Austerlitz: Napoleon and the Eagles of Europe (4 page)

Back in Paris and London, political sniping increased. In January 1803 Bonaparte openly published a report on a mission to Egypt, commenting on the decrepit state of the defences and the ease with which it could be recaptured. Britain made an official protest, demanding an explanation. In retort, Bonaparte railed against the presence of the British garrison still maintained in the Egyptian port of Alexandria, despite the fact that it was about to be removed. Then, in February, Bonaparte informed the Corps Législatif that it was necessary to bring 480,000 men under arms to defend France’s interests.

In the meantime, Bonaparte authorised a number of ‘commercial commissioners’ to visit Britain and secretly examine harbours, fortifications and landing places for a possible future invasion.

In response to this activity and Bonaparte’s statements, George III requested that parliament vote to embody the militia and increase the navy in strength by 10,000 men. The first consul reacted angrily. Lord Whitworth, Britain’s ambassador in Paris, experienced his reaction first hand at a reception at the Tuileries in March 1803:

‘“So you are determined to go to war.” “No, First Consul.” I replied, “we are too sensible of the advantage of peace.” “Why, then, these armaments? I have not a ship of the line in the French ports, but if you wish to arm I will arm also: if you wish to fight, I will fight also. You may perhaps kill France, but will never intimidate her.” “We wish,” said I, “neither the one nor the other. We wish to live on good terms with her.” “You must respect treaties then,” replied he; “woe to those who do not respect treaties. They shall answer for it to all Europe.”’
¹

In his despatch to the British government the following day, Whitworth reported this encounter, concluding with: ‘He was too agitated to make it advisable to prolong the conversation.’

A few days later Bonaparte apologised to the ambassador for his outburst, which clearly referred to the refusal of the British to evacuate Malta. Perhaps the apology was an acceptance that he too was failing to honour a treaty, or maybe the whole conversation had merely been a carefully placed barb to sting Britain in the political sparring that epitomised the descent from peace to war. In Britain the report caused anger and indignation.

Proposals and counter proposals over the future of Malta continued. In February, the British evacuated the Cape of Good Hope, captured from the
Dutch in 1795, in accordance with the conditions of Amiens. At the tip of southern Africa, the Cape provided a major staging post on the seaborne route to India. Malta was now considered the only bastion for the overland route to British possessions in the East. Important though it was, Britain offered to give up her interest if the French government offered some other ‘equivalent security’ that would achieve the same purpose. Unofficially, French negotiators suggested handing over Corfu or Crete but Bonaparte vehemently opposed them.

British concerns for the security of India were well-founded. In March 1803 Bonaparte authorised an expedition to sail for India under Général Decaen, carrying 1,800 troops. Once there, Decaen was ‘to communicate with the peoples or princes who are most impatient under the yoke of the English [East India] Company’. Yet it seems clear at this point that Bonaparte did not anticipate so rapid a rupture with Britain. Ten days after the fleet departed from Brest, the rapidly deteriorating situation in Europe forced Bonaparte to send a ship in pursuit, cancelling Decaen’s orders and instructing him to fall back on Mauritius.

With Britain unwilling to abandon her foothold in the Mediterranean and France unwilling to evacuate Holland – a posture that suggested an implicit threat of invasion – the eventual outcome was inevitable. Britain made a fresh proposal for a settlement at the end of April 1803 that was short and to the point: Britain to maintain a garrison in Malta for ten years and French troops to evacuate Holland and Switzerland. In response Bonaparte planned to unleash another passionate diatribe against Lord Whitworth at a reception on 1 May, but the ambassador chose to absent himself. Instead, Bonaparte wrote to Talleyrand, his foreign minister, informing him how he should manage his meeting with Whitworth:

‘I desire that your conference shall not degenerate into a conversation. Show yourself cold, reserved, and even somewhat proud. If the [British] note contains the word ultimatum make him feel that this word implies war; if it does not contain the word, make him insert it, remarking to him that we must know where we are, that we are tired of this state of anxiety.’
²

France responded with proposals of her own on 7 May as Whitworth, already ordered home by his government, was preparing to leave Paris. These proved unacceptable. Britain fired back a counter proposal, France rejected it on 11 May. The next day Whitworth commenced his journey to Calais. He received a final offer en route but dismissed it as a mere delaying tactic. On 17 May he crossed the English Channel, unaware that two days earlier Bonaparte had ordered an embargo on all British ships anchored in French ports. On 18 May Britain declared war on France, capturing two French merchant ships off
the Breton coast later that day. In angry response, Bonaparte lashed out and ordered that all Britons in France between the ages of eighteen and sixty were to be apprehended and detained as prisoners of war. After ten years of war, peace had lasted a mere fourteen months.

Although Bonaparte may not have wanted war with Britain in 1803, once it arrived he wasted no time in beginning military preparations. On 1 June French troops marched into Hanover, the hereditary British territory in Germany, while others occupied the Kingdom of Naples in southern Italy. All shipyards in Holland, France and northern Italy were tasked to step up naval production, while orders were issued for an army, 160,000-strong, to assemble in large camps along the Channel coast. Meanwhile, another army – of shipwrights and boat builders – plied their trade on the great rivers of Europe, constructing a vast armada of flat-bottom barges to transport the army across the Channel and land them on England’s shores.

In Britain, the country was alert to the danger. The regular army was not large – perhaps 90,000-strong – but, augmented by 80,000 men of the militia, they mustered, drilled, and rehearsed the evolutions of war. Meanwhile, some 400,000 civilians enthusiastically flocked to join the Volunteers: although perhaps as many as 120,000 of these were armed with nothing more potent than pikes. All along the threatened coast Martello towers sprung up: castles in miniature, designed to delay any French landing. And all the while Britain’s powerful navy prowled menacingly up and down the Channel, blockading the French ships in port.

Although a state of war now existed again between Britain and France, Britain’s former coalition allies did not rush forward in support of her stance. Austria, focused on repairing the damage caused by the first two coalitions offered little encouragement, while Prussia, holding on to its neutrality, had too much to lose with France already gnawing away at the independent German territories along the Rhine. In Russia, the strength of French ambition, driven by Bonaparte at the head of her armies, had already demonstrated little regard for the established boundaries of Europe. A half-hearted return to war by Russia, without adequate preparation, could easily enhance Bonaparte’s dominant position. In fact, Alexander initially held Britain responsible for the collapse of peace and maintained frosty relations with the British ambassador in St Petersburg. Then in June 1803 Alexander was invited by Bonaparte to mediate between the two adversaries, in a move seen in Britain as one designed to gain time for strengthening French naval power, which lagged someway behind that of Britain. Alexander was delighted. He envisaged it as an opportunity to make his mark on Europe, to pronounce wise counsel and emerge as the great arbiter, a role that fuelled his personal ambition.

Yet he misunderstood the mission. The two protagonists saw him only as a mediator. Therefore, when Alexander presented proposals for a settlement in July,
neither party found them acceptable. Britain was to hand Malta over to Russia, while being granted Lampedusa, a tiny speck of land about 100 miles west of Malta, in compensation. France would remain secure behind her natural boundaries, but the creation of a corridor of neutral states, running through Holland, the German territories, Switzerland, and into Italy would bring security to Europe. Bonaparte listened incredulously as Alexander suggested confiscating the rewards of French martial success. Bonaparte rejected Alexander’s proposal out of hand in August, while Britain was now prepared to entrust Malta to no one. These developments marked a distinct change in French–Russian relationships, which did not improve in September, when Bonaparte launched a public verbal attack on Count Morkov, the Russian ambassador in Paris. Angered by this humiliation, Alexander immediately recalled Morkov to St Petersburg.

The tsar now came under the influence of his deputy minister for foreign affairs, Adam Czartoryski, one of his friends from the ‘Secret Committee’, and one who had long cast a wary eye in the direction of France. In November, Russia initiated discussions with the British government on the subject of a new alliance, as reports circulated of increased activity by French agents in the Balkans, the Adriatic, and Constantinople. Britain made a positive response and dialogue between the two powers opened. But Czartoryski felt unable to push the scheme ahead without the support of Austria and an insight into Prussia’s attitude. However, Sweden’s ambassador to Vienna felt Austria’s policy was now ‘one of fear and hope – fear of the power of France, and hope to obtain favours from her’. Prussia raised objections to the French occupation of Hanover – a territory that had long attracted her own covetous glances as a means of strengthening her dominance in northern Germany – but would push matters no further.

Before the year of 1803 drew to a close, increasing pressure by Bonaparte on Spain bore fruit. Faced with the threat of an advance by 80,000 French troops into their country, the government of Spain agreed to make an annual payment of 72 million francs to the French exchequer. Portugal purchased her own neutrality by a payment of 1 million francs per month.

But attempts to draw Sweden into an alliance against Britain met with bold defiance. Instead, King Gustavus IV, a great opponent of the Revolution, turned to Britain in December 1803, seeking financial support for the protection of his European mainland province of Pomerania.

Meanwhile, as the ruling families of Europe grew more and more disturbed by Bonaparte’s ambitions, a deposed dynasty proposed to take action to remove the root of the evil …

The first Bourbon-inspired plot to assassinate Bonaparte took place in Paris, in 1800, when a bomb – known to history as the ‘infernal machine’ – exploded: failing to kill its target, but claiming the lives of a number of innocent bystanders.

Early in 1803 Bonaparte approached the comte de Provence, exiled heir to the Bourbon throne, offering him a vast pension for life if he would renounce, on behalf of himself and future Bourbon claimants, all rights to the throne of France. The future Louis XVIII rejected Bonaparte’s advance with the dignified retort: ‘We have lost everything but honour.’ His response met with the approval of his brother, the comte d’Artois (the future King Charles X) and amongst others, the duc d’Enghein, a Royalist
émigré
of the Bourbon Condé line. The comte de Provence showed little enthusiasm for plots and intrigues, believing a return to the throne would follow in the wake of a future conflict between France and powers of Europe.

However, in London, where a hotbed of Royalist intrigue flourished, ideas of a more direct action were fermented. At the centre, the comte d’Artois, gathered a determined group of supporters to the cause. Amongst them, two men stood out: Georges Cadoudal, a staunch opponent of the Revolution and leading light of the insurrection in the Vendée, in western France; and Charles Pichegru, a former general in the Revolutionary army. Following a coup in 1797 Pichegru had been arrested and exiled to South America, but having made good his escape, he made his way to London. The British government provided clandestine financial support for these Royalist conspirators both in London and on the Continent. Napoleon despatched Méhée de la Touche, a former assassin and spy, to London with instructions to work his way into
émigré
circles and expose the plotters. De la Touche was successful and consequently departed for the Continent, where he inveigled his way into the confidence of Britain’s envoy at Munich, who was completely taken in by his plausibility as an agent of the Royalist plotters. The envoy, Drake, handed over money and a codebook, with which de la Touche immediately returned to Paris, from which place he proceeded to ply Drake with false information. Thus, Bonaparte’s agents kept a close eye on developments as the plot gained momentum.

In August 1803 the plotters were ready to advance their plans and so Georges Cadoudal slipped into France. He made his way to Paris to recruit conspirators to the cause. Although elusive, his activities were monitored, and Bonaparte waited. He wanted evidence to incriminate Général Jean Moreau in the plot. Moreau, the victor of Hohenlinden in 1800, openly displayed a sullen resentment of Bonaparte’s rapid rise. The first consul was uneasy, aware that many saw in Moreau a military rival to himself.

Meanwhile, Pichegru followed Cadoudal to Paris, where he held the first of three meetings with Moreau in January 1804. However, while Moreau was happy to support the removal of Bonaparte, he refused to be drawn into a plot that aimed to restore the Bourbons. But on 14 February Bonaparte was ready to move. Under interrogation, a Royalist supporter had revealed that a number of conspirators, amongst them a French prince, was about to land on the French coast at Biville near Dieppe. The following day Moreau was arrested.
On 28 February Pichegru was taken too, but Cadoudal, despite an intensive house-to-house search, evaded capture until 9 March. Other conspirators were quickly netted.