia, Tsar Alexander prepared to embark on a programme of domestic reform. Since the conclusion of peace with France in October 1801 Russia had been shown little respect. Bonaparte did involve Alexander in the final settlement of the German states but only because his support helped Kaiser Francis accept Habsburg losses. But Alexander’s views on the interests of Sardinia and the French occupation of Switzerland were ignored. However, early accord over the determination that Britain should evacuate Malta eroded early in 1803, as reports spread of French intrigues in the Balkans, the Middle East and Egypt. The suggestion that Bonaparte may be looking to extend his influence over the decaying body of the Ottoman Empire was certain to trigger Russia’s fears and further intensify questions over the Mediterranean. The subsequent French occupation of Piedmont and Parma did little to ease Russian concerns. Thus, when the first consul attempted to draw Russia into his plans, he was rejected. Increasingly, Alexander turned away from France, and alerted to Bonaparte’s desire to push his territorial boundaries even further afield, changed his view on the Malta question. As tension mounted between Britain and France, Russia supported the British government’s determination to stay in occupation.

In Austria too, a period of reorganisation was underway. The end of the War of the Second Coalition in 1800 had left the country seriously weakened. Public confidence in the government was at an extremely low ebb, the economy was devastated, and the administration of the empire bordering on chaos. Having borne the brunt of the fighting for the last ten years, Austria now anticipated an extended period of peace, in which to repair the damage. In consequence, she voiced no public condemnation of France’s resistance to fulfil her obligations to Holland as detailed in the Treaty of Luneville.

As Austria looked to streamline her archaic bureaucracy, one man came to prominence: Archduke Charles, brother of the kaiser, and one of the few senior military men to emerge from the campaign of 1798–1800 with his reputation intact. On his recommendation, the failing State Council (
Staatsrat
) was abolished. In its place a new ‘Staats und Konferenz Ministerium’, with three separate ministries, dealing with internal, foreign, and military affairs, came into being. Charles headed up the third ministry but his declared interest in the wider political picture aroused suspicions in his brother the kaiser. Political intrigue was never far from the surface in the Habsburg court. Charles then commenced a major overhaul of the armed forces, his intention to ‘return the army to a respectable posture so as to enable the emperor to assert his position among the powers of Europe’. His earnest efforts encountered many obstacles on the way, placed there by those wary of his ambition.

While Archduke Charles occupied himself unravelling years of maladministration in the army, the growing tensions in Europe were clearly evident. In Austria’s current condition the Foreign Ministry recommended a new alliance with Russia in 1803 to safeguard Habsburg lands from Bonaparte’s ambitions. It was a move rejected by both the kaiser and Charles.