Europe: A History (148 page)
METRYKA
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1795, after suppressing the Republic of Poland-Lithuania, the Russian army carried off the state archives of the conquered countries to St Petersburg. Their haul included the
Metryka Koronna
or ‘Crown Register’ of the Kingdom of Poland, containing copies of all acts, statutes, and charters issued by the royal chancery since the Middle Ages, together with similar collections from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Duchy of Mazovia. Since the catalogues and.indexes were also taken, no one in Warsaw knew exactly what was lost. Polish historians could not study the history of their country in the way that Prussians or Russians were doing throughout the nineteenth Century. The impression was created abroad that Poland’s place in European history was as marginal as its role in the present.
Attempts to identify, to reconstitute, and, if possible, to recover Poland’s lost archives have been in progress for 200 years. Some parts were returned after 1815, and more after the Treaty of Riga in 1921. Other parts were pieced together from copies scattered far and wide. The Soviet Army reappropriated everything of interest in 1945, and only released selected items in the 1960s. No independent researchers were ever allowed to search for themselves unsupervised through the Tsarist or Soviet archives.
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[LOOT]
A detailed account of the fate of the Lithuanian Register, the
Metryka Litewska
, which dates from 1440, was only established by an American scholar in the 1980s. Working on an authorized survey of the Soviet archives for the benefit of Western scholars, and armed with a partial copy of the catalogues made in Warsaw by the invading Swedes in the seventeenth century, she painstakingly traced most of the constituent collections which Russian archivists had repeatedly relabelled, reassigned, and relocated.
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Yet two centuries after it was stolen, the main part of the Lithuanian Register remained in St Petersburg. Appeals by the governments of Lithuania and Belarus’ passed unheeded as the Russian Federation laid formal claim to all documents relating to ‘the history of Russia’ in the archives of the former RSFSR ‘regardless of their place of preservation and their form of ownership’.
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Western historians have been trained to stress the principle of consulting documentary sources. This is sound advice wherever the documentary sources are accessible. They forget a still more important principle which the Russian authorities have well understood for centuries—namely, whoever controls the documents can also control their use and interpretation.
GRILLENSTEIN
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1797 a son was born to a family of peasant weavers in the village of I Grillenstein, parish of Gmünd, in Austria’s Waldviertel district. The name of the family is not given, but their life cycle has been reconstructed from the parish records (see Appendix III, p. 1292). In 1817, at the age of twenty, the son married a woman six years older than himself, and by December at the latest the newly-weds had a baby son of their own. At that point the household appeared to constitute a perfect example of the classic ‘stem-family’ as posited by Le Play—a patriarchal, three-generational unit headed by the 51-year-old grandfather,
[GROSSENMEER]
Very soon, however, the picture changed. In the following year (1818), the grandfather went into retirement
(Ausnahm)
, taking his wife and two unmarried teenage daughters with him and handing the headship of the household to his son. He continued to live somewhere on the farm for a further twelve years until, following his wife’s death, he himself remarried and left.
From 1818, therefore, the household bore very little resemblance to the stem-family model. For a dozen years the son took charge, free of parental authority but with his retired parents in the background. His family was increased by the births of three more children, but afflicted by the deaths of his elder son (1821), his mother (1826), and his younger, newborn daughter (1827). After the departure of his father and unmarried sisters (1830), he could only cope with the losses by taking in a series of weavers and their families plus a number of servants. By 1841, when his eldest surviving child reached twenty-one, the household contained three separate, unrelated families—the head’s family and the families of two older weavers, who had just replaced two single women and their illegitimate sons. One can imagine the troubles.
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This one example was chosen by historians who wished to demonstrate the danger of generalizing from standard sociological models whilst observing the dynamic changes which occur over time. The family life cycle, which reveals the ebb and flow of fortune, is a vital concept for understanding peasant life throughout Europe and throughout the ages.
The Egyptian campaign of 1798–9 was designed by the Directory to disrupt Britain’s colonial and commercial supremacy. By establishing a French presence in the Middle East, it would have weakened British links with India and prepared the way for French domination of the whole Mediterranean. It began with the
capture of Malta, and the landing of 40,000 troops at Alexandria. Despite the military defeat of the ruling Mamelukes, it was undermined by Admiral Nelson’s destruction of the French fleet at Aboukir Bay (1799) and by a strategic alliance between Russia and the Ottomans. It was the predecessor of similarly abortive schemes to outflank the British in the Caribbean (1802), in America by the knockdown sale of Louisiana (1803), and even in Australia (1804). Nothing came to fruition, since the Royal Navy proved as invincible at sea as Bonaparte was on land. Bonaparte left Egypt in August 1799 to execute the Coup of 18 Brumaire, and to take the reins of power in France.
Nabulione Buonaparte (1769–1821)—like Hitler and Stalin—was a foreigner in the land which he came to dominate. He was born at Ajaccio in Corsica, one year after Louis XV had bought the island from Genoa. When he was sent to France for military education as a boy cadet, he had no personal wealth, no social connections, no competent command of the French language. He grew into a small, surly, assertive young man, with more than a hint of the native
vendetta
not far beneath his sallow skin. But France was ‘a rebel mare’, waiting to be tamed:
O Corse à cheveux plats! Que la France était belle
Au grand soleil de messidor!
C’était une cavale indomptable et rebelle
Sans frein d’acier ni renes d’or.
(Oh, lank-haired Corsican! How fair was France I In the summer sun of Messidor! I She was a mare, rebellious and untameable, I With no steel bridle, nor reins of gold.)
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The ‘lank-haired Corsican’ owed everything to the Revolution, which had made him a general of artillery at the age of 24. He had personally watched the shambles at the storming of the Tuileries. But he then took French leave to help his brothers in Corsica, and might well have stayed if the family had not been driven out by the local troubles. In 1794, having served at Toulon with Robespierre’s brother, he was briefly arrested by the Thermidorians, and applied in vain for a commission with the Ottoman Sultan. Yet in 1795 he was on hand in Paris during the royalist riots of October, when he saved the Convention with the timely ‘whiff of grapeshot’.
After that, the once-suspect artilleryman could do no wrong. In 1796 he was given command of the ragged Army of Italy. He turned himself with equal speed into the master of his political superiors, correctly sensing that the fate of the government in Paris rested on good news from the battle-front. His support was openly courted by the faltering Directors, and his absence in Egypt during 1798–9 only strengthened his hand. The coup of 18 Brumaire, which made him the virtual dictator of France, was carried off without a hitch. It was the sort of feat which could only have been pulled off by a total outsider. From then on, through the consulships and the Empire, through the sea of blood of the forty battles which he claimed to have fought in self-defence, Napoleon never looked back. Surrounded by similar upstart marshals—Berthier, Masséna, Macdonald, Murat, Soult, and
Ney—and by similar brilliant ministers—Talleyrand, Gaudin, Fouché, and Clarke—he rode the French mare unerringly.
And when France had been bridled by its Corsican rider, he saddled her by the rules of Corsican kinship with the whole tribe of Bonapartes: with Joseph, King of Naples and Spain; with Lucien, Prince of Canino; with Louis, King of Holland; with Jerome, King of Westphalia; with Elisa, Pauline, and Caroline—duchess, princess, and queen. He only stumbled on his own dynastic path. His marriage with Josephine de Beauharnais, a Creole from Martinique and the widow of an executed nobleman, produced no heir and ended in divorce. His Polish mistress, Maria Walewska, produced a son who was not recognized. His second wife, Marie-Louise of Austria, gave birth in 1811 to Napoleon II, King of Rome. By that time the clouds were gathering over ‘the Sun of Messidor’. The first ruler of all Europe was already considering the invasion of Russia. According to Tocqueville, Napoleon was ‘as great as a man can be without virtue’,
[CORSICA]
The Second Coalition, 1799–1801, was made possible by a new Tsar, Paul I, who was eager to play a more active role. Suvorov’s Russian army recovered most of Austrian Italy before Bonaparte reappeared to restore the balance. But Paul I was assassinated; the Continental allies lost heart; and again Britain was left facing France alone. The allies’ Treaty of Lunéville (1801) was matched by Britain’s Peace of Amiens (1802).
After the collapse of the second Coalition, Bonaparte could take stock from a position of strength. He made further conquests in Italy, including Piedmont, Parma, and Piacenza. He sent an unsuccessful expedition to crush the revolt of Haiti; he invaded Germany, provoking the demise of the Holy Roman Empire: and he began collecting the Armée de l’Angleterre at Boulogne. He even began to scheme once again for the strategic encirclement of his principal adversaries. On 30 March 1805 he wrote to the Shah of Persia:
Bonaparte, Emperor of the French to Feth Ali, Shah of the Persians, Greeting!
I have reason to believe that the Jinn who preside over the destinies of states wish me to support the efforts which you are making to uphold the strength of your empire.
Persia is the noblest country in Asia, France the premier empire of the West…
But there also exist upon the earth, empires… [where] men are by birth restless, greedy, and envious. Tired of their deserts, the Russians trespass on the fairest parts of the Ottoman realm. The English, who are cast on an island that is not worth the smallest province of your empire… are establishing a Power in India, that grows more redoubtable every day. Those are the states to watch and fear…
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Napoleon’s high regard for the countries of Asia was not entirely insincere. During the Egyptian campaign, he had once said, ‘Europe is a molehill. All great empires and revolutions have been in the Orient’.
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But European affairs soon intervened.
The Third Coalition, 1805–14, Pitt’s final diplomatic masterpiece, was organized with the intention of a decisive showdown. Yet the showdown was slow in coming. At sea, the British victory off Cape Trafalgar (21 October 1805) ensured
the total naval supremacy which would deny the French any chance of invading Britain. On land, in contrast, Napoleon utterly destroyed each of his enemies in turn. In 1805 Austerlitz ensured the total defeat of Austria and the retreat of Russia; in 1806 Jena and Auerstadt ensured the total crushing of Prussia; in 1807 Eylau and Friedland ensured the total withdrawal of all Russian troops. Within 18 months Vienna, Berlin, and Warsaw were all occupied. By the time that Napoleon made his peace with Russia and Prussia, aboard a raft on the River Niemen at Tilsit (July 1807), Britain stood alone for the third time,
[SLAVKOV]
SLAVKOV
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LAVKOV,
‘place of fame’, is a small town 15 miles east of Brno in Moravia. On 2 December 1805, under its German name of Austerlitz, it provided the setting for the ‘Battle of the Three Emperors’, the most dramatic of Napoleon’s victories.
Napoleon, falling back before the advance of the combined forces of Austria and Russia, had drawn them on. Three allied columns marched against the French right in the dawn mists. ‘Whilst they march to turn my right,’ Napoleon had proclaimed, ‘they present me with their flank.’
Marshal Davout, whose men had just covered the 90 miles from Vienna in 48 hours, held off the main attack throughout the day against four times their number. At 10 a.m. the mist lifted, and the famous ‘soleil d’Austerlitz’ began to shine. The French seized the commanding height of the Pratzen plateau, from which they could rake all sectors of the field with cannon and cut the enemy forces in two. After the French Imperial Guard repulsed their Russian counterparts, the retreat began. By breaking the ice on the lakes in the valley, the French artillery cut the main line of escape. Amidst 20,000 dead from 150,000, and as many prisoners, Napoleon savoured his finest hour. ‘II vous suffira de dire’, he told the survivors, ‘j’étais à Austerlitz.’ (It will be enough for you to say: ‘I was at Austerlitz’.)
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The battle was painted by Gros, Vernet, Callet, Gerard. It was exalted in poetry. But no description matches that of Leo Tolstoy in Book III of
War and Peace:
When the sun broke through … and the fields and mist were aglow with dazzling light… he drew the glove from his shapely white hand, made a signal with it to his marshal, and ordered the action to begin.
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Nowadays Austerlitz, like Waterloo, is a railway station, serving France’s south-west. Military historians are less concerned to recount the plans of the generals than the emotions and experiences of the soldiers.
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None the less, it was the great battles which decided who was to be the master of all sorts of other things which constitute the past.
Britain’s activities, however, were more than enough to keep the wars alive. Through the Royal Navy’s blockade, Britain was waging commercial war against all the countries recruited to Napoleon’s Continental System (see below). What is more, by sending an army to northern Spain in 1808, thereby opposing Napoleon’s recent takeovers both of Spain and Portugal, she internationalized the civil wars of the Iberian Peninsula, creating an ‘Iron Duke’ from the young Arthur Wellesley, and an important diversion that Napoleon could never muster the time or resources to subdue.
